Reverb10 Day 5: Let Go (and some actual discussion of weight loss issues)

"What (or whom) did you let go of this year? Why?"

I think I just broke up with WeightWatchers.


I’d already documented my issues with the ProPoints plan. To be fair to the new plan, I had been struggling for a few weeks before that, but I’d ascribed it to general malaise and half-assed plan following. When I was once again using my whole ass, as Homer put it, the failure was harder to take.

So, as I said last week, I decided to take my trainer’s advice and eat a bit more. After a week of aiming for 1,500 calories a day I feel more energised. I’m sleepy better. I am noticeably (to other people) less stressed. In short, I feel so much better that I wouldn’t care if I wasn’t losing weight, as long as I didn’t actually gain.

But I’ve also lost about a kilo. In a week. I am certainly not complaining about that.

This feels sustainable. I had got to the point with WeightWatchers where the idea of doing the programme for a second longer than I had to made me despair; as a result every tiny gain or plateau felt like a catastrophe. This feels much more sustainable.

So I didn’t go to my meeting today. It felt odd. But I also didn’t panic about feeling a bit bloated this morning, or try to wear clothes that are as light as possible. And I didn’t spend this afternoon in my usual Tuesday post-meeting rewarding-myself mini-binge, either.

I’ll still go to the odd meeting, even if it’s just the five a year required to sustain my Gold membership. I’ll still stick the little key on my 10% keyring when I finally decide that I’m done, and I’ll certainly collect the little gold stars for maintenance every year. I may turn back to WeightWatchers if I need to lose significant amounts of weight in the future. But right now? Well, WW, I’m afraid it’s not you, it’s me.

Reverb10 day 4: Wonder

"How did you cultivate a sense of wonder in your life this year?"

Warning: flippancy

The main thing I have been wondering about this year is the things that popular culture and the media tell you are essential for a wedding. Things I have learned recently:

• A £1,500 dress is 'budget'.
• If I can't afford a 3-course meal I can 'save' by serving afternoon tea at £42 per head.
• £1,000 is a perfectly reasonable price for a cake.

I would say 'thanks heavens for wedding blogs', except that they're sometimes just as bad, albeit in different ways:

• Catering your own wedding while working full-time is easy. If you don't do it, you're a lazy cow who doesn't care about her guests
• Handcrafted favours/napkins/pashminas/table centrepieces/tables/venues/grooms are EASY to make and EVERYBODY should have them. If you don't, you're RUBBISH.
• If you spend more than 5p on your wedding, you're basically a worthless human being.

Hmm, what's all this? Could it be yet another opportunity for women to judge each other?

Sigh.

Reverb10 day 3: Moment

"Pick one moment during which you felt most alive this year. Describe it in vivid detail."

I've just been proposed to. I know what the answer is, but the second before I open my mouth seems to stretch into the longest, most love-filled second possible. I feel more alive than I ever have before, and more certain of what I'm about to say than any answer before or since. The second isn't just filled with love, it's filled with rightness.

Yes.

Reverb10 Day 2

Today’s prompt is

"Writing. What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing – and can you eliminate it?"

My first thought on reading this prompt was “Well. I am so not the target audience for this game.”

Things I do each day that don’t contribute to my writing:

1. My real, bill-paying dayjob
2. Exercise
3. Cooking
4. Spending time with the Boy
5. Sitting on the couch watching TV/knitting/reading (frequently all at once).

Could I eliminate any of these? Some yes, some no.

Do I want to? Er, no.

Let’s start with number 1. I am not one of those people who dreams of giving up their dayjob to write full time. If I gave up my dayjob it would be to do more of numbers 2–5 (special emphasis on the 5), except that I know that I’d be wildly bored after about four weeks. (I had six weeks off once. Too much.) I like crunching numbers. You know where you are with numbers. I get a kick out of writing, but when I do it for a living it loses its gloss. (I know because I’ve done it.)

Numbers 2 and 3 are important for health.

Number 4 is supposed to be non-negotiable because our relationship is the most important thing in my life. I say ‘supposed’ because sadly it can sometimes be the first thing to be squeezed. (I had a similar thing at work recently where the hyper-important project with no fixed deadline kept getting set aside for less important, more urgent tasks.) Our us-time is besieged from all sides as it is without me adding “Wait, I haven’t blogged!” to the reasons why we can’t spend some quality moments together.

Number 5, well, I’m sure some of you are judging my priorities, but all I’m going to say is “Sorry I’m not sorry!”

As I’m sure you’ve figured out by now, I am not a compulsive writer. I know I do it well, and occasionally I get the urge, but most of the time I will happily do something else. I know there are those for whom nothing trumps the call of the pen keyboard – I was brought up by one – but that’s not me.

So there you have it: not quite 400 words on ‘What Is More Important To Me Than Blogging (Clue: It’s Most Things)’. Oops… On the other hand, if I didn’t do any of those things I wouldn’t have anything to write about. I’d have to blog about blogging. And I wouldn’t do it anywhere near as well as the Hollaback Girls.

In other, actually diet-and-fitness related, news – I am officially Very Annoyed with WeightWatchers. At my weigh-in on Tuesday I had apparently lost half a pound of the 2.5 I put on the previous week. Meanwhile my Leader is also irritating me. She put a lot of pressure on me to set a high goal weight, saying “You can still lost weight when you get there!” So I did. She now appears to be incapable of remembering that I’m trying to lose weight: every bloody week we have this conversation:

Her: Well done, you’re maintaining your weight!

Me: But I was trying to lose weight!

Her: Oh… why?

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. If I were cynical I would say that the high goal weight was less about ‘taking the pressure off’ and more about making her stats look good, and that now I don’t contribute to her total weight loss numbers she isn’t interested, but I’m not… oh no, wait, I am.

Meanwhile, the Boy suggested to me that I try out personal training, so for that last three weeks I’ve been doing just that. My trainer (who we’ll call C because that’s nearly her name) asked me to keep a food diary at the beginning. She had a few insights then (stop using up your spare POINTS!!!!11! on chocolate at bedtime, eat more protein, don’t eat so much bread), and when I had a moan on Tuesday night about not losing weight she came up with the suggestion that I wasn’t eating enough.

Counterintuitive, no?

The theory, she tells me, is that if you eat less than your basic metabolic rate (that’s the calories you’d burn if you didn’t get out of bed) your body will go on strike and refuse to lose weight. So you should always eat at least that much, then manufacture a deficit using exercise. My BMR is about 1,350kcal, according to the whizzy scales in the gym. 29 ProPoints is about 1,140kcal.

Now, I’ve heard about and rejected the ‘starvation mode’ argument before, but C has a degree in sports science and nutrition from a good university. And she used numbers. I’m always more convinced by numbers. And I’m very, very game to try eating an extra 350 kcal a day.

In addition to personal training, I also finally succumbed to the lure of the KiFit (US readers, that’s the UK branding of the BodyBugg). I was pleasantly surprised to find that my daily calorie burn is about 2,200kcal. So, my new plan of attack is to try to eat around 1,500kcal on weekdays and 2,000 at weekends, with a burn of 2,300. This should enable me to lose at least a pound a week.

I’m also aiming to incorporate more strength training into my workouts: as I get thinner I don’t feel like I’m getting more toned, and I don’t want to end up as one of those flabby-skinny women. I’m also starting to have loose skin issues (TMI? Meh) and strength training is reputed to help with that. With that in mind I acquired a copy of The New Rules of Lifting for Women – thoughts/review when I finally manage to finish reading it.

Reverb10: 2010 in one word

I've decided to try to participate in Reverb10, a blogging challenge which provides a prompt every day of December to help you to reflect on your 2010.

Today's prompt is 'One word'.

The one word I'd use to describe my 2010 is probably 'flux'. Lots of things have changed this year. Hell, almost everything has changed. I technically moved in with the Boy (as in I gave up the lease on my flat) on January 3rd. We got engaged. Most of our friends got married. I changed job. I've lost 30lbs.

Most of these changes aren't complete, though. Moving in together and engagement are steps on the way to marriage. And as I've said before, I don't feel like I've reached my happy forever weight yet.

So this time next year, the word I would like to sum up my 2011 is 'completion'. I'd like those changes which are still in progress to be finished and changed. I'd like to be married and at a happy weight, whatever that is.

If Scotland could win the Rugby World Cup too, that'd be nice. Unrealistic, but nice.

