My Weight Loss Programme

I’m not just doing all of this so I can lose weight, I’m also doing it so that I can be healthy and not fret constantly about going to an early grave. I’m a firm believer in doing whatever works for you (and this applies to a lot of things) so, the following is the programme I’m following at the moment. It might not work for everyone and it’ll probably need tweaking along the way, but I thought I’d put it out there so I can see it written down and so that others might benefit from it too.

The bottom line for me is to eat healthily and exercise more and that’s the spot I’m coming from. So, the basic start is the WW points system. I’ve got the literature from when I was there before and I’ve used the calculator thingy to work out how many points I can have in a day. I’ve designed my own tracker so I can keep a record of what I’m eating, including a space which notes the weight loss for that week, so I can see what’s working and what’s not.

WW says to use all the points, though the reason for this was BARELY explained in the meeting (“Scientists worked it out, trust me ladies!”), I’m suspecting that it has something to do with the body thinking there’s a famine when one starves oneself and therefore it stores more fat. I’m buying into the concept of not starving myself, but if I have a bowl of raw carrot sticks on one side and a bar of low fat chocolate on the other that would bring my points up to my daily allowance, I’ll be trying my damndest to go for the carrots.

One thing I’ve discovered about myself is that if I get hungry I get panicky. If I get panicky hungry, I’m in trouble. That’s when the stupid eating starts – that’s when the chocolate would win over the carrots any day! So, I know at least one of my limitations and how I propose to tackle it is by ensuring that I don’t allow myself to get hungry. What I’ve done is broken the day up into various eating times (still working on what works there), I’ve divided up my points equally (apart from dinner, where I’ll allow a little more) and the idea is to consume no more than that amount of points at each eating time. It’s still very much a work in progress, but so far so good.

Though I’m trying to reduce my caffeine intake, and have done by eliminating coke for the most part, I do love my tea and am not willing to part with it, I will reduce the amount to a healthier standard, but that’s about it. Apart from my oats in the morning and the odd bit of sauce for dinner, tea is the only way I use milk, so what I’ve done there is allowed myself a 500ml maximum (skimmed milk that is) per day and that 2.5 points is automatically put in on my tracker. The only time I deviate from this is for cooking sauces at dinner, where I do the dinner for both my partner (also following the programme) and I and divide everything in two.

If I keep my head and don’t lose the run of myself, I think I can get the eating habits nailed, the food battle is fought and won in the head I believe so, as long as I stay prepared and plan ahead and don’t let myself get hungry, I think I’ll be okay. Exercising is where I’m really finding it hard in this initial stage. I’ve been inactive for so long, my first task is to just get myself moving. I haven’t been a complete lazy lump, the housework has been done no matter what, but I’ll huff and puff like a good thing afterwards! But PROPER exercise has been virtually non-existent.

Before Christmas I decided to try to pluck up the courage to go swimming. It took a long time to get to a spot where I felt I could front it out enough, but the bag got packed and there I was driving to the pool to meet my partner who was going there from work. I arrive at the pool and pull in behind an entire BUSLOAD of teenagers from school. Excited young lads were jeering and messing from the back window and I hadn’t even gotten to park yet. Needless to say, I got as far as parking and waiting for my partner and both of us headed for home. Isn’t lack of confidence and low self esteem terrible? I’m a grown woman and I was so intimidated by a group of teenagers that I couldn’t even go for a swim.

But, I won’t be beaten. It will be a little while before I’m brave enough to go to the pool again, but I will be back, oh yes, I will be back. In the meantime I’m concentrating on getting myself moving in the first place. Once I’m moving and a little more flexible then I’ll figure out what the best kind of exercise is for me. For now, I’m using the exercise bike. I do 2km at a time and I’ve broken a sweat and am out of breath by the end of it. I haven’t been doing as much as I should be doing, but I’m working on it. One difficulty I have is physical ailments – I have problems with my knees (cartilage deterioration) and I have a nasty bout of tennis elbow at the moment – so I have to be careful, but at the same time, if I don’t lose weight my knees will just get worse. So I’ll have to learn to work through the pain and watch my elbow, which will (genuinely) only get better if I rest it.

