Monday 31st July

On the 6th July my step mum kindly gave me a load of size 14 trousers. Here is a quote form my blog of that day:

“My step mum was kind enough last to give me a load of size 14 trousers to shrink into. I can see that I will be able to shrink into the waists and bums of them but am not sure if I will ever be able to get my thighs in them. Even when I was a size 10/12 my legs reflected my chosen sports of sprinting and horse riding and I was very muscular so I have always preferred pyjama style wide leg trousers. We’ll see I might surprise myself.”

Well I don’t know what possessed me last night but I thought I’d try a pair on. Bugger me if the first pair didn’t actually fit me round the waist and bum! 2 pair’s did fit, 3 pairs didn’t (in fact they weren’t even close to doing up let alone feeling comfy on the waist) but it gives me something to shrink into. The only problem is that the thighs are tighter than I would like because she goes for a straight leg style whilst I need a baggy or relaxed fit but as the weight comes off then so the thighs will be looser even though the waist then won’t fit. There’s no doubt about it though, the wider style trousers like combats do so more for me because I have a chunkier physique. I’m going to surprise my step mum and dad by wearing the best fitting of the bunch when I see them next Tuesday night. I’m not too excited about the fact that size 14’s have fitted because they must be some of the largest size 14’s on the market but what this does tell me is that in 3 weeks or so I might be into a average size 14 just in time for my daughter’s birthday party. Last nights foray into the size 14’s prompted me to weed through my wardrobe again and get rid of all the bras and pants that don’t fit me anymore and I found a size 14 pair of combats I bought from a car boot sale a few weeks back which now fit me perfectly, even on the leg so I now have enough clothes to get me through for the next couple of months.

I did wonder if my attitude towards getting into smaller clothing and reasoning that that were bigger than the rest of the market was just me putting myself down. Thinking about it in a rational way, yes going down through the sizes is a good way to compare how you were with how you are now if you stick to the same brand but I did go through all the various size charts online and there is doubt that the various companies sizes vary tremendously so I am being logical in my thinking and not just doing myself an injustice.

It is weird because despite fitting into 3 pairs of size 14’s from 3 different companies (Evie, George and Dorothy Perkins) I am having another fat day. Where’s the reasoning in that?

Water consumption has been excellent at 8 litres.

Pedometer was stuck at 8,500 steps at 8pm so I went out for a walk to boost it over the 10,500.

72 days down, 28 to go.

Sunday 30th July

I didn’t even hit 8,000 on the pedometer yesterday. I got past my 10,500 target today.

Can I get into the 12’s this week? I’m not sure what my body is up to at the moment so it is difficult to predict because I don’t feel thinner. My periods are all over the place (poor choice of words I realise!) but my total water consumption has been fairly good this week if inconsistent and I know this has an impact on the weight loss. Having hubby home and going out when he dictates has knocked my routine out but he is back to work again as of tomorrow. I have discovered I’m not very adaptable. It is not so much about how much you drink but more about drinking little and often throughout the day.

I would love to be 12st 13lbs. 12st 13lbs!!!!! I can’t believe it could be possible as I type this. To be 12st something!!!! Yes please!!!! Surely I can’t have 2 slow weight loss weeks in a row? Oh how the temptation to nip over to mum’s place to use her scales is killing me! I won’t because the Tuesday night weigh in is the one that counts even though I have show before on that 2nd disastrous pop it o so long ago that I can be 4lbs lighter in the morning than in the evening even having just downed 2 pints of water without a chance to pee it out again.

By the end of the foundation stage I could be 12 stone as near a damn it with only ½ stone to go to reach the ‘normal’ BMI range.

It sounds so close when you put it like that but thinking in terms of weeks that would be another 4 weeks away with about another 8 weeks of development on top of that (because I won’t settle for just being normal) depending on the rate of loss I experience before then and what I look like at the end of it all.

I am certainly expecting the weight loss to slow down now because I am not dragging that extra 3st 2lbs round with me all day everyday. I only need to pick my daughter up to remind myself just what that equates to although show weighs less than that.

71 days down 29 to go. Yippee, I’m in the 20’s!

Saturday 29th July

There’s no doubt about it, I am starting to feel the pressure of nearing the end of the foundation stage. This is traditionally where I would think about bailing out and I am running true to form on that front. I keep looking at myself in mirrors, reflections, shadows, anything and everything and wondering if I am thin enough yet despite knowing that I am not as I still have about 2 months of development to complete after the foundation stage and then the 12 week route to management after that. I should be ready to start the route to management by 26th October if I lose 3lb a week on average.

