JOE’s Weight Watchers Challenge Week 7

Another week has passed in JOE's Weight Watchers Challenge and all three lads are still going strong. Here's how they got on this week.

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Joe Mulligan
Class: Ted Lavelle's, Achill Island
Starting weight: 21st 10lbs
Current weight: 19st 5lbs

I surprised myself this week. I lost another 5 ½ pounds so I’m down to 19 stone 5 pounds. Another pound and a half and I’ll have lost 2 and a half stone.

I can put the weight loss down to a few things. One of which is the fact that I’m tracking everything. On day-one our leader Bronagh said, “Guessing is messing”, and today I still weight my butter and my porridge and everything else. I’ve gotten into a habit of doing it over the past few weeks, so it’s well established now. Then there’s the exercise. In the past two weeks I’ve done over 20 miles worth of walking, which was a little goal of mine. So it’s about getting extra encouragement to get out there and keep exercising.

I didn’t expect the weight loss. I was reading that when you exercise you build up muscle and I could feel my calf and thigh muscles developing and I thought “Okay, this is going to be the week where I’m not going to lose weight”. I thought it would be this week but I’m down thank God. I hit my 10 per cent target and now that I’ve hit the two main goals that are set when you first start with Weight Watchers, I’m chuffed.

My breakfast stays the same as always. I enjoy my porridge and banana in the morning and then lunch varies from sambos, wraps, homemade soup and even salads – or any combination of them.

For dinner I do eat anything and everything, you name it, whatever I was eating before I’m still eating it. I’ve just changed the quantity and I’m filling in the gaps with veg, but every night a 9 o’clock, I still have my cup of tea and a treat.

Next week, our talk in class is on exercise, so I’m looking forward to seeing if I can pick up any tips or tricks.

As you know, Paddy’s Day is around the corner but I have a feeling that it wont be too good of a day, there’s not many places to get a wholesome meal in a hurry. Having said that I’ll have 6 miles of walking to do so I’ll burn off what I put on.

One and a half pounds gets me two and a half stone so I'll be happy with that. On average it takes me 3 weeks to lose a stone, so hopefully ill just stay on track with that.

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Darren Savage
Class: Carmelite Community Centre, Whitefriar
Starting weight: 17st 13lbs
Current weight: 16st 10lbs

I did grand now this week. I was down 3 pounds, mainly because I got back to basics. I actually didn’t get much gym work done this week believe it or not, because I was ill, but I was happy enough that I still lost something. I knew I’d have to be more disciplined this week, what with not much happening last week. But I was down 3 pounds so I was happy after last week.

I’d put it down to just eating right. I got my tracking back and I’m keeping a close eye on my ProPoints. I think the tracking was a big factor in last week.

I went back to bringing in pre-packed lunches to work, you know, so I might have a light chicken wrap with some lettuce and tomato on the side to fill it out and that would keep me ticking over until dinner.

For dinner I’d have something pretty simple like a rice or pasta based dish. I was pretty focused on trying to minimise the portion as much as possible by not over doing it, seeing as I didn’t get much exercise in during the week.

I’m not too worried about Paddy’s Day because I have a wedding to go to so, I won’t be going too mad on the 17th.

If I can hit the 3 pounds mark again this week I’ll be pretty happy. I’d rather be on the top end of the challenge rather than the bottom so I’ll be looking not to put anything on.

I was sick this week and still lost 3 pounds so with a bit of dedication and effort I could do well. I’d like to be able to lose something every week but there always seems to be something on. So I’ll try and maintain the self-discipline as best I can. My target from the start has been to lose 3 and a half stone in total and I’m still on course for that. If I can get that I’ll be pretty thrilled.

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Aaron Chalke
Class: St Mary's Parish Hall, Haddington Road
Starting weight: 15st
Current Weight: 14st 7½lbs

Not a great week this week. I stayed the same, with no weight loss sadly. In fairness I did have a lot of work stuff on this week. There was a lot of networking and what not to get done so it didn’t help. Plus, there’s always good food at these networking days, so unfortunately it didn’t work out for me. But it’s given me a kick in the arse to properly go at it this week. There are only a few weeks in the challenge left, so I’m going to put the boot down.

This week now, I’m going to look at it as if I’m starting from week one. I’m going to just jump straight back into it. Over the next week I want to eat more regularly and eat better stuff instead of going for long periods without food. I’ll try snacking on fruit and veg and keep a better eye on the ProPoints too.

At the moment I don’t really eat a breakfast, so generally it’s just a coffee and then I’ll have a big-ish lunch and a big enough dinner. So I’m going to cut back to smaller portions and make sure to eat more often.

The plan now is to get out for a few jogs this week and hopefully I’ll lose about three pounds. If I can hit two and a half pounds to three pounds every week from now on I’ll be pretty happy.

I think Paddy’s Day will be a bit of a write-off, but after six days worth of hard work, I don’t think one day off is going to do much harm.

Check back next week to see how the lads are getting on in JOE's Weight Watchers Challenge. For more info on weight loss and healthy eating for men check out the Weight Watchers website.