Weight Management

Right, new year, new me!

The diet starts now...

Well actually there’s still that tin of Christmas choccies Aunty Vi gave us, and those nice M&S biscuits, those all sorted nuts and some other goodies in the house. So I’ll have to eat them first, as it’s a waste not to (starving people in Africa and all that!) and then I can start my New Year Diet next week. Mind you it’s always best to start a diet on a Monday, start of the new week, apparently that’s when you are most motivated. I read the most successful diets ALWAYS start on a Monday. I won’t have finished all the food in a few days, so I’ll have to start a week on Monday then.

Right that’s it, it’s official, the New Year’s Diet starts a week on Monday. Oh damn, I’ve just looked at the diary, and there is a Team Building week for work in a really posh hotel, and I can’t be on a diet with all that lovely food around and everyone else chomping merrily away. That’s fine; I’ll start my New Year’s Diet two weeks on Monday. That’s sorted then.

Ok, I want to look good on my holidays in July. I want to wear a spangly bikini and look fantastic, slim and gorgeous; with no wobbly bits when I do my Bay Watch run along the beach! If I lose ½ stone each month for 6 months, it’s achievable. Oooh how exciting, can’t wait for sunning myself in July, I’m going to be such a Goddess! Seeing as I’m going to be so deprived for the next 6 months and eating lettuce leaves , rivita and cottage cheese, I better make the most of the next couple of weeks, before the ‘Diet to End All Diets’ starts... now where did I put that giant Toblerone?

Sound familiar?!

And then how long did the 6 month diet actually last???

Ummm... how about, New Year, New Approach?

• Right now I am tuning into my body’s hunger signals.

• Right now I choose to eat if my body is physically hungry (not when it is bored or stressed or tired etc).

• Right now I stop eating when my body is physically full (not when the packet or the plate is empty).

• Right now I ignore the mental chatter in my head about ‘goodies in the cupboard’ begging to be eaten. I feed my body, not my mind.

• Right now I choose to eat what my body indicates in needs to eat (not what the diet industry tells me I should or should not eat).

• Right now I choose to move my body more in a way that is natural or enjoyable (not some fad mad cap gung-ho routine)

I realise my life is now... now... now and now. Not two weeks on Monday!

Today’s date is truly unique - 11.11.11 – it’s the only date where all the same digits appear. It’s being marked as a day of truth, love and peace in the World. Coupled with the occurrence of remembrance and Armistice Day, this is an auspicious day for quiet reflection and inspirational change.

At the start of all the, ‘Why Are You Eating? Programmes’, I listen to participants’ stories of how food affects their lives... totally.

• I can’t just have one biscuit; I have to eat every biscuit until the packet is gone.

• I fight with myself inside my head - you can’t have anymore... but I want one, I’m going to have one... no you’re not... yes I am.

• Whilst I am eating my dinner, I am planning what I am having for my pudding.

• When I am on a diet, I don’t want to go out as I can’t eat what everyone else is, it’s not fair.

• Most of my thoughts are filled with food, and what I am allowed to eat and what I am not.

• By the end of the course, peace has been made with food and all consuming thoughts are dropped.

So how is peace achieved?

INTUITIVE EATING

When we understand how clever and sophisticated our body really is, and we start to listen to it more and more, the struggle with food drops away. Our body gives us very distinct messages that it needs fuel, and also what sort of fuel it needs for optimum energy. By tuning into these physical hunger symptoms we can accurately assess how much to eat and what to eat.

HAVING NO RULES

When we place strict rules on what we should and shouldn’t eat (usually influenced by diets and the dieting industry), the battle begins! There is no middle line, you’re either being ‘good’ or ‘bad’. And the warring between the two states rages on a daily basis. E.g. I will not eat chocolate for 2 weeks. Day I and 2, I’ve been really good, not a morsel of chocolate has passed my lips. Day 3.... oooh, I really fancy chocolate, but I’m not allowed... ummmmh, chocolate, NO! Just a bit will be fine. NO, I’m being good. Oh, go on......’ Sound familiar?!

When there are no rules, there is nothing to battle against or break. But, I can hear you say, I’ll eat everything in sight! Not if you are listening to what your body is saying and when it is hungry, rather than your pesky mind playing tricks on you.

