Stop pretending the 15 pounds I dislike are going to lose themselves

Wow, it’s amazing what sleep deprivation and never getting to eat along with nursing babies will do for your weight loss efforts. I’d still like to lose about 10 lbs more, though.

Urgh!! I hate hate hate that this is a bit of an obsession right now. I don’t believe in dieting (it doesn’t work, anyway), and I should know enough about my own psychology to have realised in advance that filling the fridge with salad and green things was the way to drive me straight to the tortillas!

I feel… damned chubby if I do, and chubby if I don’t.

::deep breath::

On Friday, there was a really good article in the Metro about this kind of thing, and about the difference between men and women. (Actually, I think more blokes are likely to fall into the girlie traps than ever before, but let’s go with the stereotypes). Take your average, big hulky Scotsman: can you picture calorie counting? Going out with mates and turning down a curry in favour of a small pile of green leaves? Hmm, not really!

I wish I’d kept the article, but the gist was that a bloke wanting to lose weight would maybe have a few less pints (but not ‘none’), and try and exercise more, or lift heavier things. Now, I know men and women don’t work the same way physically anyway, but mentally… half the frickin’ problem is getting obsessed with food, and ‘can’t haves’, etc etc.

I knew this in advance. That not thinking about it was more likely to work – until it didn’t. But… I need to kick in more small changes, without getting hung-up up what I’m denying myself. Or – gawd help me! – eating nothing but veggies until I’m sick of the damn things after 2 days!!

I’m not ‘fat’ – and I’m not that hung up on my looks (well, not in a blubbery way. I have more than a few scars I have issues with, but (un?)fortunately there’s not a damn thing I can do about those anyway!), I just freak a bit at how quickly it’s happened and how dangerously close I am to needing to by bigger clothes – no thank you! And also very pissed off that my reasonably healthy diet (I think!) isn’t enough to stop the (not-so-)slow spread. I don’t eat pizzas and takeaways, or binge on 20 mars bars a day. I don’t deserve to be chubby!!

Right. Is that out of my system? Can I stop feeling unfairly put upon, and just get on with life in a slightly modified way?

More movement, less junk, otherwise act normally.

The pic is my lunch from yesterday. I decided it was high time to do something more proactive about this goal, so my shopping list for the weekend was 90% veg, stirfries and tons of salad. Salad is healthy, right? Lettuce and spinach, cucumber, radish, pepper, carrot, spring onion, some spicy-ish couscous and sliced chicken, all topped with sunflower and pumpkin seeds. Sounds uber-healthy, right??

Only… it didn’t come close to hitting the spot, despite the large bowl. Salad remains ‘side portion’ in my head, and the fact the couscous was meh and the chicken not great didn’t help. So my attempt at being healthy was followed by two large cups of coffee and half a bar of galaxy. And a bowl of rhubarb and ice cream a couple of hours later when I started feeling unsatisfied again.

I knew it already, but such purposeful attempts at ‘cutting back’ on the calories always backfire on me like this. Today the salad was repeated, but with the chicken stuck between two slices of bread. Better – and probably not any ‘worse’. I could still go t’other half bar of choc, though :(

Not really! But I do feel I have to ‘face up’ to this goal again, as those 15 pounds have multiplied and I have neither the desire nor bank balance to buy a whole new wardrobe. I mean, I was supposed to be going down and dress size, not up!

Anyway. Fault is all my own and exams are over now to not distract myself from.

I’d like to consider that going to the gym will sort this for me, but it needs a bit of input control, too. And it occurred to me this week that – organised little bunny that I am – I plan meals for every night of the week. This can lead to issues: like, getting home at 6pm planning a gym visit, and realising that planned dinner (with elements defrosted in the fridge) is an hour-long affair. Choice: eat at 9pm, or postpone the gym! Okay, so not so organised!

This week I vow to do better. And it struck me: do I really need a big meal every night? I’m not talking about starving myself (or doing the cereal challenge!), but I just seem to have it in my head that every evening requires a Dinner, rather than just Food. Appetite doesn’t get into the picture when you’ve planned the week in advance!

So… y’know, it won’t hurt me to have soup for tea a couple of evenings. Full of vitamins and veggies. Let’s see how that goes.

