Back to the land of logging...

So I am back!

I have decided to give this another shot. I don't know my current weight, but I do know my measurements. They are roughly the same as on the 3rd of May. That being said, I am guessing that I have probably put on between 1-5 pounds during my time off. I have no idea of the actual amount. My clothes are still loose; smallest jeans are still too big... so it can't be that bad.

I will weigh next Monday.

I already logged my breakfast. I shall be aiming for 1,200 to 1,400 again. I am hoping if I can keep this up for a couple of months at least, I can lose between 7-10 pounds. I would be pleased with that.

I do find the whole process frustrating. I realised a bit about myself during the time off:

1. I enjoyed not being fixated on food
2. I enjoyed eating a mixture of things - including fattening things I would normally not be able to eat on a 'diet'
3. I tend to eat without thinking - this is still a big issue for me
4. I tend to eat companionably - i.e. so-and-so is having one, so I will have one too... regardless of if I am hungry/need it or not

Regarding #3 & #4, I am starting to wonder if I will ever crack those. I don't know why they are so difficult for me to break free from. I am almost starting to accept the idea that maybe I won't ever conquer those as I had thought I might. In that respect, I do think that I shall have to keep an eye on my size forever.

Dealing with disappointment

One of the things I am learning to deal with is disappointment.

I feel disappointed in myself this week because:

I feel as if I should have been able to 'control' myself better.
I feel as if I have wasted about 1 week when I could have been losing weight. (Not sure if I have or not as it's my not weighing week).
I feel as if there is not much point trying when I may end up putting it all back on.

A lot of these feelings come back to my need to totally control the eating/diet/logging situation or else completely fall off the wagon and give up. I find it frustrating that I am a total all or nothing person. I either am committed to the program, or I am not. There's not 'partial' with me. I find the whole idea of this all or nothing to be totally disturbing because I cannot see how it will work when it comes to the idea of maintenance. Does it mean that I have to be forever on a diet and forever logging?

I would be lying if I said I have not thought about the fact that I may not lose more weight and I may not reach my goal. Weeks like the one that has just passed lead me to that kind of thinking. 17.25 pounds in and I can feel that the novelty of logging, calorie counting and being in the weight loss/diet zone have completely worn off. Now it is a chore. This completely flies in the face of the fact I have lost the weight and my clothes are falling off me etc. Shouldn't that be a motivator in itself? Why isn't that enough to keep me from straying?

These feelings and situation are totally compounded by TOTTM - it's a difficult time for me. I have dreadful, really excrutiating periods with what seems like some kind of endometriosis/interstitial cystitis going on. My hormones are all over the place and the PMS runs pretty rampant. Being able to control myself in the face of this has proved too much. I just ended up giving in and eating what I wanted.

The part that really irks me is the fact that I have been dilly-dallying around this 165ish weight for a while... I feel that by now I should have moved on and be well away from it, but I know that if I am not careful, all this extra eating and not exercising is going to see me back at 165 and pretty much ready to throw the towel in.

So yes, I am disappointed and I am frightened. I don't want to be this weight... I feel really uncomfortable.

OMG

Okay so I thought I would be doing TurboSculpt tomorrow, but we'll see as I have spent literally like 6 hours on my feet without a break. I was cooking and doing chores to help my mum. I did manage to squeeze in a 30 minute dog walk (with 5 minutes of that standing talking to a group of 10 children while they stroked my dog haha... nice rest time).

I realised that I need to start spring cleaning, so the next few weeks will be full of that. If I am doing that and walking the dog, it may have to sub for my exercise. I also realised today that I have not made any progress with doing any art or researching making hats, so I need to get onto that as it's March's challenge!

Why I Got Overweight & My Weight Issues History

In order to examine and begin to answer this question, I need to go back to when I first started to put on weight...


Childhood (Pre-Teen)
I became very sick as a child and suddenly was unable to do the physical activities I had previously done. Before being unwell, I was extremely active; pretty much on the go all the time. Now I swelled up a lot and was in terrible pain. I had debilitating fatigue. I began puberty quite early and I found that incredibly difficult. It was hard being at home all the time and stuck in bed or on the sofa. I missed being active and I missed school and friends. Becoming sick was definitely a catalyst for me becoming unhappy and experiencing circumstantial depression.

