So there we all stood, outside a hall in my home town that is so well hidden I had never heard of it (been here since 1981!). The rain was threatening and started 10 minutes before the start. Our trainer turned up, at just about 2pm (the advertised start time), and struggled to get in - she had to key the code she had received in an email twice. Inside the hall is 1980s decor, if I'm being generous. Strip lighting, not upgraded to LED, and folding plastic chairs that are as uncomfortable as you'd expect. At least it's dry.
We set the chairs up in a circle and go through the introduction. There wasn't a requirement to announce yourself and say "I'm a potential diabetic" - which I'm very pleased about. Everything is voluntary - they will take your weight, if they can make the scales work. You can believe or not the statistics that say the people who follow the course instructions to the full 100% do not become diabetic. The graph in the book tells a different story and includes the missing parameter: time. There are 3 levels (goals) for weight loss bronze - 3%, silver 5%, gold - 10%. My calculation is that 12% is required to get me to the ideal weight that I aimed for last time, and got to.
We were told we are not counting calories, but we are - there is a food diary, that I have been trying to keep, that includes calories, and a column that says 'serves' that I don't know how to complete. The book that is provided is inadequate, I will have filled all the available pages for the food diary in a week or two, so I'm using a spreadsheet. It takes about as long to record the meal as it does to eat it!
There is a recommendation for, 10000 steps a day to get active, and we were given pedometers to measure our steps. This goal has largely been de-bunked as being useful, so far as I can tell. It is certainly not a useful measure of activity, as I found out on my long weekend break. I can amble about all day and hardly use more calories than sitting reading - humans are designed to walk efficiently, that's how we spread across the world. The pedometer reads between +10% and about +200% as compared to google fit on my phone - something is wrong somewhere. The NHS recommends 150 minutes of moderate activity a week here https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/exercise/exercise-guidelines/physical-activity-guidelines-for-adults-aged-19-to-64/ (done on 5 of 7 days it's 30 minutes per day) They recommend an app called 'Active 10' which sets a target of 3 x 10 minutes brisk walks per day. This app simply measures active time, so if I walk 2 miles in 40 minutes, I get 40 minutes credited. If I walk 2 miles in 30 minutes, I get 30 minutes credited, but have actually done more exercise for less reward!
So, I am as underwhelmed as I expected to be. The only interesting thing so far was finding out that 'oat bran' has more calories per gram than rolled oats. Someone needs to explain how that works that to me, because it doesn't make any sense.
None of this is sustainable, I'm already fed up with weighing every tiny item of food and will stop as soon as the course is over (August 2023), or when I get properly bored by it. The steps target could be kept, but I am close to meeting that anyway - typically my Google fit step count is about 7000 a day.
This week we were away for a long weekend, so Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday are not fully recorded in the food diary as the information I require was unavailable. The step counts we achieved on those days are around, 15000 a day, except Monday which was a rest day.
Previous post: https://3cephas.blogspot.com/2022/11/diabetes-prevention-welcome-to.html
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