DE-LABELING FOOD

We have been told by the Government, family, friends, the diet industry etc what foods are ‘good’ and what are ‘bad’. So when we are stressed, tired, anxious, lonely, sad, angry etc and we grab for food to comfort or distract us, we are tempted more by the ‘bad’ food rather than the ‘good’.

‘I am so stressed out, I am going to eat that lettuce leaf, that will show them!’

When you take the labels off food, and see all food as equal, then you will not rebel by eating ‘bad’ foods.

These are just three ways for peace to be gained with food. It is very possible to see food as a fuel to provide your body with the energy it needs, but to also relish, savour and enjoy this food at the same time. Food then becomes an enjoyable pleasure in proportion to your life, rather than a constant nagging voice in your head.

Make today the day you start your journey to find peace with food. May peace be with you always.

My Children usually come in from school and utter, ‘I’m starrrrrrving, what can I have mum?’

To which I frequently reply, ‘What do you fancy? Have a look in the kitchen’.

As far as possible, I try to get them to assess what their body needs to eat. Don’t get me wrong, there are a few ‘unspoken’ rules by which the family abides – e.g. sweets and chocolates are for after meals, thank-you to our lovely old dentist who explained to the children about sugar and tooth decay. Also, the maximum of one bag of crisps a day, as they know too much salt is not good for their heart. However, apart from that, the world’s their oyster, so to speak!

I watched my daughter (age 6) yesterday... she trotted off into the kitchen, got a small bowl out and filled them with Pringles. After happily munching her way through, she asked what she could have next. I refrained (it was hard, I must admit) from saying, ‘something healthy, as Pringles has as much nutritional value as a beer mat, and have you seen the Youtube video where they set light to Pringles and the fat content keeps them burning for ages’ and said, ‘see what’s in the kitchen’.

She came back with a juicy tangerine, and enjoyed it so much she asked for another. Her final piece de resistance was, going back into the kitchen for the last time and coming back with a crisp apple, which she preceded to merrily crunch. Wow! I was so impressed. This truly was intuitive eating. She was choosing what she wanted to and enjoyed every mouthful. Any comments or judgements from me, would have only swayed her to look for external cues to what to eat, rather than the natural internal cues from her own body. Good Girl!

When we truly listen to the fuel our bodies are asking for, rather than all the mixed signals from the media, family, friends, peers, slimming clubs, the diet industry; then we can really relish and enjoy our eating, free from guilt, and watch our weight stabilise.

Just for today... I listen purely to my own body’s wishes and wisdom, not the external wishes of well meaning others.

So, it’s no secret that one of my most favourite foods is chocolate.... ummmmmh.

As a child, any chocolate would do... funky animal chocolate bars, creamy Caramacs, chunky Yorkies, which were most definitely for little girls in my opinion!

However, after embarking on my intuitive eating programme, and listening to my body, I found that the cheaper quality chocolate was starting to make me feel a bit sick. Too much milk and other processed fat, and not enough cocoa bean. So I then converted to the darker varieties of chocolate. And oh did that hit the spot! Smaller quantities of more intense flavour, which you could really savour and taste as it melted in the mouth. Green and Blacks Cherry became a particular favourite, along with Lindt Orange and Almond (I’m not being sponsored by the way, but I am open to offers!).

I started to become a real chocolate snob, ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I don’t eat THAT sort of chocolate, I prefer dark intense chocolate’! I was becoming worse than a reformed smoker!

But, just as when you up grade your car or mobile to a better make and model, you find it very irritating to deal with any less... I was then introduced by my mum (thanks mum) to Hotel Chocolat. Oh, the chocolate is to die for, the quality and texture is the most dreamiest of dreamiest that ever a dreamy thing could find! I’m in a frenzy of excitement and dilemma, when I paw my way round the Trafford Centre shop, hot footed by my 6 year old daughter who is also in ecstasy! The drool forms rivulets as I umm and err over salted caramels, or pralines or Eton Mess or......

However, this addiction does not come cheaply! Damn, why have I forsaken good old Cadbury’s? Please no one introduce me to anything more superior for fear of my bank account being quickly depleted!

