The Lard Arms

There must be an easier way. Surely?

I wrote a post last week and promptly lost it!  That was down, pure and simple, to the mobile internet connection that I am having to use at the moment.  It cut out and I didn't realise.  Grrrr.  Of course, the sensible thing would be to pen something in word first and then do a quick cut and paste job but...

Anyway, the VLCD regime continues.  Last week was tough for all sorts of reasons but I have hit resistance big time.  A very low calorie diet means no conventional food ie abstinence.  Of course, if I were ditching the booze, drugs or cigarettes, I'd be going cold turkey and it would be no more of those substances.  Pure and simple!  That is not to say the process is easy, quite the opposite but you don't need to have any of those things to survive physically.

That's why, for some, a VLCD works - it removes the choice (apart from the flavours) - so if you follow the regime strictly, you control the intake.  As soon as you start bending the rules, the mind games go into party mode.

For health reasons, I had to break abstinence.  And getting back into it has been really tough.  Because, as with any addiction, one of something is never enough.  The food I ate was extremely sensible but I could have eaten more, more, more.

Two of my former LighterLife chums, Peridot and Lesley, have been embracing different regimes with support from Dr Beck.  They have lost the same amount of weight in a week that I have - enjoying tasty things while I have been on packets and sachets!!!  It does make me wonder...

Anyway, I am doing this (the abstinence thing) because it worked for me, last time, and I want to lose weight quickly.  This time round it's a whole different experience and I will be embracing the CBT side of things (with Beck) much more seriously, particularly at maintenance stage.  One major difference is that last time round I kept thinking about food that I would eat, once I reached a lower weight.  I fantasised about all the food I was missing.  This time round there can be no dreaming!  The reality of weight maintenance is not a lifelong snacking opportunity!

Because, ultimately, maintenance is the weight-loss holy grail.  Maintenance is for life.  Weight loss is just the means to get there - whichever method you choose.

Along the way, even though I am not eating conventional food, the learning opportunities are still...in abundance!

Weight-loss of significant numbers on the scales will mean behavioural change at a core level.  It means changing habits.  Forever!!!!  But forever feels scary and TOO HARD.  So I am just trying to focus on now, which is a challenge in itself.

Anyway, Tiger Girl sent me this and I think it is extremely relevant - whatever regime you are following:

For every behaviour you change, you must replace it with another one.

You could substitute the word behaviour for food, too.

THAT has to be part of it, doesn't it?  You cannot remove a habit and leave a gaping hole - you have to replace it with something positive/healthy - whatever.

What I have noticed about NOT eating (unhealthily)  is that I have not managed to find enough suitable and compelling replacements - YET.  But I will. I absolutely will.

Catching Up

It's really been a topsy-turvy few days - well, few weeks, if I'm really honest.  And the food thang has reflected that.  It definitely has.  Up and down on the scales - when I can access them.  Great plans for starting over. Again.  Abstinence was on my agenda but I kept moving my own goal posts. Hmmmm.

So, instead of adopting my usual all or nothing thinking, I've tried to start stacking up the habits that I understand (now) that I will need to have for the rest of my life.  Does that sound dramatic?  It's been a combination of comments (on blogs, from fellow weight losers), conversations, reading and watching that has made me have my own reality check.

I didn't want to do New Year Resolutions because I worried I'd just be setting myself up for failure.  Again.

So, what have I done?

First - and, for me, it's a massive first. I've kept a food journal.  I started it thinking that I would use it to log my abstinence but then I continued to eat (the post-exercise hunger was the start!).  I've now maintained the diary for a week.  It doesn't sound a very long time but it's the breakthrough that it represents. 

The breakthrough is that there is no weight loss ending.  I've known it.  I've probably even written about it but never really accepted it and understood the implications of such a statement.  

I'm also looking at a relatively big weight gain over 12 months.  I am 3+stone heavier than this time last year. I can think of significant events when comfort eating kicked in.  But those distressing moments were interspersed with a lot of mindless eating - paying no attention to my physical hunger.  If I had been documenting what I ate, I'd be in a stronger position now to understand where those extra pounds came from.

