Day 17: New Hat!

Went to Windsor today with Nadia and Stel to buy a Barbour hat. I had one before — a donkey green one with a dark brown waxed cotton rose adorning the brim. There was nothing wrong with it, it was decent, kept the rain off my face and kept its shape.

The only trouble was, it was a melt-into-the-background hat. It did nothing for my complexion, hid my face and was rudimentary and workmanline. And then I lost it, and felt a mild regret, but nothing monumental.

Well, today, at Barbour, they had sold out in the large green hats. But, they DID have navy hats with the plaid lining and the jaunty plaid bow on the rim. An audacious, feminine hat. I tried it on. It suited my newly-slimmer face. Nadia was tentative. Was it a little too outré for my usually dour tastes? I looked in the mirror. The bright plaid lifted my face, widened my eyes and gave them a sparkle. I was going to be THIN soon. Did I want a donkey-green hat to hide inside, or a girly little number to call attention to myself?

My plaid hat is hanging by the front door tonight. I would not have bought it two weeks ago. Happy things are happening in my life, after so many years.

Week Two Weigh-In

And another five pounds GONE. Bringing the total loss to my first stone. In two weeks. Beats bloody Weight Watchers hollow.

Tonight we got our first dose of transactional analysis, looking at the disapproving “parent” voices in our heads, versus the self-indulgent, self-destructive “child” voices. The place to be is in your “adult” ego state, using all the available reasoning to make decisions when put in a pinch.

Four members told me my face had transformed, and, indeed, it IS much thinner. It still doesn’t make this diet easy, though. I am hungry a lot, but it is easier to say “NO FOOD, FATTY” to myself, than have a small salad and a slice of wholewheat toast…

Day 11 — Survived Birthday Party

Stella’s friend Theo turned three last week; his party was on Sunday. Imagine a table laden with soft, fresh sandwiches catered by Waitrose, a fudgy chocolate birthday cake and a jug of Pimms — for the adults, of course)! Imagine, then, sinking your teeth into a Lighter Life Peanut Bar, while your three-year-old is treating some moist mini-sausages on her plate with utmost contempt.

Afterwards, our friends invited us to their home for paella. I had my savoury drink in a mug while they tucked into prawns and squid. But by that time, it was okay. I was enjoying the company so much that I sort of — transcended — the immediate food-laden situation. My friends looked at me like I was on Death Row, though…

I still think about eating, but less frequently than I used to last week. However, I am tired, tired, tired. I collapse into bed in a heap at night and find it hard to wake up at 7. I think it’s just my body adjusting to its first two weeks of shock.

Start of Week 2!

Weighed-in last night — lost 9lbs in all the first week, which I am really pleased about. It’s been a hard week. Thoughts of food have been constantly on my mind. Mum and other friends keep telling me how ”hard” it seems and how much support I’m going to need.  I’m not sure whether that helps me by validating my efforts or deters. Hmph.

Group was great last night — counsellor made us write up SMART goals; having done this only a million times in endless strategy planning sessions in the past, it came naturally to me, but was still a very interesting exercise. To engage our left brains, she made us draw pictures of our goals. That was a new one for me. I drew sand-castles, buckets and seashells because I so want to take Stella on a beach holiday and enjoy physical activity with her.

I was greatly encouraged by group; we shared that many of us shut down when we are fat and avoid contacting friends, etc. I identified with that so much.

Tastes the water flavours which are very good, sadly because of the amount of aspartame in them. Aspartame is the product of the devil and will send you straight to Health Hell but I am having to stomach it in my short-term quest to get to Goal.

I walked across Richmond Park to Queen Mary’s Hospital in Roehampton to have my carpal tunnel syndrome seen to by a neurologist. And then walked part of the way back by hopping off the bus early. And i had only chalked up 10,000 steps on my new LL pedometer. Bloody hell! I had expected it to register at least 15,000! Have decided to step up the exercise from today onwards…

Day 4 and Midway Meeting

I have lost 8 lbs in three days. Yes, you heard right. EIGHT POUNDS. Nadia says my face is looking slimmer and my neighbour said the same. I am not used to such swift and spectacular success. At the moment I am feeling a little cautious, afraid it won’t last, afraid that boredome will sabotage me, afraid that if I don’t exercise @enough@, the weight will stop dropping off.

Still, it is such a wonderful feeling to be shot of eight pounds.

Hope to start some form of aerobic exercise this week…

Day 2

Mushroom Soup tastes like cement mixed up with water. Chicken marginally better. I am plumping for Thai Chili as my fave, laced with Tabasco.

Today more difficult than yesterday — maybe it was because today is also the first day of my period so I don’t know whether the whoozy head is due to LL or my cycle .

Still, I haven’t *craved* anything or been obsessed with food. I have just generally felt tired and missed eating meals. Went down to the allotment for three hours this morning: the raspberries were ripe, blackberries were dropping off the vine fulsomely, our Sungold tomatoes were bursting with sugary juices and in the old days I would have been popping morsels into my mouth quite absently.

