Latest / Cameron's Conversations: The last weight loss podcast you'll ever need. / Episode 41: How week 8 of my weight loss phase has gone?
Transcript
- Cameron Cummings: Welcome to the Cameron's Conversations podcast. So in today's episode, I'm gonna talk a little bit about how the last week has been for me as I come into week eight of my weight loss phase. And I don't know how it's week eight yet, to be honest, it's flown by. In fairness, I know I had a couple of trips in there and I had a period of time where I was skiing in Poland and stuff. So I guess two weeks of it almost can be accounted for in that time, but it feels like it has flown by, which is definitely one of the things that's. good about weight loss, as the time passes anyway. So if you're just chipping away and chipping away, you often do get to that point where you're like, holy crap, I've made loads of progress, and you just kind of look over your shoulder. So an interesting week for me because I was not ⁓ in my flat, I was staying up with my family for good part of the week, which meant I had no scales, which means I couldn't obviously weigh myself, and obviously the food environment's quite different. So plus I was very much still in control of a good chunk of it, there were a few dinners and stuff that were made that I wasn't obviously making. I had to do a little bit more estimating, although I'm pretty confident with that side of things because as you can imagine, having tracked for a good while, I'm pretty good at estimating based on portions and I always tend to overestimate. So based on kind of what the scales were saying this morning, since I've been back, it's likely I probably dropped about 0.4 kilos in the last week, which I'm quite happy with. To go away and spend that time with family and although it was just working, it wasn't like I was on hold here or anything like that, but just kind of my working week elsewhere. The reality is is that to have dropped weight is the win. I had less expectation of being on kind of like lower calories. So my intention was always to kind of go do the best I can over that time period, allow potentially calories to set a little bit higher. So I sat about 2,300 for the week, which is kind of bang on for me. That's absolutely fine. and I've dropped nicely and I can feel a difference. Probably the thing that's been actually quite noticeable, to be fair, this was quite a good example of this, is that the hoodie I'm wearing right now as I record this, when I went back up north, I left that there at the Christmas period because I got it as a Christmas present and it was sadly slightly on the tight side and I was very excited to wear this north face hoodie, so very much excited to get the muscle gain phase finished and get into weight loss phase so I could actually start wearing it. And I can see the difference now. Obviously having put it on and it fits really, really comfortably now. It's amazing the difference, you know, five, six kilos of weight loss makes, right? It makes a huge, huge difference. So that was a bit of a win. And I've really noticed it in clothing in general. Like I put on a few t-shirts I've not worn in a couple of weeks and I kind of spot myself in the mirror in the gym as well and noticed that I'm definitely looking bit leaner too. So that's been quite positive. And again, cause my face is always on camera, I've definitely noticed kind of changes in that sense. So that's been good. But I think this is a perfect example of like, where a lot of people would kind of go and have that week and as I say, because I can work fully from anywhere as such in theory, it's not actually often that practical, I have to have somewhere with a very good internet connection and space to work, kind of long hours and peace and quiet. But for me, obviously being up north with family, that's the type of week for a lot of people that would. throw them off, right? They would just struggle because it's a different routine. They would kind of go into that, well, I'm not in control of food at all here, so I'm not gonna be able to stick to things, I'm not gonna be able to track, et cetera. Whereas the reality is, I just nipped down to the kind of like local Aldi, I got a bunch of protein yogurts, I made sure I had my lunches there, I had a couple of dinners that were made for me, actually I still made most of my own dinners, so I was still mostly in control, and I just made the very best of it as well. We did have lunch out, I think once. And then we, like my favourite coffee shop in the kind of town where I'm near from, which is called Montrose, but anyway, shout out. What's it even called? The coffee house, that's what it's called. Great place to go, love it. It's got these old stone walls, which I just love, and it's very like, how it is described, reminiscent of my childhood, because I used to go there all the time, almost every week. So anyway, we went there for lunch, which was nice, but in general, I just took control of what I could control. It wasn't always perfect. There was definitely a bit temptation. A couple of Easter eggs appeared, which was very kind, but also, you know, you're trying to stick to calorie deficit, you have to be quite sensible about these things. There was definitely biscuits