Betrayal?

Those of you in the UK may or may not be aware that a couple of weeks ago WeightWatchers launched a completely new plan. This isn’t one of the two-yearly revamps, which generally gave you the same system with a different name; it’s a total shake-up. Points are now calculated in a different way, using protein, carbohydrate, fat and fibre content. You get 29 of these new ‘ProPoints’ per day, plus 49 weekly points which you can use or not as you like. There’s been a lot of stories in the crappier sections of the British press about ‘the diet which lets you have wine and chocolate!’ (Because of course, that’s all women are interested in, isn’t it?)


In two weeks on the new plan (following it closely) I’ve gained 2.5 pounds.

Hmm.

I’m understandably not pleased with this.

While I’m all for updating the plan to match modern scientific thinking, I think it’s in need of serious refinement. When I started it I weighed ten stone and half a pound. I’m on 29 points a day. If I weighed fourteen stone (14 stone 2 (or 198lb) was my starting weight in 2002), I’d be on… 30 points a day.

You see the problem? A point is roughly 40 calories. There is no way that the food intake which allowed the 14-stone me to lose 2lb a week (the maximum that WW recommended) is going to let then 10-stone me lose weight. It’s not just me, either – while I’ve seen some good losses (3, 4, 5, even 6lb) reported in the first week of the plan, they’re coming from larger members. The WW message boards show a disturbing number of small, relatively light women for whom the new system really isn’t working.
This would be almost excusable if the plan were brand new – but it’s not. It’s been operating in Europe for some time now.

I suspect that pretty soon – after Christmas, to coincide with the public launch? – we’ll see the ProPoints allowances changed so that nine-stone members and 14-stone members aren’t eating the same amount. But meanwhile, I feel rather betrayed.

I know there’s a plan revamp coming in the US this week. If it’s ProPoints – and why wouldn’t it be – my advice to members, particularly those under 150lb, is be very, very careful, and don’t assume it’ll work.

Meanwhile I’m giving the plan one more week to come up with the goods. And then? I really don’t know…

Hurrah!

I am a healthy weight. When I stepped on the scales yesterday they read 10 stone 2lb, which gives me a BMI of 24.8.


I know it’s only just under 25, and that BMI is a dubious measure anyway. I am not finished yet; I don’t feel that this is my happy weight. But still…

I am a healthy weight! I have never been able to say that as an adult before.

It makes me think, too. I read a post recently – I’m afraid I cannot for the life of me remember where – on acknowledging how far we’ve come. I think I quite often forget to do that. When cursing about being not quite being able to get into size 10 trousers, I forget the morbidly obese 18-year-old who thought she’d never be a size 12. When I complain that I can’t run a 10K in under 70 minutes, I forget that once upon a time I couldn’t run 100 yards.

I haven’t reached my weight or fitness goals just yet. Here isn’t a place I want to stay long. But here was once a place I never thought I’d make it to.

I feel strong now, and confident. There are nine weeks till Christmas (eek!) and I have 9lb left to my goal of nine and half stone. Let’s see how close I can get.

Culinary highlight of the week: Sunday’s roast chicken and vegetables. More specifically, the roast potatoes, which were easily the best I’d ever made.

Dress shopping, and the many, many ways it can screw you up

I can’t speak for the wedding industry anywhere else, but here in the UK it’s very, very focused on weight loss. There’s a reasonable assumption that you want to look your very best on your wedding day, coupled with an unreasonable assumption that a key part of this will be losing significant amounts of weight, and wedding magazines and websites are crammed with tips which range from the sensible to the downright irresponsible (like tips on how to distract yourself from hunger if you’ve adopted the ‘just don’t eat’ approach).

I’m aware that it’s a little bit hypocritical of me to complain about this, since I’m currently trying to lose weight. But there’s a fine but crucial distinction to me. I’m not losing weight for my wedding. Sure, I’d like to be at my goal weight by then, but if I’m not, I won’t give up. And I was losing weight before I got engaged – it’s not a crazy crash diet that I’ll forget about as soon as the wedding’s over.

But after dipping my toe in the waters of wedding dress shopping, I can sure as hell see why people go on crazy crash diets, because a whole host of factors combine to test your body confidence to the limit

• Wedding dress sizes seem to run very small. I know this is probably because they haven’t been subject to the rise in vanity sizing, but still… I’m a UK 8 on my top half, and none of the styles I tried on were fitted below the waist. I was a 12 in most styles, with a couple of 14s. I’m used to being a range of sizes because I’m pearshaped, and I make my own clothes so I understand old-school sizes, but I still found irrationally depressing.
• There’s only one sample of every style. If that doesn’t fit you, well, tough. Most of them were (small) 12s. There were a few 14s, and one 10 which wouldn’t go round my ribs. As I said, on my torso I’m an 8. The average UK woman is a 16. That’s an awful lot of people that particular shop was dismissing. It’s very hard to judge if a dress suits you if it’s two sizes too big, but it’s basically impossible if it won’t do up.
• You’re getting your kit off in front of total strangers. Some people might be able to get a full-length, multi-skirted dress on unassisted, but I’ve never met any of them. (Suddenly I understand why Victoria ladies needed ladies’ maids to help them dress…) The dress shop assistant will be seeing you in your bra and pants, and will be tutting to herself if the dress has trouble getting past your arse. (I had one lady who insisted that I step into everything, but then did this every time! If you’re that worried, drop it over my head instead, duh.)
• Something you try on is probably going to make you look like a hippo in drag. For me it was the fishtail skirted dress I picked up accidentally. I was able to console myself with the knowledge that the shape is specifically designed to add bulk to your hips… not something I need. But hey, the whole point of the process is so that you can avoid looking like a hippo in drag on the day itself, and surely that’s worth it? (If anybody is having a cross-dressing hippo-themed wedding (and somewhere, I’m sure somebody is…), I apologise for any offence given. I’m sure it’ll be lovely, touching and personal.)

I totally support anybody’s right to lose weight for a special occasion, but if you’re trying to be a size XX on your wedding day, start early. Be prepared for setbacks. And try not to let dress shopping get to you…

Actual shrinkage!

I bought a wedding dress at the weekend.

Now, it’s not my intention to turn this into a wedding planning blog. Wedding planning is to my mind only ever interesting if you are a) connected to the wedding in question or b) planning a wedding yourself. If you fall into category B I can recommend any number of excellent sites dedicated to the topic (and some which will make your eyes pop out in horror/bemusement), and I don’t think many people in category A are reading this. There is a weight-loss angle on my purchase, honest.

You see, I bought a dress that fits me now. Not a dress that will fit me in half a stone or a stone’s time. The traditional model of dress shopping is that you try on a sample, which may or may not fit you (I’ve been lucky – only one has been too small and most have fitted well). If that’s the dress for you, you then order one to be made, which takes a preposterously long time. Because made-to-order is not the same as made-to-measure, you order a standard size which is then altered to fit you.


(The whole wedding dress industry is also revoltingly sizeist and judgmental, but that’s a whole other post (which I will probably write this week while it’s on my mind).)


Until Saturday I thought that was the route I was going to take, and was already agonising about whether to order the size that fits me now or the next size down.

However, there is also the sample sale route. At the end of a season, or when a dress is withdrawn by the manufacturer, shops are left with their samples, which they had to buy from the manufacturer. They then sell these to recoup some of that cost. However, because they have been hanging around in the shop being tried on, and may be last season’s design, they are usually sold at a hefty discount. The dress I bought on Saturday was one such sample. It was there, it was preposterously reduced, it was beautiful, and I had to buy it there and then if I wanted it. So I did.


I was worried that buying a dress in my current size would an admission of defeat. I didn’t want to allow the possibility of not getting to my goal weight before the wedding. But having actually done, I find I’m able to consider the issue in a slightly saner way, and have come to three conclusions:

• Most of my excess weight is now on my hips and thighs. While I don’t want to say too much in case the Boy is reading, I don’t think it would be a surprise to him that I haven’t chosen something that is fitted in those areas, so shrinkage there won’t affect the fit.
• If I do lose weight in such a way that the dress doesn’t fit, well, I’ll get it altered! Because it was one of a kind I won’t then think “Dammit, why didn’t I order the next size down?”
•  If I don’t lose a single pound between now and my wedding day, I know I’ll still look fabulous. (Honeymoon beaches are a different issue, but never mind…)

This feels like a bit of a breakthrough. The other breakthrough is that yesterday I finally lost weight again – a pound off to bring me to 10 stone 4lb. I am extremely relieved as the plateau was doing Bad Things to my mental state. One more pound will get me to 10% of my bodyweight lost, and I really want that crappy keyring!

