have a really really good think about my attitude to food, weight, and body image, and create healthier thought patterns around these issues

When I was slim(mer) I was having shitloads of fun. I was satisfied with my life. It wasn’t cos I was slim(mer), the slimness was a byproduct of it.

Right now I’m not having shitloads of fun. I’m stressed and busy and tired, and I have performance envy. I’m not doing what I want to do with my time on this planet. I am singularly disillusioned with (some parts of) my life. And hence I am fat.

What can I do to bring the fun and excitement back into my life without endangering the parts of it that I love and hold precious to me?

Fuck, that’s scary.

I don’t know why I have such a hard time doing so. I just hate the act of it… well also I’m just dumb about food and my weight.
But I know this needs to change I’m always weak and sick and I don’t want this to turn into permanent health damage later on.

I need to come up with a plan.

A few weeks ago, I went to see the doctor. He referred me to the nurse, who took some bloods to see if there is any physical reason for my constant exhaustion and low mood (there isn’t, by the way, it’s moderate depression, which is either good or bad news depending on how you look at it). While I was there, she took my blood pressure (perfect) and then uttered the words every chubster dreads – “Could you just hop on the scales for me there?” (Why is it always “hop”? Does anyone ever literally hop onto the scale, and wouldn’t that very ability suggest that they don’t need to worry about their weight anyway?)

::GASSSSSP!!!!!!::

Oh my effing god, I am not kidding, I think I inhaled every molecule of air in that office. In the last two years I have – confession time – packed on three stone. That’s 42 pounds, non-stoners. That’s 19kg, metric people. Astonishingly, especially considering my reason for being at the doctor’s in the first place, it didn’t plunge me into a deep depression and a bag of Babybels. Nope, I actually laughed. A lot. I walked to my car and sat in it laughing, I rang Headapollo (who didn’t answer) and giggled into his voicemail. I may have actually been in shock, but I’m grateful because it saved me from feeling really fucking shitty about myself.

And I’m grateful to know the truth. Because I am currently the heaviest I can remember being (bearing in mind that I’ve been dodging the scales my whole life) and my health is now at risk. Eeeep! Jeeeesus, no wonder I’m so knackered, no wonder my knees hurt, no wonder my clothes don’t fit, no wonder running is an effort etc etc. Suddenly, it all seems very very clear. Frighteningly clear. I have to sort this out now, and especially if I’m intending on becoming a mum in the next couple of years, cos I don’t want the fertility problems of the obese and I don’t want to be too tired and fat to play with my child. Talk about an away-from motivation.

So. It was (and is) time to put some of what I’ve read and learned over the past couple of years into practice. Handily, I’d recently attended a beginner’s EFT (“tapping”) training and was blown away by how effectively it worked. I’ve used it before, but a little practical training goes a long way. I decided that as an experiment for a week, I was going to tune into my hunger levels and really obey them, eating what my body told me to eat, and when. Any time I wanted to eat but wasn’t at least a 4 on the hunger scale I would use EFT tapping or another NLP technique called spinning to quell the urge. To make friends with my body so that I can start to imagine feeling good about it (and so that it will behave the way I want it to) I spent a minute in front of the mirror sending every part in turn accepting and loving thoughts each morning when I climbed out of bed. I chewed every mouthful many many times, putting my knife and fork down between bites, and after every bite I reassessed my hunger, saying to myself “If I eat another bite, is it just greed?” To train myself into knowing my own portion sizes, not letting the plate dictate, I started leaving something on my plate at every meal, even if I just threw the crusts away from my sandwich.

I’ll not pretend it was easy, nor that I was “perfect” all week long. Sometimes I honestly forgot what I was doing, and mindlessly stuffed food in my mouth when I was cooking. Sometimes I deliberately forgot and did the same. Breaking longstanding habits felt clunky and weird, and ascertaining fullness and leaving food on the plate felt freakish. But here’s the thing – it was only the buildup to breaking them that was uncomfortable and difficult. Once they were done it was fine. On the bus on the way home I kept thinking “How am I going to make it through to dinnertime without snacking? How will I make it through the alone part of my day?” But as soon as I got home and I tapped, I forgot all about eating until I was hungry. Madness. Or sanity, more like. Amazingly, it worked. I was able to tap away cravings and whatever feeling was behind the urge to eat (boredom, stress, anxiety) and simply go about my day. Astounding. When I went back to the doctor’s after a week for my test results I had lost four pounds and couldn’t believe it. I told everyone. I couldn’t help it. I even told my mum, which is huge because normally my weight is the last thing I want to discuss with her.

