Weight Lost So Far

So far, I have lost 2.25 pounds in total. Not bad! I am pleased with that. Intermittent Fasting for weight loss does work - for me. Of course, some people might not be overly happy with a weight loss of 2.25 in two weeks, but for me, this is on a par with what I would lose if I were traditionally calorie counting and logging. The thing I have to point out is that when I add up my calorie logs for my 2 days of fasting, plus my 5 days of eating and divide it by 7 to get a daily average, it works out at around the same as if I were calorie counting/logging the 'traditional' way.

In my measurements, the most notable descreases are an inch off my waist and one off my hips too. I can't wait for my knees and thighs to go down! They are my real problem areas. To be honest, my hips are a problem area because they are notably larger than my waist, so anything off them is always welcome. I just used this waist-to-hip calculator, and it turns out I am:

Result:	Estimated Health Risk:	Estimated Body Shape:
0.80 or below	Low	Pear

I guess it is nice to have at least one result that is favourable, despite still being officially classed as 'overweight'. 

Coming back to Intermittent Fasting - what I am trying to point out (to anyone actually reading this) is that IF is not a quick fix for weightloss. It is not a magic 'melt away the fat' formula. It is not as if you just do the IF days and then can do whatever you like the rest of the time. I find that it is more flexible for me, which is what I wanted from a plan. I also LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the idea that the IF component comes with excellent health benefits.

Talking about flexibility, one of the reasons I struggled last year with calorie counting and logging was the inflexibility of it. I have a goal of around 1200-1400 calories per day. I tend to be able to eat 1200 to 1300 while being fairly sedentary and 1400 when I am doing more physical activity, and lose. Those numbers do not allow for having a cake when you are out, for going to a friend's house and having whatever they have cooked for dinner or are offering you for afternoon tea, or for visiting a restaurant and having what you want, rather than what you are 'forced' to have (to fit in with the 'diet'). With IF, it is possible to do those things on your regular non-IF days. In my case I have worked out that I still need to keep an eye on what I am eating overall. I have to aim for my average calories across the 7 day period of Monday to Sunday to be between the 1200-1400.

For that reason, I am still logging, because I know that I need to; I need to be held accountable for what I am eating. I come back, on that note, to my posts last year where I wondered if I would have to log for the rest of my life. Maybe I will. It seems that every time I lose weight successfully, I put it back on once I stop logging. I know partly this is because my thyroid problems are still not resolved/optimal, but there is still the fact that I am consuming more than I am burning and I put weight on. Since I got a Nexus 7 tablet, I have found it a lot easier to track my calories because I have the My Fitness Pal android app. I really recommend using a calorie counting app if you struggle to maintain your desired weight or if you are trying to lose weight. After a little while you get use to using it and logging becomes a habit. I don't find it straining like I did when I had to log onto the laptop every day.

Another aspect relating to logging and Intermittent Fasting is that I have noticed you can be a little more relaxed when logging calories when doing IF. That's not to say you cheat, but when I have been losing weight purely through calorie counting and logging, I have had to weigh all my food. Doing that definitely gets old FAST, but it is also the most effective way of doing that weight loss method. I hated having to do that all the time, plus when you go out, it's almost impossible to do it properly. Now on IF protocol, I will weigh things I know are easy to get wrong - cereal, occasionally fruit, and sometimes potatoes/rice/pasta. Generally, however, I am guessing and approximating, and I seem to be doing okay because I am losing what I would expect to lose if I were calorie counting and weighing it all out. Not having to weigh every single item is a massive bonus, that I really appreciate.

This blog is real...

So I could lie and pretend all was well in the weight loss department.

The truth - Nope...

This is HARD. When I started my next phase, I forgot that this weekend (just gone) was a holiday that went on for 4 days. Holiday = holiday food. The result is more like this:

I am enjoying being honest. I have a diet buddy who I share my successes and failures with. I have found it cathartic to be honest with her when I am going wrong... e.g. yesterday when I ate 2 ice creams and today when I ate a cream cake. I have had so much guilt and shame over eating things I shouldn't in the past, that I have found being open about it when I am eating so-called bad foods (they are not bad, they are foods that are treats and should not constitute the largest part of your diet if you want to get all your nutrients) to be novel and take away some of those shameful feelings that I am bad, wrong, failing...