So, in general terms, the above is what I’m up to at the moment. As time goes on I daresay the plan will be tweaked and adjusted according to the positive lifestyle changes. Tomorrow is weigh in day so fingers crossed!

The Business that is Weight Watchers….

Before I go any further, I need to vent a little bit on a subject I feel very strongly about. All over the world many overweight/obese people have decided that it’s time for change. A lot of people turn to weight loss programmes, many of which cost a lot of money – for me it was Weight Watchers – for others it’s UniSlim or Jenny Craig or Aitkins or whatever. The problem is, while there are some people who lose weight in these programmes, many do not and for them it’s another failure to add to the list of things to knock their self esteem. The problem, I feel, is that while the likes of WW started out with a few women in a room swapping tips, it has now become a huge business and it operates as A BUSINESS and while there are a lot of well meaning people involved, I believe there is a big rip off going on in the background. The following is my experience with WW.

When I started going to WW meetings a year and a half ago, I was full of determination and zealousness. Nothing was going to stop me from making these changes. As I said earlier, giving up smoking played a big part in my leaving WW but it cannot be denied that I was becoming really disillusioned with it too – I was seeing the cracks in the system – I realised it wasn’t all that wholesome after all.

For a start, there were the meetings. As I said before, I never needed to be convinced of the merits of the meetings – I think support networks are fantastic and there is nothing better than having that solidarity from those who know what you’re going through. Having run similar groups for other issues, I know how these things work and can see the value. However, WW was nothing like I expected. From the minute I’d walk in the door, I felt under pressure and rushed. Time is money – I paid my money alright, but I didn’t really get QUALITY time in return. At the weigh in there wasn’t enough time to discuss the results because of the line behind you. If you were at the end of the line, you’d feel pressured because the leader would want to start the talk. (“Isn’t that right ladies!”) You’d think that there’d be time at the end of the meeting but no, the leader was too busy tidying up. The majority of the people who did stay on for the meeting would make a bee line for the door, so there wasn’t an opportunity to swap notes and tips. So why the hell was I paying a tenner a week?

Though I stopped going to the meetings, I did continue on the points system (I think I’d be a disaster if I didn’t – at least until I get the hang of “normal” portions etc) and was (and still am this time around) even brave enough to bring the points calculator to the supermarket. WW has its own brand of a lot of stuff, which would seem to make sense, because at a glance you know what points are contained in the product. Fantastic isn’t it? Eh, no actually, it’s not. One day, I decided to compare a can of WW low fat pudding rice with another (well known brand) low fat can of rice. Surprise surprise, not only was there less calories in the “well known brand” rice, it was flippin’ cheaper! And of course it doesn’t stop there, I’ve found that this is the case with a lot of WW products.

Then sometimes WW comes up with a great product – mayonnaise that is zero points for a tablespoon (1/2 point for 2 tablespoons). And it doesn’t taste half bad either, though I don’t want to even think about how many E thingys are in there. Anyway, I went to my local supermarket to get some of this mayonnaise as I’d run out and discovered that they too were out of it. So I pluck up the courage to talk to the lady in charge of that aisle (it’s not easy being overweight asking for the “special” mayo is it?!) if she could order some in for me. She says that she can’t. I ask why. She says that they take what they get from the sales rep and that’s it. I’m horrified – bloody horrified. Okay so I’ll live without the mayonnaise, that’s not the point. My gripe is, why run a company that’s supposed to help people lose weight, yet you selectively supply products to supermarkets? That, I have to say, drives me insane.

You might notice I said above that WW is to help people “lose weight” as opposed to “change their lifestyle”. I said that because it’s what I meant and this is one of the biggest problems I have with WW – weight loss is encouraged but sustainable, healthy lifestyle changes are not necessarily top of the agenda. Though I haven’t always practiced what I’ve preached or thought, I have known for a long time in my heart and soul that the only solution to permanent weight loss and a healthier lifestyle is improving your diet by eating a lot less of the wrong stuff and a lot more of the right stuff and equally importantly, getting more exercise. It’s a no-brainer really isn’t it? You wouldn’t need Einstein and a hundred other brains in a room to figure it out would you?