I need to remember that I am still 13st at the moment no matter what I might hope I look like and despite the lovely comments I am getting.

It makes me laugh because there’s me saying I am nearing the end of the foundation stage when I still have 30 days left to go and this is longer than the total amount I have managed on any other diet!

By the time go for my next hair cut in 8 weeks time at the end of September, I should hopefully be within the normal range for my BMI. That is going to be crunch time as I will have to struggle keep it real and stay on LL for as long as I need to reach whatever goal weight is appropriate for me. I need to consider if I am going try and take it too far or whether I am considering finishing too early if a desire to enter the real world of food becomes too strong to resist.

It won’t help that I’ll keep getting comments saying I should stop before I get too skinny. Will I be strong enough not to stop? Will I take it the other way and try to go all skin and bones? I doubt it because the pressure will be not to stop too early. Will I be strong enough in management to be able to do what I couldn’t do on the diets which is to stick solely with what I can have and in the right portion size? Who knows!

I want to be my ideal weight and on the route to management NOW but on the other hand I want to drag this out for as long as possible so that I can get as many weeks of therapy in as possible so that this increases my chances of the weight staying off. What a muddle!

I did have a bit of a funny moment today. Hubby got up late and as usual didn’t bother to open the curtains, windows or make the bed. So I went into our bedroom in the dark to do all this and as I walked in, saw an outline in the full length mirrored wardrobes (remember it was almost dark because the curtains were shut) and turned round to see who it was. I am a dopey cow because it was me but I just didn’t recognise my new slimmer outline despite permanently trying to eye myself up in whatever available means! That did make me laugh.

70 days down, 30 to go.

Friday 28th July

I had my hair cut today which always makes me feel better. I walked to the hairdresser which is ½ a mile away and I would never of thought of doing this pre-LL. It all helps with my steps though. Talking of steps, I decided to take the bull by the horns last night and up my target to 10,500 steps a day so there I was jogging on the spot and really trying to raise my legs up so that it took a bit of effort. I also jogged from the post office to the library today which was only about ¼ of a mile but I wanted to see how I would fare with it. The result was that there was no problem because I didn’t get out of breath and my calves didn’t ache which would have been the result pre-weight loss but my new size 16 cargo trousers (bought on Wednesday night) did fall down which WAS a problem not to mention embarrassing! I think that I should stop being such a wuss and take a few risks by trying on clothes a size smaller than I think I am so that I have an idea as to how long it will be before I can get into them, even if they are a bit snug. At least I’ll get some wear out of them then.

I need to work in some exercises to bring in my waist to bring my body into proportion. I won’t be able to do too much about my legs because they are the shape they are and that’s that! I love the skinny jeans that seem to be in all the shops at the moment but alas even when I reach my target they’ll never be for me.

The focus is still on activity.

Today I walked to the hairdressers, walked to the shop (not the nearest one), had a wander down town and jogged between the post office and the library. So the pedometer is over the 10,500 without any jogging on the stop required! Just off to do some toning exercises…

69 days down, 31 to go.

Thursday 27th July

I went late night shopping last night and despite the rain and thunder & lightning I did my usual trick of parking at the other end of the car park and walking across to the store to help the pedometer on a few clicks. My pedometer actually ended up over 13,500 steps. (That was helped by a family walk along the river during the day which we loved so much we are doing again today but with a picnic this time.)

I bought a pair of cargo trousers size 16 which were too big on the hips but I can get my thighs into them, the 14’s would have fitted at the hips but I wouldn’t have been able to get them past my thighs! I tried 2 other size 16’s trousers with fitted waistbands with the same result. I bought a skirt size 12 which had an elasticated waist with drawstrings to pull it in when I drop the next 2 sizes and I bought a size 14 t-shirt.

Now for a moment there I got really excited about the sizes of the items I bought but there is no doubt that Asda’s George clothes come up very big because how would I be able to comfortably fit a size 12 skirt without the waist being stretched from here to kingdom come!

I have just measured my hips and they are literally just a smidge over 40 inches which makes me damn near a size 14 on the Marks and Spencer size chart which is 39.5 inches whereas my 34 inch waist puts me in a size 18 and my 38 inch bust puts me in a size 16!

The food packs and water consumption are second nature (except on family days out where I stick to 4 litres so that there aren’t too many loo breaks required) and I have been very good at considering what makes me tick (and explode!) so the last thing I need to concentrate on is making activity a habit so that I don’t have to even think about it.

If I can ensure that thought records (transferable from blog), food packs, water and lastly activity all remain second nature then I have set up some very useful tools and habits to help me when I re-enter the world of conventional food in October.

