OK, time to stop screwing around and get back down to it. The year is getting towards its end.

I'm currently 15st 4. I've been there or thereabouts since the spring. Sometimes a little heavier, sometimes a little lighter, but mostly around 15st 4.

I want to end the year at 15st 1. That will be a stone lighter than the same time last year. OK, that's not a huge achievement given that I originally planned to get three stones off. I still plan to get three stones off, just that it's going to take a bit longer than I thought. Even if it takes three years. And one stone off would still be a significant step towards my final goal. It means the year won't have been a failure, just a more moderate success than I had originally hoped.

But I'll never get there unless I start losing again.

I just worked out a new eating plan from now until Christmas. Aim is to eat 2200 calories a day (average) from now until then.

This week is the buildup week, where I get back into the habit of counting (and restricting) calories so I don't expect to be hitting that target straightaway, but next week I should be hitting the 2200 per day target. 

Just checking in briefly. The last few days, weight has been fluctuating between 15st 2 and 15st 3 - it's currently 15st 2. It is coming off, by inches...just very, very slowly.

Well, this is the first post in two months. I haven't been posting because I wanted to hit that 15st 1 mark before I posted again.

I haven't managed it.

I hovered around the 15st 3 - 15st 4 mark for most of July and August. I just came back from holiday in Italy, hoping that all the walking I did would have shifted a little weight. Instead, I find I've gained...must be all that Italian food! Currently weighing in at 15st 5.

Progress over the course of this year hasn't been anywhere near my optimistic early goals. That much is pretty obvious. Still, I'm not about to quit.

Right now, I'm still ten pounds lighter than I was at the start of the year. While ten pounds in eight months isn't exactly amazing progress, it is still progress. I'm definitely somewhat fitter, too. Still pretty unfit, mind. Nonetheless, fitter than I was on 1 January - and for that matter fitter than I was at Midsummer - in fact, probably the fittest (or least unfit) I've been for at least a year. An uphill walk isn't such a struggle now. That's one thing I found out in Italy. Don't ask me to do any ten mile runs yet, but a walk of a few miles I can do.

My next target is to drop below 15st. Even if I don't achieve any more than that this year, I want to end the year feeling like I've made that much progress at least.

Six pounds to lose, four months to do it in. Sounds easy, but I've found losing anything but easy lately. Still, come on. I should be able to do this. I'm going to do it in a set of three phases. Each phase is made up of a two pound weight loss target. I start tomorrow.

Still 15st 2. Still one pound off having lost that first stone, with just under half a year gone. Still, I'm not too unhappy. At least I'm holding steady at my lowest weight in a good while, even if I am still a very long way off my ideal weight. Could be worse, I could still be 16 st+...or even heavier, which I probably would be by now if I had carried on as before. I reckon I might have been approaching 17st by now if I hadn't changed my habits. So looking at it that way, I'm probably more like two stone lighter than I might otherwise have been...that thought really does make it seem worthwhile!

Right now, I'm more concerned about exercise. I've dropped off doing it a little and my fitness has dropped again...maybe not quite back down to rock bottom, but lower than before (and I wasn't very fit even at my recent 'peak'). I visited the doctor last week and she recommended 30 mins of exercise daily. I've also been looking it up and I gather that this is indeed pretty standard current medical advice - 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity a week, which obviously equates to 30 mins 5 times a week.

That doesn't sound like a lot...but in all honesty, it's quite a lot more than I've been doing, and I'm not altogether sure I can stick to that. Still, I'm going to make it a medium term goal. In the short term, I'm going to aim for 30 mins 3x a week. That will put me at 60% of the medically recommended minimum and I reckon that's a start.

Strength-wise, things are OK. On the bench press I'm hitting sets of ten reps with 54 kg, which works out at a theoretical 1RM of 71kg - pretty much exactly where I was before, so at least I'm not getting any weaker as I get lighter. That also suggests the weight loss so far is fat, not muscle tissue - if I were losing muscle I should also be losing strength, and I'm not.

So, yeah. Things aren't going too badly in the sense that I could be in a much worse position right now, but I need to make more progress and in the immediate term that means hitting the 30min x 3 cardio target and losing that last bloody pound!

Well, it's the Summer Solstice and I'm 15st 2. I haven't quite managed to drop below 15st by Midsummer as I once planned - though I'm pretty close now. I did actually briefly drop to 14 st 13 a couple of weeks back, but I hadn't eaten properly for three days and as soon as I started eating again, the weight went back up.

Still, I'm only one pound away from being a stone lighter than I was on January 1. It's taken half a year - considerably slower progress than I hoped - but all the same, progress is progress. If I can get a similar amount off in the second half of the year, I'll take that as a win. It's a long term project and I'm not going to set any time limit - what's important is that I keep moving in the right direction.

15st 3 again this morning. On the one hand, that's no lighter than last week, but on the other hand, it was the target I set two weeks ago for today, so I'm satisfied with that. The aim now is to hit 15st 2 by next week. I guess I'm inching forward...So long as the scale keeps going down, it's progress, even if painfully slow progress.

15st 3 this morning. That's good, but I suspect it may not be a true reading...I was 15 4 yesterday and I wouldn't be surprised if I'm back at 15 4 tomorrow. Still, the diet is going well. I'm mostly managing to stick to the target of 2400 cals a day and some days I've got down to 2000 or less. I find that a bowl of cooked carrots in gravy is a much more convincing meal replacement than eating raw veg...I actually feel like I've eaten a meal, yet there's hardly any calories in it. I've been pretty diligent about the exercise, too. I think I might still be in with a chance of dipping below 15st by the end of this ten week phase, which ends in the last week of June. That will still leave me with the second half of the year to get down to 14st. Getting any lower than that will have to wait until 2018, but if I can get down to 14st or thereabouts by Christmas, that will still be two stones off since the same time last year, and I'll take that. I always said this was a long-term project.