I woke up this morning and did an impromptu weigh-in and I was surprised that I was down to 106 kgs from 106.3 kgs I guess that I was super active yesterday with all the organising but I did have chips and a fizzy drink last night so I wasn’t expecting to have lost so much weight so that’s a nice surprise! This basically means that since Monday with very little effort I have lost 0.7kgs. The only real change that I have done is going into the office first thing in the morning so the weight loss from such a small change in life style is pretty amazing!
Today I am doing a reverse day as I have some deliveries this morning so I am working from home this morning and then going into the office for the afternoon/evening as I am on call anyway so I may as well get stuff done in the office while I am on call.
As I said yesterday I plan to start going to the gym at lunch time on my way home from the office to see if that will be easier to keep up as I failed miserably at going first thing early as I didn’t gone at all!
I have been thinking about how my goals are going and I am definitely not doing well in my exercise goals although, due to being really good with the intermittent fasting now and also mostly cutting out fizzy drinks, crisps and chocolate my weight has been steadily dropping this year. So far this year I have dropped 1.5 kgs which is more than I lost all of last year which is pretty amazing! I think by continuing to go to the office in the mornings and adding the gym on the way home I will be able to drop a fair bit of weight this year! Especially when I get back to riding the bike later in the year! Bike wise I manage 15 minutes on the rollers one night so far all year which is pretty poor and needs to be improved! My flat is a mess at the moment as I am sorting the coat cupboard and still have things from the garage move to get rid of so if I want to ride the bike it will have to be outside until I can sort the flat! I am going to make an effort to get most of it sorted this weekend so I can hopefully start riding on the smart trainer next week and test out the new PC that I set up for Zwift this time last week!
Stopping drinking Fizzy Drinks has been going really well too. I have had 2 cans of fizzy drink and 0 cans of Coca Cola which was my main vice and caused a lot of my weight and health issues I think! By buying a SodaStream and making soda water I really don’t have any cravings for Fizzy drinks at all now! As I am planning to start back at the gym next week I will try and only drink water in the morning and then drink Soda Water in the afternoon to start to reduce the amount of soda water I drink too so that in a few months I can cut out soda water too.
I have also been doing really well with my finance goals although my bank account would say differently! I have only had 5 deliveroo’s all this month and only 2 of those have been takeouts with the other 3 being food shops, This is a major difference from last year when I was getting 2-3 deliveroo’s a day most days so if I keep going like this I should be saving about £4oo a month! I am starting to get my unwanted bike stuff sold too so this will help get my credit card bills down faster and help with saving money. The next couple of months are going to be a bit more expensive as I have to pay car insurance and tax in February but luckily last year I kept my car off of the road for a month and got it MOT’ed at the end of march so I don’t have to get the car MOT’ed until the end of March this which helps. My car has a lot of issues at the moment so I am thinking that I will most likely replace it as my cousin is selling her daughters car which is newer and has a new MOT so it makes sense to spend money on getting a better car than putting more money into my car and all its issues! My son starts to drive in November so I may give him the car and he can start getting it ready to put on the road for his Birthday when I should hopefully have some money! yesterday I found out that the damp issue in my coat cupboard may well be worse than I though as when I took the carpets up I found that there were actually puddles on the floor which after drying out the room all night are still there! this means that the water is leaking through the wall really badly so it will need to be looked at sooner rather than later! For the time being I am going to put down waterproof membrane and waterproof gym flooring as a temporary measure then when I have saved some money I will get someone in to look at the issue as it is an issue on both sides of the flat that have external walls. I am pretty sure that the damp course was put in below the level of the floors which is why the walls are so damp but I guess that I will find out when I get someone in! My brother has just had the same issues at his house and has just had them sorted so I have asked him about cost etc. On a positive financial note I have 2 more payments left for my windows so that will free up about £200 a month as well, so that plus the money I am saving not getting deliveroo or buying fizzy drinks, sweets and crisps should add up to a significant improvements in my financial position in a few months time!
I chased up the status of my Swytch Bike kit yesterday and it is awaiting container assignment which I guess means that it is still in China and will deffo not be here any time soon so I will have to keep using the car whenever I want to go to the track until that arrives! Hopefully it will get here before the weather gets better!
Summary of goals and their outcomes this month are as follows:
My health/ fitness goals for the year are:
Lose 30kgs – lost 1.5kgs so far.
No fizzy drinks – had 2 cans but 0 Coca Cola
Go to the gym 4x a week – Total fail – not been at all!
Cycle for 1 hour per day – Total fail – did 15 minutes one day!
Keep up with intermittent fasting – Going really well. Actually fasting for longer each day and not craving sugar and crisps any more.
My BMX goals are:
Manual 100m by the end of the year – Total fail – not ridden bike at all!
Learn to jump – Total fail – not ridden bike at all!
My personal Goal for the year is:
Cut out use of Facebook and you tube – Cut down significantly and therefore spending way more time on side hustles and learning new skills.
My Finance goals are:
Save £300 a month to build up my emergency fund by the end of the year. – In progress
No takeout for a year – Had 2 takeouts this month so room for improvement!
Sell all unused bikes – Sold a few bits only so far!
So as you can see this month has been really successful in some areas and a total failure in others which is to be expected as there is a lot to change and Rome wasn’t built in a day! I am super happy at a lot of my base lever fitness goals apart from the exercise part BUT I am changing my daily work routine to make it easier to exercise more going forwards as the routine that i had planned was not working at all! Intermittent fasting is going really well as is the no fizzy drinks and I am dropping weight consistently at the moment so by adding the increased walking to work and adding daily exercise to the equation I should be getting closer to my weight goal way faster this year! More importantly I think that I have successfully broken my addiction to Coca Cola and fizzy drinks in general and I am now in the habit of drinking water and soda water instead! This is a major change and I am hopeful that it will continue all year!
Financially I have cut back considerably but there is still room for improvement to reach my goals of no takeout at all and saving £300 a month! I think that by the middle of the year the cutting out of takeout will mean that I have enough free cashflow to be able to start at least saving money even if it is not the £300 target it will be a major improvement to my usual spending more than I earn each month! Once I have sorted my flat out again this weekend I need to start to shift my focus to selling all of my bikes that I don’t use to try and help pay off credit cards and make it easier to save money each month. I am thinking that I will not save money at the moment, instead I will pay any excess cash into paying off my credit cards faster! That way I will be cutting my monthly outgoings and getting to a place where I am not living paycheck to paycheck that bit faster. Once the credit cards are paid off I can then concentrate on saving my emergency fund and then my FU money!