The focus of my diet has definitely shifted away from losing the weight to considering how to keep it off. I have known for ages now that I will reach my goal weight (whatever that may be) and that the tough bit will be management and maintenance so the more tools I have mastered along the way, the better.

The pedometer was great again today at over 10,000 steps. I think I will start upping the minimum to 10,500 for next week.

I also want to do start making sure that I do some toning exercises so this will be a new bit of each days blog so that I actually have to type ‘I did nothing’ to focus my mind on what I have to do.

68 days down, 32 to go.

Wednesday 26th July

Well the weight loss went as predicted, I lost 1 ½ lbs this week which was to be expected so I am not disappointed. I will be if I have a crap week next week though so don’t think that I have gone all Mother Theresa!

The meeting this week was very interesting and hit a few nerves again because it was very relevant to me. It was about the games we can play to get reactions from people. There was definitely some food for thought in this weeks meeting.

The other thing that I seem to be noticing more is that loads of people are now starting to tell me that I can’t have that much more to lose. I notice these comments because they annoy me. I want to end up at between 10st and 10st 7lbs which means I still have about 3 stone to go and I get disbelief when I tell people this.

The people that show disbelief don’t have any ulterior motives for keeping me fatter which I know can be a possibility when you lose lots of weight. I think their reasoning is because I don’t seem to have a lot to lose on the top half of my body and of course that is the bit that people see. They can’t see the state of my legs and tummy because not only am I wearing clothes but the clothes I am wearing are chosen to make the most of what I do have and play down the bits that still need a bit of help so that I appear in proportion.

Now to the nitty-gritty of this. Why on earth should being told I don’t have much more to lose annoy me so much? It should be taken as a compliment as I know it is coming from genuine good feeling and intention. I have been thinking about this overnight and believe I have some answers.

I have a history of self sabotaging on the important issues which means that I don’t ever reach my goals. I also make do so that I don’t run the risk of failing because my best wasn’t good enough. With my weight loss I am determined not to compromise which means that perversely I have to focus on how far I have to go rather than how far I have come as most people do to motivate them. If I have people telling me I don’t have far to go then this puts thoughts of moving my goal and finishing earlier than intended into my mind. I know that I am going to be abstaining from food until October which is another 2 ½ - 3 months off. That is hardly close to being at the end although the comments raise my hopes that I might be.

The comments prompt me to think that I am getting to the stage near the end where traditionally I have always given up. I have always tended to give up towards the end of something important even if I the odds are 95% in favour of being a success because I don’t ever run the 5% risk of failing because my best wasn’t good enough.

Doing the thought records is definitely useful to me because before I would have just been irritated and reacted aggressively about the weight loss comments and I would assume that I was irritated because of the insensitivity of the other person. Now I know that the problem actually lies with me because how the hell can the other person fathom out my very complicated insecurities!

Having thought things through I am now free to respond in an appropriate manner to such comments rather than an inappropriate which only would have confused, upset and angered the other party. Doing LL has changed my life and the way I interact with others. I am gaining confidence everyday and improving as a person.

I always thought I was quite a sensitive person to the needs of others but I really wasn’t quite getting the plot because I didn’t understand how my own slant on things affected my ability to understand. I am open to that probability now which can only help.

I also had another revelation hit me today thanks to reading a post on a weight loss forum I read.

“its amazing when you get control over your own life how much you couldn't be bothered controlling anyone else's!!! strange but true hee hee”

I think that just about hits the nail on the head for me and is going straight into my thought record too because I think that this was another reason that I was/am a control freak! My thanks go to Gen for posting it.

My pedometer results were over 12,000 which is far better than yesterday which ended up at just over 9,000 steps. I could so easily have nipped out for a 5 minute walk to make up the deficit but I just couldn’t be bothered to. I think I am going to have to take this activity and exercise thing more seriously.

67 days down, 33 to go.

Tuesday 25th July

It’s a real bummer about the water consumption yesterday because that will mean that I will be retaining even more water today and it is LL night tonight. Circumstances are conspiring against me for the weigh in tonight.

I know what I can expect a poorer weight loss this week because I am on (no symptoms again) and it is also the 3rd week in my weight loss cycle which always shows a vastly reduced weight loss to the other weeks and combine that with the additional water retention I will be experiencing today because of the reduced water I consumed yesterday and the fact that it is very hot today you have a recipe for not a lot of weight loss this week. It’s a shame because having weighed in at 13st 3lbs last week I would have loved to have got to 12 stone something for this week but even so I know I’ll hit that soon enough!

