Latest / Cameron's Conversations: The last weight loss podcast you'll ever need. / How is my weight loss phase going so far? 5 weeks in, 4.6kg down.
Transcript
- Cameron Cummings: Hello, hello, welcome to Cameron's Conversations and today's podcast is all about me, my favourite subject. No, a joke, but I'm gonna talk a little bit about my weight loss journey and how that is going so far. So I think we are midway into week five now. The weeks are honestly flying past, which by the way is such a hack when you're thinking about weight loss, when people often be like, ⁓ you know, it's gonna take ages. Time passes really, really quickly. Like somehow it's the fifth of March when I'm filming this and it feels like it has flown past. January and February seem to pass in the blink of an eye, which in a way is kind of scary, but in a way was quite nice as well, because I January can be a bit of a miserable month and actually this January passed so quickly for me. that is the perk, one of many perks to be honest, because I love what I do, of working in this particular industry is January, as you can imagine, is a particularly busy time. So is February, March, April, May, pretty much all the way until the July, August, where it usually calms a little bit. Honestly, it's pretty busy most of the time. But it is nice because actually it passes rather quickly. And with that, the weight has dropped off steadily and continues to drop off steadily and the weeks are passing. So it's starting to add up now. I am wearing my big black hoodie. Not that you can see that if you're in the podcast, but if you're on YouTube, you can. ⁓ And I definitely noticed today that it was sitting a bit lower and hanging a bit looser. It's always been a bit baggy anyway. so I don't think I'll be wearing it for much longer, mostly because I won't need it, because it's getting a bit warmer, but also because it's not gonna be fitting very well soon enough. And with that, progress so far. So, I started at 86.5, I'm down to 81.9 kilos now, so 4.6 kilos off, and it's been good, I would say, so far. Hunger's been very manageable. There was only about two or three days where I felt pretty hungry. So last week I was on a course. So I'm a big old nerd when it comes to all things training and nutrition. horror there. And I was down in London, down in London visiting Integra, which they do an exercise mechanics course, which is extremely in depth and really, really good. I was really, really impressed. I'm gonna go on and do some more learning with them. over the next couple of years, which is great, and it was well worth the trip. And I've traveled for lots of education over the years, and I thought, you know what, this is really worthwhile. So ahead of that trip, I had decided to pull my calories quite low. So Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, I pushed my calories down quite a bit. I think I had about 14, 1500 calories for two or three days, which for me is relatively low. I know some of my clients will be listening to this, and that will be their normal calories, but it's all relative, obviously. But that was a bit more of a push for me. So, you know, over those two or three days, I was hungrier. That's just reality. But then that gave me an extra four or five hundred calories of wiggle room for the weekend. And that was really welcome because it just meant that I could have some nice train snacks on the train down. I still very deliberately planned out what I was going to have on the Thursday night and ahead of time, because, you know, when you walk into the ⁓ &S at Edinburgh Waverley, things get dangerous pretty quick if you don't have a plan. So I made sure I'd kind of mapped out what I was going to have. but it meant I could enjoy some kind of food on the train down, enjoy some food on the way back, and then have a couple bits in London without going overboard. And again, one of the things, mean, in fairness, I was in an apartment, so I tend to book self-catered if I can, just because I slightly prefer it anyway, but one of the things that I like about it is it just means like you can nip two little Sainsbury's or Tesco, Tesco Express that was around the corner, I got some protein yogurts, got some porridge for breakfast, just the instant pots and. things like that and actually got just some fruit and it works really well. Like I just kept my breakfast the same as it always bloody is. I mean, I didn't make a smoothie to be fair, but I just had some protein yogurts and a bit of fruit. It wasn't berries, but you know, nonetheless. And that worked great. So that was pretty smooth sailing. And that's probably those few days at the start of the week. It's only been the time that hunger has been a bit of a challenge, but I think in fairness, I've been doing a really, really good job so far. Really took my own trumpet