Nearly home time

 Not been posting, although I have been keeping an eye on my weight.  I gained after going to Sydney (party food, why is it so irresistable?) and went back up to 12st 7lb, which was roughly the weight that I maintained until I went back to the UK at the end of September.  But that's the key - I maintained at that weight for a couple of months.  I got back to Australia in mid-October and  embarked on attempting to shift a bit more.  And, approaching the end of November, the needle on my cheap scales was hovering at just a fraction under 12st this morning.  Not stunning weightloss, but equally, looking back through this journal, what I crucially haven't done this year is fall hideously off the wagon at any point and returned to over 13st.  In fact, I've been hovering around the lower end of the 12st range for five months, which I think is sufficient for my homeostatic mechanisms to have reset a bit lower.  

I fly back starting in three days time and I'd love to still be at 12st when I arrive, or the fraction under that the scales suggested this morning.  I'm also going to do something to kick the plateau out when I get home and go on a short term very low calorie diet and meal replacement plan.  I've researched fairly carefully and the particular one that I've chosen is a ketogenic diet, that is, it contains low carbohydrate levels (although also steers clear of unsaturated fats) and relies mainly on protein and fat to provide the calories.  I know that such diets have led to health worries in the past, but it does seem that research has been continuing apace over the last decade and it now seems that providing that the correct amount of fibre, vitamins, minerals and trace elements are available and that this way of eating is for less than six months (which is way longer than I intend to sustain it for) there are no health issues associated.   As I said, this is more to kickstart me away from this plateau.  Although I'm pleased that I have been maintaining at a new lower level, I'm still well in the overweight category.

I am quite looking forward to getting home, grabbing the tape measure and finding out what my overall body stats are now, seeing which clothes I can fit into and which will be available if the vlcd does its job!  And as and when I get to 11st 8lb, I'll take some more photos - I'm sure that an appreciable difference will be visible by then!  I think that I've lost a bit more of the tummy, but it's so hard to judge when you see yourself every day.