Category Archives: Fatty Parry

New Year’s Resolutions 2023: Mid April Update #NewYearsResolutions

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Background

On the 4th of January, I posted my New Year’s Resolutions for 2023. Here is my fourth short update, three months later (check out update one here, update two here and update three here).

I need to lose 50lbs. Simple as that. During Covid, I became the fattest I’ve ever been. Not acceptable. Current weight: 17st 12lb (250lb). Goal weight by Summer: 14st 5lb (201lb).

Me (04/01/2023)

Well, a consistent regimes of (1) jogging every day, and (2) junk comida portion control, mean my current weight is now 15st 9lb (219lb). That is solid progress. Let’s keep it up!

Holiday break

I’ve always had a problem with routines. I’m all or nothing. If I take a break from a project for a few days, for whatever reason, I find it very hard to get back into the rhythm. I don’t know why. It’s a real weakness.

I went on holiday on the 1st of April and got back this week. So I was really scared that I was go off the rails. As it happens, though, I only put on 1-2 lbs and have got right back into the swing of exercise.

Half way there

I am about half way on my weight-loss journey. At least, until I meet my target goal weight. But I am only at the beginning of my life-long health journey.

© 2023 Bryan A. J. Parry

New Year’s Resolutions 2023: Mid March Update #NewYearsResolutions

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Background

On the 4th of January, I posted my New Year’s Resolutions for 2023. Here is my third short update, two months later (check out update one here and update two here).

I need to lose 50lbs. Simple as that. During Covid, I became the fattest I’ve ever been. Not acceptable. Current weight: 17st 12lb (250lb). Goal weight by Summer: 14st 5lb (201lb).

Me (04/01/2023)

Well, a consistent regimes of (1) jogging every day, and (2) junk food portion control, mean my current weight is now 16st 1lb (225lb). That is solid progress. Let’s keep it up!

Wake up calls

I have now reached and gone beyond a highly significant milestone for me, namely, 16st 2lb. Here’s the story of why that weight is so psychologically important for me.

When I was about 27 years old, I had let myself slip into a weight-based funk; too many beers, too many pies, and I’d stopped running. I remember it clearly: I was in Malta on holiday, and I went past a chemist’s; it was closed, but it had a coin-operated height-weight machine outside it. Being a former colony, Malta uses/used our British system of weights and measures. So I stepped on the machine. It rang up 16st 2lb. I had never weighed so much in my life. I turned to see my face in the reflection in the window; I looked truly bloated and grotesque. And memories of being a small boy and asking my then rather overweight Dad how much he weighed rang around my head. “Just over sixteen stone”, he said. I had never seen my Dad so fat, now nor me. It was a wake up call, and when I got back from holiday I got real. I got back into exercise and got back into shape.

Years of good habits followed, but eventually I would sink into a funk again, partly due to mental health problems caused or exacerbated by rather trying life circumstances. And here we are today. But I’m back on track, and I mean it.

© 2023 Bryan A. J. Parry

Fatty Parry 33: 2020 Reboot Episode 1 @ww_uk @weightwatchers

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Project Fatty Parry, my project to sort out my yo-yoing weight, has been rebooted more times than Spiderman. But new year means new years resolution which means it’s time to pop Groundhog Day back in the DVD player.

I’m 6’2″ tall, 35 years old, and weighed 17st 13.5lb (251.5lb, c. 114kg) as of about a week ago.

I feel ill. It’s not good. I need to sort it out. I remember when 16 stone was a wake-up call; now it’s a call to celebration.

I know a healthy weight for me is 14st 7lb (203lb). But my optimal weight, I know from experience, is around 13st 7lb (189lb).

A healthy and sustainable weight loss is 2-3 pounds a week. I need to lose about 60lb. So meeting my target by the end of 2020 is more than achievable. I have no excuse to fail.

My weight has hovered around 18 stone for a while now. Therefore, one step I can take right away is eat fewer crisps, penny sweets, and biscuits, and drink less beer. So let’s try that out and see what happens over the next few weeks!

Till then, happy fat burning!

© 2020 Bryan A. J. Parry

New Year’s Resolutions 2020 #NewYearsResolutions2020

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As a world-weary late adolescent, I gave up on making new year’s resolutions, mainly because you/I never follow through on them properly. Therefore, it felt like lying to myself to even bother making them at all. Then, in my late twenties, I started making them again because, ya know, fear of impending middle age and failure and all that. But, yeah, once again, my resolutions were somewhat incomplete. So I gave up again for a year or two (2018 and 2019).

