Week 4, Days 1-3

Funny how time flies huh.
This week I've felt a lot calmer with it all.
Like I'm finding that groove.
Enough losses on the board that I feel we're (almost) getting somewhere.
It will be interesting to see if and when last week's emotions replicate themselves and if it is my hormonal cycle returning to some sort of pattern.
I know that when I am getting my period the two days before it I am ravenous. Insatiable.
But I know that last week was largely due to the process and that this weight-loss life-gain process is a long haul one.
I know I will still be writing here in a year and will probably not yet be at my goal weight.
So here I stand. A few good days on the board and feeling ok.
Just OK.
It's tenuous, but better than last weeks panic.

Weigh In - Week 3

-0.7kg

Well after that incredibly grim week, what a result!
I have lost bang on 4kgs.
A woman who started the week I did, C, and I have hit it off and we both had a week of being miserable. And a bad weekend. Her with the booze and me with the tarts.
As she said, "I'm miserable about being fat and miserable about having to think about every mouthful I eat".
I know this time passes.
The one where the goal is so far off it hardly seems worth it.
Where you berate yourself so much the warped logic of being miserable being fat is satiated by eating more.
I know that happens whether I'm 5 kilos from my goal weight or 25.
So I'm just going to clock this one.
It was a bad week with a good outcome.

Week 3, Days 2-5

Oy.
This has been a hard week.
Full of eating. Nay, scoffing chocolate.
Of baking and eating tartlet after tartlet.
And then of feeling an anxiety attack brewing over how many points were in each and every little tartlet.
And berating myself for doing it.
And panicking about how I can undo it.
And thinking maybe I could be a bit bulimic just this week.

So you see.
Despite sometimes having the tools sometimes the worker is just inept at using them.

Week 3, Day 1

So today I made muesli slice and only ate one and a half pieces. Not bad.
I'm feeling dreadful at the moment. Frustrated, angry, oh my the anger, frustration and underlying all of it? A gross sense of impatience and panic. Impatience that this weight loss campaign is going to, due to its mere size, take a long time and panic that I might not be able to see it out and retrain my brain that eating huge amounts of food morning, noon and night is just not sustainable or healthy.
Impatient.
Panicked.
Cranky.

Weigh In - Week 2

-0.5kg

Am pleased but disappointed it wasn't more.
Silly really isn't it - I mean, you hate yourself as you shovel more food in and you're disappointed in yourself when you're doing something about it but the movement isn't big enough.
Idiot.

Week 2, Day 7

Dark day.
Only really? Only because I was so busy I didn't get lunch.
And the only thing worse than an over-stretched sleep-deprived mother? Is an over-stretched sleep-deprived hungry mother.
It was ugly. I was ugly. I ate a lot of pasta at dinner.
But curiously not so much I felt ill.
I ate a lot of chocolate today (Organic Green and Black if that makes it any better) . Interspersed with raspberries. It was delicious and I enjoyed it thoroughly.
And curiously not like a family Cadbury block but more like 50grams, which isn't that much at all.
In comparison to recent chocolate consumption.
I have issues with when this WW meeting is - it's at 12.30 - so you're starving because you haven't eaten anything and not drunk much because there.is.weigh.in. - and bang in the middle of when Jasper would be having a day sleep, like today when Jasper and Grover were both asleep.
There's a meeting at 10.30 on Thursdays and I'm thinking next week I'll just take the monumental step and change days.

Week 2, Day 6

My shrink reminded me of the twenty minute rule of thumb today. And I feel a renewed strength at dealing with food and my associations therewith.
Basically when I feel overwhelmed, angry, frustrated, bored and anything in between I turn to food. And then I hate myself a little bit more, so binge a little harder.
But the 20 minute rule, which I've been applying to my temper (read anger) I had completely forgotten to apply to my food associations.
It works as follows:
- acknowledge the desire to binge/eat a whole packet of chips/biscuits/block of chocolate
- then follow it through to the end
- I'll eat it all
- I'll enjoy it while I eat it
- and I may feel good for a little while
- but then I will be angry at myself, disappointed, and hate myself for it
- so instead I'm going to go for a walk/fold the ironing/hang out some washing/whatever for 20 minutes (by which time the urge would have largely gone)
- then, and only then, if the urge remains I can eat whatever my heart desires.