October goal update: my ‘exercise every day’ goal fell victim to a cold last week – I decided that if I was ill enough not to go to work I was ill enough not to Shred… I’m still trying to get every other day this month, though. I managed to track every day this week. I failed rather on the ‘not going nuts’ front – Saturday’s dinner was a bit excessive – and on the drinking 2l of water every day. I’ll try again this week.


Culinary highlight of the week: a tie between the garlic, cheese and caramelised onion pizza bread on Saturday night and the haggis panini I had for lunch on Sunday. NOM.

Some things go wrong, others go very very right, and I still can't write good titles

I’m sure that my few readers have abandoned me in disgust long since, but just in case anybody would like to know, here’s the story of the not-quite three months since my last post.

Eleven days after it, on the 29th of July 2010, I drove to the Big City where I used to live after work, to go to the dentist. I was a bit miffed when I got there to discover that they hadn’t bothered to tell me in advance that they were no longer offering NHS treatment. NHS dentists are at such a premium in this part of the world that I would happily drive 40 miles to get to one, but private dentistry I can get round the corner. I haven’t been back.

Anyway, I was in a bit of a mood when I left. Since the Boy had previously said that he’d make dinner, I phoned him to tell him I was coming back. “Call me when you get to junction 12 of the motorway” was his response. This was unusual, but since it’s about ten minutes away I figured that he was trying to time dinner to be ready when I walked through the door (I have given up on doing that – there’s always a traffic jam and then something ends up overcooked or cold. But I digress…). So I did.

When I got home, the house was immaculate, there were candles burning, and the Boy was clutching a little square box.

Oh. My. God.

We’d talked about marriage, so the question wasn’t totally out of the blue, but the timing was a beautiful surprise.

I said yes.

Then we went for dinner at our favourite restaurant. I had mozzarella salad, he had seared tuna, we shared a rare chateaubriand and a huge bucket of chips. We drank champagne and Languedoc and babbled about the future like excited children.

The next day, Friday, we went to a wedding and told his family. The day after, we went to another wedding and told mine. On Sunday we had 1st of August raclette with my mum and dad (it’s the day we conveniently remember that we’re Swiss in order to eat too much cheese). On Monday we drove home after enjoying fish and chips at a favourite haunt in Glasgow, where I was very touched that the waitress remembered and congratulated me, despite my not having been there for about five years.

I didn’t lose any weight that week, somewhat unsurprisingly, nor really for the next four or five. August brought a new set of people to see every weekend, each of whom wanted to celebrate with us. Which on the one hand is lovely, but on the other does lead to excesses. The month culminated with a three-day weekend where we invited everybody over for a six-mile country walk during the day followed by a party in the evening. Both events were lovely, and we were incredibly touched to see so many of our friends – 21 over the course of the day – turn out to celebrate with and congratulate us.

Looking at my spreadsheet I can see that I gained half a pound that week, bringing me back to half a pound down from the weight I was that day I went to the dentist. September was supposed to be the ‘getting back on it’ month – the partying was over and real life (and wedding planning) were back. Plus there was the 10K coming up.

Ah. I didn’t mention the 10K, did I? After running one in mid-July, I got all excited about running again and persuaded the Boy that we should enter another, on September 12th. It was 8 weeks away, plenty of time to train!

Or, as it turns out, plenty of time to, er, not run for seven weeks. I had been doing plenty of other exercise (just not quite enough to do more than hold steady against August’s excesses) but was still feeling pretty apprehensive.

Anyway, I digress. September. Back on it. Nose to the grindstone. Etc.

Yeah, not so much. Lose, gain, lose, same, same. Net loss for five weeks – 1lb. Net loss since P-day – 1.5lb.

Gah.

I’m getting pretty damn frustrated. This week I did everything right - ate my points, exercised five days out of seven - and was really expecting to lose. When I got on the scales and saw 10 stone 5 again, I’m afraid I cried.

At a WeightWatchers meeting.

In public.

Crap.

My Leader, possibly in an attempt to get me to stop bloody crying, decided that the solution is to ‘take the pressure off’. She’s moved my goal weight to 10 stone 4, the very highest it can be (and, by my maths, actually just outside the healthy BMI range, but never mind). I have mixed feelings about this. I originally set my goal at 9 stone 7 because I wanted getting there to be a genuine achievement, and for it to be a weight where I would be happy. If I got to 9 stone 9 or so and felt that I needed to lose more than another couple of pounds, I would have dropped it. As it is, getting to Goal will be a bit of an anticlimax, because I know that 10.4 will not be a happy weight for me. I have a very small frame and should probably be nearer nine stone than ten, but won’t know until I get there. All I know is that I am not comfortable with the amount of excess flab I am currently toting around.

On the other hand, Goal = free meetings = £20 per month to spend on something else, and there is no reason why I can’t keep losing weight.

So, my resolutions for this week:

• Exercise every day. I aim to do some kind of workout every day in October, and have bought the 30-Day Shred DVD to facilitate this.
• Track properly and fully (ie without strange cryptic notes), so that if I get on the scales next week and it’s all gone wrong again I have something I can show my Leader and discuss.
• Not go nuts on Saturday, when we are going to a wedding fair (free samples) or Sunday, when we have a tasting booked with our caterer (free whole meals).
• Drink 2l of water a day.

I am also aiming to blog at least once a week, on Wednesdays. There may also be other posts on an ad-hoc basis, but I need a minimum structure to work to.

I hope you all have good, successful weeks.

I'm back...

I wasn’t joking when I said it was crazy season.

I know I must have more time than before: I’ve dropped two hours a day from my commute. But it doesn’t feel that way – it seems like I’m busier than ever. Part of this is down to being more active: I ran 13 times in June for a total of 68 km, which I’m very happy with. But some of it is also because all the weekend activities have displaced the household tasks we’d normally do on Saturday or Sunday, and they now have to be done in the evenings (or not get done at all, lalalala…).

There has also been a lot of personal stuff going down around here, some tedious, some exciting, all time-consuming.

However, in amongst all this I have managed to lose weight every week, even if only half a pound, and I’m really pleased with this. The two things which I think have really helped have been

• Exercise. Lots of it.
• Tracking everything I eat. Even if it ends up like the hen party day when I ate FIFTY-THREE AND A HALF points (!) I know just how wrong it’s gone.

I’m now 10 stone 7.5lb (147.5lb, 66.9kg) which is a tantalising half a pound away from the lightest I’ve ever been as an adult. I am hoping very much to see a new low at my weigh-in on Tuesday.

Activity-wise I have joined a running club! Acting on a long-ago suggestion from a friend I went along to my local Women’s Running Network group. I was pleased not to be the slowest (no, I am not over-competitive, honest…) and found that the group runs are great at pushing me to go a little faster than I would on my own or with the Boy. Plus we do things like hill reps that I am never going to find the being-arsed to do by myself… If you’re a woman in the UK and interested in running I thoroughly recommend giving it a go.

Crazy season begins (and Healthy You Challenge check-in)

Down another 1.5lb this week, to 10 stone 13.5lb. It makes me very happy to be back under 11 stone. It makes me even happier when you consider that not only was this weekend a long one, it was the Boy's birthday, involving drinks at the Best Wine Bar Ever, a Thai feast, a birthday tarte aux framboises (because it's the only kind of cake he really likes) and a fantastic barbecue on Sunday. As before I made sure that I tracked everything, and earned as many activity points as I could to try and counteract the Giant Pile Of Food effect.

Hopefully I can keep this up over the next couple of months. We don't have a free weekend until the beginning of August - I'm trying not to think about that as it makes me want to cry a little: although I love socialising I love me some downtime too... As an example, this weekend we have a wedding on Friday followed by a birthday party on Saturday. Both events involve staying away from home, and I'm feeling a little panicked about getting enough exercise in to balance the inevitable excesses. I suppose this is where running comes into its own! I'm enjoying a night off after a 5K run yesterday, and will aim to run tomorrow night, gym on Thursday, possibly run on Friday morning... but not sure what happens after that. All I can do is try and choose the wisest options available to me!

Have good weeks, everybody.