Had to feed Stella a delicious salad at lunch time and appreciated how good the avocados and pecans and butterhead lettuce looked. Fancying a salad? That would never have happened in the old stuffing-my-face days, when my jaded, stultified appetite would not have taken a second look at silly old greens, for heaven’s sake.

I wonder, when I start “eating normal food” again, whether I will appreciate healthy salads and balk at chips. Hmmm. Too far too soon. I think I should just be worrying about keeping my body and mind together one day at a time till I reach ketosis and this hunger loses its keen edge.

To bed now, feeling quite full enough to fall asleep.

Day 1

Approached this day with a funny blend of bereavement, trepidation, expectation and excitement. Our LL session last night was very good. 12 women form our group; they are all very friendly and warmed up after the first few awkward sessions.

My weight was 100.8 — only .3kg on since the initial weigh-in at the introductory session. Our leader was surprised because usually people stuff themselves  during the Last Supper Syndrome before they start LL, and gain significant weight, she said.

We did the Lemon Exercise — closing our eyes, visualising a dish of juicy, shiny lemons, picturing quartering them with a knife, popping a quarter in our mouths, chewing down on it, savouring the taste of the pith, rind and flesh, etc. Most of us were grimacing, apparently, which shows how powerful the mind is, enough to conjure up smell, taste, and texture in a split second. Our session ended with the challenge that it will be the Mind which will carry us forward on the coming journey, and not to underestimate its power.

OK, OK, on the way home, I stopped at the Chinese takeaway and got some Special Fried Rice and Won-Ton Soup for my own Last Supper, although Nadia filched a whole dumpling from me.

This morning, I woke up at 05:38 sweating, with a migraine, nauseous, and having had a nightmare that our neighbours had been killed in the Spanair air disaster of two days ago. Bad way to wake up.

Breakfast: vanilla shake whizzed up with handheld blender — actually very nice.

Lunch: Thai Chilli Soup. Wonderful flavour, though texture just a wee bit chalky. I don’t think I’m going to mind it long-term.

Tea: Chocolate shake. Nice, malty, satisfying. Thank GOD the flavours are halfway decent.

Morning was emotional rather than physical, and that reversed pretty sharpish by late afternoon, when I would have popped anything in my mouth if I hadn’t paid enough attention — a pecan, a spoonful of Stella’s omelette, an apple dangling voluptuously from our tree, etc. It is just dawning on me how frequently and unthinkingly I put things in my mouth. And I would have forgotten the morsels as soon as I had committed the act of eating, thereby feeling virtuous but aggrieved tomorrow morning for not having lost any weight.

I trust tomorrow will be worse than today, when glycogen stores are depleting steadily. But I am not going to second-guess tomorrow. Keep it Simple…

YES!

And the GP has signed my form!

Must say she looked horrified when I told her I weighed 100.5kg. She is a lissom Eastern European woman with cascading hair and perfect fingernails… I, on the other hand, whilst I had made an effort with blusher and lipstick, invaded her office looking like a toddler-tattered hulk.

Not for long, though.

Towards a Lighter Life

Today, I just got back in the pouring rain from my Lighter Life introductory session. Lighter Life is a Very Low Calorie Diet programme (a VLCD for those in the business) allowing 500 calories a day in the form of shakes and soups. I considered this way of eating (or not eating) about a year ago but chickened out. Too weird. Too abstemious. Screws up your metabolism, doesn’t it? Saggy skin! And mustn’t forget the gallstones brought about by too-fast weightloss. 

Exactly a week ago, it was 100 degrees in Yellowstone National Park. I had 3-year-old Stella in my back carrier. My heart was pounding. My breath came in raw spurts. And suddenly, after the years of lying to myself, the truth grabbed hold of me and gave me an ungentle shake. “Your heart is carrying around two whole adults. Each of your thighs is the size of an average waistline. You haven’t seen your cheekbones in decades. You are rushing to your grave, and who will take care of Stella?”

Suddenly, something broke inside my head. I needed all this adipose OFF me QUICKLY. WIthout my having to negotiate over how much cottage cheese, how many slices of bread (and was it wholegrain?), did I pour too much milk into my latte, and oh my God, was it semi-skimmed???? It’s them Voices, Ma, them Voices that drives me crazy.

Tonighted I expected a pat, business-oriented counsellor in a High Street skirt-suit to greet me. After All, the Lighter Life programmes are run as franchises and needn’t attract the brightest pennies in the pile. God knows I have met one Weight Watchers/SlimmingWorld/ Slimming Magazine “teacher” after another who didn’t know her carbs from her fibre. I am tired of possessing more technical/medical information than the average weightloss ”expert”. So I was pleasantly surprised that my counsellor tonight had a thoughtful, intelligent, formidably technical answer for every one of my probing questions. She has lost the equivalent of an adult human herself in terms of weight and understands what it is like to have faced obesity from childhood.

Off to the GP tomorrow with my medical forms, and I hope to start in less than two weeks!