AC-CENT-TCHU-ATE THE POSITIVE

(Johnny Mercer / Harold Arlen)

You've got to accentuate the positive

Eliminate the negative

Latch on to the affirmative

Don't mess with Mister In-Between

Have you all got the tune in your head now?! Hopefully! Here’s your prescription... I would like you to sing this to yourself, or annoy your family and friends and sing it aloud, at least once a day.

The last few weeks have been a dental nightmare for my 8 year old son. He has been getting tooth ache and abscesses from his wobbly teeth. 2 weeks ago, saw him being traumatised in the dentist chair when the Dentist yanked out a tooth, with very little warning. The Dentist then whispered to me that he would have to have the same done to the next tooth along. The night before the procedure I worried and fretted about how my son would react when I told him... and when I did... how I would get him to willingly co-operate and sit in that chair to go through the teeth pulling all again! I tossed and turning growling to myself about how the Dentist had really poor rapport with children, and if only he had better communication skills, Finn would not be so terrified. After about half an hour of mindless head ranting, it suddenly dawned on me, that I cannot change other people to suit the situation, and that I could not wave a magic wand to suddenly make the Dentist human! The only thing I could do was positively plan how I would manage the situation. So I hatched a plan:

• Talk Finn through the procedure. Explain exactly what was going to happen and what to expect.

• Take his favourite cuddly toy as a comfort and to grip on to.

• Take his DS to play in the waiting room to distract him.

• Tell him a story whilst he was having the procedure done to take his mind off it

• Offer a bribe for good behaviour! The new Diary of a Wimpy Kid book.

Well, I can’t say that it was pleasant, but Finn was fantastic and very brave.

So this got me thinking to losing weight. For years and years I ranted and raved about how unfair that it was that I was fat. My rants went something like this...

‘It’s just not fair.... So and so eats whatever they like, and they are really skinny, I only have to look at a bag of chips and my bum grows another 2 inches!’

‘I must have a slower metabolism than everyone else, why me?’

‘Why can’t I eat chocolate and not put on weight like her?’

On and on and on, chunnering away! This was all negative musings, and not surprisingly I did not lose any weight long term.

It was only when I stopped looking at how unfair the rest of the slim world was, and started to investigate what realistic positive steps I could take, that I started taking control of my weight. This is when I decided:

• To listen to my body and not the diet industry

• To eat when I was PHYSICALLY hungry and stop when I was PHYSICALLY full

• To mentally taste what sort of food would satisfy me at that precise moment in time

• To naturally increase my activity levels and incorporate it into my every day routine

Through taking control and stop beating myself up, the weight gradually came off and stayed off.

So if you too are trapped in the cycle of negativity and how unfair things seem... it’s time to step off and decide what positive steps you can take to weight loss.

Remember... accentuate the positive!

Now I don’t usually talk about calories, but just for you, I’ll make an exception!

It is recommended that for an average (?) person, the following calorie intake is needed in a day:

Women approximately 2000 calories

Men approximately 2500 calories

The sun is beginning to make an appearance, the summer holidays are tantalizingly close, and the thought of how stunning you are going to look on the beach crosses your perplexed mind – arrrrrh! How to shift some troublesome tummy, thunderous thighs and bulbous behind – all in 4 weeks???

Often people slash their calorie intake dramatically, which can lead to you feeling faint, grumpy and darn hungry – and a bit of weight loss. Then out of sheer frustration, there is the all out binge, leaving you feeling guilty, bloated and having put the weight back on. Our bodies feel very uncomfortable when we eat far too many or far too few calories.

Brian Wansink in the book ‘Mindless Eating’, recommends trying to eat 100 – 200 fewer calories a day, every day. Our bodies certainly do not miss or even notice these calories, and it is a sustainable way to lose weight long term. He states, ‘It takes 3500 extra calories to equal one pound. It doesn’t matter if we eat these extra 3500 calories in one week or gradually over an entire year. They’ll all add up to a pound. This is the danger of creeping calories. Just 10 extra calories a day – one stick of double mind gum - will make you a pound more portly one year from today’.

In reading that, it seems everything you eat, adds to your overall weight over time. Far from being depressing news, this could work in your favour! By making small painless changes, you can gradually change the way you look and how much you weigh.

