Another Monday

Monday:

Monday morning and I'm all fresh and new, ready to recommit. I don't know why I gave myself permission to eat all that extra stuff yesterday, but I did, and the scale shows it. After a pretty dodgy week, I'm up 1.1 kg since my lowest point just over a week ago. The horror! But I can lose it again. Can, and will.

I have two weeks left of this blood-sugar stabilising diet. I can do it for two weeks. Then after that I continue to eat the good food, just without such tight calorie restriction. The Mediterranean diet (lots of vegetables, moderate protein and fat including nuts, olive oil and full fat dairy, and fruit, almost no processed food) is a "lifestyle" rather than a restrictive "diet" in the modern sense, but because I have insulin resistance I'm trying (with varying success) to do the eight week low calorie introduction that is suppose to help with my blood sugar levels. Since I haven't stuck to it that well, I'm not sure what to do at the end of the eight weeks - continue a bit longer? Have a glucose tolerance test to see if my blood sugars have improved? I might keep going until I have lost 10% of my starting weight - I got halfway there before this little regain. Then have the GTT. My goal, of course, is to get out of the pre-diabetic range and back to normal. I was dangerously close to a diagnosis of diabetes at my last GTT. My health is worth a little calorie restriction!

On an evening walk on Saturday with the family we saw two rabbits in someone's front yard. They seemed fairly tame, although we couldn't get right up to them, and didn't look like wild rabbits. But if I had pet bunnies I wouldn't let them wander around at dusk with cats hunting!

I walked for 40 minutes this morning. It was a bit hot, and I got very tired by the end, but those hills must be good for me! I saw a cluster of very weird mushrooms. Some had flies on them, so they might be a kind that smells like carrion. I didn't put my nose up close! I've never seen them before.

After the walk and a shower, I did my Headspace meditation. I had quite a bit I wanted to do today and it seemed a ironic that I was getting stressed about the time taken to de-stress! But I hadn't done it for quite a few days and it's important. I really concentrated on the breathing and all that instead of letting myself go to sleep. Then shopping, lunch, social media, guitar, ferried Jasmine to and from dance classes, dinner. No writing today. And my guitar playing sucked! Went backwards.

Breakfast today was chicken and salad and tea.

Lunch was roast beef and vegetables, broccoli (I only ate half) and strawberries. I felt uncomfortably full for over an hour afterwards. Too many strawberries? The calories were fine, but I shouldn't be eating until my stomach feels distended.

A cup of tea in the afternoon, then dinner was bolognaise on a big bowl zoodles.

My calories were perfect today, and all healthy food. I wasn't hungry, if fact the only thing I'd change if I wasn't restricting calories would be a bit more cheese on my bolognaise! I did my exercise and my meditation. Good day.

Struggles and a gain

Friday:

Official weigh in today.
Last week: 80.7 kg
This week: 81.4 kg

That's right, a GAIN of 0.7 kg (1.5 pounds). My weight went up after my indulgent Saturday last week, and it just never went down again. I weighed myself every couple of days hoping that sticking to my diet would get the weight back off again, but no. It barely fluctuated all week, just stayed up. I didn't expect a big loss like the first week's water weight loss, but I wanted to lose something! A gain? Are you serious?

It is so utterly discouraging. I have never successfully lost weight. True, before my wedding I went on an extremely restrictive and punishing diet (chosen and paid for by my mother) and lost 5 kg (11 pounds) in six weeks, and was miserable every day I was on it. Aside from that, I've never even lost as much as 5 kg. Some of that is failing to stick to diets, but not all. I always lose some water weight in the first week and get all hopeful, but that is about it.

I've tried Weight Watchers and low-carb and no sugar/wheat/soy/dairy/alcohol, and high protein and nutritionist-led and intense exercise.

A blogger I read was recently told that dieting was "easy" for him, which is nonsense. And yet, I guess as someone who can't seem to lose weight at all, it can seem easier for some people. They work hard, they lose some weight. I work hard, I don't.

I was really depressed yesterday. Maybe from knowing I'd gained back half of last week's weight loss and couldn't seem to lose it again, maybe from it being second day of low-carb (low-carb makes me depressed, which is why I am trying carb cycling), maybe a bit lonely without my puppy, who knows. But it wasn't "a bit sad", it was the edge of actual depression. I know what that feels like. I had post-natal depression after my first child, and there is no way I will willingly go back in that black place. In the evening I had some carbs and did think I felt better, I went to bed quite happy and slept well. But I'm miserable again this morning despite carbs with breakfast. So it might not be that at all. I have no idea.

I don't know what to do. I didn't stick to my diet plan for breakfast. I have a busy weekend coming up that I have to get through. Saturday being my treat day makes that easier, except that last week my treat day ruined the whole week's work. Do I keep trying carb cycling? Do I switch to alternating high/low days in case that suits me better than having two low-carb days in a row? Do I give up and eat whatever I want until next time I'm ready to start again? Do I crawl back into bed and stay there with the blankets pulled over my head?

It's not working

Saturday:

So I stopped tracking calories and worrying about carbs and I stopped weighing myself everyday and just tried to focus on eating "real" food and moving my body. I wanted to be less obsessive about the whole subject of food and weight and somehow naturally evolve into a healthy person.

It's not working.