I went out today and bought a lot of fruit and vegetables. I am going to make some fresh juice tomorrow and on Thursday I hope to make a nice soup and have more juice... flush my system with some vitamins and minerals and get back on the wagon.

If anyone ever reads this blog, especially if the person reading is a person who has struggled with their weight, I want them to see reality... that this is hard, that it's not an automatic thing - e.g. you start 'dieting' and lose weight and this continues till you hit your target weight... some people do manage that and some people don't. If I wrote how amazing I was doing and there were no slip-ups or hard patches, I don't think I would really be dealing with my 'food issues'.

Anyway, I am still of the mindset that if I could get back to exercising it would definitely help offset where I am slipping up with my food. I have decided I am also going to focus on this. Anything is better than nothing right?

Gained

Weighed myself this morning and the scale says I have gained 0.75 of a pound. Hmmmmm. Part of me hopes that it's water weight. Part of me thinks: this is what you get when you don't consistently log for 2 weeks.


So, in the spirit of my last post... I have definitely learned my lesson!


Anyway, in good news, today marks the 4th day of 'Back on the Wagon' with the logging and eating 100% right. I want to think that I will get there in the end even if I do hit some bumps in the road, but that can be a hard thought to believe. After this 2 week experiement, I am also even more majorly concerned about the maintenance stage (will talk about that another time) than I was before.

I do feel I need to switch my exercise up again and find some motivation there. I feel incredibly exhausted at the moment and I have been waking up every day with a headache. I have allergies that start about March and run through till maybe October or November. It's a battle to get them under control and right now they are barely under any semblance of control. Of course this impacts my exercise regime because there are some things that one really does not feel like doing when one has sinusitis

Here's my plan for the week - instead of challenges:

Log every day
No free day
Chart my weight daily to see what's going on!
As much exercise as I can manage

We'll see how that goes.

Day Late

I weighed myself this morning (instead of yesterday morning) as I didn't have time yesterday because I was going out. I lost 1/2 a pound. All that effort to lose half a pound!! I am a bit swollen, so I wonder if I may have lost more, but it's not showing up on the scale. Hmmmm...

Anyway, I realised that I am incredibly tired. I woke up, and because I went out yesterday to the 'big smoke', I am now physically paying for it in the form of increased exhaustion and muscle pain. Despite having lived with debilitating chronic illness for years, I am still amazed by my own body's reaction to something normal like going out for the day or even a couple of hours at the shops. The problem with this reaction is that it means I am only good at CCing and exercising when I pretty much don't go out of the house. I am going to do my uptmost to keep up with it this week, but I am going to lay off the intense exercise and focus on walking my dog and perhaps doing some light stretching or weight work.

In it for the long haul... & Yoga

Today I woke up and realised:

a. this is a long and slow process
b. I am in it for the long haul

As the weeks tick by, it's easy to forget where you started off when trying to make long-term changes to your diet and/or exercise regimen (or even instil an exercise regime in the first place!). On Monday it will have been 9 weeks since I started this journey and to be honest it's hard to gauge results. What I mean by this is that, yes I have lost X amount of quantifiable pounds, yet it's hard to remember how I looked and how things fitted me 9 weeks ago.  As a result, translating weight loss into changes in my body is hard. I have kept measurements and I hope these help me to see where I am losing. The good news is that yesterday I was able to wear a pair of pants that I had not been able to wear for a long time due to weight gain.

So today marked the last day for doing the challenges. I have managed to do all of them except the fruit one. I finished the last 2 by playing fetch with my dog and doing 50 minutes of the new yoga DVD. The yoga is a little mixed; some of it seems reasonably easy and other bits are super hard. The standing poses are quite challenging due to the mixture of balance, strength and flexibility. I am hoping to do this yoga practice weekly for a while before increasing to perhaps 2 times a week because I really want to keep up my cardio and strength training too. I am pretty tired from all this working out.