Healthy You Challenge check-in and thoughts on balance

I lost a pound this week, bringing me to a total of 4lb off in 3 weeks.

The rational part of me, the one that knows I can't lose 3lb every week, is very happy with this. This weekend was also a bit of a social frenzy, so I took the principles that I followed last week and applied them a little more rigorously. I made slightly more effort to make sensible food choices, especially at meals where I had a full choice, and thus to save up more points for the moments when I didn't. And even when I let myself slip off the wagon slightly, I didn't go all the way. So at dinner on Friday night, while I did have battered cod and chips instead of the baked fish I'd originally planned, I didn't give in to the little voice saying "Screw it, have a burger!" At lunch on Saturday I stuck to salad. As a result I was able to approach Sunday lunch, a catered event with no choice, without the feelings of dread it would once have engendered. It's all about balance. I wish I could keep track of that more often.

For those of you near a river, punting is a remarkably good strength workout! I hadn't done it for years, and woke up yesterday with my quads especially on fire...

Culinary highlight of the week: a tie. Either the strawberry tart from Sunday lunch (more a proper tarte aux fraises than the Greggs or City Bakeries specimen of my childhood) or tonight's birthday dinner (for the Boy) of veal with new potatoes and salad, followed by fresh pineapple.

That update I promised

So... when I last posted I'd just got back from the island of frenzied bingeing Aphrodite, just started a new job, and was taking stock of the effect of that unscheduled 4-week holiday on my life.

The most tangible (or possible squeezable) effect was obvious when I stepped on the scales at my first WeightWatchers meeting two weeks ago: 11st 5lb (that's 159lb, US friends, 72kg for Antipodeans). Ouch. That's a gain of about 4kg/9lb on my pre-Cyprus weight. I felt (and still feel) remarkably undespondent about it. How often do things like that happen, after all? If I'd gained more than half a stone in four weeks of normal life, I'd be very worried indeed, but it's a bit stupid to get worked up about a circumstance that will never happen again.

I have been enjoying discovering the new Discover Plan that WeightWatchers has going on at the moment. I've been focusing on the Filling Foods (basically lean proteins, vegetables and slow-release carbs) and zero-point foods (mostly vegetables) and have found counting points much less faff than calories. Remind me of this in six months when I'm moaning about it, please...

I lost 3lb in the first week, which I was of course very happy with. I stayed the same this week, but I'm not unhappy with that - a random combination of social events this weekend meant that I ate out for almost every meal from lunchtime Friday onwards, and while I managed to balance some of it with exercise, I hadn't run far enough to make up for the fact that I ate thirty-nine points on Saturday. (I'm supposed to have 19...)

We have one of our patches of frenzied social activity coming up, with no free weekends till mid-June. I'm going to take an approach of trying to maximise exercise, attempting to make wise choices (where possible) and tracking everything. In theory. Because at least then if it all goes wrong, I'll know why.

Still here!

I have been extremely rubbish about blogging, but there is a proper post on the way in the next day or two... honest!

A long, long time ago...

... I wrote a post about goals for April, before merrily jetting off on a two-week holiday.

Which, thanks to that bloody volcano, turned into a three-and-a-half-week holiday. As somebody pointed out, some people are in the Big Brother house for less time than that. And with 10 of us together sometimes it felt a bit like Big Brother. But I've finally made it back to soggy green Britain, so let's see how those goals shaped up (warning: contains excuses):

Early April goals

• Try to exercise 3 times a week for at least half an hour.  Yeah... not so much. There was always a good reason not to go for a run. Like "I'm sleepy: I need sleep." "I just ate breakfast.:" "It's 2pm. It's too hot." "I'm already drunk." Verdict: entirely own-fault FAIL.

• Improve my swimming. It was not actually that hot, at least in the first part of the holiday, and at the beginning of April the pools hadn't had a chance to warm up properly. My non-mobile breaststroke didn't keep me warm enough and I can't swim at all when I'm shivering. Verdict: partially climate-imposed FAIL.
• Get some serious R&R. Sat in the sun, drank about 2831457 brandy sours and generally did some hardcore relaxing. Verdict: WIN. 
• Eat reasonably.  Er, yeah. About that. Cypriot restaurants believe that a vastly overfed customer is a happy customer. We kept eating Meze, which at times felt like the steak-eating contest Homer Simpson got into with a trucker. Most of the party put on an appreciable amount of weight after being there for nearly a month. Verdict: OH DEAR.

Late April goals

• Gym/other exercise 3 times a week. I managed to break my big toe on the day we were supposed to come home, in a manner so boring I won't repeat it here. I'm yet to find any exercise other than swimming that doesn't hurt, and my issues with swimming are well-documented. Verdict: excusable FAIL.
• WeightWatchers.  Wasn't in the country.
• Blog 4 times a week. Didn't have a computer.
• Get 8 hours' sleep a night. Well, I certainly managed that one.

So, in short, the only goals achieved were, er, the ones that involved not doing much. Still, the circumstances were exceptional. May will be a month of achievement!

I would highly recommend Cyprus as a holiday destination, though, although perhaps not for 25 days... And if you do go, I can give you some truly wondrous restaurant recommendations!

April Goals

My April splits into two parts – for the first two weeks I’m on holiday, then it’s back to work and the daily grind (albeit a new daily grind) for the rest. So I’ve made separate goals for each part to acknowledge this

Early April goals

• Try to exercise 3 times a week for at least half an hour. By exercise, I really mean running as there won’t be a gym available to us. We do have a swimming pool in both lots of accommodation but I swim so badly that I’d die of chlorine poisoning before I got a meaningful workout. Which brings me on to...
• Improve my swimming. The Boy tried to teach me breaststroke in Turkey last year. I’d like to try and master that and maybe be able to swim a length of breaststroke (in our weeny villa pool) by the end of the fortnight.
• Get some serious R&R. It feels like a long time since Christmas. I’ve been through an audit busy season since then, with no time off to speak of, and I am exhausted. I look forward to spending a reasonable amount of the next fortnight doing absolutely sod all.
• Eat reasonably. It’s a holiday. We’ve already discussed my, erm, issues with Middle Eastern/Mediterranean food. But neither of those are excuses to go totally nuts. Sure, I’m going to eat some things I wouldn’t normally have, but there’s no reason to do that at every meal. 

Late April goals

• Gym/other exercise 3 times a week. I’ve been matching or exceeding this one every week for some time, so it should just be a question of getting back into it post-holiday.
• WeightWatchers. I aim to go to my first meeting in the week of the 19th. Watch this space...
• Blog 4 times a week. Posting here really encourages me to think about my actions and choices, so I want to commit to doing it more in the hope of upping the mindfulness quotient.
• Get 8 hours’ sleep a night. I’ll be starting a new job and establishing a new routine. That should be a chance to give a decent night’s sleep the importance it should have, and hopefully make holiday relaxation last a bit longer.

What are your goals? What do you think about when you’re setting them?

Healthy You Challenge check-in

I’ve always struggled with motivation on Mondays. There is something about them that taps into my huge reserves of laziness. In audit we’d often spend Monday acclimatising: getting to know the new location, figuring out where the toilets and the kitchen were, trying to remember what all the client staff were called and doing some of the jobs that are easy in theory but quite often don’t actually work... Monday became a nothing day, filled with clockwatching. If the job involved staying in a hotel you’d not visited before there was also the gnawing worry about its potentially being a hideous pit in a tiny place with one option for dinner. (The job has given me an understanding of the purpose of chain hotels: you know exactly what you’re getting. I’d rather have the certainty of Premier Inn adequacy than the potential for either luxury or filth.)

It feels odd to be writing in the past tense, but it’s necessary... because yesterday was my last Monday in my current job. Thursday is my last day. Throw in the impending holiday and you have a thoroughly end-of-term mindset which has an unfortunate impact on my eating choices. I went out for lunch on Monday with a friend and had a burger... because the burgers were two for one and I needed to save money. This did not, however, force me to choose the cheeseburger over the chicken – I did that myself.

Then I grabbed a bar of chocolate from the office tuck shop – 240 calories of it. No particular need for it, a nagging craving which I justified as PMS. I’m on hormonal contraception: I don’t get PMS any more. And who are these excuses even for? It’s all very silly. Still, I have more or less managed to get back on track since.

