Time to build some hurting bombs....

So this weeks update:

Frozen shoulder: No real change, slight increase in range but not enough to actually be measurable.

Weight: Down to 93kg. Visited my mother in law over the weekend and she is a food bully, so a deficit every day except Saturday and Sunday

Going to take the longer, climbier route into work going forward: Did not happen this week at all but I did get in normal spin length at the weekend and felt OK

Better hydration: I really am sh1t at hydration

Varies day to day, sometimes 300, others 500, on one or two it was over 700. One or two days it was just not a deficit but not over the estimated usage.

Not intentionally but I do stretches without eating but that was the same before restricting calories. I would routinely get up at 5am but not eat until 10:30, but this was more just the way things happened rather than a plan. The difference now is that I would have had a chicken fillet roll at 10:30am, now I have a cup of coffee and maybe 1/2 a protein shake. At lunch, it depends on the day, but it is either nothing, a slim shake or a small sandwich (previously I might have had another roll, crisps and a bar). Dinner is just a normal dinner with the family. Previously I would have eaten again before bed and had a few beers, now I will rarely eat, take on fluids via water, tea, coffee, 7up or tonic water.

Average calorie intake for the past 20 days has been 1500calories a day, so running maybe a 300 to 500 calorie deficit per day.

My current role is quite sedentary compared to my last role. I would take longer spins on the way into work but it is not always possible timewise with kids. I do try and do weights when I remember in the evening but it is more miss than hit. I do training with GAA and my kids twice a week, so I try my best to do all the exercises with them as well.

Insulin sensitivity has definitely improved evidenced by not only reduced intake but a massive increase in time in range, as well as quicker response times to corrections.

100% but I get the thinking of why you might say one over the other. IF seems to be a following that is calorie deficit but a lot of people do well with that, as it gives them group think and makes it easier to follow. It also depends on what the end goal is. My limited reading of IF as well is that it will do almost the same as simply a calorie deficit but may have other affects. There are positives/negatives dependent on what your goal is.

Having done a bit of reading on it over the last week, I was thinking of starting to be more structured. So rather than recording everything and simply making sure it is always a deficit, I would actually plan out meals. There does seem to be evidence, although in sports science it always comes with a caveat, that for athletes running a calorie deficit, it is better to have this done in 4 or more meals a day. This doesn't give all the same affects that IF might but does mean that what might be a negative for me with IF does not happen.

I'm not going to go that way because of family and sitting down to dinner is important, albeit I am making an effort to cook less and serve myself a greatly reduced portion.

And yes, delivery chicken fillets are the devil.

I was using tracking apps for the calories but a lot of them I found a bit of a faff. A co worker uses one and said the act of using it helped them lose weight as they became so much more aware. I just have a google sheet, means I can mess around with the data as I see fit in regards pulling out info.

Positives so far have been my BP is almost back in normal range.

Not sure giving up booze will make any difference for you, by the sounds of it I drank more per week than you drank per year.

My peak power has dropped by over 50% since I gained the weight, never thought about keeping an eye on it as a matter of interest but certainly a nice indicator, I will add that into my list of random things to keep an eye on.