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.

On Track...

I have been doing the calorie counting lark for 8 weeks now. I worked out that I have lost 12.25 pounds in this time period, making my loss an average of: 1.5 pounds a week. I am really happy with that; it's comfortable and sort of average. I reckon this will become 0.5 to 1 pound a week once I get nearer my ultimate goal area of 130-140. I realised that I currently have 3.5 more pounds to lose before I meet my first mini-goal of 165. I am hoping to meet this by the end of March (so in 3 to 4 weeks). This will be the lightest weight I have been since maybe 2006 or 2007. Exciting!

Image from: http://www.rightot.blogspot.com/

Anyway, this week, I honestly didn't think I had lost anything as I can't really 'see' where I have lost. On other weeks (aside from TTOTM) I have been able to clearly see where it's coming off and have a little confidence about stepping on the scale. So now I guess my body has decided to lose from less obvious areas. Like a lot of people, I have a specific pattern of loss that I always seem to follow no matter how big I am or what 'diet' I am following. I seem to lose somewhat like this: waist & knees, then jaw/face,  then bust/clavicles, then tummy/pelvis, then hips & thighs, then arms & calves... So at the moment, the waist has stopped losing. I am hoping that now my hips/thighs decide to catch up a bit!! It's kinda weird that I lose on my face before my hips! Most people say their face/jaw is the last thing to lose.


In other news, now we are in March I am turning my thoughts to my goal...

Artwork - My plan is that I will start sketching out a painting this week. Will update on that as and when.

Researching hat making - I am going to look for patterns.

The Shocking Statistic

As an avid reader of Dances With Fat (http://danceswithfat.wordpress.com/), I became aware of the statistic:

95% of overweight or obese people who successfully lose weight will have gained it back within 5 years. This means that only 5% of people who lose weight actually maintain that weight loss in the long-term.

I think this is pretty SHOCKING. Not only do people gain it back, but they frequently gain more weight than they lost.

For me, it rings true - I have lost and gained significant amounts of weight in the last 11 years, although I am pleased to say I have never gained back more than my highest weight - in fact I haven't even gotten back to my highest weight in those 11 years. Of course I don't know what the reality would be for me had I never gotten sick (as my weight issues started after I got sick) or if I had never had metabolic issues. Maybe I would never have had a weight problem? Who knows? Anyway, the reality is, I have yo-yo-ed.

So, I came across the the Dances with Fat blog and started looking into the whole HAEs  (Health at Every Size) movement about 3 or 4 months before I decided to go back to calorie counting and logging. Some might think it a strange decision - it probably is! - based upon the fact I knew about this statistic and possibly might have viewed my current efforts as pretty futile in the fight against my flab.

However, I do feel I am going into this process with my eyes wide open. Now I know the statistic, I am aware that I probably will have to consciously note my food intake in the long-term in order to maintain any loss. For a while this depressed me as I felt that it was a pretty sh!t state of affairs (let's be frank here) and acutally unfair (I suppose I felt resentful against all those people who don't have to do this). No matter what anyone else thinks, I am not physically comfortable at a bigger weight - not so much because of what other people might think, but because I find it uncomfortable in terms of actually moving around due to where the majority of my fat settles. It's a hinderance!

So although I blabber on about calories and logging and all that jazz, I am trying to focus on eating healthy, wholesome foods (which has always been my goal) and on getting fitter and stronger through targetted exercise and dog walking. In doing so, I am giving my body the best and most needed nutrients I can, and helping it to work optimally for me.

To a reasonable extent I understand the theory behind the HAEs message. I am walking proof that while I might not be well, even at my biggest I didn't have type 2 diabetes or high blood pressure or insulin resistance/syndrome X or high cholesterol. So I was obese, but did not have any of the things we (as a society) are told an obese person will have. I do think that there is a massive amount of scare mongering out there. The ridiculous thing is, I know at least 2 people who have issues with high blood pressure or high cholesterol who are what the medical profession would consider a 'healthy' weight!