I haven’t yet transferred my thoughts from this blog into my thought records and I know that this week will be a week for sharing if I want to because others in the group shared last week. I don’t have a problem with sharing with the group as I am one of those types of people that are very open and I don’t just share half truths either. I am very honest about my feelings and failings hence this warts and all blog which the public has access to!

My water consumption has been fine today but I could have done with upping it a bit to make sure that I was peeing as often as I usually do even with this heat. That didn’t happen though.

The pedometer hasn’t been as good as usual at 8,300 but I did get some upper body exercise putting the massive frame tent up this morning. I spent a couple of hours laid on my bed this afternoon which hasn’t helped and meant that I had to be more active in the evening as it cooled down.

66 days down, 34 to go.

Monday 24th July

Today was a bit of a hectic day and as a consequence I only got 8,700 steps and just managed to have my minimum 4 litres of water.

On Sunday night we impulse bought a tent off eBay from Leicester so yesterday was a long trip from the south coast to Leicester and back again. We left at about 1pm and didn’t get back until gone 10pm. I didn’t want to drink very much otherwise it would have taken another 2 hours on top of that as we stopped for loo breaks every half an hour!

Sunday 23rd July

I’m in shook today. Last night hubby did some 2 month progress shots. Because the 1 month ones were taken in landscape rather than portrait I couldn’t do the comparison to my start shots (May 22nd).

I had to keep checking that both sets of photos were to the same scale because I couldn't believe it! The trouble is that all of the areas of my body that weren't in proportion before still aren't now so because all I could see in reality was myself as I am now I couldn’t see what the size differences actually were and although my measurements attest to the size difference, I have no imagination. What I keep doing is looking at my belly and legs and thinking that they aren't shrinking THAT much because they still are so much bigger than my top half. Of course I forget that me top half has shrunk too so the real shook was the fact that I now have a neck and shoulders and didn't realise that I didn't have before.

On the before shots, another shock was that I was as wide (if not wider) across my shoulders as I was across my hips and I always thought I was pear shaped rather than in proportion. The pear shaped bit only came in when I stood sideways! So now it will be strange choosing things to wear when I lose the belly because I won't need to automatically be going for tops with an ampire line under the bust and flaring out to the hips. I might have to try every shape in the shop on and try and work out what suits me best.

Actually this might explain why my hips and bust measurements were always in the same size (der brain) and my waist is always nearly a size bigger! God I'm sooooo thick!



64 days down, 36 to go.

Saturday 22nd July

Today marks the first day of hubby’s week off work. I’m hoping I’m going to be very chilled about this but normally I just get irritated that he make mess everywhere ALL day when I have just cleaned and tidied and I get bored during the day because I expect us to be out having fun instead of stuck at home.

I have dealt with feeling bored and having my expectations dashed in the evenings by no longer expecting or hoping for anything from him. If I need something to do then I have a bath or do a puzzle or something. I am still not really watching telly. I’d be amazed if I had sat in front of the telly for more than an hour a week since starting LL and I’m happier for it!

It hasn’t helped that I am due on and the weather has been foul today and we have been stuck indoors. I won’t be waiting around for hubby this week; I’ll be going out with my daughter and letting him call me when he manages to surface!

Today seems to have been another day of imagining eating again. Just one of those, a nibble of that, what would that taste like… I’m lucky because not even for a fleeting moment do I think about cheating, this is all me picturing myself 3 months on and the self control I will have.

The pedometer showed 9,084 steps at 10.15pm so I went out for a walk to make sure I hit my 10,000 steps today.

I know I have been less upbeat than usual and put this down to a combination of the rubbish weather and the fact that I am due on. I have been having a fat day today and have had little confidence in my body image.

63 days down, 37 to go.

Friday 21st July

Morning
Today will be quite an emotional day and this is not helped by the fact that I am due on and I am traditionally more emotionally charged at this time of the month.

One if the cats had to go for a blood test this morning as well. He has inflamed kidneys and a lump on his mouth that they don’t like the look of. We won’t get the results until Monday.

It is my daughter’s last day at her nursery which is sad for her and for me as I can’t tell you how much I will miss the staff. It is my intention to go back in September anyway just to ensure the library is finished off. I say that it is my ‘intention’ to go back because I am a bugger for using any little excuse to explain why I self sabotage what is important to me and why I don’t finish what I start. I do this as a self defence mechanism against failure which s daft in the case because I have already done the hard bit and the rest is just finishing it off.

Today would normally be sort of day where I would turn to food for comfort when my daughter has gone to bed or when she was at nursery.

