The possibility of getting something for free finally motivated me to get off my arse and iphone casify a bunch of my designs over lunch today. Turned out it’s actually a pretty simple process.

If you’re on twitter I hope you’ll try to win some stuff, and otherwise I hope you’ll have a bit of a look at my cases and tell me what you think. There’s some work on redbubble that isn’t available on Society6, although if you’d like it as a iphone or laptop skin let me know and I’ll put it up there as well.

For those of you who have been wondering why I have been so quiet these last two weeks, allow me to introduce Lily Sofia! She was born on the 29th of August and looks just like her Mum Big brother Oscar is still a little unsure, but he’s warming to her.

My final piece for the Game of Kings is up now! Check it out here

I had a fair bit of trouble with this until I decided to move a bit further away from Thickblackoutline’s original design (which you can see here) .. I love TBO’s work, but I had to put my own spin on it.

Tara McPherson was a big inspiration for this.. I kept going back to these three images whenever I started to lose my way. Obviously I’m no Tara, but it did help me get basic ideas for the girl.

Anyway, I’m pretty happy with how this turned out. I’d love to hear what you guys think of it.

To start off, let me explain a little bit of my attempted weigh loss history. Maybe you have had similar experiences, or maybe this will stop you telling a fellow chunky brother or sister they just need to “eat less and exercise more” (yes, I’ve heard that from both people trying to be helpful and people trying to be mean).

Weight Watchers

Initially I had good success with Weight Watchers for Men. I immediately stopped drinking flavoured milk or sugared soft drinks, and generally eased up on food. I also started walking every day, initially for half an hour, and then up to an hour. Then running, and going to the gym. I managed to drop from 115kgs to 75 over the course of a year or so. However, once we bought a house and I had a 35 minute drive or 1 hour bus commute it became a lot harder to get the levels of exercise I had been getting, and my weight crept back up. It settled at around 100kgs again.

I tried going back on WWFM again, but I hit the problem of being unable to exercise enough. I think while it’s a good program, and I’d recommend it as a first port of call for someone looking to lose a lot, it has two problems; first, it doesn’t apply value judgements to foods beyond their calorie and fat content (more on that later); and second it doesn’t have an iPhone app with a massive database of food. There’s a little too much wiggle room in trying to sort out points, especially in restaurant foods.

A few false starts and not much change and I decided to try something else.

Jenny Craig

Jenny Craig is expensive. You pay to join and then about $120 – $150 per week for food, so you expect results. I found that sticking to it completely I was lucky to lose half a kilo each week, which both surprised and confounded the woman there. Given that I had a lot to lose and she couldn’t provide me with any other advice I dropped that.

C25k and “Eat Less, Exercise More”

It was around this time I decided to do the Couch to 5k program. If you don’t know what that is, basically you go from not running at all (couch) to running continuously for 30 minutes. It involves 3 half hour sessions of cardio each week.. Should have some effect, right? At the same time I decided to use an iPhone app to count carbs. I kept my intake between 1200 and 1600 every day, and even on my complete blowout days would only go up to 2400.. Apparently my RDI. All this running and not eating resulted in a net loss of.. Nothing. At this point I was about 30kgs overweight, so it’s not like I was trying to move the last stubborn few kilos.

WTF

After a couple of months of this, my family and I visited relations in Bendigo. I decided for the two weeks we were there I wouldn’t run or count calories, I’d eat all the delicious biscuits and cakes my Mum makes and generally enjoy myself. Over this fortnight I gained.. Nothing. Apparently your body can be tuned to being a particular weight, which is why some people do actually feel hungrier than others even if they’re eating exactly the same thing.. So maybe my body wants to be 100kgs.

Sugar

I had somewhat resigned myself to my fate and gone back to eating whatever and not exercising (without weight change).. I played with a few more tricks, going vegetarian for a month or so, going to the gym to mix cardio with weights, but the fight had gone out of me. Then I watched this video.