It sounds complicated? Convoluted? It's not at all. Because otherwise I get into a complete tailspin about denial, guilt, and end up quite loopy. So this little process? This has been the singularly most empowering piece of advice given to me. That basically every human emotion has a 20 minute life span.

Tomorrow, weigh in.

Week 2, Days 3,4 and 5

Well Days 3 and 4 are always going to be hard for me as they are weekends. And weekends for me mean baking. And making proper desserts. And cooking something sumptious for dinner. And I don't care what you say, when you're actually measuring the amount of oil going into something, sumptious is not going to be a word to describe the end product. As it was I made a lamb, roast veg and couscous salad - the lamb left over from a roast mum had cooked. The veggies roasted in a smidge of oil and a dusting of polenta which helped give them more crunch value. Then tossed through couscous with some baby rocket, left over semi-dried tomatoes (and granted their oil) and crumbled over feta. And yes, it was delicious.

As it was, I did get through it although there was pretty grim determination.

What also gets me down during those times is realising just how many calories I was eating in a day and that while I thoroughly enjoyed eating it all at the time it just isn't sustainable. And that makes me sad.

K who left a comment for me over on one of the other blogs (feel free to email me just no comments to avoid the good intentions-poor reception equation that comes from people with no fucking idea) who said keep baking just give it away. And she's right. And it's actually spurred me on with my other plans...

Anyway, today was v. good because I was busy and distracted. Dinner was the lamb salad as I had made enough to feed an army.

I've decided that next week I'm going to follow the WW Core Plan rather than Points. It appeals to me and now that I've almost had two weeks of reigning in the eating the keeping points thing is shitting me.

Week 2, Day 2

A good day albeit one counting my points and counting the hours and counting everything. It was victorious for the fact I didn't really feel like cake so didn't eat any. But it taunted me all day.

Week 2, Day 1

Bad day.
Made a cake.
Ate A LOT of it.
Still tallied points and may have snuck it in, but only just.

And the reality of my life begins to rear its head - how does someone who loves to bake lose weight at the same time.

Sigh.

Weigh In - Week 1

-2.8kg

I had 50g of chips to celebrate.
Which is stupid I know.
But shut up.
They tasted divine.

I am more relieved with this loss than happy or excited. Relieved that the weight I was, which was horrifying me, is no longer.

Day 7

An OK day considering how tired I was.
Funny isn't it. I felt so tired I just wanted to eat.
Bad habit.
I took the boys and dogs for another walk today which was good because I was seriously in the category of a bear with a sore head.
It didn't actually do much to improve it either, but we were out of the house for an hour and a half.
Dinner was poached eggs on toast with fingers of leftover corned beef. Veggies were just too hard to even consider.
Then I fell asleep on the lounge. Which probably saved me from binge eating big time.
Which is a real blessing as my first weigh-in is tomorrow.

Day 6

So today presented the first challenge for me in the whole WW lurrrrve of all things Carnation Skim Evaporated Milk.
I think WW is on the right track in that it fundamentally teaches you that everything you put in your body, counts and that basically it comes down to deciding if you're going to predominantly fill it with foods that are good for it or foods that aren't.
And then our paths diverge.
You see, if I feel like chocolate cake, I'm going to eat a proper, decent, home made piece of chocolate cake. Not a plastic little bar of something that might feature cocoa about five things down the list of ingredients and tapioca thickener in there somewhere as well.
If I'm going to make corned beef then if I want to serve it with white sauce, it will be a proper white sauce made with butter, flour, milk a hint of mustard and parsley. I will be sensible and make it with skim milk and I will only have a tablespoon or two of it rather than half a cup... or more.
I will not, will not, heat skim evaporated milk and add a cornflour slurry to thicken it to resemble white sauce.
Blah followed by gah.
Similarly, if I'm making something which would normally involve coconut milk, I will not be swapping that for skim evaporated milk and coconut essence.
BLAH GAH.