EXAMPLE

1 less 82 calorie shortbread finger a day with mid afternoon cuppa = 8.2 fewer pounds a year

1 small glass of white wine rather than a large glass = 10 fewer pounds a year

1 less 408 calorie cheeseburger a day = 40.8 fewer pounds a year

Although this method will not help you lose a stone in the next month for you to be a beach babe, it will effortless help you lose it over the year – and with a lot less pain into the bargain!

CHALLENGE

Decide what item you would like to cut out. This needs to be things which you don’t mind missing out e.g. go from semi skimmed to skimmed milk, no sugar in your tea, have skinny cappuccinos rather than full fat, have one less chocolate or biscuit than normal.

Implement the change and monitor how you get on. When this becomes your new habit, see if there are any more items you could exclude. Only make one change at a time. Too many changes will get you all confused and you will be cutting out too many calories, resulting in you starting to feel you are on a diet again – and we can’t have that! Maybe challenge yourself to trying one item a week for a month. Remember, all the little changes soon add up – good luck!

Ok, so here are my GCSE Biology question for you:

You drop something reeeally heavy on your toe, do you:

a) Feel intense pain, howl and grab your toe, uttering a few swear words
b) Ignore your body signs and think, ‘pull yourself together, it’s only a toe, I’ve got 9 more where they came from!’

It gets to 3 in the morning and you have yet to go to bed, do you:

a) Yawn, feel your eyes start to close, notice your concentration is all to pot, feel your limbs are heavy and tired, and start to fall asleep.
b) Ignore all your body signs and say,’ I just need to push on and do a few more things before I go to bed.’

A huge box of all sorted deluxe biscuits has just arrived in the office, do you:

a) Tune into your stomach, feel that at the moment it is about 80% full, as you had lunch only an hour ago, and so decline a biscuit for now.
b) Ignore your body signs of fullness and go ‘wahooo, my favourite biscuits, I’ll have that one, that one and that one’.

How did you do?

Mainly A’s – you understand that your body is a well oiled machine. When we ‘tune-in’ to its messages, it informs us of the optimal way to look after it and treat it.

Mainly Bs – your mind rules the roost. Your mind can easily block out subtle messages from your body. Start to feel your body’s messages, and this will lead you on the road to intuitive eating and no more bruised toes!

TOP TIPS FOR INTUITIVE EATING

1. Your body has the answers to whether you are physically hungry. Every time you go to eat, ask yourself on a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being starving, 10 being full) how hungry are you. If it is above 7, your body is indicating that it does not need any more fuel. IF you are still adamant that you are going to eat something, say out loud, ‘I am not physically hungry, but I am going to eat this anyway.’ See what affect this has on your decision now.

2. Ask yourself what sort of thing you would like to eat? Sweet or savoury, hot or cold, filling or just a snack, spicy or plain, rich or bland, fruity, creamy.... the list goes on! Mentally taste some options on your tongue and then in your stomach. How will you feel 30 minutes after eating it? When you eat food, it is something that should be really tasted, enjoyed and savoured – so make sure you choose something which your body really wants and needs. One time this may be salmon, the next it could be strawberries.

3. Truly tune into what your body would like to eat, and throw away the diet sheets which rule your mind. Let your body make the decisions not your mind.

As a child I loved Easter so much. To me it meant Spring, lighter days to play out in the street and best of all chocolate - mountains of it! I remember asking my mum one Autumn when Easter was, to which she replied 'After Christmas'. On Boxing Day I asked, 'Is it Easter now?'

Will you have lots of chocolate 'hanging around' the house over the next few weeks? Remember, our minds can insist we are hungry when they spy something to eat, even when are body knows it is not physically hungry. Here are some suggestions for your waist line to survive over Easter:

• Put Easter eggs away in a cupboard that you do not go into very often. DO NOT leave them out in full view, or the little voices in your head will start to torment you every time you see them!
  
• Say this statement out loud before you eat the chocolate when you are not physcially hungry, 'I am not hungry, but I am going to eat this Easter Egg anyway'.
  
• Go and do something to distract yourself for 5 minutes - hopefully the craving will pass.
  
• Ask for dark chocolate eggs - these are more difficult to over indulge in.
  
• Give spare Easter eggs to children's homes, hospitals etc.

Enjoy your Easter break.
XX

So, the mission was to give up the love of my life (obviously after Mike and the children, oh and chocolate, and maybe ...!), the weighing scales for one whole month. How did I fair?

