If you’re returning to my blog, welcome back.  If this is your first visit, thank you for taking a look.

Hopefully you have your weight, in either pounds or kilograms.  If not, find it out when you can and follow these instructions.  With this as a starting point, we’re going to put together a safe and just as importantly, realistic schedule for reaching your ideal weight.

Finding out how much weight you have to lose

Ok, the first step is to visit the NHS Choices BMI Healthy Weight Calculator.

This opens like this:

Click the Start button and you’ll be shown this panel:

Enter the fairly self explanatory values it asks for.  The buttons at the far right allow you to switch between metric and imperial.  When I used it, I added the following:

The Calculate button will take you to a new screen which will ask you to select your assessment of your activity levels.

I chose the following, which was correct at the time:

Select the Next button reveals its results .  You can’t close your eyes at this point – remember its going to help whatever it says.

Mine (over a year ago) gave me this result:

The slider bar pointer and the orange banner below it show two important things; firstly your BMI, and secondly the calorie intake you should be using to address this.   If you’ve tried some diets, the calorie figures might look higher than you expect.  This surprised me at the time, as the lowest weight I’d ever been as an adult was 14 pounds higher than this, and I remember thinking to myself “That is impossible”.

BMI or Body Mass Index quantifies the amount of tissue mass (muscle, fat, and bone) in an individual, and then categorises that person as underweight, normal weight, overweight, or obese based on that value.

If your BMI pointer is in the yellow or red areas, you probably need to lose weight.  Your eventual target is to reach the green healthy weight band which has a BMI range of 18.5 to 25.  A sensible first target is the yellow zone if you’re not already in it.

Is your result what you expected, or have you been surprised as I was?  I thought about it in terms of bags of sugar – 49 pounds is almost 25 bags of sugar! Can you imagine filling a shopping trolley at the supermarket with that lot and then carrying it around with you?  Because the weight comes off slowly you don’t actually notice the reduction.  The people who do notice are those who haven’t seen you for a while!

I found that the bulk of the work of reducing my weight was dedicated to getting to within a stone of the 25 BMI figure.  Getting to 25 became a part 2 as it were.  If you get to within 14 lbs off of the eventual target, believe me, you’ll already be grinning like a cheshire cat!

 

Okay, you got me – this isn’t a Cheshire Cat, but you get the idea.  (He could still have come from Cheshire, or like their cheese).

The good news is that getting to the green band is not impossible, and the information I am going to show you will help you do it.  (There isn’t any bad news – at least not here).

Establishing a timetable

Ok, you’re now ready for the next step which is to establish how long this will take you.

Not saying that you’re not great at arithmetic but if you’d like to use it, you may find this easier using Google calculator.

Please write down / add your actual weight.  For me this was 15st 1lb which is 211 lbs.  If you have kilograms instead, that works too.

Then write down/ add your highest healthy weight figure in pounds or kg.  (For me this was 11 st 11 lbs which is 165 lbs) e.g.

Now subtract the second figure from the first, e.g. 211 – 165.  In my case this gave me a difference of 46 lbs (or 3 st 4 lbs).

Now divide the result by 1.5.  This gave me 31.  1.5 is how many pounds you’ll be aiming to lose every week.  31 was the number of weeks it was going to take me to lose the weight if I lost it at this rate. e.g.

Weight        211
Target         165
Difference    46
Divided by   1.5
Equals           31 (weeks)

If you follow the steps above, you should the number of weeks its going to take before you look like a brand new you.  The weeks figure may look like a long time, (it can be made to look better if you convert it to months and remember that instead).  Anyway, time flies, and if you follow my guidelines you’ll soon be looking back and grinning, and wondering why you had never been able to do this before.  (That might be because you hadn’t read the right stuff).

Why 1.5 and not 2 or 3 or 5?

The reason I’ve put 1.5 is that this is achievable.  It may be slower than perhaps you’ve predicted, but it is achievable.

Ever rushed into a diet only to find a few weeks later that the weight is going back on even faster? One of the reasons for this is that the human body doesn’t react well to sudden change.  For instance it can take six months or so before someone emigrating from a hot country to a cold country feels that it isn’t freezing.

Like a tree that bends in a storm and doesn’t break, the more that you can work with your body rather than against it, the more successful you’ll be at losing weight and keeping it off.

Working with your body and knowing how you can counter its sometimes overkill reaction to what it perceives as an emergency is something that is discussed in the next article.

You’ve taken the first step to reducing your weight and improving your health!  Not only by reading this blog this far, but by working out how long it should take you to get to a healthy weight.  Wasn’t too painful was it?

The next article shows you how you can start to do this.  Once again there’s no hidden costs or agenda – I just want to share what I’ve found has helped.

NB: Although this plan is pretty gentle, if you’re at all concerned, speak to your doctor and ask them if they have any reservations against you starting a calorie controlled diet.

Explain that you’re looking to lose a couple of pounds a week and tell them your target.  If they are happy that your body is capable of sustaining this, you’ve got the green light to continue.

I’d love to hear your feedback (below) whether its good or bad, and if you really like the page please hit the Like button to show you’re impressed.

This blog has shown you how to establish the time it will take you to lose your excess weight and explained why a slow burn approach may work better.  Part 3 explains how to start using the calorie figures and embark on your new lifestyle.  Its not as far fetched as it may sound.  It really can happen, and if I can do it anyone can.

Catch you in part 3.

Best wishes.  Ian.