Second - I've gone to the gym.  For the next few months, I'm going to be living out of a suitcase - Monday-Friday.  The gym won't be an option every time.  But where it's available, I need to take advantage.  And where it isn't, I need a portable alternative.  Sometimes, as I know from my commuting days, it's difficult to find time to 'do'exercise.  But that difficulty is nothing in comparison to the fact that I could easily NOT do any exercise at all.  I realise exercise has been another all or nothing area in my life.  I happened to read an old post I wrote about New York - not because I was looking back at how I did the VLCD - but because I was looking for a travel reference.  What caught my eye was a comment along the lines of "I only managed 24,000 steps today".  While I may not have been going into a gym (which I constantly berated myself for at at the time), my underlying level of fitness was much better than it is now.  Lesley summed it up perfectly in her blog when she said "exercise won't do itself".  I have to make it happen.  It simply has to become part of my life.  For life.

Third - counselling.  Even though I am not able to go every week, I am finding that the counselling is really helping. It's helping me to observe my behaviour and change certain aspects of it for the better.  I'm also really keen to look at CBT in greater detail this year.  In the past, I have turned to food in moments of crisis (and beyond!).  I've eaten my way through life - literally.  Rather than living, I've been busy blocking out any and every emotion.  I am hoping that counselling will help me change that.

Fourth - an appreciation of addiction.  While my husband and I were driving in the car, we talked about smoking.  I was a social smoker and he was a proper smoker (ie there didn't need to be a party for him to light up!).  He doesn't smoke any more - hasn't for years.  I realise that I don't think of him as a smoker. Not at all.  So I asked him if he felt the same.  No, he said.  He still craves cigarettes, which surprised me. But it was his comment that "one will never be enough" that somehow got heard.  Loud and clear.  And I realise that there really are certain foods that will never be enough for me either.  Crisps is one such food.  I can eat several bags - particularly salt and vinegar (Walker's only!) - without blinking.  I've been loathed to write anything on the blog about abstaining from crisps but that is what I have done.  I've even been practising saying the sentence, "I don't eat crisps", to myself, over and over again.  I can't think about NEVER eating crisps again.  That will send me bonkers.  Instead, I just have to say I don't eat crisps.  I am a person who doesn't eat crisps.  (NB this is different to I can't eat crisps or I choose not to eat crisps.  My brain doesn't respond to those messages!) I reckon that there will be other foods that fall into this category so I'll see how I go.  I think we can safely say they will probably be carb-related!  

Fifth - weight monitoring.  On this blog, I have said, very clearly, that the scales are nothing to be afraid of.  They're a great tool for checking how things are going.  That's until, towards the end of last year, I stopped stepping on!  I was in denial for the numbers going up too quickly.  I mentioned to my husband that I might pack my scales this week but he said that was ridiculous.  I think he was fearful of it becoming an unhealthy obsession but, for me, it's simply a very helpful measure of what's really going on.  So I am going back to weighing myself and logging the stats.  I need to find a way of finding joy in existing within a 7-10lb range - celebrating when the weight is stable, noticing when it starts creeping up and helping myself to stop that trend continuing.  There were definite turning points last year when, if I'd had the knowledge I have now (!), I could have turned the tide.  But I didn't so couldn't!

Sixth - educating myself and learning, learning, learning.  I've started to listen to my old LighterLife CDs again on my iPod.  It's made me realise that while I was a fairly successful dieter (I made it hard for myself), I had absolutely NO IDEA of how I could maintain my weight.  At a lower weight.  How could I possibly know?  I hadn't been under 10 stone for decades!  Literally.  I hadn't held 11 stone for any prolonged period of time for at least 18 years.  That's what 2009 is going to be about for me - once I lose this excess weight - the start of a lifetime journey of managing my weight, at a lower weight. 

Seventh - photographing the evidence!  After my photo stocktake and cataloguing, I realise that a photo can be really, really good indicator of progress.  Now, I am making my husband take photos more often so that I can see how I look.  Not for vanity but like the scales and food journal, it's another tool.

Towards the end of last year, I asked one of my LighterLife friends to give self-sabotage some thought.  To help me because I was really letting such behaviour take over, particularly on the food front.  She gave me a list of what she does to stop such behaviour in its tracks. And I guess all of the above is my own version of trying to minimise the self-sabotaging behaviour.

Blimey, I only intended to write a short post!  Hope it's not too rambling...