Early Teens
When I began secondary/high school, I was separated from my friends. I had come from a small village school and was thrust into a school over 10 times the size in pupil numbers. I had been away from my previous school for a long time. I was behind on schoolwork. I found it difficult to physically negotiate the school because it was so large and had no lifts. I developed acne and greasy hair; this combined with being way from school a lot lead to bullying. Early factors behind why I developed a weight issue:

1. I was unable to physically exercise
2. I started to eat more calories than I was burning - due to hunger AND comfort eating *due to unhappiness and the bullying/feeling I didn't fit in*
3. Hormones were all over the place
4. I had no understanding or concept of calories and how much I should be eating
5. My parents no longer detailed how much I should eat
6. As I started to gain weight I began to get into the unhappiness/comfort eating cycle

Mid Teens
I reached a weight that seemed to stabilise and for a few years I stayed around that weight. I have no idea how much that was, but I know that I was wearing the same size clothes during that time (UK size 14/16). I met my first boyfriend when I was this size. The first time he saw me, I was in the swimming pool with my sister. Later he invited me (on another day) to go swimming again. I remember him saying to me that he: thought about whether he could be with/be attracted to someone my size. I now realise that he was checking out my body in my swimsuit! Funnily or sadly enough, at the time this did not ring the warning bells it should have.

Late Teens
I went to college and was still wearing the same size clothes. By the end of my first year of college, I had started to put on weight. The food at college was a lot of processed/fried food and I did not restrict my portions. I was walking quite a lot, but doing no other exercise. I found college quite stressful. I contracted Epstein Barr Virus for the second time and became quite unwell. My boyfriend of 2 years dumped me because he was no longer attracted to me at my increased size. That cut me to the core. I believe that this did not help me - I had a very low self esteem.

Early 20s
I dated quite a bit - around a UK size 18, I was okay (although not happy) with my size and some men seemed to be attracted to me, which made me feel that it wasn't so bad (haha!). Still at college, by age 20 I had ballooned to a UK size 20/22. I was EXTREMELY unhappy. I was very, very unwell and I went to the doctor to try and get help to no avail. I remember coming home one holiday and sitting on the sofa and bursting into tears in front of my sister and my mum because I felt so unhappy and uncomfortable. At this point, my mum decided to take me to a diet club. I went and started to calorie count and do short aerobic workouts. I lost about 21 pounds. I continued to do the diet after I left and got down to 175-ish. I went back to college a UK size 16, went out a lot, dated, and finished my degree.

Mid 20s
After graduating, and working in my first post-graduation job, I was housebound. I had a 'breakdown' in 2004. By 2005, I was wearing a UK size 16/18 and was asked to be a bridesmaid at a wedding. I decided I needed to lose weight. I started to calorie count and later to exercise (aerobics). I did some research and discovered Walk Away The Pounds and The Food Doctor (Ian Marber). I started to do WATP, exercise biking and changed my diet to Low-GI. I also did a couple of detox diets for a few days to conquer salt/sugar/caffeine issues. By the time the wedding came around, I was wearing a UK size 12 and weighed 144 pounds. A month later, I weighed 140 pounds (my lowest adult weight). Shortly after this, I started to develop a lot of problems in my life...


Late 20s
By my late 20s, I was working... 2 jobs (one night and one day). I was piling on weight and developed a number of severe health issues. I changed jobs to working full time in the day, the weight issues and health problems continued. My weight crept up to 175 again. On and off I tried a number of different things: Slim Fast, Low-GI, exercising (TurboJam, Salsacize, walking a lot/pedometer). Nothing worked. I was always hovering around the same weight plus or minus a few pounds. In 2008, I was becoming increasingly sick. I left work. In 2009, I did some temporary work and by the time I had finished, I had developed something wrong with my metabolism that caused me to gain 14 pounds in 4 weeks despite eating and exercising no differently to normal. In the autumn of 2010, I asked to be referred to a dietitian. I had developed hyperthyroidism as a result of autoimmune thyroid disease and resultingly lost some weight, but I wanted to lose more as I feared developing Insulin Resistance. I joined Calorie Count and lost weight. I got down to 168 pounds. 


Early 30s
I became hypothyroid. My weight was out of control again and leapt back to 175. I desperately tried to calorie count and did random things like a juice fast. None of it worked. By the beginning of 2012, I was at 180.75. No matter how hard I tried to lose weight, I couldn't lose any and just kept gaining. I went onto thyroid medication and decided to re-visit Calorie Count. I started this blog. 