During the time period where I have been obese and heavily overweight, I have had the scare mongering tactics thrown at me - these doctors were convinced I would have insulin resistance, high cholesterol, high blood pressure... the works! Why? Because I was bigger! Yet, there could be (and clearly are) people of normal weight who have those issues, but they are potentially not flagged up because they don't look like they might have them. So it's bad for both parties - the so-called healthy weight individuals and the overweight/obese individuals; if you are big, you are assumed to be some kind of ticking timebomb and if you are not big, you are assumed to be fine, even if you are not!


The Dances with Fat blog and the HAEs message have definitely helped me to have a different perspective on my weight, my approach to it and my eating. However, most importantly, they have helped me to cut through the cr*p that we are fed by the drug companies, the medical profession, the diet industry and thin-nist people. So many of my own beliefs around eating, health, diet, size, fatness, self-worth and obesity stemmed from these channels and were completely unfounded (not grounded in any science or logic). 


P.S. If you read the Dances with Fat blog, check out the comments to each post  - they are enlightening!

Weight Loss Update & Weekly Challenges

Weight loss update - so I weigh now each week on a Sunday and I aim to weigh no more than once a week. My weight loss continues to be slow and steady. I am on target to meet my first major goal, which is to reach 130, sometime around October. Whether I do or not depends on whether I can keep my body in this current state of loss. I am calorie cycling (naturally I guess) between 1,200 to 1,400 on counting days and on my day off, I am probably reaching anywhere from 1,700 to 2,000 (in the maintenance range).

Thoughts -

• I am pleased that I am losing and that I am able to have a 6 day counting/1 day off schedule. This works well for me. I have managed before to not do a 'day off', but I think this time around I would struggle with that, as I do tend to go out with family or friends once a week, and it is so much more difficult and complicated to eat at those times and stay in count. It actually takes away the enjoyment for me, so I would rather have the day off and a rest from counting.
• I am conscious that this week just gone has been a poor week in terms of exercise for me. I did exercise and I met my challenge goal of 3 sessions of at least 15 minutes or more, but looking at my log I can see that if I do more intense exercise, the net calories would be greater or else to achieve the same type of net calories, I need to eat less, which I don't really want to do. This week just gone was TTOTM, so I think I am just going to have to accept that one week every so often will be a less intense exercise week (which is not a bad thing!), as I really can't be doing crazy exercise like TurboJam when I am having my lady issues.

Weekly Challenges

This week are as follows:

1. Weigh-in no more than twice this week (to check fluid issues due to TTOTM)
2. Exercise at least 3 x 20 minutes
3. Blog at least 4 entries
4. Write 5 goals for the next 5 months (should write 1 goal for each month - things you want to change, or to do etc)
5. Eat a portion of fruit or veg at EVERY meal on 5 out of 7 days 

Re: #5 - I am going to try increasing veg and fruits but without messing around calories... so veggie sticks will be my friend and swapping some snacks back to fruit

The 'Starting Not To Care' Stage

I realised today that I am entering the 'starting not to care' stage of dieting and calorie counting. It generally hits about 6 to 8 weeks in and as I am officially 6 weeks in this week, I guess this is rather timely!

Anyway this phase sees you going from total obsessive to slightly more relaxed, but... BUT... it is dangerous territory in my opinion. This is the make or break point.

Firstly - you arrive at this point because you start to get used to the new routine and eating structure. Your mind is no longing rebelling at every opportunity and instead seems to reach a kind of resigned approach: you're in this for the long haul.

Secondly - you keep eating the same things, so in the end you begin to know what you can and can't have. By the 6-8 week mark you have had quite a bit of practice at weighing and measuring, and calculating and logging. It's time to let go and release the reins a bit.

Thirdly - if you stay in the anxious, hyper aware, obsessive stage forever, you will become completely exhausted and/or risk developing some kind of eating problem...

