Welcome to Pebbletree’s Biggest Loser, a positive challenge in which some members of the Pebbletree team have decided to get together and try and shed some of those Winter pounds, as the Summer months draw ever closer.
With weekly weigh-ins, the participants will be hoping to gain some early momentum to build their confidence, and sustain this towards the end of the challenge in late July, at which point we will crown our champion!
We will be following the participants on their Biggest Loser journey, and each week we will have a guest blog from one of our stars. Our first of such comes direct from our Sales team…
Reece is one of the newest members of the Pebbletree family; a former Personal Trainer, Reece comes into Biggest Loser hoping to reach the same physical state as his peak condition whilst working at his former gym.
A big ask working at Pebbletree, where snacks are in huge supply! Check out how he coped with Week One…
Following the bleak weigh-in on friday, of which no good news was shared. I finished my working day thinking “jeez! I need to lose some weight! i’m a fatty!”
The issue being however, my girlfriend – aka The Boss – had been celebrating her 23rd birthday while I was at the office. Luckily for me – but not my diet – I returned home to just, well, a smidgen of cake…
My exact thoughts that evening! Things quickly turned from bad to worse as I heard The Boss utter those sweetest of words: “Bad time for your diet to start Reece, we’re having a takeaway tonight… I fancy Pizza!”
Well at this point my calorie intake for the day had exceeded was beyond redemption, so of course this happened…
So long weekend… Thanks for nothing! As we all know, Whatever you don’t eat on the night of a pizza binge, has to get eaten for breakfast… That’s a thing for everyone right? No?! Just me?
Well I rolled over and give in regardless. My weekend consisted of absolutely no exercise, and all the bad food you can think of! But hey, diets always start on Mondays… Right?! Well they do in my house!
Monday my waistline rejoiced as I turned over a new leaf. I knew that I needed to shock my system and stop giving into cravings… I needed to tell my belly “I’m in charge here!”
So I started the day by doing as many press-ups as I could… which was, like… maybe 20! (I still got it… *kisses imaginary biceps*) I followed this by a similar routine for sit ups, squat jumps and a plank to finish. I was on fire!
No seriously… I thought I was on fire! Honestly my temperature went so high I thought I was going to set the rug ablaze!
I followed up with a shower and sat down to a black coffee. No sugar, no milk, no flavour, no fun… But it got the job done! The idea is to fast. Nope, not a typo, I really meant fast, not the speed, but the avoidance of food! This means that I can only eat from when I get home from work until I go to bed. That’s a rule!
The day went surprisingly easy, sure my cravings flared up a bit, but you can expect that when you are punishing your digestive system!
This monster meal is made of oven baked salmon, a boiled egg and some noodles, mixed with broccoli and assorted peppers. It is then finished with wasabi and sesame seasoning, with a generous dash of sweet chilli sauce. It has a bit of all Macro’s you need, and represents exactly the kind of thing you need to break a fast!
Monday 0 – 1 Reece, Oh yeah!
Tuesday followed the same process, although while exercising I left out any and all leg activity due to being incredibly sore from my squat jumps the previous day… Hi I’m Reece and I’m a wimp!
Very disappointed in my evening meal on Tuesday, I may have ventured to the biscuit box… just a little!
Wednesday, same routine! Get up, work out a bit, get a wash, go to work, avoid the mountain of snacks, and then get home and finally get to eat!
That sexy dish is Cajun topped grilled salmon, with spaghetti and pea mix. I put a sprinkle of Cajun and chilli on it just to make the spaghetti ‘pop’ a bit more. I was actually very impressed to say this was a ‘lazy meal’… It certainly hit the spot!
I had to… It was lonely… I was lonely… It was lonely and by George it was lovely! It seemed so right at the time! Jokes aside though, to make myself feel that little bit better about this sort of cheat, I emptied as much of the pointless cream out of the can! I also never ate it all… Surely that redeems me a little bit?
Thursday, you know the drill; up and at them, praying to make it through the day without… Oh, of course, there’s what I was hoping to avoid… The boss, also a Biggest loser participant may I add, suggested “Wanna go for lunch? My treat!”
Those, my friends, are the magic words!
Alas! When I returned home on Thursday, tragedy had struck my household. I was forced to miss the Friday weigh in due to this unforeseen event… So naturally, I had whatever the hell I wanted to eat, as soon as I wanted it!
Overall I think I did well to keep (mostly) to my plan of fasting. I did have a strong control of my cravings out of eating hours. So my willpower has definitely improved! And really, because my calorie intake was so low during the day, my daily intake was lower than what I was burning with my Basic Metabolic Rate.
Overall, I found I weighed exactly the same! This could be for a number of reasons, but that’s a story for another day! Moving forward, in order to reach my target weight, I have opted to train harder, maybe even join a gym! And also be smarter with meal (most importantly, dessert) choices.
Good luck to anyone aiming to trim down… It’s not easy starting off!