Later
Well I cried on the way to nursery, quietly of coarse so as not to upset my daughter. I cried on the way home from nursery and I am crying now. I am soooo going to miss my role in the nursery school and the people that work there. After 4 years of not working, my voluntary work there gave a me a professional outlook, interaction with adults on a professional basis, confidence and a sense of being needed and lastly and most importantly feeling appreciated for something that I value which I hadn’t felt for such a long time.

I’m now crying for myself, not my daughter; as I know she will go on to thrive at infant school. My work at the nursery filled some really big needs in my life and I’m sure that I have benefited more from being there then they have from the work I did. It’s stupid but I feel that a big part of my life is over although I know that I can continue to work the library in September or volunteer at the infant school. I’m just scared that I won’t and something will get in the way of this, probably me.

All this shows me is that I have such a lot of work to do to improve myself. It will be an ongoing job to confront and deal with my demons. Today I thank god that I am on a complete meal replacement diet which is so much easier than being on a conventional one.

It is funny because I feel a bit strange that there are no thoughts of sabotaging my weight loss. The thought of eating for comfort seems very alien to me now and it amazes me that this could be the case after such a short period of time. I find it very hard to think back to when I used to use food to try and change my mood all the time. I really hope this change in attitude continues when I start introducing conventional food again in a few months time.

Doing the thought records is helping me to think through my problems in a logical way. My big downfall now is the same as it has always been, burying my head in the sand and pretending nothing has happened rather than taking it a bit at a time and dealing with it. I know in my head that this only makes the problems get worse so what holds me back? That is something I need to think about to make a change for the better.

At least now I don’t have the problem of binging added into the mix.

The pedometer stood at nearly 9,000 steps but I took it off when I had a bath at 6pm and forgot to put it back on. Whoops.

62 days down, 38 to go.

Thursday 20th July

I forgot to mention yesterday that my pedometer showed over 12,000 steps.

There’s not a lot to report today.

Despite being sat on the computer for hours on ending listing my old clothes on eBay, I still managed to clock up more than 12,000 steps today.

I have decided to keep a pair of trousers that were not fit to sell because the front seem on the tummy has started to pull apart where I was too fat for them despite the fact that they were elasticated. They will stay in my wardrobe to remind me of how far I have come and where I could be going back to if I balls this up!

My water consumption was good but erratic for today as I went into my daughter’s nursery for their leaving show and then ran some errands. It has been fairly emotional for me but not as emotional as it will be tomorrow as it is the last day of term and then she is off to infant school in September.

I made my little girl egg on toast for dinner at her request and boy did it look good! I couldn’t help but smile at the thought of being able to eat an egg fresh from our chickens again but there were no thoughts of cheating in the meantime.

Hubby also decided to make up a very yummy looking salad. Hubby has never made a salad before so there is hope for him yet! The smells were delicious and I can’t help thinking that this healthy eating thing will be a fairly easy because the things I think about eating whist I am abstaining are all the things I should be eating anyway. I had never had a problem with what I ate in general but how much I ate and the regular binging sessions where what did for me.

If I can be strict on the portion control when I get back to eating conventional food again I should be ok because my tummy has shrunk so I should get full quite quickly. I don’t think I’ll ever go back to binging again. Fingers crossed.

61 days down, 39 to go – yippee I’m in the 30’s!

Wednesday 19th July

A thought popped into my head that I could be in the 12’s next week but it is my ‘time of the month’ and my weight has never been its best during this week so I doubt it will happen.

Oh dear I have gone back to number crunching again! If I lose 3lbs a week on average I could be at my goal weight of 10st 3lbs by 24th October. If I manage to lose 4lb a week on average then I could be at 10st 1lb 3 weeks earlier on 3rd October. Stop it stop it stop it. This is doing no good, I won’t know until I get there and I won’t stop until I get there. I must stop trying to control things I have no control over. My choice not to share my weight loss every week with my group members shows that. Enough is enough. It doesn’t really matter when I finish, what DOES matter is that I get to my goal weight and then start management and put everything I can into learning how to have a healthy attitude to what and how much I choose to eat.

I have also decided not to buy something new for the Saturday night wedding reception. I have a sarong skirt and t-shirt that will do. It’s not posh but it is presentable and I should be able to get away with it in this very hot weather. Mind you I haven’t arranged a babysitter yet so I might not be able to go.