So, the starting not to care stage sees me:

• Not measuring quite so much (for example, I am not weighing my bread after I slice it)
• Not logging after each meal (for example, I may allow two meals to go by before I start to log online, so I am beginning to work out how much I can have before I actually log it to find out if I am right or not)

The point of this is that: a. it happens naturally and b. you need to start to learn to judge for yourself and, more importantly, trust your own judgement. When you have quite a bit of weight to lose, you can find yourself at a point where you don't trust your own judgement (after all, possibly part of the reason you find yourself needing to lose weight is because you have a tendency to eat too much or whatever). Then when you are measuring and calculating and logging everything like a frantic nutter, you develop the actual 'need' to do those activities to reassure yourself that you are actually doing it right. Due to these reasons, I think it is good to slacken off a little... see how it goes. You can give yourself a little challenge of maybe a couple of weeks of more relaxed calorie counting before you judge whether you have learnt enough to be able to work this way and still lose weight...

That's the theory anyway!

I am now going to try and put this all into practice. As I said at the beginning, I am naturally finding myself at this stage. It feels instinctive, so I am going with it and will see what happens. I do think I need to give myself the mental space to go through this stage and see if it works and whether I can then continue on as I am doing. Otherwise, it's back to the drawing board and probably more measuring and weighing. Of course I feel a little "hmmm" about the prospect that it might not work and I may stay static or gain. I don't think I will gain to be honest... more likely stay static, but if I can keep my exercise up and am hopefully eating the right amounts, then I don't see why I should not lose as I have already been doing.

Dreaming...

One of the things which a change in diet and lifestyle can do to you is it can make you a bit of a dreamer. Well this certainly seems to be the case for me! Since I have started to successfully lose weight and drop some inches, I have started to become interested in the idea of clothes again. Good for me style-wise, bad for my wallet!

To be honest, when I am bigger, I am just not interested in clothes at all. I have somewhere between an hour-glass and pear-shaped figure (big bust, small waist, big hips). When I am heavier, these features are more pronounced/exaggerated, so my hips are very large compared to my waist. It's not an easy figure to dress because of the hips and the bust. Dresses are a no-no. Trousers/pants are hard because, if the hips fit me, the waist is always way too big for me. Even tops are complicated because they need to be small on the shoulders, but big on the hips - n.b. most tops are not like this.

When I finally get to a certain point in weight loss and firming my body up, I start to be more in proportion. This means I can wear a wider range of clothes styles and find things that will fit me much easier on the High Street. My biggest pleasure of late is dreamily looking at catalogues and interestedly thinking about which items of clothing I could possibly start to fit within the next 6 months. 

It's interesting because the feelings inside me are so much different when I am actively working on losing weight, firming up and getting fitter. If I were not doing this, I would normally look at the catalogues that come through the door half heartedly, skipping through the pages and noting all the things I couldn't attempt wearing. After which, I would go through looking at the things I could wear, which would typically be not that much, and then spend ages wondering if it was worth buying anything because chances are it wouldn't fit in one area and would be too big in another (the curse of the out-of-proportion body).

So shopping as the bigger me becomes about covering the body and finding something to wear rather than being about what I would like to try wearing. Whereas, shopping as the smaller me becomes about trying different styles, different colours and textures and wearing what I want to, rather than just what will fit me and not look hideous.

Better start saving those pennies up!

My Day Off & TTOTM *That Time of The Month*

Yesterday was my day off... that is the 1 day in every 7 where I can be a little free-er in my eating. I can eat what I want.

The premise behind this is that:

• I will learn to control myself around food
• I will learn how much I can eat without gaining
• I will learn to not be reactive (and reactively eat)
• I will not plateau on my diet because I am not always eating the same amount of calories and same type of foods
• I will not feel deprived

So far, so good, until yesterday...

And I don't know if it's because I am now nearly at week 6 of calorie counting (week 6 will begin on 20th February) or whether it's because it's TTOTM and I am PMSing, but I felt out of control for the first time. I actually felt a combination of: a. eating too much (even though looking back it was not that bad) and b. knowing I was eating more than I should but still eating it!

