I have decided to start losing weight on 1st Aug - psychologically a new month, a new "academic year" (according to my brand new spunky diary!) and the day I go on holiday (probably not a good idea but after a long weekend break last week and eating loads of junk, I wanna ensure that this time I am keeping an eye on things and recording them!)
Well I know I have posted on here before via the c25k forum in which I am proud to say that I have graduated.
Unfortunately just a week later I had tremendous back pain and ended up going to hospital. I have been diagnosed with a prolapsed disc, and I am unable to run for some time now. Really gutted as it meant pulling out of the 5k race for life. I am meant to train for a half marathon in Oct, but have not started training yet. To make matters worse, my hip injury that I gained through a car accident 3 yrs ago has surfaced, and now I am limping.
I have recently been diagnosed with IBS and whilst the first few weeks were great and changing the way I eat, my weight loss attempts are futile. I am just annoyed with how things are going (or not going!) with my attempts...
Hence the decision to leave all that and start again afresh... The spanking new funky diary will help I believe.... I have 6 stone to lose at least, which will bring me back to a weight of 12 stone, will I be able to continue and get back to 10 stone and lose a total of 8 stone... Now that is the question...
My husband is stick thin (lucky him) and whilst he supports my attempts at losing weight he doesn't want to lose weight, how can I make this work especially with cooking dinner for the family with two young children...
Also my husband has now started saying he has heard my talks about losing weight before... I now need to walk the walk!
I am gonna post on here just for the benefit of writing things down and getting my attempts read by other people - I would love encouragement, motivation and inspiration, if you can help, that would be excellent! If not, then I will still post even if no one reads or replies to me, cos I know by posting at least weekly, I will make this into a habit for my own benefit.
So here goes:
Starting weight 18 stone 5lbs
First goal weight 12 stone
Total to lose 6 stone 5 lbs
Thank you for reading.
Bless u all
Dotty x
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dotty_segs
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10 Replies
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Hi dotty-segs and welcome. I'm also a couch to 5k convert. I learned to run then learned to lose weight. I found it good to sort of treat the NHS 12 week plan in a similar way to the c25k plan. Each week has a different set of goals. You get different tips and techniques which build up over time to make you more skilled at losing weight, helping you develop sustainable strategies as you go along. There's a lot you can transfer from your c25k experience, in terms of slowly building up a skill and training yourself one step at a time - even if you can't do the actual running for now (but hopefully can again in the not too distant future).
I also have a vague 'ibs' diagnosis and the most recent advice I was given was to avoid wheat and cheese, so I'm off wheat and dairy for now, although might start to reintroduce things again soon. I've been advised in the past to give up wheat for a month, and I know it works for me, so I may do this more regularly from now on. Have they suggested anything like this to you too?
Re making sure the meals work for both you and your husband, an easy technique I use is to load my plate up with extra salad before serving the main part of the meal. That way my portion is always smaller than my boyfriend's (who's also really skinny and does not need to start losing any weight!)
I've gone up and down, back and fourth, round and round since my teenage years and only last year was I able to finally lose most of the weight that I wanted to lose. My success gave me the confidence to quit smoking at new year too despite years of failed attempts based on nicotine-replacement therapies, willpower attempts, medicine and even hypnotism.
To give up both food and the smoking I just decided that I didn't want to do that anymore, I had to really not want to. The problem was that I replaced food with cigarettes, and then when I quit smoking I replaced smoking with food. So now I have put on a few stone this year and have to now cut it back down a bit again.
My advice, for what it's worth and which I myself will be doing, is trying to find interesting dishes to eat which don't cost too much but I will like and are healthy and that I don't need to think about too much. In your case dinners are for the family, so maybe decide on a normal dinner but decide on something you can get as a little extra on the side, a bit of salsa or maybe a salad like Ruth said instead of as much pasta, cheese, bread or sauce for example. I will do what I did last time and try to then put food completely out of my head. It's one thing to plan lunch or cook dinner, it's another thing to dream about or long for food like I can sometimes do. If trying to diet I tend to overthink it, just like I did all those years before when I failed with both food and cigarettes, I made it a new obsession.
Telling yourself no all the time makes you think about a yes, you debate it in your head. Don't give yourself the option. I would go crazy about whether it was rude or not to leave in the middle of a half-formal conversation for a fag after half an hour, I could sense that it wasn't appropriate but it was possible and so I debated whether I should or not which just made me more stressed and desperate for a cig. If I was at work for four hours and had no chance of going out, I didn't think about it, simple as that. If you don't have the option, you don't have the painful debate and then the difficult decision which could potentially make or break your weightloss plan. This time I will try to worry about it as much as I worry about breathing, sitting down or drinking water... it's just a normal thing.
The most important thing is getting through the first few weeks. I remember how shocked I was last year that I had ever eaten so much crap. I felt so much more happy, balanced, energetic, alert and I experienced no cold sweats, pins and needles, mood swings, crashes or cravings. I would never think about a chocolate bar or anything fatty, didn't cross my mind and if it did it sounded at bit crap to be honest. The first thing I actually ate that was on my mental no-list was a Greggs sausage roll around Christmas time. That which I had once cherished so dearly now tasted like I had taken a swig of used oil from an old chip pan. My tastes and cravings changed. The biggest step is to get out of the cycle of it, to completely avoid overly fatty or sugary things 100% to get over the addiction - which is what it is.