I forgot to put my pedometer on until later in the morning having already dashed out first thing to my mum’s. I don’t think I have missed that many steps to be honest and if I have to rely on so few steps to get me up and above the 10,000 then I’m still not active enough. I have decided to aim for getting above 10,000 steps every day so if I am short of steps by the evening I will have to think of going out for a short walk to boost my total every day. I want to start increasing my average still further. I have been monitoring my steps for a while now and have made small changes like parking further away, taking 5 items of ironing up the stairs at a time etc etc. Now it is time to make a concerted effort on ensuring that I get to the 10,000 steps for the vast majority of my days.

I also need to get into the swing of doing thought records every day. Having spoken to my LLC last night and from what I have read on the weight loss forum I go on, I know that those that sale through food abstinence may have a harder time in management and that the thought records provide a very useful and personal tool that really help you through those hard times to come so I will throw myself into doing this. LL is a tried and tested way of losing weight so who am I to question the methods? I just need to make use of them the best way I can to get the most of it.

…I have just thought, I could use the thought I had earlier of possibly being in the 12’s next week as my thought record entry of the day. I might even have more but I don’t want to expect too much from my poor old brain box in this heat!

Having just said about the effect of the heat on my brain, I have just worked out that instead of being 59 days down and 41 to go it is actually 60 days down, 40 to go because when I started LL on Saturday 20th May I did a complete day that Saturday because my last meal was on Friday night. Whoops!

60 days down, 40 to go.

Tuesday 18th July

First thing
I had a bit of a mad panic at gone midnight when I realised that I had missed 2 of my food packs. So I made a soggy chocolate muffin with them and forced it down. I know you aren’t meant to cook more than 1 a day but at least I had them.

It is with a great deal of trepidation, just as I had before that pop in when I knew that I had retained water, that I go to my mum’s to weigh myself having had my usual 2 pints of water for a consistent result. I hope that I have had a decent loss but expect this to be a slow week. This is one of the things I quite often do as a self protection measure; expect the worst and then anything over and above that that is a bonus but I’m disappointed when things aren’t as originally hoped. Let’s see what happens…

Later on
13st 4lbs! Happy with that as it’s a 4lb loss for the week and my BMI is now 29.13. My next goal now has to be to get into the 12’s. Next week is due to be my slower weight loss week I the 4 week cycle I seem to have going so in 2 weeks I should be 12st something. Ah to be in the 12’s again…

I had a great day today. The morning was pretty much taken up with housework so that I could go in for the nursery’s activity day this afternoon. As usual I took a hands on roll at nursery and really encouraged the kids to have fun. The activity day and the morning of housework has done wonders for the pedometer with 9,233 steps by 4pm! Being more active in your everyday is certainly fun.

I did a last minute fill in of my homework ready for the LL meeting tonight. I got all the information I needed from my blog but I don’t actually use the LL book for recording anything because my blog takes up such a lot of my time!

After the meeting
Well that was very interesting for a few reasons.

1. I have ‘officially’ lost over 3 stone in less than 2 months!
2. Yet again I was not showing to be in ketosis
3. I got to have a private chat with my LLC and her assistant which has done me no end of good.

I decided that given that this was the closest meeting to out 2 month marker that I would have my weight record filled in this week. According to the LL scales I am 13st 3lbs which is 1lb lighter than I was this morning! (?) I’m happy with that and I think I will continue to get my weights every meeting and not bother weighing in at mum’s because I am getting the weekly like for like comparison which is the important bit. I can’t take on the woes of my group members. Ok I feel down that I am losing so well when some aren’t but it is up to us all if we want to disclose or talk about our weight.

Each week I seem to have a problem getting the stick to turn a shade of pink which would indicate I am in ketosis (fat burning mode). My LL councillor and I discussed this at the end of the evening and having determined that I can’t be eating which is obvious given the rate the weight is coming off, the I don’t do flavoured water or many of the savoury drinks, and I am drinking loads of water, she felt that I must just be one of those rare people who never seem to show ketones in their wee. The initial suggestion was that I take a few of the sticks home with me but I really just didn’t see the point and she didn’t have any reasons as to what could be gained. If I don’t test pink then I don’t test pink and there is nothing I can do about that and nothing to be gained from getting hung up on the sticks because I can’t affect the result anyway! So the upshot of that is ‘oh well!’

Everyone did an exercise tonight where they related their life milestones to their weight in an attempt to spot a general pattern as to why the weight went on. This was in the week 6 section of the induction book and as I thought this would have been good for me, I did it then so had nothing to do for a while. Having not got any pink on my ketostick at the beginning of the evening, I popped out to do another one and got chatting to my LL councillor’s assistant and I’m so glad I did. I learnt that if I am close to my goal weight I don’t have to stick to doing 4 weeks management at a time, I can take it week by week. Given my preoccupation with trying to get done by new year, this could be great for me depending how the weight loss goes from now on.