But now I’ve got my resolution mojo back! What I’ve learnt from the mountain of failures in my life is this: I think the key to making successful resolutions is (1) to make them achievable (i.e. “SMART“) goals, (2) make very few goals, but make them important ones, as quality is better than quantity.

With that in mind.

  • GOAL ONE*: get down to my wedding weight (2013), which was pretty healthy, by the 31st of December 2020. That is, 14st 5lb (201lb, c. 91kg).
  • GOAL TWO: achieve B2 level in Spanish; if timetables allow it, I’ll also successfully take a B2 DELE (official Spanish exam).

I have other things I want to achieve, as well, but I think I need to keep things SMART and achievable.

Both goals are very achievable. GOAL ONE, the weight goal, is roughly a pound of weight loss a week for the whole year, or 4-5 pounds a month. Extremely achievable. A healthy weight loss is 2-3 lbs, no problem. GOAL TWO, the language goal, is also highly achievable as I am already B2 for some skills in Spanish and B1 or B1+ for others. I just need to set aside certain hours a week as part of a routine and then stick to it; I’m not starting from nought here!

Both goals are immensely achievable, especially if I start right away and take the tortoise slow-but-steady approach. But there’s another component to achieving goals; they need to be things that you really, really want. A lot. And I do.

See you this time next year for Groundhog Day! ;-D

*all caps is the electronic equivalent of carving it in stone, doncha know.

© 2020 Bryan A. J. Parry

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Perfect White Rice

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check out my new health and life goals blog at http://www.diethealthlifegoals.wordpress.com

This results in starch being released into the water causing everything to go sticky, slimy, or mushy. Are you seeing a pattern here? Starch is your enemy!

I love curry, always have. However, I always used to be frustrated about the white rice; sometimes it came out well, sometimes it was mush. I could never work out why, as I always followed the packet instructions. Why was there so much variation in the end product??

After many years of trial and error, I hereby reveal the secret of perfect plain white rice.

  1. Soak and rinse the rice beforehand until the water is COMPLETELY clear. I cannot emphasise how crucial this step is. Make sure it is rinsed until the water is cleeeeeeear. The cloudiness is caused by starch. Starch is what makes rice go sticky, slimy, or mushy. You must get rid of all the starch.
  2. Put twice as much water as rice. So, one cup of rice means two cups of water. You don’t want too much water or the grains won’t be able to absorb it all — which means they’ll burst a bit, release starch, and everything will go sticky, slimy, or mushy.
  3. Do NOT stir the rice. Seriously. As you stir, you are causing small amounts of damage to the grains. This results in starch being released into the water causing everything to go sticky, slimy, or mushy. Are you seeing a pattern here? Starch is your enemy!
  4. Do NOT vigorously boil. As you boil, the grains of rice bobble about. This agitation causes, guess what… damage to the grains, which releases starch, which causes the undesirable, sticky, slimy, or mushy rice that we abhor. You want to put that rice on the lowest, smallest possible flame. In fact, you DON’T want to boil it at all. The best rice involves bringing the rice up to boil, putting a very tightly fitting lid on it. Then just turning the flame off! Do NOT open the rice or touch the pot. Just let it steam for 45 minutes.
  5. Use as big as pot as possible. Why? Because if you are steaming it and not stirring the rice, you don’t want the rice at the bottom to go mushy because it has no space. Therefore, if you are making rice for a lot of people, and/or your pot isn’t oversized, then carefully turn the rice over after 15, 30, and 45 minutes. If on a low flame, no problem; if steaming, then you will lose all the steam when you open the lid to turn the rice. Therefore, when the lid goes back on, put the flame on max for around thirty seconds to build up the heat, and thus steam, and then turn off again.
  6. Oh yeah, and don’t forget a teaspoon or thereabouts of salt.

Whilst not strictly speaking necessary, I find it moderately helpful to wash and rinse the rice using the hot water tap.

Enjoy perfect plain rice!

© 2018 Bryan A. J. Parry

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Fatty Parry 32: Project Weight Loss 13-7: 1 January 2018 @ww_uk @weightwatchers

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check out my new health and life goals blog at http://www.diethealthlifegoals.wordpress.com

I’ve rebooted my strategy to getting into shape: see here for the outline. Basically, instead of setting myself weekly hard-and-fast goals, the idea is to set monthly non-binding goals. This means I won’t theoretically get downhearted when I have a wobbly week as I will be able to catch up the following week. I have set myself the goal of losing 7lb a month. I was therefore hoping to get down to 17st 7lb (245lb) by the end of January.