The most important thing anyone ever said to me was that I wasn't eating all that crap food in front of the TV because I was fat and lazy, I was fat and lazy because of the effect the sugar and fat in the food had on me. That is the fact that will get me through, knowing that I'm quitting a drug that holds me back, makes me tired, doesn't tell my brain when to stop, affects my wellbeing and dictates my actions.
I wish you the best of luck with the weight loss. Don't give up until you are satisfied with what you have achieved!
Good luck Dotty. You seem to have a positive attitude when others would look at reasons not to restart.
I have just started a new job so intend to use this as my restart date. Having had my holiday I am the heaviest I have ever been - even pregnant I did not reach this weight!!
Hi Dotty, do you have a set eating regime in place for when you start? I'm half a stone heavier than you and have lost over 3 already with slimming world. Happy to be here for support. Xx
Hi knackeredbutchuffed, yes I am going to focus on eating vegetable mainly, want to try to eat paleo /clean eating to start me off. I have done many various diets in the past and initially they work but my problem is that I cannot sustain it, too much hassle... This time round i want to make it a habit rather than an extra chore.
My kids usually eat what I eat, so they can manage without "kids food" it's only when I am with other mummy friends they eat their junk or go to macdonalds... Not good I know... I was telling my eldest that he didn't even have macdonalds until he was 4, and we have been going with his friends for the last 6 months - I am shocked how many times we have gone, it's horrific especially as I don't even like macdonalds food! (I gave it up when I watched a documentary-film "super sized me" back in 2005!)
Anyhow thanks for your comments, it's helpful and encouraging...
I already drink a lot of water, I have cut down on chocolate, it's the giving it up after 2-3 weeks that's hard then the cycle starts again.
What was ur secret at slimming world? I did it for three months last year and didn't stick with it unfo. I still read the magazines in my phone tho!
Hi Dotty, well done on losing so much already and good luck with the next hurdle. I agree with what's already been Said regarding how to eat healthy with hubby and kids etc. I pile my plate with extra veg and salad or I have brown rice/pasta but also it has helped my family to try new foods and encourage my kids to eat healthier. It is frustrating though when you have a hubby and children that can eat whatever they want!! Good luck again you'll do great I'm sure.
nhs.uk/livewell/loseweight/... There is lots of advice on the NHS site associated with this forum. Its great that you can all the the same foods as a family, you will just need to be careful about portion control, and as the others say, load up with salad and veg.
One tip I used was to use smaller plates, that way it looks more. It must be so frustrating having done c25k to be injured.
Is there other exercise yo can do such as swimming?
Hi Dotty! Well done for making the commitment. Going public will really help with your personal accountability. Now you've told everyone, you'll have to get on with it!
Bad news about the prolapsed disc but can you turn this to your advantage? I broke my elbow a couple of months ago and it meant I could no longer fool myself that I was getting thinner just by exercising a lot! I was a fat bloke on a bike and it wasn't working. Because I couldn't cycle I didn't want to throw away the gains I had made so I had to look at diet to safeguard the fitness I had developed.
I herd on the radio that research showed that people who took part in weight loss programmes where there was an element of accountability - like weight watchers meetings were clinically proven to help people to loose weight. Looking around for this I found the NHS weight loss site and their 12 week program. I printed out the sheets and got the kitchen scales out! (My starting weight, even though I had been losing it was 112KG)
1. I was fooling myself about my intake.
2. I liked intermittent fasting so I started that way to make the transition to a lower calorie intake.
3. My scales were hopelessly inaccurate - got some expensive ones which can show me a loss of 10g.
4. The 12 week program works.
5. This forum works really well too.
6. I wasn't exercising enough.
Your husband can be your coach in this - talk through with him how you can make family wide changes to meals which support your needs. If you get it right so will everyone else. I ditched all the snacks - every form of casual carbohydrate (inc rice, spuds, bread!) and stopped drinking.
Mindfulness helps you deal with the psychological aspects - get one of the free apps on tour phone - they work!
I broke my targets down into lots of little ones. according to the guidelines I need to loose 26KG to get to a healthy weight - that could be a life time away!
In my head I had a weight of 105 being something to aim for. I did this in 4 weeks.
My next target is just to get under 105 - I can't remember when I was this weight and it feels as if it will be a barrier broken.
103 will see me out of the Obese category into Overweight. Then going under 100 will be a significant milestone. The milestones are getting really short now and Ive found them much easier to manage.
I've had the occasional blip (Three) but looked at progress over a week - the accurate scales help with this.
Think about what you are gaining not what you might feel you are giving up. Work at it week by week. Learn about healthy eating (I'm still learning!) Spot what works and stick to it.
Stay on the forum were all here in the same boat and we're only here to help, share and support. Look at the response you've got from this one post!
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My starting point ...
Just starting
First weigh in...
