Into week 6, last week of the initial phase. The latest weigh-in shows me at 15st 11, so another pound dropped. On the other hand, for the second week in a row, I didn’t meet my calorie target…I averaged 2450, which is a tad less than last week but still 200 above target.  Well, that’s the same pattern for two weeks on the run now, so what do I take from it?

It’s clear that it’s going to take a bigger effort than I’ve made so far if I’m going to drop calories any lower…and it’s going to involve being hungry some of the time. To keep intake at around 2500 involves a moderate amount of self-discipline but nothing really hard. To drop lower is going to require significantly more self-discipline.

Question is, do I actually need to? At least at this moment in time? I seem to be losing weight steadily even at 2400-2500. Not only that, I actually don’t want to lose weight too fast – a pound per week is great. So….I think I might just keep things as they are for now, aim for an average of 2500 and see how it goes. Realistically, I know that, at some point, the weight loss is going to stall, and at that point I’m going to have to cut calories to significantly below 2500 to get it going again. I have to be ready for that and, when that time comes, I ‘m going to need to find the willpower to do it. But I’ll face that when I need to.

Another concern is that strength seems to have dropped a little. Last week I struggled to get 8-9 reps on the bench press with a weight I used to be able to lift for 10. I don’t want to lose strength, as I said, but I think it could be because I’ve cut training back too much. So  this week I’m back to three sets, plus a programme of progressive overload – I’ve cut the reps back to 6, added weight, then I’ll build back up to 8 reps before adding more weight, etc. That’s the system I used before to gain strength. I don’t know if it will work so well while I’m in calorie deficit, but I’m only in modest calorie deficit so hopefully it will.

On the plus side, apart from the weight loss, I think fitness is still increasing. The walk in to work is definitely getting easier. I may do a test this week – see how many flights of steps I can climb before I get out of breath. It won’t be many! It will give me a baseline though which I can aim to improve on over the next six week cycle. Fitness is hard to measure with any precision, but this will be a rough yardstick.

Cardio sessions are now up to 20 minutes and so far I haven’t missed one. Seven more days and Phase 1 is complete.