The only change to my routine for January was the lack of mince pies and sherry! And I ended up at 17st 9lb. A five pound loss is not bad. Instead of now saying I need to lose 9lbs by the end of February — the monthly 7lb + the 2lb I did not lose last month — I am simply resetting and saying I need to lose 7lb. This prevents a backlog of unfulfilled weight loss goals which I have found so discouraging.

Therefore, by the end of February, I hope to get down to 17st 2lb (240lb). My plan of action is the simple stuff: cut the wintery comfort snacks down.

© 2018 Bryan A. J. Parry

featured image from https://hansimann.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/sisyphus_by_o__v-d66ox90.png

 

Fatty Parry 31: Project Weight Loss 13-7: Introduction @ww_uk @weightwatchers

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check out my new health and life goals blog at http://www.diethealthlifegoals.wordpress.com
This post was written 01/01/18

As I said in the last post, I have been finding my time-limited weight loss programs counter-productive in the end. You know, where you try to lose X amount of weight in such-and-such time period. Whenever I would have a bad week and miss my target, everything always seemed so insurmountable and I would just get off-track for weeks at a time. The feeling of failure was always near. But this has all been made worse by certain life stresses, which one day I may go into, and the general festive Yule period of Gluttomas.

So now the goal is not to time-limit my diet, although I will give myself “guideline targets”. This way, I feel that if I feel like I’m having a poor week, I won’t get all stressed out and depressed about it.

As stated in previous posts, a healthy weight for me is 13 stone 7 pounds (189lb, ~86kg). I am currently my fattest ever: 18st 0.2lb (252.02lb)!! That is literally 1/8 of a ton. What in the literal fuck!?

So, I’m going to go for half a stone (7lb) a month. That is just under 2lb a week, and I think very reasonable. By checking in monthly, I don’t feel pressured and can make up for a bad week with a good one.

My first guideline target is to drop 7.2lb by the end of January. That would make me 17st 7lb (245lb) on 1st February 2018.

Seriously, let’s do this!

© 2017 Bryan A. J. Parry

featured image from https://hansimann.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/sisyphus_by_o__v-d66ox90.png

 

Fatty Parry 30: Thoughts @ww_uk @weightwatchers

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check out my new health and life goals blog at http://www.diethealthlifegoals.wordpress.com

I am a classic yo-yo dieter: gain a stone, lose a stone, gain it back again. But, unlike some yo-yo dieters, I prefer cooking to ordering a take-away, and I am happy eating a salad. The problem I have is always the same: when my routine gets disrupted, for even a few days, everything falls apart — my working out, my eating. It’s crazy, but I am 100% with my routine, or 0%. Perhaps I’ve got a personality disorder! Haha! I’m like that for everything, I find: all in or nothing. But I’m not sure what to do about that. And this is what happened with my previous program; unavoidable stuff came up, I promptly folded after my routine was disrupted.

However, there is an even more pressing issue I have had to come to realise over the last couple of months.

My weight goes up, my weight goes down. Sure, classic yo-yo. But just like Bitcoin*, it never goes as low as it was last time, and it peaks higher than ever before. Unfortunately, unlike Bitcoin where more pounds (of money) is better, my increased pounds (of weight) is killing me.

Wait, what?

What I’m saying is that I used to cycle between 12 and 13 stone. Then it was 13 and 14 stone. Then 15 and 16 — that was three or so years ago. Then it was 15st 7lb to 17st. But over the last year, I have been hitting new peaks: I am currently 17 stone 10 pounds. What the hell!?

I can’t be content with this situation. Because now when I am at the low, “thin” point of my yo-yo, I am still fatter than ever before. Whereas before, my “thin” actually was — thin!

So I have two points to work on within myself from here on in. How do you guys handle these points?

  1. I need to prevent blips to my routine derailing me for months or years at a time. Y’know, those times when you have to eat unhealthily, or not go to the gym, such as weddings, celebrations, holidays, and so forth.
  2. I think these time limited programs I have constructed (e.g. 13 Week Wedding Weight Loss) are not really helping me make the long-term, abiding changes to my routines that I need to. The reason is that whilst the time limit is SMART, when I miss a couple of weekly targets, I get down about it and just fall off the waggon as it all seems too insurmountable again.

