December 7th 2012 – I weighed in at 12 stone 7.

Unlike xmas 2011, this Xmas just gone I decided to indulge to my hearts content, which basically meant lots of food and lots of booze. And lots of food meant lots of carbs this time – bread, desserts, pasta, pizza, rice, potatoes, sweets and chocolate. The consequences of three weeks of binging…

January 1st 2013 – I weighed in at 13 stone 4.

11lbs in 3 weeks! Impressive.

So for January, I’m going to blog about how I intend to lose these 11lbs by the end of the month. It shouldn’t be as challenging as it first seems – making changes to your diet and a bit of exercise should see you losing 2.5lbs per week, so over 4 weeks and a bit, that should get to a total loss of 11lbs.

For the last two Januarys, I have given up alcohol and coffee. Alcohol simply because for me personally, it really has an impact on my weight, so just cutting that out for a month should help. Coffee because I always need to have a sweet thing alongside my coffee, typically some dark chocolate – replace the coffee with green tea, and you have no urge for sweet things. And green tea is very good for you because of antioxidants.

My total carb intake needs to come down for January, from c. 100g of carbs to something closer to 60g. This will means in all likelihood mean cutting out all bread, pasta, rice, pizza and crisps for the whole of January. As it’s only  a month, this should be achievable.

And then finally, I going to use fasting…yes, fasting. It’s something I’ve not blogged about before, but I’ve used it quite a few times to great effect. There is a growing body of evidence that suggests that short periods of what is called “Intermittent Fasting”, where you don’t eat for 24 hours, can help you both lose weight  but also has other health benefits. There was a programme on the BBC last year on this, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-19112549, which was the first time I think Intermittent Fasting was discussed in the mainstream media. 24 hours without eating isn’t as bad as it sounds – I do this in one of two ways:

• Eat as normal on day 1, have dinner at around 6 o’clock, then don’t eat again until dinner on day 2. So you don’t eat again that first night, you skip breakfast and lunch on day 2, then eat at dinner time. You don’t snack, you only drink water, black coffee and tea.
• Eat breakfast and lunch on day 1, then don’t eat again until lunch on day 2. So you don’t eat again for the rest of that first day (ie no dinner), then you skip breakfast on day 2, then eat  again at lunch time.

This often seems extreme to people, but it really is quite manageable. This is how I plan to start things off today – lunch at a local Italian restaurant with the family, then I will fast until lunchtime tomorrow. It may be a little trickier this time as I’ve consumed so many carbs in the last 3 weeks, I’m likely to have a carb comedown, which may lead to cravings, which I don’t normally get (believe it or not) when I fast.

Let’s see what happens…