My year so far....

A year ago we decided to start our low carb journey, it has been an interesting and emotional year where both Katie and I achieved things that we literally thought were impossible to do in one year.

Start of Year

To lay the foundations for this post I'll briefly recap where we came from. Katie had been gaining weight since she gave birth to Amelia and was at a point where she felt fat and ugly, certainly her highest weight ever. I have been overweight for many years, pretty much since I was 15 or so. At first it was just a bit of padding but before I knew it I was obese and I was convinced it was my genetics and I guess to some extent it was as this diet worked with who I am and my personal chemistry.

I've also have a condition called plantar fibromatosis, long story short I was using a walking stick for a year because of the pain but my amazing wife came across a treatment and it worked for me. Still feel protective of my foot but mostly good.

So there we were last December feeling bad about ourselves with a combined weight of around 35 stone. This year at the Christmas party we weighed under 22 stone. Quite a difference. I often quote the combined weight loss and that's because it has been a team effort. Neither of us would've done this without the other. I doubt I would have started as I was content and lazy being overweight and Katie admits the first month's were hard and seeing me make huge strides kept her going.

 

So a bit more on my journey this year. As I said above the motivation for me to start the weight loss was not really for myself but more for Katie, I wanted to support her as I could see how much the weight gain was getting to her and I knew I needed to lose weight. The low carb diet appealed to us both as it offered us a quick start (yes we know that it is water loss in first week or so but mentally it helps) and it allowed me to eat many of the foods I like. Bacon and egg for breakfast, meat and salad for lunch, burgers and mixed grills for dinner, cheese and nuts for snacks it is right for me. 

One of my main motivators this year has been the increase in my fitness and running speed. I have gone from struggling to run 30 odd minutes for 5k to smashing the 20 minutes barrier. For some select few that may not be quick but for me and many others it is pretty speedy, I want to keep on getting quicker and I am happy to be part of the sub 20 club. 

I really hope that Katie and I keep up this blog, I know we are going to keep up this life-style and maybe we can help one or two people achieve what we have. This year our lives have been changed.