Mum
told me that the weight would drop off like butter once I got to
South Africa due to the heat. I'm sad to say that isn't true. I
started out cutting out carbs, then continued there on with the Dukan
Diet and having quite a bit of success and then Christmas came. Yes
Christmas and I couldn't stop the need for cake. Am I the only one
who has trouble with stuff, it's amazing how much brain room is
necessary for remembering what not to eat. I know it's dull for a
girl to start a blog entry talking about diets. However what amazes
me is that there are so many websites out there trying their best to
rip you off and/or recommending dieting pills which aren't much
better than speed. Having a brain I didn't think speed was the
answer. Then I was filled with the fear of becoming a yo-yo dieter
which seemed like an evil condition similar to being addicted to
smack.
The
main problem was that there was nothing particularly out of whack
with my diet. Most meals were made from scratch, so no added
preservatives only fresh ingredients and local, organic and free
range when I can manage it. I barely add salt there is virtually no
sugar except when eating things that were obviously sweet like cake.
For the most part eating take-away like fish and chips is a once a
week event maybe followed with a cheeky can of coke. Pasties happened
about twice week. There is a once a month drinking session. My
biggest sin if you can call it that is one chai latte a day with one
and a half sugars.
The
main cause of me putting on weight was a severe bout of anxiety that
lasted about 18 months which prevented me from being as active as I
had been. I stopped going out to see friends as much and exercising.
Prior to this I walked and cycled to get where I was going. I was
still easily walking a couple of miles a day though. The weight just
piled on. I have no idea how much as prior to this my weight had
never really been a problem but I reckon I gained 6 kilos which is
just over 13lbs. I only really began to notice when I couldn't fit
into my clothes. I have to say that is one of my main motivators to
loose weight. I mean who wants to buy a whole new wardrobe so that
you can sit on the bus and feel your belly wobble in style. I know 6
kilos (13lbs) doesn't sound like a lot especially when you watch some
programmes where we observe people who are stones over weight and
manage to drop stones in short spaces of time. On another note I
think these programmes are very dangerous as they lull us into a
false sense of security where we can sit on the couch and say “Well
I know I'm overweight but it's not that bad”. Besides (13lbs) is
just under a stone. So if we assume I didn't have the physique of a
professional athlete prior to the weight gain we have to predict that
I am now carrying around an extra stone in fat that I don't need. I
don't know about you but that is 1 stone to many. Once I felt the
situation had got sufficiently bad enough i.e. I couldn't fit into my
clothes I decided to go and visit the practice nurse in order to get
accurately weighed. That's because I didn't own a set of scales. When
the practice nurse saw me she was a little surprised, “We normally
see people that are a little bit bigger” trying not to upset
anyone. So she weighed me, you'll probably be shocked to find out I
was 59.3 kilos (9 st 6lbs), let me put that into perspective for you
I'm 156cm (5ft 1in) and although the situation wasn't severe, on
closer inspection I was at the upper end of the healthy Body Mass
Index scale of 24.5 I left that appointment determined not to slide
into the overweight category.
I
went for that appointment at the end of May last year. I threw myself
into the Dukan Diet having borrowed the book from a friend. Went out
bought lots of steak and crab-sticks and got cracking. I think I
managed to stick at it for about two weeks and in that time lost
about two kilos. However I just found the whole thing too restrictive
and kept on getting confused between the alternating protein and
allowed carbs days in the cruise phase. I rapidly went back to my own
regular diet and put it all back on again plus some.
In
the meantime I ask advice from friends, some who were virtually
carbohydrate free due to health conditions, others who had chosen to
loose weight by altering the way they ate carbs like not combining
carbs and protein in any meal, while others were loosing weight via
dieting groups like slimming world, all had been successful for them.
