Following on from my last blog about meeting my nutritionist who made a number of suggestions on how I can increase my weight but in a way that wasn’t just in extra squidgy bits. I took to following her advice as much as possible. Apart from the idea of eating something like tofu which I just couldn't bring myself to do.
It was quite strange to start with noting everything I ate and drank, it certainly helped re-enforce the aim to the point where I didn’t need to write it down so much as I mentally noting what was going in.
The idea was pretty straight forward stage 1 would involve reducing my fat intake from the likes of whole milk and yoghurts and increasing my carbohydrates through the likes of pastas, rice and potatoes that kind of thing. The rest of my diet was in pretty good shape apart from the odd tweak. I did have to ensure that I was still consuming in excess of 4000 calories on a day of normal exercise and then 5 – 6000 calories if it had been longer in distance.
The results from this I had checked a couple of months ago around mid-September; the results showed good progress. My weight had increased in a stead manor and the skin calliper test showed that my fat percentage had also dropped. The slight downside was I was still occasionally losing weight and short of my target weight of 95kg.
I had watched my brother struggle with the weight gain process a couple of years ago and as easy as it sounds, it reaches a point where whilst doing exercise and everything else you do in a day it’s a struggle to get in all the calories in a healthy and sustainable way.
That is where stage 2 came in, the decision from the results was to give it another month to about mid-October and if the weight was not increasing enough to give it a boost with more calories. I think my work colleagues noticed the increase in the size of lunch that I was bringing in each day added with the daily litre of milk. It had become less important about where it’s coming from and more about the sheer quantity.
The timing of Christmas and the start of the Atlantic row has been very fortunate with the huge quantities of food and possibly a spot of drink that has been on offer over this festive period. It has certainly helped towards the last minute body stores.
The weight is now there or there about at 94kg, I’ve managed to put on about 10 – 12 kg since February, and now intend to lose most of that and potentially more with the row.