The weekend got off to an excellent start. I was able to go to the Saturday morning Body Pump class for the first time in ages, and then I went for a run. I initially set the treadmill for 20 minutes, but wanted to get to 30 to prove to myself that last week was not a fluke. I made it, and thought “I can do 31!” At about 34 minutes I realised how close I was to 5K, so I kept going... and ran 5K in 37:30. Not a great pace, but a start... I was inordinately proud of myself, and celebrated with a soak in the hot tub and a steak sandwich for lunch. Not too unhealthy: we bought very lean steak and used oil spray to fry it and the onions, and had a big salad to go with it. Mmm, cow.

Dinner (after an afternoon of sedentary pursuits and kitchen-cleaning) was roast chicken with parsnips (roasted in honey and mustard), new potatoes and broccoli. Hugely satisfying and, again, not that unhealthy, with the dry-roasted chicken.

On Sunday morning we woke up fairly late, thanks to the hour that was stolen from us in the night (Curse you, BST!) and had a leisurely breakfast. The sun made us think of taking a walk, but by the time we actually got off our arses the weather had deteriorated so we went to the gym instead for a gentle bit of cardio – both of us were feeling a bit stiff after Saturday’s exertions. We then spent another quiet afternoon and evening at home, which was really nice and exactly what we needed. I did manage to make up some Thai-style sweet potato soup, in imitation of the awesome lunch I had on Friday from a cafe near work. It worked pretty well. Unfortunately I didn’t consider the effect that buying white sweet potatoes would have on the colour: the original was a pretty orange; mine is a nasty shade of greenish beige. Still tastes great, however.

No scales this week. I have decided to ignore them as a movement in the wrong direction (or not ‘enough’ in the right one) would ruin my mood and my enjoyment of holiday foods for days. I’m not planning to go nuts, but I do want to be able to enjoy the things I wouldn’t get at home without obsessing over 200g here or there. I intend to start at WeightWatchers the week after we get back, so will try to limit myself to the weigh-ins there.

Normalising normality

In one of the Two Fit Chicks podcast, a listener submitted the Blogger News that she had borrowed a ‘normal’ friend’s coat and been able to do it up.

I understand that victory. My two closest friends are much the same height as me and are much the same size as each other – I can remember how I felt when I joined them at that size and could finally experience the clothes-borrowing that was part of everybody else’s adolescence but which my lack of size-22 friends had denied me. We wear each other’s dresses and coats from time to time, and I still think “Hey, I can pass for normal!”

‘Pass’ is the key word there, because I very rarely actually feel normal.

I am sitting typing this in size 6 shoes, size 14 trousers and pants (which are both too big) and a size 10 jumper. My feet are exactly the average UK size, I believe, and since I’ve heard on several occasions that the average British woman is a 16, my clothes actually put me in the smaller half of the female population. The only, ahem, outlying item I’m wearing is a 30H bra.

But I still feel fat. In a lot of ways my mind still thinks I weight fifteen stone. It’s as if being morbidly obese, as well as leaving empty fat cells scattered across my body ready to absorb excess calories and reinflate, has left that space in my brain empty and dormant, just waiting for something – a look (real or imagined), a remark, a pair of jeans that don’t quite fit – to swell it into the full-blown mental scream of OH MY GOD I AM SUCH A BLOB LOOK AT ME LOOK HOW VAST I AM EWEWEWEWEWEW! My self-esteem is stretched and damaged and weakened in the same way as the skin on my inner thighs. And neither the clearly not-that-fat woman in the mirror nor the kind words of those close to me can repair it. "They're just saying that," I tell myself. If they know me well, it's kindness. If they don't, it's politeness. Which is stupid, because if I take that to its logical conclusion the only people whose opinion I can listen to are those who know and dislike me... WTF?

I worry about what all this crazy means for the future. I've long ceased to think that my life will be perfect when I lose weight - mainly because it's pretty damn good now (and I appreciate how lucky I am to feel that way most of the time). But the thing I do look to weightloss to improve is my self-esteem, and the rational part of my mind suspects that the irrational part may never be happy with my weight. I think I need to start working on my body image in tandem with working on my lifestyle.

One of my big goals when I started this journey at New Year was to wear a bikini by the pool in Cyprus. I bought it ten days ago. If I can find the courage to wear it, and feel comfortable in it despite my not-actually-totally-perfect body, I think that'll be a real step forward for me.

Another NSV

I've just eaten a pizza for dinner. It was one of the individual-sized Pizza Express ones you get in the supermarket, for those in the UK - everybody else, I think it's a 9".

As I took it out of the oven, I was so excited that I danced about a little bit chanting "Pizza pizza pizza!" It's not an item I've been allowing myself very often recently.

About half way through, I thought "Man, this is good. Why did I never used to buy these?"

And then it occurred to me: it was because they were 'too small'.  One of those was never enough to satisfy the giant pizza craving; it never left me feeling like I couldn't eat another bite and was entirely stuffed with melted cheese. Sure, I could have bought two, but I thought "Noooo, look at me, I'm no longer the girl who eats two pizzas at a sitting!" while conveniently ignoring the fact that the 1200 calorie monster I'd just bought had enough calories for two people.

But now I have pizza so rarely that it doesn't need to be the size of my car's spare wheel to get me excited enough to dance around the kitchen. And I'm happy and satisfied and best of all sated with a normal-sized portion.

I think that's a definite step forward.

Healthy You Challenge check-in

I asked for the scales back this morning, after some deliberation on whether that was a good idea or not. I didn’t experience the giant PLATEAU-BUSTING weight loss I’d secretly (and stupidly) hoped for, but I did lose the Evil Pound from last week, so I’m back to 67.8kg. I’m pleased with that, considering the social whirl since Thursday, which was the last time I weighed myself. (It feels so long ago!)

Friday was a normal day of normal eating, since I’d ruled out having two down days in a row ever again. I went for a pub lunch with my colleagues, and had fish and chips as I’d planned. The fish was delicious: the chips were disappointing enough that I was able to leave some. (Most uncharacteristic.) I compensated for this by having homemade Super Soup for dinner (billions of vegetables + no added fats of any kind + most of the contents of the spice cupboard = always win, always different). We were meant to go to the gym but both felt too tired and rubbish, so we enjoyed an evening of chilling on the couch instead.

Saturday we got up, enjoyed a bowl of porridge (with my latest idea for masking the taste of oaty sludge livening it up – apple sauce!) and coffee, and then headed to London to meet some people to watch the last games of the Six Nations. Our destination was the Eagle Ale House, recommended as a place to watch rugby, and it didn’t disappoint. We rocked up at about 1, and asked if they were doing food. “No, we don’t do food on match days,” was the response. “But if you want to go out and get something you’re more than welcome to bring it in.” Northcote Road is a treasure trove of the sort of pointless and poncy specialist shops you only see in certain places*, and that includes overpriced artisan food in abundance. I enjoyed a beef, rocket and parmesan ciabatta followed by an insane cake which seemed to be a caramel shortbread for people who didn’t like shortbread and wanted to replace it with MORE chocolate and caramel. The boys enjoyed what the Times recently claimed were the best sausage rolls in the world (or possibly just London, I don't remember or care) followed by a different beef sandwich and a tartelette aux framboises for the raspberry-obsessed one.

Lunch was vastly improved by being able to eat it indoors sitting down, so thanks pub! Other than that the pub was notable mainly for its wide selection of draught beer (not enjoyed by me due to designated driver status) and very friendly staff.

Wales won, Scotland won! Happiness in the SoupDragon household. Most people had gone by the end of the second (Scotland) game, and the three of us who remained decided that actually we wanted dinner more than to stay in the pub for France v England. So we headed over to Putney and enjoyed a ridiculously vast Lebanese feast for £10 each. I adore Middle Eastern food of any kind, and become a total pig when faced with it... am slightly apprehensive about how much I may eat in Cyprus.

Then we headed for home, and I must say that being able to go home, rather than sleep poorly on somebody’s couch, makes this sort of trip ten times more enjoyable. It was very nice to wake up in my own bed on Sunday morning and enjoy more porridge with the last rugby game. This confirmed that we’d made the correct decision the previous night as, like so many of England’s games this year, it was eye-wateringly boring!

We visited friends for Sunday lunch, then I helped make table settings for their wedding while the boys had a Call of Duty marathon. Home, tired, dinner, bed. Damn, another week.