The biggest problem here was that in order to get the right
information I either had to buy a plethora of books or get banded
about a variety of slimming websites that conveyed conflicting
information. I got very very confused and disheartened and calorie
counting seemed like a perfect fail to someone who finds counting of
any kind difficult. I also don't believe that I should have to pay
for this kind of information as it is for the betterment of my
health. In hindsight buying all that steak was quite a hefty
investment that didn't pay off. I also took an interest in the Atkins
Diet as I loved cheese and decided it wasn't worth the risk. In the
meantime trying to maintain some kind of effort I was sporadically
cutting out carbs and for the first time saying the words “I am on
a diet”. These days I think those words sprout alarm in most
listeners and friends expressed concern. They told horror stories of
friends they had known on everything form The Grapefruit Diet to The
Soup Diet, how they lost all the weight and put it all on again. By
the end of the diets these girls were starving and clearly a little
emotionally unbalanced to get that obsessed about weight in the first
place. All I wanted to do was stay in the clothes that I had.
Luckily I had a friend going through the same problem who was working
in conservation walking miles everyday tracking Corn Buntings and
still putting on weight. We tried running a bit, experimented with
gyms, and learned that growing older gave us the confidence to do
bench presses on picnic tables without really caring that boy racers
were watching us. We also pondered if being that wee bit older was
influencing our weight gain.
At
the end of November I moved to South Africa (which might explain the
bout of anxiety) and by the time I got here I was just under 62 kilos
at 61 kilos I became officially overweight. Life here is very
different I haven't been able to adapt to the heat enough in order to
walk any real distance and I now drive everywhere. I was swimming 25
lengths every couple of days but still no significant weight loss and
by significant I mean over a kilo (3lbs). Though that kilo has stayed
off for the moment. I tried simply cutting out carbs and attempted
the Dukon Diet again with the same results, also bringing about the
question; Is aspartame really good for you? I've come to the
conclusion the answer is no. I also found it alarming that my true
weight was calculated at 49.72 kilos (7st 11lbs). Which meant that
the weight I was at 15 was actually correct.
To
my horror my partner accidently lost 4 kilos in two weeks when he
returned to playing football after Christmas. He put my stagnating
weight down to a lack of exercise. I have never described myself as
bookish before. However it has to be said that sport is just not my
thing. I like to be active. I like walking places or cycling to the
shops but the idea of paying six quid to crunch you abs or play some
pointless sport is beyond me. If I find the activity either
therapeutic or exhilarating and meaningful then that's a different
story.
I
was becoming concerned that I had fallen into the trap of becoming a
yo-yo dieter being passive about my weight when I felt confident and
then going all out when it occurred to me that I might have to go out
and by a size 14 dress for some event I was going to. At this point I
can feel you all rolling your eyes and saying “Get a grip of
yourself, a size 14 what are you worrying about”. Just to be clear
I simply don't feel comfortable with my weight. I've never had rolls
of fat before or had to be careful about the dresses I wore in order
to hide lumps and bumps. My partner is very supportive and
reassuring. I just don't like that sometimes I rolled onto my back
and their is a layer of flab trapped underneath my shoulder blade or
that I can feel my belly wobble if I jump up and down. I didn't want
my weight gain to get any worse.
About
six weeks ago I conceded and decided to call a truce with myself
because despite all my efforts over the last few months I'd forgotten
to acknowledge something really rather important. I had not gained
weight. So whatever I was doing was enough. For the most part I just
find dieting confusing. What you can eat? When you can eat it? What
food combinations to try? I don't like salad, even living in a hot
country. I want controlling my weight and therefor diet to be simple
and uninhibiting.
Last
year the BBC put out a Horizon documentary called Eat, Fast and live
longer presented By Doctor Michael Mosley at the time I found it's
findings on fasting interesting but felt the eating extremes people
went to to live longer both extreme and weird. By the time I'd got to
the end of it I considered Dr Mosley's more balanced approach still a
bit to much for me to be able to handle. Never mind that it brought
back images of desperate teenage girls who weren't fat fainting in
class. About a month ago I tried to revisit the documentary to see if
I could gain anymore insight from it as I hadn't completely dismissed
fasting. Being in South Africa I couldn't watch it on BBC iplayer, I
don't think it is available to view anymore but managed to find the
information that I needed in a review of the show in The Guardian.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2012/aug/06/eat-fast-and-live-longer.
Dr
Mosley's diet recommended fasting two days a week, by reducing your
calorie intake to 500 calories if you were a woman and 600 calories
if you were a man. I can only assume for transexuals it would be 550?
That is all that is required. Seemed like an easy deal to me.