Well, the first week was hell. I was like some crazed drug addict looking for a fix, I really shocked myself. Mike, under my instructions had carefully hidden the scales. Every morning I was cursing him under my breath, whilst hunting feverishly for the scales. I even did the ‘now think like Mike, where would he decide to hide them?’

What was it that I was missing so much about the scales? Part of it was the morning ritual, but the main part was validation. The scales told me every morning (ok, most mornings) that I was fine. I was so and so weight, so I was normal and could go out and face the world. Without this reassurance I was a bit sunk. I’d have a mini panic, what if I’d put a couple of pounds on? What would people think? I can’t be a fat Weight Loss Specialist!

Then, after a week of playing hide and seek with the scales, I accidently (well sort of) stumbled across them. Then I had a BIG dilemma! I had promised myself and the lovely monthly group that I would not weigh myself for a month.... BUT I WAS DESPERATE!! What to do?

Yes, you guessed it, I gave in. I hopped on the scales, scowled that I had put on a pound and then jumped off again. And that was that. I’d done it... and achieved what precisely? Urmmm, nothing. It then dawned on me that I was being ridiculous and really did not need to weigh myself.

The rest of the month passed swimmingly. I had no desire after that frenzied first week to get on the scales again. I started to feel freedom that I wasn’t tied to my morning weighing ritual, and that as long as I felt good about myself, that was the best validation I required each morning to go out into the world. Who cares if I’d put on or lost a few pounds? As long as I felt comfortable in my clothes, then that was good enough, more than good enough. I had a few ‘events’ which in the past I would have tried to be a certain weight for (predetermined by nothing more than my mind), and it really didn’t matter. It was great to not put a dampener or lifter on the day, by how much I weighed.

So the monthly weigh-in day sped round. I dusted off the scales from their hiding place, and jumped back on. I’d stayed the same weight as last month – wahoo! Then I noticed that the scales were a bit wobbly, so I moved them onto a flat surface – two pounds heavier, so I moved them again..... STOP!!!!

My ex-best friend has now gone into early retirement in the back of the wardrobe, hopefully to never come out again and inflict my world with mad rituals any time soon! How I feel about myself and how my clothes fit IS now enough. RIP weighing scales.

This used to be my little ritual before getting weighed at a well known slimming club each week:

• Eat very lightly, until hallucinations of Kate Moss proportions were swimming in front of my eyes.

• Limit my drinks, so my tongue resembled the bottom of a budgie’s cage.

• Go for a wee when I got there – obviously, I would lose 1lb alone this way! The queue for the toilet was always longer than the weigh-in queue.

• Remove ALL extra clothing – it may be minus 2 outside, but I’m fine in my singlet and cotton skirt.

• Take off shoes.... oooh, sooooo heavy.

• Extricate any jewellery, and I’m not talking MR T mammoth sized chains here.

• Step very gently onto the scales, thudding down on them ensures a greater weight

• Tentatively balance on one leg, thus ensuring all your weight is not on the scales (I’m not quite sure where else it was meant to be.)

... get off and groan that I’d only lost 1/2 lb!

Seem mad? Trust me, I was not alone!

Now that weighing scale mentality still seems to have stuck with me. Even though I have given up slimming clubs for ever, the weighing scales still attract a little ritual. I weigh myself in the morning, after my shower, with no clothes on, before I have had my breakfast and a drink. If I don’t like the number I see. I wait a minute, move the scales to a different part of the floor and try again! Why?! Does a pound in either direction REALLY matter? Am I going to get stopped by a passerby in the street who says, ‘ummmh, you look a pound heavier than yesterday you fat bloater.’

So my quest is to find out what it would be like to give up weighing myself (I’m having palpitations as I write this!). The scales just produce mad thinking and behaviour. How often have you jumped on the scales in the morning, been disappointed with the reading, and then been in a foul mood for the rest of the day?

I have instructed my partner to hide the scales (thank you Chris for this great suggestion) so I will not be tempted to just hop on. The challenge is to go cold turkey for a month. But more importantly it is to tune into my body – how energised I feel, how happy I am with my shape and how I look. It is to look to my internal guide of contentment, rather than relying on an inaccurate metal box to feed me a number when I step onto it. I am more than just a number!

I will keep you updated on my progress