*Painswick, Cotswold village extraordinaire, is a case in point. It has two or three shops, one of which is devoted to the sale of wooden toys. I'm sure that makes the residents feel much better about the lack of anywhere to buy sensibly-priced food... See also Northleach, Nailsworth, Clifton, Newton Mearns, Crouch End and sundry other corners of the country.

Working the NSVs

The Boy has hidden the bathroom scales (at my request, I hasten to add) in an attempt to stop my post-scale grumpiness ruining breakfast, and I am trying to focus on the non-scale victories. Fortunately yesterday provided me with some great specimens:

• After my Body Pump class last week I realised that I’d got a bit too comfortable with my weights – I wasn’t working to failure on any of the tracks, and I wasn’t feeling it the next morning the way I used to. So last night I racked up the weights on most areas, with the exception of shoulders – because I really, really struggle with that one anyway; I have such pathetic shoulder muscles – and squats – because the weight I was using before is already the maximum that my poxy upper body muscles can lift over my head. I felt the burn, and I’m still feeling it this morning!

• Then I went for a run. I’d initially planned to run for 20 minutes non-stop, but when I got there I thought “I can do another minute”. At 21 minutes, I thought “I can do 22!” Then I realised that if I went to 22:30 I’d have done 3km. Then I decided to go for 2 miles. By then I was nearly at 25 minutes, so kept going, and when I got to 25 I thought “Hell, I can do five more easily.” So I ran 4km in 29:40 (because I sprinted the last 100m). Which is the furthest and longest I’ve ever run without walking. I feel a little more optimistic about the 10K in July now!

Weekend plans: pub for Six Nations rugby for almost all of tomorrow, and lunch with friends on Sunday followed by an evening gym session. Not great food-wise, but I will try not to go nuts. No beer for me anyway as I’m off the sauce for Lent to try to aid weightloss.

Have good weekends all!

It might be time for a humiliating climbdown

I’ve been thinking a lot about my diet choices over the last couple of days. Alternate-day fasting has worked for me up to now, but the recent plateauing has forced me to consider what happens when I get to where I want to be, and whether what I’m doing now is preparing me for that.


ADF has certainly taught me one thing: that hunger isn’t disastrous. I know that I can survive on 500 calories for a whole day, even if it isn’t enjoyable. I think that that is a very valuable lesson, because it totally negates the argument of “I have to eat! I’m hungry.” I’ve learned not to use hunger, however intense, as a binge trigger (touch wood).

What ADF hasn’t taught me, however, is moderation. I have been trying to use my calories wisely on both up and down days in order to minimise hunger, but there’s no denying that eating 500 calories is extreme behaviour. There are maintenance techniques for this diet out there but I don’t think it’s sustainable behaviour for me personally in the long-term.

So I started thinking about alternatives.

Atkins, South Beach and their brethren I dismissed out of hand. (Atkins always made me remember a student dinner party where one guest, learning we were doing bolognese, said “Can I just have some minced beef with grated cheese on it?”)

Straightforward calorie counting isn’t really my friend, as discussed before.

I’ve tried Alli already – I’m slightly embarrassed to admit that I lied to buy it online as I wasn’t overweight enough at the time, and there might have been something in that because it really didn’t work for me: none of the horrific side effects but no weightloss either.

The GI diet could work, but the lack of structure terrifies me. Maybe something like it but with more accountability and support?

And then I found myself on the WeightWatchers website. And the more I read about their new plan, the more I thought “Hey, maybe I could do that!”

I know, I know. Two days ago I said “Never again!” However, a major impediment has been removed. I didn’t want to go to meetings because I resented the time they’d take up and because they are usually at times that are either too early or clash with workout time. But (and here’s some News-with-a-capital-N) I have a new job which starts in four weeks. A job where I will spend every single day in the same place, not roaming the region like a particularly boring nomad. A job with a lunchtime WeightWatchers meeting just round the corner. So I can go without eating into valuable workout/relationship/plain old me time.

I love it when a plan comes together.

So... I will continue with the ADF (and keep working out) until we go on holiday in just over two weeks.

While on holiday I will eat more or less what I like, while trying not to go nuts and to stay active.

Then when I get back I’ll add a new eating plan to the Brand New Life mix.

Watch this space!

Healthy You Challenge check-in: I gave up drinking for *this*?

Warning: this post contains some bad language and several instances of petulance.


Today did not begin well.


Today began, as usual, with the scales. The scales didn’t tell me anything I wanted to hear. The scales told me that I’ve gained 400g (that’s a pound, for the metrically-challenged amongst you) not just since last week, but since yesterday, bringing my weight back up to 68.2kg.


I should take that shiny “10kg lost” badge down, really.


This has been a shitty week stuck on another plateau, despite my sticking to my programme. Here are the calorie counts (and exercise) for the week:


Tuesday: 1,985 and an hour’s skiing
Wednesday: 598, half an hour on the Treadclimber, 45 minutes of weights/strength
Thursday: 1,786 and a Body Pump class
Friday: 502
Saturday: 1,646
Sunday: 1,018, 40 minutes of weights/strength and 12km on the treadmill for a total of about 900 calories (Yes, 1,000 is not 500, but this is not a one-pound-gain-level fuck-up)
Monday: 1,786

I’m really at a serious loss to figure out how that translates into this:


Tuesday: 67.8
Wednesday: 68.2

Thursday: 68.0
Friday: 68.2
Saturday: 67.9
Sunday: 67.9
Monday: 67.8
Today: 68.2


I do not believe this to be the result of my body going into starvation mode. Anything I’ve ever read about this phenomenon suggests that it won’t kick in till you get below 1,000 kcal a day, and last week I averaged about 1,330. Given that my RMR is only in the region of 1,600 that’s not that low. And the whole point of the alternate-day thing is that your body isn’t supposed to notice that you’re not eating much.


Well, mine certainly hasn’t noticed.


It’s not muscle. The scales measure body composition and that has not changed. I suppose it’s probably water, but really, I am so over this shit. I am so over the stupid crap my body likes to pull where I have to struggle and struggle and suffer to lose one ^&*$”@# pound that I can then put on again by looking at food. I appreciate that I should be focusing on the health benefits of being more active, but to be honest right now they’re not massively in evidence: I don’t really feel any fitter; I still sleep appallingly; my skin’s still crap; I’m still permanently stressed and exhausted (thanks work!) - the weight loss was really the only result I was seeing. So I’m into the weight loss; so I like to see the scale going down: does that make me a bad, an immature, a less complete person? Does it bollocks.


I’m going on holiday in two and a half weeks. I wanted to get to 65kg by then. On the 2nd of January that looked like a sensible goal. Even last week it seemed perfectly achievable. But thanks to this random, apparently groundless regain it’s not going to happen. And that makes me want to kick things, scream and punch the wall. Perhaps that makes me a bad, immature person.

I know I’m supposed to love my body. I know I’m supposed to respect it for what it can do and not beat it up for what it can’t, but there isn’t much it can do. It’s clumsy and malcoordinated. It can’t even run 5K. All it appears to be good at is taking non-existent calories and converting them into all-too-existent fat. Compare that to my mind, and it’s not hard to see why I think of my body as the weak link in this particular chain. I try to treat it well: I give it the right quantity of food and make sure it gets plenty of exercise and enough sleep... and this is how it repays me? I gave up drinking for this?

I don’t really know where to go from here. Giving up obviously isn’t an option. I could try changing to another programme, but nothing else I’ve tried has worked even this well. The idea of going to a WeightWatchers meeting sets my teeth on edge, and I don’t think that doing the programme alone would work any better than plain calorie restriction. The GI diet and similar programmes which rely on your being able to judge satiety also won’t work – I’m perfectly capable of getting fat on low-GI foods because I’m still learning about portion control. I suppose I’ll continue with ADF, because the only alternative I can see is going back to where I was, and that appeals even less. But it does feel as if I’m having to fight very hard just to stay still.


So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

Non-scale victory

Totally forgot something I meant to mention in yesterday's post, and I don't know how! The dress I bought on Sunday for the wedding next month was a size ten. An actual, off-the-shelf ten in a normal shop! I've been wearing Bravissimo 10s for about six months, but thought it would be a long time before I was out of the 12s anywhere else.

Now I just have to get my lower body to catch up. Who knew you could have a 30H chest and still be pear-shaped, eh?