around. ⁓ Parents brought back some snacks and things, and a couple of times I just had to say no to them or that I didn't want it, and that was absolutely fine too. But it's just part of the process, and I think sometimes the trick of it is, and what I've found super helpful personally, is this idea of not being too hard done by. I think sometimes when someone brings them, I don't know, what was it? I and remember, there was something, was a tray bake of some sort was brought up the road. ⁓ it was a cookie. A tray bake was brought up the road. So I ended up splitting it in a third with like, I gave a third to my girlfriend and a third that my mom had as well. And I just had a little bit of it, right? And I kind of took an educated guess of what that would be. And I meant I could still enjoy it, but it wasn't gonna knock my calories out. Now, yeah, I could have just had the whole thing and it could have been 500 calories or 450, because it was one of those kind of like massive sort of, I think it was like a Milky Bar cookie or something like that. So the temptation would be to just have the whole thing, end a whale with my calories, and then be a bit disappointed that by the end the week I hadn't made progress. But of course, what I did was just make the best possible choice. I maybe had a little bit of it, but I didn't go overboard. And I think that's quite important. I didn't feel hard done by that I had a third of a cookie rather than a full thing, even if it was bought for me, because... actually in the grand scheme of things, it's not that important. Like it's really kind obviously, but it's not, I'm not gonna be losing sleep over it. I'm not, unless I was doing this podcast, I wouldn't even think about it probably ever again in my life. So I think that's quite a good thing to think about as well, is like, I find that helpful, especially as I get farther into diet. And I think that in that sense, it was quite a successful week, but I think that's really, really important is learning to navigate. your not ideal, not optimal kind of environments and still do well is the trick of it. Sometimes it won't be as good. Like if I had been in the flat all week in Edinburgh, likely as not, I would have played a little bit more basketball. So we'd have got a bit more cardio in, although I was recovering from an injury that I picked up with some very colorful bruising in my quad. Thankfully it's getting a lot better now, but it's a bit of a mess. But I was obviously just recovering a little bit. so I wouldn't be able to play that much, but I would have probably done a bit more, I would have been a bit more in control of food, so I likely would have lost a little bit more weight, but I'm still quite happy that I have made progress, right? I've still headed in the right direction, and I think that's a really useful mindset to have, is that it can always be perfect, but we can still move forwards, and if we do that, you end up in a good spot, because now going into next, well, this week and coming, I guess, I am. even leaner than I was the week before. I'm still keeping my motivation high. I still feel like I'm powering forward, so that is important. And I didn't use it as an excuse to just go completely overboard. So that's some thoughts from there. Nothing's felt too hard or difficult, although I will be shifting gears a little bit now. So I've been mulling over little bit about goals and where I want to get to, et cetera, et cetera. And I'm fairly clear that I want to get to about 72 kilos. for, sorry, yeah, about 72, 73 kilos as well. That's kind of roughly where I'm aiming for. So for me, that's gonna be on the pretty lean side of things. I just quite fancy getting to that level, leanness to set myself up nicely for another muscle gain phase and also because I want to be that little bit lighter for the basketball court. It was always on my mind that I would probably get down to 75, maybe 76, but now I'm kind of thinking actually let's really kind of push for it because I, feel so much better for dropping the weight I have. that B, can see, I've seen before the performance benefit it has for the sport I play as well. Being a bit leaner and lighter does help. So I'm gonna be pushing on a little bit more. And also, I'm quite keen to crack on and get this weight loss phase done. So I am consciously kinda giving myself eight to 10 weeks to really push now. So I've pulled my calories down for this Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday to 1700, which is a fair old drop from kind of where I was sitting. I know for some people that won't seem relatively high or kind of where they're sitting at, but my activity levels tend to be really, really reflective of my calories in fairness. I'm quite active. But because I've got a little trip to Spain on Tuesday for five days, what I want to do is I want to still sit in a deficit whilst away in Spain, but I want to be able to still be able to enjoy myself. So I'm going to be a bit more aggressive with the deficit I'm in. I would ideally like to probably be sitting about 21, 2200 on average. So I know that if I'm a bit more assertive, if I pull my calories down, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, it puts me in good spot on actually probably