The latter concerns me more than the former, not because I am not worried about eating too much, but because I feel that point B is something that needs to be dealt with, as it's probably what causes me to gain weight more than just the intake of too much food. Not being able to stop or control myself when I know I should is really not a helpful state to find myself in, as if I could stop myself eating when I am full or don't need the extra calories, I wouldn't be eating too much in the first place.

I can see this whole process being a long-haul right now. Nearly 6 weeks in and I am thinking I am making progress, but then I get stalled by this. I am not really sure if I was feeling deprived and PMSing or whether I was having some form of 'diet rebellion' or what. Maybe I will never know!

I have no idea who this baby is, but baby looks like I felt... fed up!

Image taken from: http://freejokesfunny.com/417/babies/16355/baby-sigh.html

Despite feeling like I had a slip-up, I still think the free day is very important. The reason I think it is very important mainly stems from the fact that when I go into maintenance in the future, I need some foundation and building blocks to build that state from. It's unrealistic to expect someone who has been dieting for 6, 7, 8 months or more to suddenly just go back to eating what they want and not gain any weight back. If you have not allowed yourself some freedom and some treats, how can you learn how to eat in a more 'normal', less restrictive and possibly socially more acceptable way? For me, this is a learning curve and instead of being frustrated, disappointed and guilty (which are natural feelings I want to have) about yesterday, I instead am trying to focus on this as a lesson in life.

The good news is that today I have been straight back on target. I amazed myself with my ability to pick myself up and get straight back down to business! I had a healthy, fibre-filled breakfast, went for a walk in the sunshine and then came back and prepared a 'healthy' Sunday roast dinner, which included my low-fat roast potatoes (recipe below).

Weigh-Forward's Calorie Counting Roast Potatoes

Ingredients:
Sunflower or Vegetable Oil
Potatoes (King Edwards, Rooster, Desiree are good for this)

Method:

1. Heat the oven to 200 C or 400 F
2. Peel as many potatoes as you need (for those calorie counting, I use between 100 to 150 grams each or 3.5 to 5 ounces each)
3. Cut the potatoes into chunks, as desired
4. Place the potatoes in a pan of cold water and bring to the boil
5. Simmer for no more than 5 minutes
6. Drain the potatoes into a colander and then shake them a little to roughen up the edges
7. Get a large roasting pan, take 1 tbsp of oil and pour it into the pan
8. Take a pastry or silicone brush and brush the oil over the base of the pan so that it is totally coated
9. Toss the par-boiled potatoes into the pan and spread them out so they are an even, single layer
10. Place the pan into the oven and cook for 15 minutes
11. Remove the pan, turn the potatoes over to brown each side and return to the oven for a further 15 minutes
12. Repeat step 11 once more before leaving in the oven for a final 15 minutes
13. Total cooking time should be approx. 1 hour
14. Serve with roasted meat, fish or vegetarian fare and plenty of freshly cooked vegetables

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?

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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

Positive Associations With Losing Weight & Calorie Counting

I have a feeling this list might not be so long... we'll see...

Positive Associations With Losing Weight & Calorie Counting

1. I appreciate more what I am putting into my body - nutritional value etc
   
2. I know I am doing all I can to regulate my weight and be healthy
3. It encourages me to do exercise
4. I feel physically more comfortable when I am a smaller size
5. Easier to buy clothes
6. My body becomes less out of proportion
7. I am physically able to do things easier (I think) when I am fitter (from exercise) and less 'body' is in the way  (e.g. bending down)
8. I may feel more attractive/sexy (not sure, we will see about this)

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...

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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.

The Lowdown...

I am trying to lose b/w 30-40 pounds. I want this to be the last time I go through this weight loss - I have had several goes before and successfully lost but through a combination of not knowing how to maintain and health problems that mess with my metabolism, I keep gaining some of it back.

I have health issues - affects my metabolism & my ability to exercise.

My approach at the moment is to aim for 1,400 calories a day. I am tending to vary between 1,200 to 1,400. I also have one 'free day' a week where I allow myself to eat what I want.

I am slowly integrating myself back into exercise.

Here's my stats:

5'5, age 31, female

SW (this time - 9 Jan): 180.75

CW: 172.5

GW: b/w 130 to 140