here. gonna... of making sure I'm as full as possible. So a lot of the stuff that I would speak about with clients, I would say in this particular weight loss phase, I've done a lot of these things before, but I've been particularly diligent with things like having a lot of similar meals, being regular with my meal timings, so I'm having meals, you know, like not more than four or five hours apart, typically, not all the time, because it's sometimes not practical. but I've been pretty good at that. I've been making sure to have lots of fruit in the flat as well, so I'm having that too, although I did have a bit of a minor booboo because I managed to buy some bananas that were so green that they, eight days later, have not turned yellow yet, which just isn't ideal, so they are just haunting me at this juncture. But we're just about there, they almost looked edible today. But in general, having lots of fruit around, making sure my meal time's irregular, having meals that are somewhat repetitive but very filling, so repetitive in a good way. I always say this, I'm not having things I don't enjoy repetitively. I make sure I sometimes have some meat balls with loads of veggies. I quite like that as a dinner, so I don't mind having that twice in a week, sometimes once for lunch as well, or vice versa. And then having something like fajitas, which I just bloody love anyway. All these kind of things I'm having pretty regularly, but I quite like them, so it doesn't bother me any more. I'm very much enjoying them. Beats a meal deal any day of the week, so quite happy to have those things. But in terms of progress itself, It's crapped on really nicely and because I've not really struggled with hunger, I felt like I've been able to push at it quite well. In general, steps have been pretty good. My average is pretty much bang on 10,000 for the last few weeks, I think now. I haven't looked too far back, but I'm pretty sure it's sat around 10,000 since the first week or two. So that's been pretty good. And that for me is pretty doable. I think that there's certainly a time where I could probably get 14, 15,000 given my current busyness and workload. and the fact that I'm obviously, as work-wise, very sedentary, like I sit at a laptop predominantly, I think that for me 10,000 steps is a good amount. As the weather gets better, that will creep up naturally to probably 11 or 12. I think that the kind of time period where I was doing maybe 14,000, 15,000, I would probably struggle a little bit more to do now because I am in front of the laptop a lot and I would probably be trading off training time elsewhere. I don't think I would manage to juggle. three to four gym sessions, basketball sometimes three, this week actually four times, which is quite a lot. That's a higher than normal week. You know, there's gonna be trade-off somewhere. And I think this is where we have to be pragmatic about these things, is I'm not gonna stress myself out about it. Like I know in previous diets I've maybe sat at slightly higher steps, but I'm quite happy to sit at 10,000 and weight's dropping really steadily. If things slow down down the line and I don't want to drop my calories, I may have to push my steps up a bit more. But to be honest, the way this is timed, because I'll be going into the summer months, well, naturally I'm gonna start. going up Monroes and doing hill walking every so often at the weekends and I'll be more inclined to go out for long walks in the evening because it's not going be dark, et cetera, so I'm more likely to go farther afield as well. So that's been really, really positive. So certainly in terms of like the way it's felt, it's felt pretty easy, pretty comfortable so far. Now that's not to say I've not had little moments where it's probably been a bit more challenging. I definitely think when I was in London, I was acutely aware that I was having to make good decisions more often, whereas day to day, in my kind of set up that I have because I've got my food shops really organized, my meals are planned out, I know what snacks I'm having, there's lots of fruit in the flat as well. It's not particularly difficult for me to kind of stick to things and I'm finding that if I have a little bit of caffeine in the morning, my hunger's pretty minimal. I sometimes wake up a bit hungry and then it seems to fade. So I've been trying to play about with pushing my sort of breakfast back a little bit. So I usually start work quite early, like six in the morning sometimes, or I'm training, it just depends. ⁓ A lot of the time I'm managing to sometimes like today I don't think I ate breakfast until about half nine, which is pretty good given I was up fairly early about 6 a.m. So yeah, that's worked quite well as well. Just kind of narrowing the windows between meals has helped. So that's been a bit of a positive. But