From: http://gmathur.blogspot.com/2011/09/why.html

Summary


I do not think there is any one reason that I became overweight. I believe that my weight issues are due to a mixture of physical and psychological factors. In terms of the physical, my ill health has a direct impact because it has affected my metabolism, hormones and my ability to consistently exercise over a long time period. In terms of the emotional and psychological, I understand and am aware that I have issues with men/sexuality and issues with coping with stress, depression and unhappiness. All these have lead to me comfort eating.

I also think that a lack of consciousness about my eating has been a big factor - so many times I have eaten without consciously thinking about what and how much I was eating. I also did not plan maintenance at all. I just didn't understand or factor in that I needed to continue restricting portions and calorie counting. I hope that having an understanding and awareness of this will help now.


I think I also had a bit of an attitude of: oh well, I am putting on weight now, so I might as well just give up. This lead to me yo-yo-ing. That is not to say that I would not have put on weight, but if I had stayed eating correctly for my height and the right types of foods, when my body finally righted itself, I believe I would have lost weight or at least stabilised. Instead, because I was eating whatever I wanted, I continued to gain weight. Again, I am now more aware of this and will try to keep it in mind.

I am proud of myself for the amount of entries I have written in this blog. I feel that I have a lot of 'stuff' built up inside me, that is slowly coming out. It is also helpful to put things into perspective by writing them down and useful to be able to go back over them at a later date.

Weekly Challenges

My friend set this week's challenges:

1 - One weigh-in this week.
2 - Eat at least 1 serving of fruit per day with some fiber or protein to lower GI.
3 - Get 60 mins of exercise in the week, broken down however you prefer.
4- Take the dog for 2 walks, if the weather allows it. If not, play with her at home.
5 - Write a blog post on why you think you got overweight.

I am not feeling good. I did manage to do #2 today by eating 1 serving of fruit (banana) with multigrain bread (fibre) and peanut butter (protein). The weather is awful, so no walking for me. I am hoping to get in some exercise towards #3 tomorrow; we'll see. As for #5, that will take some thinking!!

Today, I did do one good thing.. I made the dough and sauce for wholewheat pizza. I have put 1 portion of dough and 1 portion of sauce to be frozen, so I can quickly make a pizza another time/day when I don't have time to do it all from scratch. The remaining dough and sauce will be used to make a pizza tomorrow for me and the family. It will be around 12 inches across, so I will have a third of it with some salad. Toppings will be mozzarella and vegetables (probably mushrooms, tomatoes and sweetcorn). Hopefully it will be nice and a little healthier than the usual store-bought pizza we have.

Social Foods & Social Eating

One of the things that becomes apparent when you focus on what and how much you are eating is: the amount of life and socialising that revolves around the intake of some form of food and/or drink. Even if you choose to focus more on going out without involving eating and are a person who likes to go out in the evening/night, you can't get away from the fact that most drinks *alcoholic ones* and many soft ones *unless diet versions* are pure calories.

For me, this realisation feels quite awkward. A lot of the interaction I have with other people is related to eating food. I don't go out much, but when I do, it is normally to have lunch with a friend. If I go shopping or to do chores in town, I would normally have a coffee or tea with my mother and eat a small meal such as a sandwich. These encounters can be incredibly difficult if, like me, you are calorie counting. It is surprising in this day and age how many food outlets do not openly publish nutritional information for their dishes, cakes, drinks etc. Even when you come home and go online, it can be hard or impossible to find this information. I don't want to have to keep asking to see the information and then what... noting it down in a notebook so I can log it when I get home?

Image from: http://cheezburger.com/flair18/lolz/View/111280384

As such, I find myself not really relishing these social occasions, whereas, prior to the calorie counting/logging, I would have looked forward to and enjoyed them. Now I almost seem them as a hassle. My strategy has been to organise no more than one social meeting a week, which I can then schedule to fall on my 'day off' when I eat freely and don't have to log. But it's not always possible to achieve this as some weeks I have more than one meeting or event to go to. So I just try my best to account for what I am having, but it does tend to take the joy out of food.

I find this rather anxiety inducing - yes, anxiety... I find calorie counting and logging can cause me to feel quite anxious. I don't want to do it wrong, to let myself down, to not lose weight because I tripped up... If I am honest, I feel that there is a lot of pressure to achieve my goal. I am not even sure where that comes from as no one else has asked me to or is expecting me to diet. It's more of a generalised thing, an: we all know you would look and feel better if you were slimmer type situation.

This leads me on to my other topic: Social Foods.

