And Today I Weighed

And Today I weighed….

15stone 0.6lb

This has been an incredibly strange 10 days or so since the last post. I’ve been well and truly off the rails with alcohol, take-aways and carbs after 7. At one stage I weighed 15stone 6lbs. I know you shouldn’t weigh yourself every day but for me, at the moment it’s the only thing that works. When I hit that 15stone 6lbs I definitely took myself in hand, gave myself a stiff talking to and it’s onwards and upwards from here.

I’m not sure if my small, sustainable lifestyle changes were just too big. If I was on a downer because the big kids were away. If the lack of training sent me into a downward spiral. If I was a greedy cow and just looking for excuses. Whatever the reasons I’m back on track now.

I’ve had my ankle X rayed and I’ve had blood tests.

I’ve got a little over 4 weeks to my next triathlon so I’m upping the training, which in turn gets the old endorphins going plus there’s the psychological screaming at yourself “I do not intend to sweat blood in a morning only for you to undo the good work with wine in an evening.”

What I’ve read this week…

Anita Bean – Daily Express Monday 16 June 2008

It is easy to make excuses. It’s tempting to blame your genes, your metabolism, your lifestyle, other people, even diets themselves. But eventually you have to face up to the fact that you will lose weight only when you truly believe you can do it.

Your mind is the most powerful tool you have. It controls the way you think about food, how you feel about your weight and the way you look. It determines your relationship with food and it is central to your weight loss.

By changing some of your beliefs about food, you can change the way you eat. Your attitudes about your weight can either hold you back or set you free.

Think Like a Slim Person
Slim people are slim because they have chosen to be slim. They have accepted responsibility for their weight and they control it through their eating and exercise habits. By changing your beliefs, you can begin to think like a slim person.

Be Organised
If you feel out of control in other areas of your life, this can add to low self-esteem and out-of-control eating. Even if your day revolves around your children or your boss dictates your workload, you can gain a greater sense of control just by being more organised. Start by cleaning out cupboards, tackling overdue paperwork and keeping a diary to manage your time better.

Take Time To Change
Don’t expect instant results after making a change. A lot of people are disappointed when the scales register only a modest change in their weight after a weeks dieting. It may take a few weeks to reap the benefits. After all, it took you a long time to become overweight, so give yourself a realistic amount of time to reverse the process.

Banish Negative Thoughts
If you keep thinking that you’re deprived or missing out, you’ll never succeed in losing weight. Once negative thoughts creep in they can drag you back and keep you enslaved to your old (unhealthy) eating behaviour. You need to talk yourself into a positive attitude and stop feeling sorry for yourself.

Have A Strategy
Weight loss is not about willpower. Those who succeed at weight loss do not have greater willpower than those who fail – they just have better strategies.

Keep A Food Diary
One thing that is clear from the hundreds of studies on dieting is that people who write down what they eat each day lose more weight and are better at keeping it off than those who don’t.
Keeping a food diary will give you a much clearer idea of where your calories are coming from. Write down everything you eat and drink for one week (or longer if you can manage it), noting the portion, weights and sizes. Try to be as accurate as possible recording the weights of everything and remembering to write down every snack and every drink. You may be surprised at how quickly the calories add up or how often you nibble.
Look at your food diary and identify the foods or drinks that really aren’t helping your fat-loss efforts. The main culprits are likely to be calorie –dense, low fibre snacks, biscuits, puddings, crisps, ice cream, cakes and chocolate bars.

Identify The Trigger
Work out which foods cause you to overeat and keep them out of your home. If they’re not there you won’t think of them as much and be tempted to overeat.

Eat Regular Meals
If you eat chaotically, you lose the ability to make the connection between hunger and eating – and the result is overeating.
Developing a predictable and stable meal pattern is crucial. The reason most diets work initially is because they give your eating habits structure, usually three meals a day and maybe a healthy snack.
Often dieters become fixated with some other diet rule (such as calories or carbohydrate units) and alter the structure of their eating habits, skipping breakfast or delaying lunch and that’s when the diet starts to go wrong. Plan to eat three meals a day plus two small healthy snacks.
Never under eat. Don’t skip meals or snacks. Depriving yourself can lead to overeating later on. When you let yourself get really hungry it’s harder to make slim choices. You are more likely to give in to temptation as you pass the baker’s shop or grab a chocolate bar on the run – or you can convince yourself that you need extra food to satisfy your hunger.
Plan what and when you will eat and avoid long gaps between meals. Take a healthy snack with you so you won’t have to eat whatever is to hand.

Don’t Exclude Forbidden Foods
Consistently denying yourself a forbidden treat isn’t the way to lose weight. It tends to set up a psychological state of deprivation and once that abstinence is broken, you will feel rebellious which can lead to eating every scrap of food you can get your hands on.
If you always restrict what you eat you are more likely to lose control and overindulge when you taste the forbidden food. Allow yourself to eat what you want but decide beforehand how much you are going to have – and stick to it.

Be Better Balanced
A slim person automatically compensates for overeating. If they overeat one day they just get back on track the next. If you’ve overindulged, eat a little less at your next meal or the next day or take a bit more exercise. It’s called calorie balance: making sure your calorie intake equals your calorie output.

www.anitavean.co.uk