overall, hunger is pretty manageable. I wouldn't say that's been particularly challenging. The usual thing for me, and I've always been really transparent about this, the biggest challenge for me when the weight loss phase is tiredness, that can definitely creep in a bit more. And I would actually say. that has crept in a bit more. It's hard to know because I had three or four nights of particularly poor sleep. I don't know why, I just slept terribly for about four nights straight, which wasn't great. I got to sleep, but it was much later than normal and I was still up quite early, so it's not honestly the best mix and I've had quite busy long days, so 10, 11 hour days at the laptop, plus trying to train, get 10,000 steps in as well, and then sometimes play basketball on the same day. It's a bit of a juggle when you're not getting a lot of sleep, but. I know a lot of parents will be laughing because that would be a first world problem to have. But I think one of the things that this kind of factors in a little bit with that is that I probably feel more tired because of the lack of sleep over those four days. But I maybe would say I'm starting to feel a little bit more tiredness into the kind of later evenings now that I'm kind of dieting. I would be surprised. if I didn't get to 9 p.m. and kind of think, ⁓ I feel like I could go to bed now. Like I'm kind of at that stage. But that's quite normal for me. And as I say, five and a half weeks into the diet and a good chunk of weight off, I would kind of expect that. It's nothing dramatic, but just a little bit more fatigued. But as I say, hunger, pretty manageable. Tiredness is usually the bigger factor for me. And I would say that's slowly creeping in. And I just want to be honest, know, with this kind of series of me talking about it, I'm gonna be really transparent. There will be days that I struggle with hunger in the future. There will be days I'm a bit more tired. But I also want to give you the other side of that, of all the positives. So one of them is that my clothes are now fitting me much better. Like I said, this hoodie, well it's probably fitting me worse to be honest, it looks a bit more baggy now, but that's okay with me. I'm noticing a lot of my t-shirts, like a lot of my t-shirts are fitting much, much better, which is kind of what I would have expected about that kind of almost five kilo down mark. For me, that's enough to kind of start to notice quite a big change in clothing. I definitely see it, like even in these kind of podcast videos that go onto YouTube, I'm definitely seeing a little bit of a difference in the jawline as well compared to probably when I just started the podcast a month ago and I was doing them, I can notice a little bit when I'm on video, as I so often am, that I can definitely see the jawlines coming back in. And as I say, clothes are fitting better. I put a fleece on that I hadn't worn in a few weeks and that definitely fit me better, felt a bit looser, which was quite nice too. Otherwise, there's no drastic changes. I am actually doing another hole in my belt, which is fine, other than the fact that I'm realizing I've only got one hole in that belt left, so I'm probably gonna need to do a little screwdriver drop on that one. But yeah, otherwise, I think it's all been feeling pretty bloody good, and I definitely am at that point where, for the first few weeks, you maybe feel a little bit better, but it's quite marginal for me. Like, I don't feel drastically, drastically better. Like, I do feel like there's a little change in my clothes. I feel like a little bit more comfortable. I would say now it's starting to creep in a bit more. I can feel that I just feel a little bit better in myself for being that little bit leaner. I it's not that I wasn't in a good place, because I was, but I just feel a little bit sharper for it. And again, I like the way my photos look. I posted my progress photos on Instagram as well. And as you'll see, like in the... Left hand photo, if you do have a little look at my profile on Instagram, which isn't a push to go suddenly follow me on Instagram, but if you do want to have a nosey, it's at Cameron Cummings PT. I think that's my handle, but you can have a little nosey. My week one to week five is the one I'm referring to. You can definitely see that I am getting leaner, right? You can see that now that my jawline's definitely gleaning out a little bit. My midsection's getting a bit tighter. All these kind of nice type things. Still probably about four weeks to five weeks away from my kind of like spot where I feel most comfortable, where. I'm very comfortable in all my clothing. I feel pretty good in general. I'm maybe not the absolute leanest I'd want to be for maybe a summer holiday, but I'm probably at the weight that I like to maintain year round. So I'm closing