Yet on the WW plan you are not encouraged to be more healthy – yes there’s an incentive to eat more veg because the majority of them are zero points, but really there isn’t enough done to explain that E numbers and the wrong cholesterol and all their buddies can wreck your body. Nor is there enough done to encourage exercise – in fact, I think the one incentive offered is actually quite dangerous – you can earn bonus points for doing exercise – but what’s the point in that? Okay so it’s a good insurance policy in case you accidentally over do it, you can always do a bit of exercise to work it off, but surely that shouldn’t be the reason to exercise? To top it all off my WW leader actually said that exercise “wasn’t her thing” and she avoids it if she can! The thing is, she’s actually quite skinny and good for her if she can keep the weight off and not exercise, but I wonder how many people in the room thought “Jaysus, that’s great, she’s PROOF that exercise isn’t necessary!”

So, while I’m happy to use the WW points system to rein me in, I’m afraid that’s as far as it goes. The bottom line is, a healthy diet and exercise is the way to go and I dare anyone to argue with that – after that I believe the way to get there is down to whatever works for each individual. In fact, I have tailored the points system to ensure I eat healthily and in another post I’ll write a little bit about that and report on how it is working for me as I progress.

Enough is enough…..

( Written 18^th January 2008 )

This blog is for me and anyone who has embarked (or is thinking of embarking) on a journey of making permanent lifestyle changes, with a view to becoming more healthy and of course, losing some weight.

A little bit of background: Much of my childhood is a blur (for reasons I won’t go into right now) but I can remember having issues with weight for a lot of that time. In fact, for as far back as I can remember, I have always thought of myself as fat, even when I wasn’t really all that much overweight – it didn’t matter, I felt like a beached whale. I never uttered the word fat out loud though, because that would make it real and I’d have to engage with people on the subject.

Anyway, about a year and a half ago I braved the scales for the first time in a very long time and was horrified at what I saw. At this point I’m not comfortable talking in numbers, but let’s just say I never thought I’d reach the weight I had done. Suddenly it wasn’t about losing a stone or two, it was much bigger than that – okay so I didn’t (and don’t) look morbidly obese like what you see on the telly, but I sure ain’t no Twiggy! In any case, suffice it to say I was shocked into action and I managed to pluck up the courage (a mammoth task at the time) to go to Weight Watchers.

After a slightly shaky start at Weight Watchers (thanks to the time of the month I managed to put up 2.5lbs in the first feckin’ week!) I started to make real progress and before long I’d lost a stone. However my success was short lived as a couple of months later I decided to give up smoking and Christmas was just around the corner and the rest is history (bar a couple of attempts in between) until now.

Though I had a lovely Christmas this year, I was also appalled at how I abused my body with the amount of drink and food I put in there. I actually felt like I was going to die at some points because I just felt so unhealthy. I was actually longing for the New Year to come so I could put some discipline on myself.

So, it’s time for a change. At this point I’m almost two weeks into the new regime and while there have been a couple of shaky moments, I’m still on the straight and narrow. I lost 2lbs the first week and I’m anxiously approaching my weigh in on Sunday morning.

I’ve decided not to go to Weight Watchers meetings but I still follow the points system as I really need the discipline. I don’t know what other WW meetings are like but ours defeated the purpose of the whole “staying behind” thing in my opinion – I don’t really need convincing of the merits of “staying for the meeting” but it really pisses me off that not enough time is allotted for questions from members or time made for chatting about what works/doesn’t work etc. So, I’ll be damned if I’m going to pay €10 a week just to get weighed and listen to a cheesy speech full of stupid puns and cringy metaphors!

Another crucial part of my plan is exercise. An exercise bike, treadmill (which I didn’t realise is manual –argh!), weights, gymball, trampoline and skipping rope have been bought. And if I was reading this I’d think “oh hear we go she’s buying stuff, but will it be used?” – well I really do hope so and I do feel determined. At the moment I just can’t face going to the gym, I don’t know if I could handle a load of skinny people around me doing their thing while I huff and puff and sweat for Ireland! When I gain a little confidence I’ll go to the gym to use their fancy equipment but for now it’s just me getting myself moving.

I think what’s driving me most right now is that I feel like I’m in a race against time. I feel like I’m on my last chance, that I’ve abused the body I was given and now it’s time to put things right. I’m only 34 but I feel 84 so enough is enough.

So, it’s onwards and upwards from here, I’m determined to change for the better – permanently. So there.