Hanging in there

I am finding today really tough going. In a couple of other areas of life I am feeling rather stretched and stressed. This is having the effect of making me want to just hide away with a big bar of chocolate. I have said this to my husband so that he is aware of how I feel and can help me through.

It has been quite fortunate that we have been very busy today, as a result I was able to go out and leave any forms of payment behind meaning no way of buying any foods that would send me off track. If the day had been quieter then I am not sure I would have succeeded so far.

I already knew that my sugar cravings were not just a physical thing. Several years ago I realised that I had a problem with controlling myself with food. I tackled it head on and managed to get it under control but every so often it rears it's ugly head. I don't want to give in and I won't but it feels like it is taking an awful lot of effort to resist.

One week in.

  I am feeling pretty good about having completed one week of getting myself off sugar and back on the road to where I want to be. I weighed this morning and was pleased to see that sticking to my plan has helped me get rid of 5 pounds. I know that from here on that rate will slow down, and I know that is a good thing because maintaining that rate of loss would be a fast route to gaining it all back.

  I did start to feel a bit better as the day went on yesterday so I managed to eat and I stuck with allowed foods. There was one exception to that. My youngest wanted to make some jelly for him and my oldest so he did. When I served them a bowl of it each later in the day I did have one small spoonful, about 5g to be specific. I didn't take that as a cue to though.

  Here is to a second week of eating well. We have a get together on Sunday which will involve foods that will be off my plan. I am going to try to make sure I take some things which will be on plan and do my best to stay strong.

  One thing I haven't done so far is start on any exercise. I am having a tough time getting my head around that but rather than saying I will start that this week I am going to spend some time figuring out where my reluctance is coming from so I can address that.

  I have started taking the l-glutamine, and chromium supplements that I mentioned. It is hard to say if they have helped much yet but I have certainly found that for the early part of the day I have had very little, if anything, in the way of sugar cravings. I am going to try taking them with lunch as afternoons are definitely the time I have noticed cravings happening more.

  Time to begin my attack on week 2 and see where that takes me.

Not feeling well.

I don't know how not feeling well will affect my plans but seeing as right now I don't feel at all like eating  there is no danger of me eating something I shouldn't be in phase 1!

I fought the cravings....

  And they didn't win. Ha! Take that sugar.

  It was a constant, hours long, battle yesterday afternoon and evening. I managed to overcome it, I was particularly hard when my children wanted to make a cake. I made a plan in my head before we started and cleared the sink so that as soon as the cake batter was in the tin the bowl could be filled with water. Once the cake was cooked and cooled down I cut it into pieces and froze it. That way I can take out a piece for each of the children to defrost and not have the rest of it sat there tempting me.

  I was all prepared for today food wise too, having learnt from earlier in the week. That preparation is still useful but our plans have changed so instead of being prepared and going out it is ready for me to eat as soon as mealtimes come round.

  At the moment I am feeling good about the whole thing and strong willed but after yesterday I am not going to assume that will remain the same. For now though I am going to focus on how good it feels so that I can try and bring it back if I need to.

Sugar cravings.

Not just little, I fancy a nibble of something sweet cravings but big, fat I WANT SUGAR cravings. I don't have an awful lot to say on this but my word they are strong. I am fighting them. Really fighting them. It's not feeling at all easy but I can't give in now because if I do I will just end up back where I was and from there the only way the scales are going is up.

3 days in.

   I don't want to speak too soon but I think this is beginning to have an effect. I know it is early days but I am certainly feeling a little better in myself. I seem to have passed the headachey stage which I knew would come when I removed the sugar. I am still a little tempted by sweet things but I haven't given in to that temptation. I know that one little bite would lead to another, and another, and another.....

  I am hoping that the sugar temptation will ease a little now anyway. I have some chromium supplements and some L-glutamine. I have been reading about both of these and it certainly sounds like it is worth a try.

  My slow cooker has been a bit of a life saver twice this week. In order to make sure that we have dinner ready when we get in from some of our many busy days I have been putting things in there. It has been good not to have to rush the cooking of tea when I am already hungry. If I had to do all the cooking once we got in then meals would have been late and I probably would have picked whilst doing it.

  I think my next task needs to be getting back into the routine of our days. I have kind of let a lot of things slide over the last few weeks/months. I feel so much better when I follow a routine for my day. I have more time to relax then as well. By that I mean properly relax. Spending hours ignoring all the things that need doing is not relaxing. I then end up with loads of things to do in s very short space of time and rushing from one commitment to the next.

  I think the clearer head from eating better is beginning to make me see that the way I was eating was not the only problem. I have let a lot of things descend into a state I don't want them to be in. The difference at the moment is that I can see that for what it is/was and see a clear path to getting all my life back to where I want it to be. I don't know how much of that was down to what has seemed like an insanely long autumn/winter but I do know that the cold, damp, grey weather we had for months on end certainly co-incided with me losing a lot of sparkle. I feel like I am starting to wake up from a foggy sleep, and I like what I am seeing.

Pushing myself.

  This is still something I am having to make myself do. I said I was likely to weigh daily and I did. As of this morning I am two pounds down. Seeing that number going down or staying where it was the day before helps me. It makes me feel good and serves as a reminder at this stage. It is a little later in that it starts to be unhelpful. I will make myself aware of that. In the past there has been times where I see that the number is lower than I'd aimed for that week and take that as a green light to go off plan for a couple of days. I am going to avoid that this time.

  I did learn from Monday and didn't let myself get to the point where I was completely ravenous. I made sensible choices when I got hungry outside of my planned meals and snacks. That was not an easy, natural thing though. There was an argument in my head about what to go for.