in on that, which is pretty cool too. So I think it's been a pretty successful muscle gain phase. I look like I'm holding a little bit more muscle than before. ⁓ But yeah, all in all, very positive, I think. There's not too much that's been super challenging about it. I think that the big thing that I've taken away actually, and again, this is kind of ironic because this is what I talk to clients about all the time, is by being more diligent with the habits that work rather than sometimes being guilty of getting a bit complacent as in I would have two or three good weeks of being quite organised and then I'd have a week where I struggle more with my nutrition and a lot of it boiled down to the fact I was just less organised and I knew what to do but I just wasn't doing it. I think in so far, at least in these five and a half weeks, I've been very proactive at planning ahead and I have done the things that make everything easier. And that's what I'd encourage anyone to do. It's like, I am not trying to willpower my way through every single day. Like there's very little decision making for me. Like I knew what I was, when I woke up, I already knew what my breakfast, lunch and dinner was. I already knew if I was gonna grab a snack, well there was bananas that are almost, almost ready, but there was grapes as well and like bits and bobs sitting around. I knew that I was gonna grab a protein bar from the shop. There's like a little shop that's up the road. ⁓ The Banana Dream Bear Bell one, very good by the way, very good. Reminds me of these horrible foamy bananas that I used to have as a kid. ⁓ Very not healthy, very not healthy, not healthy at all I'm sure, but delicious, delicious. Would devour them now if I could, if they still existed. But I think it's really, really cool to just be in that spot where I'm feeling pretty good. It's feeling pretty easy so far. I feel like I'm cracking on, know, almost five kilos off is good going. So. The game plan basically is I had originally set the goal of being about 78 kilos for the end of April. I'll be honest with you, I think that's probably a bit unambitious. I think given that we're on the 5th of March, we've got 26 days left of March, my gut instinct is that I can probably hit that goal by the end of March or be extremely close to it. I think I can probably pull off another four kilos this month, which will be a really nice place to be as I say, I'll be feeling pretty good at that point. So what I may do is I may do a bit more of a push and just push on even farther or. depending on how of diet-fedied I am, because I am kind of really cracking on, I might take a sort of two-week phase of maintenance, then do another little push, but I'm going to see where I'm at. I'm gonna wait a little bit longer, because it feels too early to say. I'll also depend a little bit on how I feel at 78 kilos. If I'm feeling really, really good, and I've not got that far to go with it, I might push on another couple weeks and just get the job done, but I suspect what I might end up doing is just have a couple weeks of maintenance, then maybe do another month off the back end. after I go away for my mate's snag at the end of April. So that is a little bit of a, just a broad update for me, right? Just a bit of a kind of brain dump on how it's going. Because I know a few people have kind of commented that it's quite interesting to hear, hopefully interesting at least, to hear about how I'm getting on with my own weight loss phase and just talk about it. And like I say, I'm gonna be really honest and I would expect as well, if you're listening to this and it sounds like super positive and it's all sunshine and roses, there will be challenges, like it's not gonna carry on that they'll. never be a challenge, of course there will be. I'll be very honest about those when they come up, but I do think I'm in the luxurious position, having spent a long time in a muscle gain phase, I'm not having to diet on ridiculously low calories, and also I have the experience of all this, so I know all the little tips and tricks which just make it feel that bit easier. So if you do have any questions or anything that you are struggling with weight loss wise, please feel free to ping me a message on Instagram or indeed if you are interested in one-to-one coaching, you're maybe struggling with your weight loss or as is often the case, you've maybe done the whole weight loss thing before and then you've had to do it again and again and again because you just keep regaining the weight, then that is what I love to work with people on is to get them to a place where they can get into the best shape of their lives and stay there. So if you would like to know a little bit more, find out a little bit more about one-to-one coaching, just grab the link in the show notes. Otherwise, have a great week.