The pedometer showed 13,337 steps for today which is very acceptable.

58 days down, 42 to go.

Monday 17th July

Oh my god I am getting obsessed with my weight again but only because I want to know when I will be finished on management. I can see that I will need to continue to be weighed on a weekly basis at LL for a year after that just to make sure that I am maintaining my weight. I don’t think I will have a weight problem again in the same way that I have done in the past although I know it is dangerous to make assumptions. I want to keep my BMI in the 22’s which means being between 10st and 10st 7lbs. I can’t wait for my usual weekly weigh in tomorrow morning at my mum’s place even though I am retaining water again today. I had drunk 6 litres before 6pm and hardly peed all day. I just want to know how many 4 week spells on development I will need. It would be lovely to be done and dusted before the end of 2006, out with the old in with the new. I suppose it doesn’t make any difference if I finished in January but psychologically it would be better to start the New Year afresh.

Foundation finish date 29th August.
Finish date of first development 26th September
Finish date of second development 24th October
Finish dates of management 19th December or 16th January.

If I lost 4lb a week on average through the rest of foundation and 4 weeks of development instead of 3, I would still only be 10st 6lbs which is very close to the top end of my comfort zone. This would mean that I would not be able to concentrate on actually managing my weight, I would still be trying to lose weight in management and I wouldn’t be learning how to maintain my weight.

I had my second medical today. Weirdly my blood pressure has gone up to 146/74 but the nurse said this could be because it is the hottest day of the year so far so not to be worried. To be honest I don’t tend to worry about my blood pressure anyway because it won’t make it go any lower. She also said that I can book an appointment with a nurse weeks in advance and appointments are available all through the day. That’s good to know so I’ll have to test the theory! I thought I go to the nurse rather than the doctor but I got there at 3.45pm and didn’t get seen until 5.15pm!

I have been having a bit of a think today because this weekend I have a wedding reception to go to and as I am not in touch with most of my family it will be the first time they will have seen me since I started losing weight, I’m sure they all know I am losing weight because word gets round. Of course I have nothing suitable to wear and the few new bits I bought are sun tops.

So I went to Asda today to try on 3 different styles of dress. On 2 of them I was between a size 14 and 16. These were fitted tops and flowing skirts which suit me best because I am smaller at the top than at the bottom. The 3rd which I liked the best was the same sort of style but I needed between a 16 and an 18! I don’t care as long as they fit. Trouble is that the dress is £18 and how much more wear will I get out of it. We are struggling to meet the £66 per week payments for LL as it is. I would really like the new dress though! I bet it will have gone by the time I go back so that will have solved that one. I think I will go back for a 2nd look.

I had a cookware party tonight and they actually demonstrate the cookware by cooking with it. I forgot to take a bar with me and still didn’t have a problem with the lovely smells and the fact that everyone got to try some when it was done. They cooked a white chocolate variation of bread pudding made with croissants, white chocolate and lemon curd. Yum! I did have a good sniff but nothing more than that and wasn’t even tempted. The hostess was aware that if I was having a weak day then I wouldn’t go and was happy with that but today was a good day for me despite the water retention and the fact that my pedometer reading was appalling!

57 days down, 43 to go.

Sunday 16th July

I stated taking the pill again when I came on last time. It occurred to me that these were sugar coated and that this would affect my diet. What cracks me up in hindsight is that my first thought was to stop taking them rather than affect the diet. This is hilarious yet oh so telling because not only does it show that my automatic response was to protect the diet, but also that I would be willing to jeopardise my diet with getting pregnant! By separating out my thoughts & feelings and the parent & adult as shown in LL meetings, I was able to see how daft but how telling this all was.

I went to the local car boot sale armed with my tape measure and bought a pair of cargo trousers and a skirt, both were a size 14. The cargo trousers sit higher towards the waist than I was expecting and so I have a couple of inches to lose before I can comfortably wear them but the skirt was fine even though now I got it home I don’t really like it!

We had hubbys workmate and partner round to us for the evening today and we a great time. This was despite the fact that on 25th June he really upset me by saying that he wouldn’t invite people round until I had ‘broken the back of this diet’ because people would ‘expect to eat.’ When I explained that people would be very understanding if he explained that there wouldn’t be nibbles and why, he changed tact saying that the people coming today would not be able to come if we didn’t feed them. It wouldn’t be worth them doing so because they live more than an hour away so by the time they got to us they would have to leave again to get home for dinner! This excuse making was the most hurtful thing I have had happen to me yet whilst on the diet and he has not yet apologised for his attitude or acknowledged how much HE really hurt me. I do believe that he doesn’t think about how what he says and does affects others and that when he gets into a situation his first instinct is to argue his way out rather than admit he was wrong despite how disrespectful this is to the other person.