Unfortunately the first week’s success translated into second-week bravado, and the weeks since haven’t been nearly as successful. Self-sabotagerama. Food just keeps falling into my face and I deliberately turn a blind eye to what I’m doing, like I’m going “La la la I have my fingers in my ears and I can’t hear you.” I think that since the initial four-pound loss I have put it back on and maybe one or two more. What is wrong with me? If I want this so much, and I now know I can lose weight easily, why am I not doing it? I kind of know why – there is so much comfort in staying the way I am. If I stay the way I am, nothing will change and I won’t have to deal with potentially huge changes in so many areas of my life – a changing food intake, a changing mindset, body, lifestyle, relationships, personality. I’ll have to find ways to deal with emotions that don’t involve “dairy + carb = feeling better”, and all of those could really upset the applecart. But do I want to stay on this particular applecart? Not really. I feel ugly and tired and now I’m risking my health. I hope I can deal with what’s to come without losing or disturbing the parts of my life I genuinely love. It makes

Interestingly enough – and almost karmic in its timing – at this point I have found myself coaching a client on this very issue, and working with him has been bringing up all kinds of things for me, limiting beliefs and suchlike. I am going to have to start coaching myself on this, answering some very big questions, and this will form part of the huge self-development binge I have planned for the next few months. And following on from the beginner’s EFT course, I’ve done the next training level up, so I’ve deepened my knowledge of ways and situations in which I can use it. I foresee some very serious journaling and self-examination in the weeks and months ahead. Hopefully I’ll be able to find some ways to replace those beliefs and behaviours with something healthier, more empowering and longer lasting.

Sometimes I feel the more effort I put into shifting the excess pounds, the more I just attract more of ‘em. Feeling VERY pudgy today, which is so unfair given my week of being within SP targets. Sigh.

Anyway. Plan for the short-term is to stick with the calorie tracking/sensibleness for the next week; weigh myself on Thursday, and reassess based on those results. Gulp!

However, I’m then off for a lardy weekend with my best mate. I know that’s not a great attitude, but buggered if I’m going to be one of two foodies in a room (with a bloke who’d make himself sick eating just to have everything, I’m sure!!) being all miserable and refusing another mouthful of tapas!!

Tired and craving sugar, of course self-denial-of-muffins makes the world seem hopeless! But I had a muller rice instead (calorific, sure, but low fat) and waited… sure enough, the urge to eat everything in sight passed, and I felt nicely sated. Lesson: you can skimp too much!

Ongoing… there are people who can think weight off, and while that makes me feel more than a little green, I just don’t see it working for me. I’ve always thought I ate pretty healthily, my body isn’t something I loathe, so perhaps the only change I have left to make is looking at that calorie intake.

Whichever, it’s worth sticking with longer than 4 days!! I think I’ll skip weighing myself this week, see what change a fortnight brings. Then, we’ll see!

As in, I lack the former, and could do with one of the latter!

I’m tired and a bit ‘meh’ today, which always affects my perspective. Perhaps I’ve just heard too many times how “willpower doesn’t work” – I’m definitely starting to believe it!

Ah, two things:

One is that yesterday was a deliberate fall off ‘the plan’ – going out for dinner, didn’t want to think about calories! But then: how awful if I’ve been ‘denying’ myself all week, and for the sake of one meal (and desert!) end up with zero progress for my suffering?

And two is ‘suffering’ and ‘denying myself’ – these are not good attitudes. Sigh.

Not 100% sure where I stand on this now. Am green with envy at certain other people’s recent success (sorry, guys!) but at the same time don’t see the ‘softly softly’ approach working for me. Is misery really my only route to this goal?!

Anyway. Don’t think about muffins. Argh!!!

After today’s weigh in (I don’t know how accurate body-fat measurements are, but I am thoroughly horrified to be told that I am a THIRD fat!! Ewwwww!) and realising that I haven’t been near target on Spark People all week – it’s time to say: if I’m serious about this goal, it’s time to act more seriously! Ultimately, I spend a LOT of time thinking about being slimmer, and have yet to actively shift a single pound.

So, at least while I get started and see some progress (and no slippage!) I need to be a heck of a lot stricter with this. Urgh, and yet – if it’s what it takes to prove I can control my calorie intake and my dress size, so be it.

• Stay within target on SP 5/7 days
• Sign up for yoga
• Try and meet the SP fitness goals
• Stop and THINK before eating that cake/chocolate!

_{gawd, I’ve turned into a weight bore! I’m sorry, but these things need to be done!}

Having revealed the extent of the duffness of my scales at home, I’m now considering using the Boots voucher I have for a half-price BMI weigh in smart card.

Would a ‘public’, once-a-week weigh in for the next three months make a difference, do you think?

I suppose I can go ask some questions on the way home, anyway.

edit
Ouch. Still, tis done, and at least I know where I’m (re)starting from – and have a consistent set of scales. Sigh.

This morning for some freakish reason, I decided to stand on my rather rubbish scales. Rubbish as in if I set the scale to zero and then stand on it, I’m 17 stone. I’m not. Really. I’m not too bothered about ticking off every pound lost (although maybe that’s the next stage!), so my solution was to reset the start so that me standing on it took everything to zero – voila, quick way of seeing +/-, right?