What struck me the most wasn’t that sugar was an evil on par with alcohol (although that is scary). What really surprised me was how general carb intake affected your fat levels. I’d been eating bread for breakfast, lunch, pasta and rice for dinner, and often (this is a big no no) toast in the evening just before going to bed. Nothing, not the old-style food pyramid nor WWFM, JC or calorie counting had suggested this might be a problem. I should have realised when I found out Cheryl’s mum, who never ate anything sugary, was at a risk of diabetes from eating white rice.

Tim Ferris’ Slow Carb Diet

That leads nicely to right now, and what I’m doing. Essentially the slow carb diet takes all carbs out of your diet, and forces your body to get what it needs by metabolising fat. My boss did this with great success even though he was already a skinny bastard.

The rules are simple – basically eat as much lean protein, veges and legumes as you want.. And nothing else. You can read about it here. It’s difficult, especially when carbs are so delicious, but unlike everything else I’ve done the results were immediate. Plus it doesn’t require gratuitous amounts of exercise.

Lunch is inevitably red kidney beans, chicken from a can and salad out of a bag – all things I can store at work. I couldn’t manage this for breakfast (especially since I tend to eat around 5:30am) so that is sometimes sliced chicken, sometimes a low-carb bar. Dinner is whatever my wife Cheryl makes me Actually, she’s been really helpful.. we’ve had shepherds pie (minus the potato for me), fish (minus the rice), chicken burgers (minus the bread).. you get the idea. Generally a meat with veges mixed in that our 2 and a half year old can eat too, and then a side of steamed veges or salad and often lentils. Lunch is tough because it’s so boring, but dinner is always interesting and has kept me sane. If I need a snack, I’ve got sliced chicken for that as well. I do tend to get hungry, but it doesn’t become unmanageable.

Cheat Day

The other part of the diet is the cheat day – one day a week where you spike your calories to prevent your body going into starvation mode (although at my current body fat percentage apparently that’s unlikely). More than that, though, it’s a day where you can be free from guilt. Anyone who has struggled with weight as long as I have (and I know there are plenty of you out there) can appreciate a day where you don’t worry about what you’re eating, you wont have to feel guilty about having another Tim Tam or for feeling like a hamburger. It’s okay, hell it’s expected. It’s all part of the plan. This is a pretty big deal.

Week Off

My coworkers who gave me grief when I was eating a plate of salad, red kidney beans and chicken for lunch gave me even more when I started having yoghurt or miso soup, so I’ll explain what was happening there. Although my boss’ one rule was “if you’re going to do it, do it for the full 4 weeks” I decided after three to have a week off. It might be different if I only had 10kgs to lose, but realistically I’ll be doing this for a few more months yet, and the week off had a purpose. There was no point doing this if as soon as I finished I put all the weigh back on. I needed to know it was sustainable. I timed the week off with a visit from my sister-in-law too, because I knew we’d be going to quite a selection of restaurants, so it would be a good test. I didn’t hold off from eating things I wanted to eat, but I didn’t gorge myself cheat-day style either. I just ate as I normally would.

The result?

Success! I put on a kilo over the first couple of days, which was my body retaining water for the extra carbs I was eating.. And then it stayed stable. I mean it fluctuated around half a kilo each day, but the average stayed stable.

So What Now?

I’m back on the slow carb diet, and I’m going to try to stick to it up until my baby is born.. About 8 weeks. Then I’ll eat the way new parents do; whatever is in the fridge when the baby is sleeping. Still, once things settle down I’ll keep using it until I reach a healthy weight, and then do my best to maintain it.

Final Recommendations

Look, it’s not easy. If you haven’t tried anything yet and you think it would be too restrictive then by all means I’d suggest Weight Watchers. However even then ease up on the carbs, and always choose brown (rice, bread, pasta) over white. Definitely avoid carbs in the evening before bed.

If you want fast and definite results, go the slow carb diet. Be sure to tell me though, so I know someone else is sharing my pain.

Michelle Dewis
Steve Sparke who got some extras because I horribly offended him
Hannah Mattner

If you want one, and aren’t near a cafe/cinema/bookshop that has one of those Avant Card displays, drop me a line with your address and I’ll post one out to you.

My Kraken Avant Card has been released! Keep an eye on your local cafes, cinemas or book shops to pick one up.. Or else drop me a line and I’ll post one to you.