So tonight I made fantastic corned beef and served it with mashed potato (and a few carrots thrown in there for good measure - which I made with skim milk), cabbage (cooked in water of the corned beef) and broccoli. With parsley sauce.

Things to think about when I feel the road ahead is too long, too hard and too everything...
- back fat
- thigh chaffing
- finding it hard to cross my legs

And things to look forward to...
- energy
- feeling my collarbones, hip bones and my ribs on my back
- more of my wardrobe fitting

Day 4-5

Weekends are challenging. Always were and I suspect always will be. It's the lack of structure that just lends me to eating away hours. Literally.
I did pretty well this weekend, as you'd expect seeing as it was the first one...
Today was more of a challenge what with making breakfasts involving maple butter, but I did it and while it's hard to gauge points today believe I came in under the allocation.
I'd jog it in but Idol's on.

Day 3

I technically have 30 points to play with - basically because I'm so FUCKING huge and also that I'm breastfeeding.

But seriously people, getting to thirty points is actually quite hard for me once I'm back on track with my eating. I eat a lot of whole foods and therefore a lot of zero point foods as well.

Today I'm sitting on around 20 points and I didn't feel ravenous at all. I realise once I'm back in the land of the not morbidly obese and only have 20 points to play with I will feel mighty cheated so I'm just kinda basking in the glow of it all on the huge achievement of three days of not eating myself into oblivion.

For me, that is the biggest bonus of doing something like WW. That feeling of being back in control of my eating is just such a weight (<--hahahahaha geddit) off my mind. The fact I did WW five years ago means many of the good habits are just falling back into place, which is kind of nice as well.

But today I couldn't get this memory out of my head. When I was in Year 10 I went to WW because I was a whole 8 kilos outside the weight range for my height. It might well have been the thirty such was the guilt and grief and maternal horror about it.

Anyway, there was this even younger girl there with her hideous over bearing mother who, infront of the whole room, said there was no way her daughter could possibly eat this much and lose weight. That incident often comes back into my head and I wonder where that girl is now and if she still fights with food.

There is so much I could say about the impact my family had on me, my self esteem and my relationship with food. But I'm a big girl now and the years of therapy have largely worked through all of that, so this is now a journey of choices and living with the ones I make or have made.

Day 2

I'm still smarting about how much I weigh and how I let myself get to this weight ever again. But I have.
So this morning I did 20 minutes of my ball and band dvd because Grover is in the midst of being Captain Cranky McFarty Pants and inbetween bottom explosions, screaming and feeding and getting out to get my haircut that was all the time I had.
So lunch didn't happen as the haircut was at 11.30 and I'd only had breakfast at about 8.30 and from the hairdresser I had to stop at Chef's work, get Jasper's car seat, get it in the car, go into the city to pick up Jasper then get back out to Mona Vale to pick up Felix and then on to Narrabeen to get Oscar.
So I ate four WW choc cherry bars. Six points. Technically lunch. Reality bad.
Nice.
But I did exercise, I did stay within my points allocation, it is all coming flooding back to me about portion sizes and just how much I can eat if I'm not moving, and I did some exercise.

Onward.

Day 1

I am staggered, gob-smacked and completely overwhelmed by how much I weigh. It almost feels insurmountable. Part of me just wants to curl up in a ball, on the lounge, with the remote and a bar of chocolate. Thank goodness it's only the third, smaller roll of fat around my middle wanting to do it. The rest of me - bingo wings and all - are ready for the challenge, the highs, the lows and the constant vigilance that is me and food.

Day 1.