I
decided to give it a go on the basis that it wasn't costing me
anything. All I needed to do was restrict my food intake a couple of
days a week. For convenience I actually decided to put the two days
together so I fast on Mondays and Tuesday as they are my least active
days. The first two days were pretty difficult and used fluids to
stave my hunger and still do. Clearly they are low calorie fluids
such as tea and water. I don't drink a lot caffeine but I think if
you wanted to loose weight quickly or if have to keep your energy for
a busy work day it would give you the edge. Using the fluids to
stave hunger makes it pretty easy. I start fasting tomorrow again and
I'm not even slightly dreading it. I think the whole process sharpens
my senses.
I
don't have a strict routine which is why I found it difficult to diet
in the first place. I eat when I am hungry which could be anytime.
I've found this website really helpful http://caloriecount.about.com/
because I can check if what I am eating is within the limits of 500
calories as prior I didn't have a clue about calorie counting. To be
honest I'm not sure that I even stick within the 500 calories as I
still drink tea with milk or might have a biscuit as well. I mean if
I wanted to have cake as the whole 500 I would. The main thing is
that my calories are still dramatically reduced. I'm finding ways of
breaking up the limited calories like hard boiled eggs. They are
really easy to transport (if you keep then in their shell). Mainly
though I start the morning with plain yoghurt, seeds and honey with a
sprinkling of barley grass powder. Which works out at around 300
calories. I reckon that's got enough nutritional value and flavour
for anybody to start the day without feeling cheated.
So
I've been fasting now for four weeks and start the fifth week
tomorrow. The fasting is working my weight now varies from 57 kilos
on Wednesday morning going back up to 59 kilos on a Sunday night. And
each week the starting weight drops slightly. I'm lightest in the
morning and this morning still weighed in at 58 kilos. I like how it
works because you intrinsically know that the weight isn't going to
go constantly down and so there isn't the pressure of watching the
weight drop off, it feels very gradual and therefor more healthy and
less intrusive. Your whole life balance which isn't being thrown into
turmoil. Another benefit is that when you tell people that you are
fasting there is virtually no reaction maybe it's because they think
it's part of a religious practice. Either way it prevents the worried
looks.
Many
of the people who know me might find it a little odd that I am
writing about this and possibly completely out of character as weight
loss genuinely wouldn't be something I was normally concerned about,
much less because I can still fit into size 12 jeans. However after
having experienced this period of weight gain I now realise how
distressing it can be and how hard it is to get it back under
control. Not only that how crazy the whole diet industry is. That it
won't give you basic dietary information with out paying ridiculous
amounts of money or having to sit through a 15minute infomercial.
Then having to navigate conflicting information and magical formulas
promoted by friends. Also that a medical professional might quire you
concern as you are not obese but yet, though you know you are well on
the way. Which is probably more of a reflection on the nations health
rather than my own. Despite that the NHS website is probably the best
for balanced information.
It
is also worrying that we seemed to have created such a stigma within
our society about dieting combined with trying to raise awareness of
the idea of 'big is beautiful', that we forget, it is actually OK
for someone not to be comfortable with their weight and want to do
something about it, without the need to develop an eating disorder.
The term yo-yo dieter isn't going to help ether. If you go on a diet
more than once does that mean you've become emotionally destructive
towards yourself. No it just means you want to loose weight and find
it hard keeping it off. The basic science is you gain weight by
either over eating or under exercising or a combination of both. I
was over eating for my reduced exercise. It is my choice that I would
now rather under eat than over exercise to reduce my weight and
hopefully maintain it.
It's
been 10 months since I first decided to do something about my weight
it has taken me this long to find a solution that I might be able to
live with long enough to get the weight down. Since that day in May I
gained 2 ½ kilos despite my efforts and though you could say I've
lost 4 kilos I'm only 1 ½ kilos below where I started. I still see
rolls of fat that can only be measured by the depth of creases in my
skin. I can still fit into the clothes I started out with,well the
ones that weren't culled on the way to South Africa. The main point
is that it takes time to figure out what does and doesn't work for
you. Don't be disheartened I believe the answers are out there.
Dr
Mosley has written a book called The Fast Diet if you are interested
to find out more. Though I don't believe you need it to get started.
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