My new scale isn't very accurate, but I think I've put about two kilos back on. In about a week. The two kilos it took me months to lose.

I don't blame the real food/exercise combo because I haven't actually been following those guidelines well at all. Lots of junk, and the only exercise has been my zombie training run every second day -- about 35 minutes of mainly walking.

The problem is that when I relax the rules, I somehow give myself permission to go wild.

Maybe I shouldn't need strict rules of eat this/don't eat that, but I do. Apparently "eat real food" wasn't a firm enough guideline for me. I kept giving in to all sorts of food-like substances.

The fact that it is school holidays of course doesn't help, I am outside my normal routine and we are going to places like the movies where (for us) snack food is part of the event. But I think I would have had similar results anyway.

Another barrier has been the pollen. Hayfever is really making me feel awful every day. I comfort eat. Again, that is a contributer but I am in full control of what I put in my mouth -- hayfever or not.

I tend to have way too many "just on special occasions" events. Snack foods at the movies. Dessert when my dad is visiting (which he didn't eat! He never does). Chocolate cake because I feel yuck and I deserve it to make me feel better.

So I need to tighten the reins again.

Quitting Weight Watchers

Saturday:

I have been on the Weight Watchers program for five months now, and I wrote a post two months ago saying that I was going to stick with it even though my weight loss was so slow - slow is better than nothing, right? Well over the past week I have been rethinking that decision, and this morning I cancelled my membership.

My lowest weight was nearly two months ago, with a cumulative loss of 3.4 kg. A loss of around a kg a month was slow but still enough to keep me paying the $69 a month. But since then my weight has bounced up and down with no significant loss. This week, after some very indulgent eating, my weight went back up 2.1 kg (4.6 pounds) in 5 days. My total cumulative weight loss over five months with WW is now 1.2 kg.

I'm not blaming WW, I'm sure it works for many. I am the one who makes every decision about what I put in my mouth and how much I exercise. But clearly it is not helping me. It has not inspired me enough to lose weight.

So what is next? Well, I joined the gym last week and I am going to focus on exercise for a while. I need to improve my body fitness. Twice this week I have woken with a very sore upper back, I don't know why, and today I can hardly move my arms without wincing because it pulls on my back muscles. Obviously they are so out of shape that even turning over in my sleep can strain them. I want to feel healthier and sleep better. I don't want to wallow in junk food (like I did this week) but I do want to relax about what I can and can't eat.

All my weigh-ins will now be at home. Today I was 78 kg. I touched 75 kg twice in May and I still want to get back down to that as a first step. Maybe I should stop weighing myself every day. Dunno. But my plan is to exercise a lot. It is school holdiays now and very cold outside but I'll be dragging the kids along to the gym, creche when Gecko isn't on. Can't this weekend as I don't have the car, but hopefully it will warm up enough for us to go to the park and run around this afternoon. Maybe I can lose some weight without feeling deprived and miserable. And a failure.

Arg, I am still clearly focused on my weight. I need some NSVs (non-scale victories). Want to get fit.

WW weigh-in 13: 77.6 kg; up 0.8 kg

Friday:

I managed to get to my WW meeting this morning after missing the last two due to flu and/or laziness and/or fear of a gain. I always enjoy them when I do go so I need to keep that up. I had a gain of 0.8 kg over those three weeks which was totally expected -- of course that doesn't make it ok!

I can't really remember the topic for today's meeting. The weekly magazine cover says "How to get the most from tracking" and we did talk about how important tracking is, but also other things. I guess we did talk about tracking food, exercise, and emotional state. We were given homework of reading through our weigh-in books and doing the little exercises like writing a letter to yourself.

Today at the shops I saw one man so hugely obese he was in a motorised buggy, unable to walk, and one child of around ten whose neck was as wide as her face and whose arms stuck out at angles from her body because of her bodyfat. Try telling me again you can be healthy at any size? That little girl's parents should be up on child abuse charges.

I get regular emails from author Holly Lisle who runs a writing course, today's topic was the difference between goals and expectations. It was an excellent coverage of that topic and I would copy it here except she expressly forbids doing that, she provides a link to her website:

http://hollylisle.com/how-to-get-there-from-here-the-magic-of-goals/

but the email was actually much better, I think, than this formal post. Anyway; she talked about how a goal is saying you will write a book in a year, an expectation is that a publisher will accept your manuscript. The first is under your control, the second isn't. Confusing expectations for goals can cause much heartache.

This can obviously be applied to weight loss as well. My goals are things like to stay within my ProPoints and do a certain amount of exercise each week -- things under my control. My hope/expectation is to lose weight each week and eventually get to my goal weight. Those things will (hopefully) come in time, but I can't set a goal of losing x amount per week because I am not 100% in control of that. Even if I do everything right, bodies have will sometimes retain water, cling to fat, build heavy muscle etc.

A long list of goals can be a bit daunting, but as usual my weight-loss related goals are:
# Drink at least 6 glasses of fluid a day (it is 5.30 pm and so far I have had 2)
# Track everything I eat and also my exercise
# Earn 50 activity PP a week
# Go to my WW meeting every week even if I don't want to
# Keep within my daily + weekly PP but not use my activity PP, meet the food goals of fruit and dairy etc

That seems like plenty to be going on with.