I wanted to leave reopening this until after my exams – that tub of Haagen-Dazs is a well deserved study break! – but quite frankly my body is rebelling against days of sitting about and stuffing my face!

I’ve not necessarily been eating unhealthily (my idea of fast food is fresh tagliatelle rather than pizza!) but quite possibly been squeezing an extra meal in daily, mostly in chocolate form. The upshot came when my late breakfast muffin (extra large!) pushed back a big lunch, which pushed back a huge dinner (mostly veg, right enough)... meaning I ate so much so late my tummy complained all night and kept me awake. Bleugh. The only positive was that I only had three quite reasonably-sized meals yesterday!

So I’ve drawn up my shopping list for Friday after my exams, and it’s full of salad and veggies like you would not believe. Time to break the grazing habits, methinks.

Urgh. Here we go again. I feel like such a… something… having a goal about _{weight loss.} There are reasons I phrased it like this!

Anyway. Today I caught sight of my rear view in a mirror and was quite shocked at the podge sitting on my hip. I don’t really do fat, it just sits bunched up in awkward places. It’s the final spur, I think – I know I’m not ‘fat’, but I’m fed up of having more trousers that are a bit too tight than those I can comfortably wear. Rewarding myself for studying is good, but not with chocolate!

So… I’ve been too snuffly for running, but I’m on the mend. In the meantime it’s high time that I paid more attention to genuine hunger and less to the inner 2 year old that wants cookies.

Well im new to this site. I am 5’9.5” and weight 169. I started about 5 days ago and now im 167. I am doing frozen lean mean things for dinner and a yougurt or w.e for lunch. Yesterday was my cheat day. And then today was like a cheat day. If I have a cheat day the next day is a cheat day and then i just give up. NOT THIS TIME. Im going to do it this time. I want to lose about 15-20 pounds. I will do it this time. Im only 15. I am eating about 1000-1200 calories a day. I want to be fit for the summer.

I was having one of those long, rambling conversations with my best friend over the weekend, and it was kind of about this subject – she’s put on weight recently, too, and we were agreeing just how easy it was to do, but also that “dieting” is the invention of satan.

Here’s my thought: you put on weight through carelessness, not being well, not concentrating. Routines go to hell, you don’t cook fresh food, and over the weeks too many easy-to-shove-in-the-oven type foods add a centimetre or two where you don’t want it. It’s easy. Why shouldn’t losing the weight again be just as easy?

And the thing is – it is! At least, I think so. My most successful ‘attempts’ at getting my trousers to be less tight are largely unconscious. I’m busy, focused on other things and not food. I cook for myself, and it’s natural foodstuffs, vegetables and the like. Dieting is anathema to this: the instant I tell myself I have to cut back on chocolate, I obsess about nothing else! My normal state – eat what I want when I want – (usually) means I nibble and stop ‘cos my brain isn’t fearful I won’t allow myself any more if I don’t eat it all!

I’ve struggled to articulate what I meant when I created this goal, but this is another attempt at just that. It’s not about obsessing over weight loss – I truly believe that if it crept on, it can creep back off again! I’m not making myself miserable denying myself anything – everything I want in moderation!

That said, there are a few small tricks or just common sense things: slightly smaller portions (esp. rice in my case) – but not so much that you feel deprived; cooking fresh food over pre-processed crap… it’s more about health than weight, and just undoing the silly habits that put the pounds on in the first place.

Over the past week, I’ve started noticing a rather bad habit in myself: I don’t necessarily eat because I’m hungry, or chose my food because of how hungry I am, but instead I’m looking at the day and going, “Oh, I won’t get dinner until 9pm, I’d better stuff my face more now”.

Today, for instance, the afternoon/evening will consist of a few smallish snacks/meals to fit in with my day. Which doesn’t necessarily mean I need to have a ‘main meal’ at lunch time to make up for it in advance! If I find I’m still hungry at the end of the day, I’ll deal with it then!

• Don’t pre-assume hunger over the course of the day – if I’m not hungry now, I don’t eat now ‘just in case’!
• Three small snack meals are not less than one main meal!

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