My caloric intake has deliberately crept up. It’s unsustainable to eat very little over a long period. But the worst thing I could have done was to give up my careful approach to calories. If I started eating too much again my weight would have bounced back – with interest.

I have allowed myself to eat more and indulge in the odd treat. I now eat pretty normally. I have the odd pizza, biscuits and fruit drink. I monitor my calories closely so this relaxation does not become a flood of unnecessary fat-producing calories. So far, it hasn’t.

The proof that I am doing this relaxation responsibly is that I have not really gained weight at all. But it’s probably a major contributor to the plateau I find myself sitting on.

In short: Day 200 – all is well. Roll on a year.

For the past couple of months my weight has oscillated between 88 and 89 kilos. There’s been the occasional weird fluctuation upward but the general trend has been depressingly consistent.

In the last week though, I have managed to slip out of the 88/90 zone and moved downward to an oscillation of between 86 and 88. The other cool thing about this movement downward is that my BMI prime (the index that sort of indicates how overweight you are) indicates that I am now overweight by only a single digit. I’ve moved from being 10+% overweight to being 8% overweight.

It’s all good news.

Of course there’s the dreaded concept: Exercise. I’ve been putting off getting fitter, but of course it’s something I need to do. I may be trim but I am desperately unfit. So, if this weight loss is more than just an exercise in determination and is actually about health benefits, then I really need to address the fitness aspect of the health equation.

For many New Zealanders, war has terrible and direct implications. Because of its small size and patriotic zeal, New Zealand suffered much higher losses than other Commonwealth nations during the two World Wars. Visit any small town in New Zealand and it’s likely you will find a memorial to the young men of the town who died in war.

Doing family history has given me a personal insight into the devastating nature of war. Through my research, I’ve come across many ancestors involved in war and families where members were killed in War – in some cases multiple losses in one family. Then there are those who survived but were irreparably damaged by the experience.

Last night I came across a father and son related to my wife who were killed in the first World War. The father was 39 when killed. It was his second time in the Army – having served during the late 19th century and discharged in 1896. Tragically, he rejoined to look after his son. Both joined right at the start of the conflict and died in 1916. Imagine the wife/mother’s grief? It’s difficult to comprehend.

The sad truth is we all have stories like these in our families. War has pretty much been a constant phenomenon throughout history and perhaps, depressingly, it’s likely to continue that way and may even get worse as climate change and the competition for scarce resources drive conflict.

Without going into details, I felt like my system had slowed and I was getting quite bloated. That seemed to change yesterday and, well, it seems I was right because here I am back down at 88.5. That’s the lowest weight I have achieved in years.

There’s more to come. In fact, it’s rather depressing to contemplate that I am just over halfway to my target. I could pretend that it’s all down hill from here and that the next eight or so kilos will be easy. But I know that isn’t reasonable to expect.

There’s still a long slog to go. I am pleased to have ‘unburdened’ my insides a bit. I don’t know why I’ve become sluggish. It’s something I am going to watch.

I’ve deliberately held off buying new suits for work because I thought I ought to wait until I had reached my target weight. I am still probably at least five but probably more like ten kilos off my ideal weight. But I couldn’t wait any longer. My old suits were getting quite tatty and disshevelled and they were hanging off my slighter frame. I haven’t gone mad and bought an entire new wardrobe. Just a new suit – and it’s not expensive – it’s priced to be expendable in case I lose a lot more weight. Still, it’s nice to be back into new gear that fits.

According to the formulae, I am just under 12 percent overweight now. I started at nearly 27 percent. So that’s more than half.

Being in the eighties (even it is temporary), feels good. It is in this area that I will finally hit “normal” weight – at below 81 kilos.

Those remaining kilos are going to be hard yards too. My daily allowable intake has reduced at least 200 calories since I started simply because I weigh less.

Still, it’s nice to think that, with only eight kilos to go, I have now lost more already than I need to in the future. So far, I have dropped nearly 12.5 kilos. Eight should be a doddle, right?

However, tonight I went to a cafe and scanned the menu for something light. They were serving tapas style food, so that was great. I ordered the chicken and chorizo on a kebab stick. It was light, low on carbs and unusually yummy. I reckon it would have been less than 500 calories. Just the ticket, really.

I felt virtuous and it was yummy. A win all round, really.

All things being equal, if you eat less than your BMR, your body will need to draw energy from fat reserves (and you will lose weight) and, if you eat more than your BMR, your body will try to lock the excess energy up in the form of body fat (and you will gain weight).

Because a BMR is based on variable factors such as your age and weight, it is not constant. Given I have lost more than ten kilos, my BMR is at present appreciably less than when I first started. In fact, it’s around 220 calories less. This means it is increasingly difficult to lose weight because the “overhead” between what my body needs and what I am ingesting through my diet is shrinking.

By the time I reach 80 kilos, for example, my BMR will have shrunk over 500 calories from where I first started. The awful reality really is that my current reduced caloric diet will cease being simply a diet intended to lose weight and may become closer to a permanent lifestyle.

What I mean by this is; under my current diet I eat about 1500-1600 calories a day. At 80 kilos my BMR drops down to about 1700 (without factoring exercise) and just over 2000 calories if you factor in the limited exercise of a sedentary person. So, at best, eating my caloric restricted diet will be just under my eventual core BMR.
I wonder whether this is why so many people regain weight after crash dieting. They cannot keep the caloric restriction up and don’t realise that, in losing weight, they’ve actually reduced their energy needs.