So of course, this morning, 3/4 weeks after joining Spark Points (ie ‘making an effort’), I’d put on 2 pounds (I’m assuming. I have no idea how accurate the intervals are. I should weigh a bag of spuds or something). Sigh. I mean – I’ve been working on this, and it’s getting worse?! What’s the point?!!

Ah! But not only do I recognise this feeling, but now I have a proper record as to how much I really have been working on this – not much! Yes, it’s been on my mind a lot, but I can easily look back and remember that for all the thinking there was still a lot of cake. Education phase, not action phase, remember?

It might sound obvious, but this is actually really useful. Motivation is a fragile thing, after all – even when the reality doesn’t match the perception.

So – cool. I’ve put on weight, but then – I’ve been eating a lot of cake, so it does make sense! It might be time to reset the scales again, and move to phase 2 on Spark People – or at least find out what phase 2 is!

I’ve always been an eye-roller when it comes to calorie counting and the like, so quite how I ended up trying – let alone now using daily! – a food tracker like Spark People, I have no idea, especially given my un-impressedness on first attempt and the hassle of setting it up! I’ll probably write about that under the actual SP goal I think I have; now, why am I doing it, what do I hope to get out of it, and what am I learning so far?

It possibly a bit strange that I’ve always been so anti-calorie counting, given my love of numbers and appreciation of physics. After all: energy in > energy out = weight gain, so… just reverse the equation, right? I guess I was just scared of turning into one of these obsessive people who can quote the calorie content of every food back at you (starbucks tall skinny latte = 100 calories, btw ;)), and/or goes around with a mental tally in their heads at all times of what they’ve eaten that day, in numbers. I mean, yes I want to be slimmer, but I also want to enjoy my food as food, not see everything as a great big number!!

Okay, deep breaths! Thing is, I think if you’re inclined to go that way, you’re inclined to go that way. I also think I’ve been using it as an excuse for ignorance – and one very speedy and (I hope!) positive benefit from SP is the education. I never thought of bread as calorific – in fact, I’d’ve been thinking I was being ‘good’ if I snacked on a slice of toast instead of chocolate. I’ve learned this week that my ‘healthy’ Thursday lunch/dinner of baked spud and salad is almost doubled in calories by the tub of cheese I dumped on top – I didn’t even really think about that, and actually assumed the coleslaw would be worse. And I also thought that I’d probably never lose weight if I didn’t give up chocolate – again, not true!

So far the exercise has been education rather than actual achieving results, and I think that’s a great first step. There are days when I’m under SP’s target calories (you can set these yourself, or allow a range to be generated based on how much you want to lose by when) and I’m amazed, ‘cos there was actually a bit of cake in my day! To begin with, I was quite surprised that I was having trouble with my weight, based on the figures (or maybe I’m not counting properly, of course – I refuse to be full-on, weighing everything, obsessive!): although I should say, I lead a very sedentary lifestyle (so the 2000 general recommendation might be a bit high anyway), and 90% of the time I actually have no issues staying about the same weight (the other 10% being exam time or illness time!).

On the other hand, days I didn’t think were that vile in terms of what I’ve eaten have been not just over target but over the 2K, too. As I say: education. It makes SUCH a difference if you’ve had soup for lunch, rather than a baguette; or tomato sauce with your pasta instead of a creamy one or pesto. Again I’ll say I don’t want to be the kind of person who shrieks at the idea of macaroni cheese, but I also think that these ‘naturally slim’ people, who never think about food at all, have an deep, in-built sense that tomato is the way to go, so to speak. If that makes sense. And I’m also learning that the food I cook myself – and enjoy both making and eating! – is always healthier (or again, maybe I’m wrong in my assumption that a stir-fry’s calories is the sum of its parts?!)

For me, then, my next step will be actively trying to keep within target – that’s around 1750 or less calories a day. Previously I would have thought that sounded horrendous, pure self-denial, surely – but I’m already starting to see days where I’m almost struggling to reach the minimum recommended calories (1300) in my day, and not through starving myself either. Although that said, the fact that I felt so rubbish on Sunday was somewhat explained when I went to track my calories for the day, and realised before dinner I had managed just 500 calories for the whole morning/afternoon – not through effort, I should say, although I do think this is a perfect example (well, not perfect – I’d rather have had a bit more and felt a bit better!) of what I want: making healthy choices almost without thinking about it, to the point where my weight WILL be affected (ie maintained at the lower level), even when I’m not counting calories.

I think a combination of more active tracking while I actually lose the ‘excess’ weight, and going back to reading 4DW to sort the mental attitude, will lead to a place where I can happily make healthy choices without all the tracking and counting – which is what I want. However, I can’t keep expecting a change when I’m not actively doing anything – so here’s my something. And y’know what? It’s not that hard, and I’m already feeling more in control – which is exactly what I need to make a start on this – and hopefully keep going! :)