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 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…

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.

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!

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.