  The other thing I found was that I needed to eat dinner earlier than planned. I am lucky that because my job is being at home for my children I have the opportunity to eat when I need to rather than waiting till late. Fitting it round everybody's schedule is the tricky part. I am not sure if it would be harder or easier if I worked!

  The sun is shining and the sky is blue today. We also have a super busy day ahead of us so I need to be organised and make sure I have everything in place for easy meals and snacks. The menu is planned, the food is there. I just need to make sure it is there for me to grab. The other thing I need to work on is getting enough water. I was not good on that on Monday, did better yesterday and today onwards I am going to make sure I keep on top of it. It's the only thing I drink so it is easy to monitor how much I am getting.

Hitting the tough part

Sugar.

  That is my downfall. It is something I eat far too much of and I strongly suspect that for some time now I have had way too much of it in my system. I think that perhaps some of the things my body has been feeling is down to that. This is the main reason why I have opted to use The South Beach diet to kick start my weight loss and change my diet.

  I gave some real thought to what I was actually eating. I had reached a stage where the following would not be at all unusual.

Breakfast - Porridge with rasins and golden syrup

OR

Toast with butter and marmalade.

 

Mid morning - Chocolate bar(s). I can easily manage anywhere between 50g and 200g in one go.

Orange.

 

Lunch - A cheese/ham salad sandwich. Crisps. Yogurt. Cake.

 

Mid afternoon - Cake, biscuits or chocolate.

 

Dinner - Proper home cooked from scratch food.

More chocolate.

 

Evening - It would not be unusual for me to have more chocolate or another dessert.

 

  So, um. That looks awful doesn't it. Note the lack of question mark there. I know it is really bad. It wouldn't be so bad if it was a once in a blue moon occurance. It gets to the point though where it is daily. Bad enough for anyone but I am someone who loves to cook and knows what a healthy balanced diet is. I will be completely honest though and say that at this moment in time that list of things is also making my head go "Oh yum. Go on there is a shop just round the corner. The children are at their friends so they wouldn't see. Your husband is at work, he'd never know".

 

  I have two children who get a marvellous diet. They love all food and know that all food is good in moderation. I would not dream of feeding them or allowing them to eat the way I have been eating.

 

  That is why I am starting off by getting myself off the sugar laden stuff. It is hard though. Most of yesterday evening I was craving it. ANYTHING that it might be in. Watching a fab cookery programme about bread where pastries were being made was out of the question. Within minutes my mouth was actually watering! I told my husband about it because he knows how tough this is for me and I know that he will help me.

 

  The other part of my tackling this is going to be taking L-glutamine and Chromium supplements. I have been reading that they can help ease sugar cravings. I don't know if it will make a difference but I will certainly give them a go. I just have to wait for them to be delivered now. In the meantime I am going to try to keep myself busy and remind myself constantly why I am doing this.

 

  Oh and Head - Get lost. This is too important to let you win.



To begin with...

  It has begun. I have come to the end of my first day of sorting out the mess I have let my mind and body get into. To give me a record I have the photos and this morning I have weighed and measured so here are the figures.

Weight: 12st 13lbs (181lbs)

Body fat: 41%

Chest: 46in

Waist: 40.5in

Hips: 46.5in

Upper left arm: 13.25in

Left thigh: 24.5in

Left calf: 15.5in

 

  Although I am really disappointed in myself for letting myself put weight back on after I had made so much progress before (I had got down to 11st 2lbs (156)) I was also kind of relieved not to have gone any higher. I had promised last time I got below 13st that I wouldn't let myself get back there again. I am not impressed with those numbers above though and I want and need to get way below them.

 

  Day one and I need to make sure I am prepared. One thing didn't arrive in my food delivery and as a result I had to go shopping. Unfortunately the only time to fit it in today was on the way home from a group my children go to and I was hungry. It was like a form of torture!

 

  My plan for recording is to weigh daily. I know this is frowned upon by many but it helps me be aware from the start of the day. I am not going to record it here every day but I will weigh. I will take more photos and measurements every 4 weeks.

 

  Food plan is to follow South beach phase 1 for two weeks followed by phase 2 for two weeks. After that I will decide if I will carry on with phase two of just go with planning a sensible menu.

 

  Tomorrow I will start doing some gentle exercise. The cough I was struggling with seems to have gone but after 8 weeks of not doing anything I am feeling very unfit and don't want to just jump into running again.

 

  So that is me started. I am in the right headspace but need to keep reminding myself of what I want and why.



I'm ready.

It's taken me some time to reach this stage. I am ready to make an attack on this and get back the me I want to be. I am sick and tired of being this way. Feeling tired, my body being the way it is, feeling so utterly down on myself. It is enough now.

I have a month of meals and snacks planned. I have a food shop being delivered today.

I have cleared out a lot of things which I don't need in the house tripping me up and taunting me.

I have taken photos for my starting point. These are going to be my never again photos. I have everything ready to go.

I have never shared photos for weight loss motivation before but this time I am going to. I have taken head free shots because I am not that brave!!!

Two years ago this top and jeans fitted me perfectly. In fact the jeans were even a little loose. Clearly that is not the case anymore.

 

Bring it on.

Utterly fed up

I have lost what very little there was of my fitness. Walking my children to and from places has illustrated that very well. I have plodded through the last few weeks waiting, waiting, waiting for the cough to go. It seemed to but the last couple of days have seen it return. I have now had 5 different prescriptions and completely disheartened by it.
I have also felt a bit of a blow this morning after planning out a months meals and then starting to price them up. ££££££ I feel that I need to follow South beach for a month to kick start me and to get the sugar out of my system. But I am not sure I can bring myself to spend that much on food. Not for me. The rest of my family don't have a problem with food. They can all control themselves. Why should I spend loads of money just because I can't.

Trying to decide what to do next but feeling really miserable about it.