Now I mentioned 'Social Foods' a few blog posts ago, and I thought I would share what I mean (and this is just my idea/thoughts/opinion).

I noticed that there are a lot of foods that you can't have when you are dieting/calorie counting/logging/watching your weight/trying to lose weight and that nearly all of them are usually eaten in a shared/group situation.

In my family such foods are:

Biscuits (cookies)
Baked treats (prepared by someone in the family or someone else if I go to their house) - cakes, cookies, bars, etc
Crumble (a fruit pudding)
Pie (of any variety)
Things that go with: cream, ice cream, custard
Chocolates

In other families this list would probably be a little different. It matters not. The point is, there are foods that people want to share with you, but which you pretty much cannot have. The problem with this is not just that you might want to eat them, but that you actually can appear rude or antisocial by not sharing them or having some!


In my case/situation, nearly all these social foods are sweet foods. The reason I can't have them is partly because they are sugary/fatty and partly because my calorie allowance does not give much room for maneuver. That is to say that, if I were to have some of one of those foods, I would not be able to eat my main meals easily (as there would not be enough calories left in my allowance) and I would probably miss out on something healthy like fruit or vegetables, which is nutritionally more valuable.

In general, with savoury fatty/calorific foods such as: roast potatoes, wedges, chips/fries etc., if I cook them I try to make them as healthy as possible (cook them with very little fat) or if someone else cooks them, I will eat a tiny portion to satisfy both myself and the person who spent the time and effort in preparing it. With sweet foods, it is VERY DIFFICULT to do this. I have tried a few times and each time failed. 


I still haven't worked this out... the thing I feel most uncomfortable with is not so much not having the food item, but with not being able to share and participte in a social moment between family and/or friends. I often find myself going off to another room while they eat the particular food I can't have, which can feel rude and is also quite isolating. However, it is equally awkward to sit around people who are eating some delicious/tasty that you can't have. I also wonder how this will work going forward. Assuming I do make my target weight, what then? I can't foresee a way of eating these social foods without regaining all the weight I will have lost. I can't foresee myself going off to another room for the rest of my life. Where's the middle ground? Does anyone know?

From: http://www.zazzle.co.uk/sad_face_sticker-217712888839993310

Current Thoughts

I have been calorie counting for just over 5 weeks now. Time flies when you are having fun... not! In some ways I feel as if I have been doing this much longer. Progress seems slow, even though it's actually not slow, it's average. I guess it seems as if I have to put A LOT more thought and energy into this endeavour than I seem to get out if it.

It is extremely easy for me to put on one pound... yet to lose one is really hard work. Yet, somehow I find it hard to feel that fact when I am eating normally (and by normally I mean not calorie counting). I find that confusing. Why can't the brain take in the fact that every time I go through weight loss, I have to work so, so hard to lose the weight and translate that into warning me to eat carefully and cautiously to avoid any re-gain?

Then there is a sinking feeling when I think about this being my 'forever-life'. I keep coming back to the idea that I will always have to log my calories online and watch what I eat. I can't face the thought of having to go through another serious weight loss attempt (e.g. losing 50, 40, 30 or 20 pounds). I also can't really face the thought of having to live like an anal calorie counter for the rest of my life around a bunch of people who don't have to calorie count! Yes, I resent that fact. So...

Image from: http://fyranyanseravrosa.blogspot.com/2009_11_01_archive.html

This whole 'situation' got me thinking about the following...

Negative Associations With Losing Weight & Calorie Counting

1. Weighing and measuring food
2. Having to prepare nearly all food myself to ensure that I know exactly what goes into each meal, which is exhausting
3. Needing to write everything down - all nutritional information - so I can log it later into the calorie counter
4. Having to come online EVERY DAY to use the calorie counter
5. Not being able to socialise easily because I can't eat social foods (will blog more about social foods another day)
6. Getting mad/frustrated when food does not have nutritional information on it and then I can't find the information online
7. Feeling very controlled and controlling about food
8. Blabbering on about how many calories is in things to other people (I know this drives my family mad)
9. Watching other people eat things I want to eat and knowing I can't have them
10. Knowing that to stay the weight I feel most comfortable, I have to watch every mouthful, yet other people who are 'near and dear' to me don't have to do this - seems unfair and builds resentment
11. Feeling a connection between worth and weight
12. The scales - having to weigh myself and be tied to certain numbers

There are probably more... those are the things I can think of right now that really bother me. I shall most likely update this list at some point.

On my next blog post, I will focus on the positives of losing weight & calorie counting.