Tuesday, because that'll be a travel day anyway. I'll probably go quite aggressively for those sort of five days, that? Four or five days? And then after that, I'll probably come up to about 2,300, and that gives me a chance to still drop some weight whilst I'm away, but have a bit of flexibility. Likely is not what I will do, is I will probably just have two meals a day whilst away, because that makes it a bit easier. And... it's at an apartment and there's a smoothie maker, so I will be having a smoothie every single day as well. I just need to locate some sort of protein yogurt of some sort, or I guess a low-fat Greek yogurt would do the job, so I can have my smoothie and keep that continuity. There will be a bit of food and eating out as well, but there's a lot of small places we'll be going to, so I think it'll be fairly easy to navigate. And if I bank most of my calories for late in the day, I shouldn't have any issues with that. But I still want to crack on with weight loss and... I'll plan in a couple of hikes whilst I'm away. It's gonna be a working holiday, I don't intend to take a lot of time off, so I will still be working a chunk of the day anyway, but I'm hoping in the afternoons do a little bit of hiking, a little bit of walking before it gets too hot out there as well, because we are planning on visiting Spain a little bit later in the year again too, which will be good fun, because I've never been to mainland Spain before. So that should be good fun, and yeah, that's basically the game plan for that week is to... Get a bit of sunshine, get lots of movement in as well. I am ⁓ hoping there might be a local outdoor basketball court as well, which means I can go and shoot around for an hour or so, which I quite enjoy doing, especially in a sunny country. It's just bloody brilliant. And there tends to be in Europe a lot more outdoor basketball courts, so I'll probably go and do a little bit of that, get a couple of hikes in as well, and then might go for a run. I'll try and do something each day, so maybe an hour of basketball or 40 minutes of basketball outdoors one day. maybe a run one day and a couple of hikes and I think there is a local gym that I should be able to sneak into for a couple of sessions too. So I will keep pretty active. That's kind of for me, as much as that sounds, for some people wouldn't be super relaxing as a holiday. I quite like being active on holiday. It makes me feel good and I think that's kind of what I'm looking for from this five day break is a couple of days to chill but also a couple of days to just kind of get a nice bit of movement in. So that is the rough game plan and a bit of an update on where I am at. Like I say, I'm not exactly clear what my average weight is going to accurately be. That'll be more clear over the next couple of days. But I would expect that being at 1700, I'm going to see a little bit of a bigger drop in the scales. Part of that is just going to be less food in my digestive tract, so I won't be getting too excited about that initially. I know that that's what I'm going to expect to probably see a drop of an extra half kilo or so, because my calories are going to be a good bit lower. I am expecting to be a bit hungrier. Again, my activity levels are going to be high. I'll be knocking out at least 12,000 steps a day. and I'm gonna be basically training every single day through that five day push. So yeah, that's just a little bit of an update on that front, because I know a few people are kind of asking how that is going, so it's always quite nice to just talk a little bit about that as well. After I get back from Spain, I think I will carry on with that kind more aggressive approach. I'm quite keen, because I have quite a finite goal, and because I'm fairly tolerant of dieting quite hard, I'm going to just push that little bit harder. It's not the right tool for everyone at every time. but I am kind of mindful that I am going on a stag as well at the end of April. So my kind of thought process is moderate kind of deficit whilst in Spain, aggressive before that, and then probably quite aggressive until I go on the stag, because I'm not gonna be in a calorie deficit on the stag. I have no expectations of that. I'm gonna be reasonable about that, but I would like to kind of pull off another good few kilos by then, if I could get to maybe 75 to 76-ish. By the time I go on the stag, that'll be nice because I'm going to Corfu, it's likely to be nice weather, so hopefully we'll get a chance to enjoy some of the sunshine, so being a little bit leaner and lighter for that would be kind of welcome too. So that is a general overview of the next couple of weeks for me, how the last week has been, and as always there'll be a little podcast update on how the next week goes, and that'll probably be in Spain actually, which will be nice, different background setting if you're watching on YouTube. But yeah, let me know if there are any future topics you would like me to talk about and if you are interested in one-to-one coaching. As always, the link is gonna be in the show notes as well. And if you do want to see how I'm progressing from a visual sense rather than just listening, then you will see my post on my progress photos on Instagram too. Speak soon.