Healthy You Challenge check-in

I weighed in yesterday morning at 67.8kg. I’m getting tantalisingly close to 66.8kg, aka 10 and a half stone, aka my lightest ever adult weight. (Achieved for one week only during my last month at university, the week when I went to my WeightWatchers meeting in sub-fusc and the leader told me how proud she was of me for coming straight from an exam. I was back up to 10st 10lb the next week, then there was celebration, graduation, and a graph that kept going up for about four years...) My current weight feels like Thursday: I can almost smell the delights of the weekend next mini goal, but unfortunately there’s some highly inconvenient work to do before I get there.

I learned a valuable lesson this week. I learned that if the pattern of alternate days I’ve got into doesn’t match some social event, and I need to alter it, I really must not do this by having two 500-calorie days in a row. We had people coming for dinner on Sunday night, so I needed that to be an up day, but Friday was a down. Friday was fine, no more than usual hunger levels, but Saturday... oh dear. By about lunchtime on Saturday I was fit for nothing but lazing on the couch, and by bedtime I was ready to eat the pillow and plagued by serious thoughts of bingeing. Lesson learned, and I feel a bit stupid because really, how difficult was it to work out that eating 500 calories for two days in a row is not a clever idea?

On Sunday we went shopping as I needed a dress for a friend’s wedding, and had lunch at Zizzi. We split some of their truly fabulous garlic bread with cheese, which got me thinking about the Two Fit Chicks podcast on goals that I listened to while driving home a few days ago: Carla said that you should be mindful in your actions, and always ask yourself “Is this behaviour going to take me towards or away from my goal?” The answer will sometimes be “far, far away!”, and you will sometimes do it anyway, but you are at least acting mindfully. I ate that garlic bread fully aware of its potential effects on my weight-loss curve, but I enjoyed every damn bite... And to compensate slightly I had prawn linguine for my main course rather than one of the cheese-laden or beef-heavy options.

Dinner was roast chicken: dry-roasted for fat-reduction after reading a Nigel Slater article in the Guardian recommending the method. It worked really well: the chicken was still beautifully moist and the skin lovely and crisp. It probably helped that I’d bought the most expensive chicken I felt I could afford – not sure you’d get such good results with one of the 3-for-£10 specimens Tesco also had. For dessert we had homemade gingerbread and custard... the custard was bought, slightly to my shame until I tasted it. Pudding Place make better custard than me, and I don’t mind admitting it!

Monday was uneventful. On Tuesday I had a super-beginning skiing lesson at our local dry slope. We only did very basics (go, stop), but it was highly enjoyable and I have booked in for a beginners’ course. The lesson showed me some of the mental progress I’d made. Skiing was an activity I’d tried a couple of times as a teenager, and found that my weight, inflexibility and lack of fitness rendered practically impossible. So for every task the instructor set us (except, perhaps, putting on the skis) there was a little voice in the back of my mind saying “You can’t do this! You tried! You can’t! You know you can’t! You’re going to fall over and make an arse of yourself!” But I was able to say “Well, I’m going to try. And even if I do fall over, well, so what? It would be a whole lot less embarrassing than refusing to try sliding down a very gentle five-foot slope, wouldn’t it?” I did try. And not only did I not fall over, I was probably one of the better ones in the group – turns out skiing is far easier when you’re not obese. Therefore I have a message for that little voice: SCREW YOU!

(That one tiny lesson took me further than I’d managed to get any of the previous times, so in future lessons the “I CAN’T!” at least will be based on fear, not actual experience. I find that makes it easier to fight.)

FAIL

So, I had loads to do at work today and planned to stay late. But about 5 I just wasn't feeling the office as a place to get work done, so I thought "Sod it, I'll get the normal train and work at home. Maybe I'll go to the gym, as well" (because of course I didn't go last night). So I tidied up the bombsite that was my hotdesk (seriously, how do I mess them up so much in three days?) and bagged up my laptop and all my files and dragged them to the station and got on the train.

You know how sometimes you're running through what you've just done in your head, and you realise that there's something that wasn't there that should have been? Well, about halfway home I realised that I remembered taking my house keys out of my handbag to unchain my laptop from the desk, but not putting them back in... one phonecall to a late-working colleague confirms that they are, indeed, marooned on my desk. And of course the Boy is in France. The only other spare set are with his parents sixty miles away.

Typically I realised this just after the big station with lots of trains back into town. I rejected getting off at Nowheresville 1 to wait up to an hour for a train back in favour of going on to Nowheresville 2 (my stop) to collect my car and drive back. So I drove an extra 65 miles and got home two and a half hours later than I should have done. And then I ate a load of granola out of the box

Work FAIL. Exercise FAIl. General not-being-a-disorganised-fool FAIL. Slight diet FAIL (slight because hey, it wasn't the whole packet).

Oh well, we live and learn. I hope.

Healthy You Challenge check-in and some musings

Weight this morning: 69kg exactly. That's 1kg down on last week. Of that, only 100g is muscle, which is a statistic I'm particularly pleased with, as I'm trying to lose as little lean mass as possible. Of the 8.9kg I've now lost in 2010, only 1.1kg has been muscle, and my muscle percentage, as measured by our body composition scales, is creeping towards 40%.

It's not been a bad week, food-wise. The Boy went away for the week on Saturday, so on Friday night we ordered a valedictory curry. We'd planned to split a tandoori mixed grill, which our (surprisingly good for a dinky village) local takeaway does very well, and a portion of chips, and I'd planned for them and eaten a smallish lunch accordingly. The Boy decided that he needed a bit more food, so ordered a curry too, of which I had a few mouthfuls, and I'd forgotten the mixed grill came with a naan, but little damage was done. I was particularly pleased with the moment when I dunked a bit of naan in the bottom of the mixed grill's box, was about to put it in my mouth, and then looked at it. Really looked at it, and said "I'm about to eat a lump of bread dipped in oil. That's not the sort of thing I do any more," before putting it in the bin. Progress is made...

On Saturday I got up at a truly horrible time for a weekend to take the Boy to the station, before coming home for a big bowl of porridge (my standard breakfast) and a Body Pump class. I love Body Pump. I'm hoping that if I keep it up I'll end up like the forty- and fifty-something women in my class with the fantastic bodies and the ability to lift weights that make my jaw drop slightly. They are proper inspirational.

After Pump I considered going for a run, but the class had left me tireder than usual (probably due to the ridiculous hours I worked last week) so I headed to the supermarket to shop for this week. I am shockingly lazy about cooking for just myself, so I stocked up on healthy easy meal options to stop me falling back on toast...

Sunday I'd planned to go for a run on the treadmill, but after 2.7km I just wasn't feeling the love, so I swapped to the cross-trainer for another 300 calories. Then I headed to the town to meet a friend for lunch and shopping for a dress to wear to a wedding in five weeks. After that we came home and enjoyed pasta with freshly made tomato, chorizo and bacon sauce - NOM. I was vegetarian until about three years ago, and I have no idea how I lived without bacon and chorizo.

Yesterday was pants, frankly. Today wasn't much better. I fully intended to go to the gym tonight, but I'm just too tired and too inertia-ridden. So I'm letting myself spend the evening in my PJs reading, knitting and blogging instead. I'm not moving,  but I'm not eating either, after the Thai curry I had for dinner (more NOM - well done Tesco).

While I was rummaging in the can cupboard looking for soup yesterday I found a tin of chickpeas I didn't know was there, so I think that my contribution to this week's Outside The Box Challenge might just be some hummus. More on that later I hope!

(Belated) Healthy You Challenge check-in, and some thoughts on thoughts

I have spent the last three weeks on a plateau, bobbling around 71kg, never moving more than 400g either side. Fingers crossed I've got going again, as I weighed in at 70kg on Wednesday morning. I was very excited as that means I've reached my first mini goal! Next stop 65kg, I hope. Here are my stats

All time heaviest: 95kg
2002 WeightWatchers start weight: 90kg
Weight on 2nd January 2010: 77.9kg
Lost in 2010: 7.9kg (or 17lb)

I don't have a specific goal in mind. 65kg would be around the lightest I've ever been, but would only be just inside the 'healthy' BMI range for my height. (I am sceptical about BMI, but that's another post). I am also trying to get fit, and am trying to focus more on size than weight. Which brings me onto the other topic in the title: the mental aspects of weightloss. MargieAnne commented on my last post, and exhorted me to ensure that I learn to handle stress, and make the decision not just to lose weight, but to be that weight for the rest of my life.