From now on in, I’m just going to have a regular (say, fortnightly) health daybook. I’ll have my long term goals, but I won’t time limit them. I’ll just go slow and steady so as to not let missed weekly targets get me down.

*Let’s see how it takes for this reference to no longer be true!

© 2017 Bryan A. J. Parry

featured image from check out my new health and life goals blog at http://www.diethealthlifegoals.wordpress.com

Fatty Parry 29: 12 Week Wedding Weight Loss: 8 @ww_uk @weightwatchers

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check out my new health and life goals blog at http://www.diethealthlifegoals.wordpress.com

Introduction / Background

Earlier this year, my weight peaked at 16st 12lb (236lb). I had never been so fat. And I felt it. With a family wedding looming, and having a Body Mass of over 30 (= “Obese Class 1”), I decided to take action and sort my life out. Hence, I went on a 13 Week Wedding Weight Loss program (weeks: 1 2 3 4 5 7 9 10 11 12 13). Click here for a quick explanation of the ins-and-outs, but the short of it is this: having a Body Mass of over 30 in a suit at a wedding in the sun in Spain is not a good look!

I lost weight and, whilst I didn’t reach my target, I made serious steps towards it and learnt a lot along the way.

Now I have another wedding in twelve four weeks’ time. So I’ve decided to not only carry on trying to fulfil my short-term weight goals, but to move towards the next phase in the transformation of me. 12 Week Wedding Weight Loss will be about achieving Phase 2: getting my weight to the ideal of 13st 7lb. I am currently 15st 11.2lb 16st 5.2lb. The long term goal is to not just get to and maintain a healthy weight, but to get seriously fit. But I’m jumping the gun: that’s Phase 3!

I therefore aimed to lose 32.2 pounds in twelve weeks, a loss of just under 2.7lbs a week. However, my program has slipped due to my inability to manage my snacking during a stressful period of my life, and I would now need to lose 6.7lb a week to stay on track.

Last week

Well, what a disaster(!) Remember those unspecified “life stresses” I mentioned in week 4? Eating was/is my coping mechanism. I’ve been struggling; keeping up a good routine when under pressure is clearly not something I have cracked yet. General diet isn’t bad, but extra booze and cakes has wrecked it.

I’m worse than at any point since the dark days of May. And I have breached the psychologically important weight of 16 stone, leaving me feeling like, ‘What is the point?’

Plus, it looks like I won’t be able to make the wedding after all for certain reasons — and thus the crucial motivating factor has been taken out of the equation since about a month ago.

Next week

My original target of 13st 7lb (189lb) by the 14th October is well and truly blown. I would now need to lose 6.7lb a week — this is not sustainable or healthy. Or realistic! Setting yourself up with unrealistic goals is the worst as the crushing disappointing when you fail derails you completely.

I need to get below 16 stone ASAP as that is quite an important milestone for me. So let’s make that my goal: by Monday 11th September I need to be 15st 13.99lb or below!

  • week 0 (last week): 10/07/2017: 15st 13lb (223lb)
  • week 1: 17/07/17: 15st 11.2lb (221.2lb)
  • week 2: 24/07/17: 15st 13.2lb (223.2lb)
  • week 3: 31/07/17: 15st 12.2lb (222.2lb)
  • week 4: 07/08/17: 15st 9.2lb (219.2lb)
  • week 5: 14/08/17: 15st 11lb (221lb)
  • week 6: 21/08/17: 15st 12lb (222lb)
  • week 7: 28/08/17: 15st 13.6lb (223.6lb)
  • week 8: 04/09/17: 16st 5.2lb (229.2lb)
  • GOAL: 14/10/17: 13st 7lb (189lb)

© 2017 Bryan A. J. Parry

featured image from https://hansimann.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/sisyphus_by_o__v-d66ox90.png

Fatty Parry 30: WTH, Brown Rice!? @ww_uk @weightwatchers

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this post originally appeared at https://diethealthlifegoals.wordpress.com/2017/05/12/cooking-wth-brown-rice/

Seriously, is it just me, or is white rice really easy to cook, but brown rice is IMPOSSIBLE TO COOK? I’m switching to brown rice for health reasons. But honestly, no matter which instructions I follow, white rice is always fine, but brown rice either comes out undercooked and hard, or as mucus covered mush. Seriously, what the HELL, brown rice!?‬

Weird thing is, I’ve done brown rice in the past with no trouble. But no matter what, I cannot manage it now!

HELP!?

© 2017 Bryan A. J. Parry

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