Day 7 - Week 2

192 pounds (13st 10lbs). A loss of 6 pounds in my first week! I must say I’m really pleased/relieved, although I know that this will not, indeed should not happen again. My intention is to lose weight gradually over the next 3-4 months and then maintain it forever. So what happened this week to shed 6 pounds?

I ate well. Really.

I simply didn’t eat any wheat, fat, salt or sugar. I wasn’t obsessive about it – a few foods had traces of these ingredients. And I ate potatoes occasionally.
No booze at all. Thankfully I didn’t miss it – it’s always good to know this, if you know what I mean! The biggest behavioural change has been drinking copious amounts of water. A pint of water before just about every meal. If I ever found myself getting hungry I had a drink of water instead. It filled me up. And I must have walked an extra couple of miles during the week – back and forth to the bathroom! We also decided to eat much earlier; between 5.30 and 6.30pm rather than after 8pm as we normally did. Not sure how easy that will be when I get back into the swing of work, staying at hotels.

I have been amazed (and delighted) to hear from so many people giving words of encouragement and occasionally sharing their own weight-loss stories. Ann sent me a photo of her after shedding 5 stone! I really wouldn’t have recognized her. An amazing achievement. Well done. She’s kept it off too. Another Ann told me how she has lost 120 pounds – but then added “The same 10 pounds every year for the past 12 years!”

In answer to Jeremy's question - I'm 5ft 10ins.

Andy wrote to say he sticks with the the Low C diet– I love this one; anything beginning with the letter C goes out of your diet immediately;
Cheese, chocolate, chips, curry, Chinese, crisps etc etc.

He also added, more seriously, “I think the reality is that we all KNOW what constitutes a healthy or unhealthy diet but choose not to follow it. Addressing these issues is perhaps the greater challenge to remain slim in the longer term. The diet industry thrives because so many people, myself included, feed emotional hunger of some sort with food; it becomes an addiction. You feel low, sad, miserable or unloved so you eat something to make you feel “fuller”, “better” or “happier”. All this does is make you fatter, more miserable etc etc so you eat more. It’s an addictive loop like trying to satisfy thirst with sea water.”
I’ve recognized there are 3 elements to my weight-loss programme; 1) mindset, attitude and behaviour, 2) what I eat and 3) exercise.

My breakthrough thinking has been to adopt my weight-loss as my new ‘hobby’. It therefore become an enjoyable pastime, rather being something you endure; months of deprivation and self-torture!

As far as what I eat is concerned – I can eat anything so long as it’s not wheat, fat, salt or sugar. we have also decided to eat our way through what we have in the freezer. In the past, a quick trip to the supermarket took precedence over what we already had in the freezer – loads of organic vegetables that I’d grown myself had been ignored in favour of a ‘quick’ convenience meal. Quite seriously, we have saved ourselves a small fortune in just the first week. Most of our food was already in the house – how dumb is that?! Rooting around, I found some frozen smoked mackerel fillets the other day and made a smoked mackerel pate. I cannot tell you how delicious it was – fantastic. It took 5 minutes to prepare and lasted 2 days. And SO healthy – Omega 3 oils – brain food.

As for exercise; seeing as I can’t run any more (knackered knee), on the recommendation of my brother I bought a cross-trainer last year. I wiped the dust off it (!) and have done about 20 minutes on it every day. Not too manic – capable of carrying on a conversation is the ideal, I was told. Then I’ve done some work using weights for my upper body every other day. Nothing too strenuous yet. In addition to this I am also working on my ‘core stability’ following my physiotherapist’s advice – lying down (I normally do this before I get out of bed in the morning) – breathing out, further and further, you try to get your belly-button to ‘touch’ the inside of your spine. I can’t describe it any other way! Each time you do it, you hold it for 5 seconds. It’s done 10 times. I want to improve my flexibility so another habit I have to keep reminding myself to develop is to do more stretching – before and after I exercise.

What problems have I encountered in my first week? Not much. I have to look after my knee though. It’s been a little bit ‘achy’ occasionally. I have also experienced a few headaches – which I’ve put down to not eating as many snacks as I have done in the past. Occasionally I’ve chomped on raw carrots for a healthy snack.
I now realize that I have some terribly corny friends – one was wished me future success and said “I’m with you all the ‘weigh’.” (te he) and another wrote “Good luck on your way from ‘flabulous’ to ‘fabulous’.

Thank you for all your emails and phone calls. So far so good.

I wonder if my new rowing machine will be delivered this week?