It's early days yet - it's not been two months - but I do feel that this time I am in a better place mentally than I have been for previous weight-loss attempts. Moving in with the Boy has reduced the living-out-of-a-suitcase aspect of my life massively, removing a substantial cause of stress. I have time and space to think about and plan my food choices, and I have ample space to prepare them (if not always enough time...). But I think the biggest change is that I have tried to address not just the fact that I overeat, but why I do it. There are two major influences for this: the Beck Diet Solution book (as harped on about in a previous post) and the vast range of healthy eating blogs I have taken to reading.  I won't say I have dealt with my stress eating, but I have become aware of it. And I'm getting there: I've had a frankly terrible day at work, and came home craving biscuits and cheese and granola and all the other wondrous things in the cupboard. Instead, I've read some blogs, and written this post.

It's a long road, but I'll get there.

Healthy You Challenge

I'm excited to have signed up for Scale Junkie's Healthy You Challenge. I hope it will increase accountability and encourage me to keep blogging.

I have also signed up for SparkPeople - not sure how much of its functionality I'll use day-to-day, as I'm already using Food Focus to track my food, but I'm enjoying exploring the huge mine of resources. (And scavenging for SparkPoints!)

Foods

Soup. Soup is definitely my friend.

Soup can be stunningly low in calories for its volume - what else could make a decent-size lunch for 87 calories?

Even when it's not super low-cal, it's still surprisingly healthy for its fillingness. A three- or four-hundred-calorie bowl of lentil and bacon keeps me going for a very long time.

So that's why I'm the Shrinking Soup Dragon.

Books

At the beginning of the year I went through an orgy of requesting diet books from the library. I have a bit of a thing about reading different diet books, absorbing tiny bits and pieces from each while discarding the stuff which I deem (rightly or wrongly) to be stupid. One of them, recommended on DietGirl's Amazon page, was The Beck Diet Solution. It has been a revelation to me. It isn't a diet book in the sense that it tells you what to eat (although the author has produced a subsequent book which does have a diet plan). Instead it focuses on how you think, and employs cognitive behavioural therapy techniques to help you manage your thoughts and behaviours to aid weight loss. I've had great results from CBT before, in other areas of my life; I appreciate that it doesn't work for everybody. But for those who are open to it, I thoroughly recommend a read through this book.

None of the other books I've read has made such an impression, although Anne Diamond's A New You was pretty good, I thought.

About my diet

I have little-to-no tolerance for fad diets - the mathematical part of me distrusts anything that claims to subvert the calories-in-vs-calories-out equation.

I initially turned to WeightWatchers as a close friend had had good results from it and it was the only mainstream diet that was compatible with my extreme pickiness, as it doesn't forbid any foods. Unfortunately, since I was following the At Home programme there was no Leader to dissuade me from using 12 of my 20 points a day on a big bar of chocolate, or 16 on caipirinhas, and from time to time that's what I did. There is no denying, though, that the programme taught me a lot about what was the right amount to eat, and crucially it showed me that I could lose weight if I wanted to.

I could not go back to WW now, however. Recently I've tried counting calories, but found I struggled to lose tiny amounts of weight, which I then put back on ridiculously easily.  I tried going to my GP, who tested my thyroid function (normal) and then told me to stop moaning as I wasn't as fat as a lot of people. (Paraphrasing, but barely!)

Currently (for the last 4 weeks) I am following the Johnson UpDayDownDay diet, which is a modified form of alternate day fasting, or ADF. I first came across the concept in an article in the Sunday Times just before Christmas. I know that it's controversial, and that it looks extremely faddy, so let me set out my reasoning:

1. Assuming you still believe in calories-in-calories-out, to lose weight you need to create a calorie deficit. A weight loss of 1lb a week requires a deficit of 3500kcal, or 500kcal per day
2. I burn around 1800kcal a day, so to lose 1lb a week I need to eat 1200-1300kcal per day.
3. I have tried this. Extensively. I can't do it, psychologically speaking. I find the idea of eating very little for months extremely depressing, and I give up.
4. ADF requires you to eat very little (or nothing) on alternate days, and eat ‘what you like’ on the others.
5. I looked at the description, and thought “I could do that!” And it seems that mostly I can. If I think “ARGH, I’m so hungry, I want cake!” I no longer fall into a tragic gloom about not being able to eat cake ever again (or at least for six months which feels like forever). Instead I think “I can have cake tomorrow.”
6. As a result I am far less likely to think “F*** this!”, eat the cake, go massively over my calories for the day, feel miserable, gain weight, feel even more miserable.
7. Result!

And now, the numerical bit. Assuming that I need 1,800 calories a day, eating 500 for 3 days in 7 will create a calorie deficit of 3,900kcal per week, which should equate to just over a pound of weight loss. So even if you don’t believe the stuff about ADF ‘switching on’ genes that somehow magically cause weightloss, you can see that losing a sensible amount of weight per week is theoretically possible.

I have made a couple of modifications, however:

• I don’t eat whatever I want on the up days: I stick to 1,800 calories. I know from experience that I am perfectly capable of eating 3,000kcal in a day, which would undo any good from the frugal days!

• The plan suggested that for the first 2 weeks you only have diet shakes on the down days. I decided that this would be expensive and awkward, and lead to mockery from my colleagues. So I stuck to normal food, primarily soup. (More on soup later...)

It’s been going reasonably well: I lost 1.9kg in the first week (which the Boy kindly pointed out was a mathematical impossibility), and until this week had been losing another 1kg per week. I maintained this week. I’m trying not to let this get to me.

Anyway, this post has got a bit huge. In the next one I’ll talk about psychological factors and the book that’s been helping me massively this time around.

About me

I'm in my twenties, I work in finance, and I live with my lovely boyfriend.

I was a skinny child, but started to expand when I hit puberty, and by the time I went to university I weighed around 15 stone (210lb, or a bit over 95kg) - I don't know exactly, as I avoided scales assiduously. Uniquely among students of my acquaintance I actually lost weight in the first year, mainly because I was a vegetarian and the college's vegetarian options were mostly inedible.

My real "WTF?" moment came in my second year, however, with the discovery that one of my friends, a six-foot plus backrow forward for the college rugby team, whom we affectionately called Fat Boy (Kids can be so cruel. (We can? Thanks mom!)), actually weighed half a stone less than I did. I'm five foot three. Somehow that was the final straw and the kick up the arse I needed to actually do something about my weight. I joined WeightWatchers, and by the time I left university I'd lost about 3 and a half stone (around 50lb) and weighed about 10 and a half stone.

But then I moved back home while I looked for work. None was forthcoming, and because I hadn't really addressed the issues that had made me fat in the first place the weight crept back on. By the time I finally did find a proper job, 18 months later, I weighed nearly 13 stone. I had kept going to WeightWatchers, but like so many I had slipped back into my old ways. My weight fluctuated for the next couple of years, but the classic young-professional-in-London lifestyle (too much takeaway, drinking five or six nights a week) meant that it never dropped below 11 stone, even after I joined a gym.

I left London for a provincial city in the autumn of 2007, and a more settled, stable lifestyle initially helped me to lose weight again. But my new (and still current) job is highly seasonal, and when it's stressful, it's very, very stressful and very time consuming. It also involves a lot of time away from home, staying in hotels and eating in restaurants, and at first I just didn't have the mental skills to deal with that without putting on a pile of weight. Which is what happened. I rejoined a gym in September 2008, determined to take things in hand, and that is what I was doing until very recently. I'd managed, through exercise and reasonably healthy eating, to get my weight to start with a 10 not an 11, something I hadn't seen since a bout of non-eating induced by the most stressful four weeks of my entire life. But between the beginning of October 2009 and the end of the year, three things happened:

• I revised for and sat my accountancy finals, requiring long bouts of sitting still, enormous amounts of stress, and 'question practice and custard creams' actually having to take priority over 'going to the gym'.
• I moved in with my boyfriend - while this is one of the best things I've ever done, it nevertheless involved substantial upheaval.
• Christmas. Well, we all know about Christmas. And my family, bless them, love you with food.

So when I got on the scales after New Year, they said 78kg. (I changed them into kilograms a few months ago on the basis that they were less emotive than stones and pounds. Sometimes this works.) This was not good. For the nth year in a row I was heavier than I'd been a year ago.

So I determined to actually do something about this, once and for all. The next post will tell you what I'm doing, and how I'm getting on so far.