Archive for the ‘#donotfeed’ Category

See my face? This is my face before I weighed in.

OK so there’s been fizz and some red and not so much cake but plenty cake toppings. Exercise has been on hold while the wee one sorts his digestive system out. Any further than a 30 second sprint away from plumbing wasn’t really an option iykwim (sorry grown up Paul, reading the archives, your butt has meant business this week but thank you for taking this photo of me, you’re a star!).

What bugger said onwards and upwards?

Gonna git you!

Time for some serious carb deprivation next week.

Onwards and downwards!

I slogged for those 3lbs!!

Sort of kept a diary here.

I guess I am going to have to pack in the wine altogether.

This will be hard since we haven’t really had the sort of fall out me and tequila have.

Onwards and downwards!

My time with the Arriba Weight Loss Challenge cult has come to an end. But there was no orgy, and you’d expect one with any self-respecting cult. I’m only slightly disappointed about that.

I didn’t win. Since Christmas I barely found the motivation to go get my ass weighed. I calibrated my own bathroom scales to match their fancy-shmancy Tanita doo-das and it turns out I lost 17lbs. In three months. Which is better than gaining 17lbs I guess, considering all the red wine and Christmas pudding I put away over the Christmas “break”. That wee break that extended itself well into January.

I am in grave danger of spending a long miserable time in Florida on a vacation even I’m scared to total up the cost of yet. I do not wish this for me or my family.

I’m not rejoining the cult for a second go since I think I’ve learned as much from them about healthy eating as I can, they will be repeating it all for the new Weight Loss Challengers. It does work. It really does. You don’t even have to buy the Herbalife meal replacement shakes they promote every week.. it’s the easiest and most effective diet I’ve ever followed. So why didn’t I stick to it?

I know, all diets work, it’s not the diets that are a problem it’s me. I don’t so much hit a plateau as a big feck-off self destruct button. I see the weight coming off, I feel good, I eat. I feel bad, I eat.

I just eat.

I have been battling my weight since I hit 150lbs back in my 20s. It’s a funny thing weight, that first 20lbs pissed me off more than I can say, but it only pushed me slightly out of my healthy BMI range so getting rid of it didn’t feel urgent. I suppose I thought it would disappear as quietly as it appeared. Three kids and a ton of Cathedral City later and “healthy BMI” is an unimaginably long way off, but I have to start covering the vast wasteland of empty wrappers between me and it, if not for my sake then for the sake of the three people I incubated during 27 months of Olympic Freestyle Eating.

Clubs do not work for me. I talk a good diet, I persuade other people to go on them, I railroad them into holding my hand at classes, clubs and gyms. But it’s always ME who quits, who finds excuses, who gives up. Neither handing over money, humiliation or the temptation of a few hundred quid in winnings has worked so far. I need to stop externalising this journey and take responsibility for it all on my ownsome.

Kerry @ And Then All I Thought About Was You and I are going to have a bash at walking this path together. Some of my most vulnerable times are when I am at home, on my own, you know? When whatever I stuff in my face has no calories because nobody sees me eat it? One of the reasons I managed to lose even 17lbs with the Arriba cult was down to the weekly phone-calls I got from my leader (see, I’m telling you – that there is cult terminlogy!). She would phone on Wednesdays just to see how I’d been doing that week, to make sure that whatever had happened I felt encouraged to turn up on Thursday for the weigh-in.

A little bit of encouragement can go a long way.

I’ve learned loads from my recent foray into cult dieting, and together with my 21 year membership of Scottish Slimmers, a brief secondment to Weightwatchers, a dabble with Atkins and common bloody sense, I have the tools to crack this. I have to crack this before I run out of life. I have oodles of recipes to share which will encourage me to cook them for me and mine rather than chucking a slab of cheese on hot buttered toast. There will be photos.

Kerry and I are going to weigh-off on Friday morning. I have no idea what Kerry’s diet and exercise plans are but I am sure I will pick up something new, something to inspire me… and a Twitter reprimand everytime I reach for that Mars Bar that nobody knows is there… you know… the one with no calories in it.

We’re going to tweet our wins and our woes with the hashtag #donotfeed. I will similarly preface anything diet related I post here so anyone who wishes to avoid all this talk of food and deprivation can do so. Of course, you could also choose to join in and share your recipes and diet tips along with a bit of virtual bitch-slapping everytime someone approaches the Hob Nobs.