I was the closest I have ever been to eating that day as we were at the pool and the waft of chips through the place was torture, I don’t even like chips. I used to eat when I was upset or had any negative feelings but this time there would have also been the ‘you drove me to do this so feel guilty’ reason in this case which is so wrong because it is down to me if I decide to eat. By eating I would have been harming myself far more than him and putting my revenge on him first so it would have been a pointless exercise, writing this I realise that quite often my eating was a cry for help. At the risk of being overly dramatic, it reminds me a bit of those that attempt suicide as a cry for help but don’t really mean or want to die. Now I know that that cry for help can be answered by me!

LL has helped me to realise that I am responsible for myself and that I need to rely more on me and shrug off the feeling of not being appreciated because people don’t do little things for me that I do for them. Grand gestures have never been that effective with me. I mustn’t mind read people by thinking that they don’t care or take me for granted. Chances are they don’t do little things for me to show me that they are thinking of me on a daily basis because they are busy people. I need to remember that I gave up work to devote myself to my family and they haven’t had the same luxury. It is difficult being stay at home mum because you don’t get the day to day satisfaction that you do from going to work. Nobody ever says to you that you have done a wonderful job of the hovering again because they don’t see the things you have done; only the things you haven’t. Besides, the jobs that housewives do are mucked up less than 10 minutes later anyway. Even when your child is thriving it is because the child is clever and not because the hours on end you spend with them. No, I don’t feel appreciated and I really miss the social aspect of being at work.

Hopefully by the time I reach management at the end of September or October, I won’t be being so destructive to myself because I have catastrophised everything and will have more self confidence in myself so I don’t need to feel appreciated anyway.

The pedometer results were great for today at just under 14,500 steps because although it has been a scorcher, the car boot sale and loads of chasing round the shops has worked wonders. Retail therapy is good for your health if not for the bank balance.

Also, despite using the loo twice at my mums place I did not succumb and weigh myself. I have been doing a table of my weight loses so far and I seem to have 3 good weeks and then one not so good week. Funnily enough the not so good week is that following time of the month rather than preceding it. I’m wondering if now that I’m on the pill again this will all be shot to pieces or whether this will be another good weight loss week to be followed by a slower one?

I really want the foundation stage to be over so that I can work out if I am going to need one 4 week dose of the development stage or 2. I hope it will be just week’s worth both for monetary reasons and to get the management 12 week course out of the way before Christmas. If it is to be 2 lots of development then I won’t be through until January and money will be even tighter over the festive period. I think it will be 8 weeks need though which is a bummer!

56 days down, 46 to go.

Saturday 15th July

It seems strange to think that next week I am due to do some more progress photos. I have asked hubby to make sure that this time he takes them portrait rather than landscape so I get a proper comparison with the first lot.

I am back to busily wishing the time past so that I am smaller. Apart from my dough belly, I am fairly happy with the way things are shaping up. The I have always carried the weight well because I have put it on proportionately all over my body and my body seems to be losing it in the same way. Even when thin I have always been the standard pear shape being a size bigger at the bottom than at the top because I have no chest and this has been a bit of a problem for me in so much as most mirrors only show the top half so I have always thought that I was smaller than I was.

I could really do with some stretchy size 16’s now because the bigger trousers only emphasise the size difference between top and bottom. Thanks to my step mum I have loads of size 14’s to shrink into but I am months of being there and in the meantime my size 18’s just aren’t working for me (except for 1 pair that I have which are high waisted) because the are hipster style and my hips are definitely a 16 in most shops. The 18’s tend to fall down which doesn’t make me as confident to be more active in my everyday life.

I have just been looking through eBay for something just to tide me over but even eBay is more than I want to pay out so the plan is to go to the car boot sale tomorrow in the hope that I can find something there. The trouble is knowing what will fit and what won’t. I’ll take a tape measure with me!

I think that getting skirts, I have never really done skirts before, will be the way to go because I have that apron overhang thing going on whereas my torso is the smallest part of me so if I go more fitted on the top to make the most of my smallest bit and a skirt at the bottom so it falls straight down over my apron rather than hugging it which emphasises the problem then this should make the most of my body shape – hopefully!

The pedometer wasn’t so good today at 6,000 something. We went to the New Forrest but sat down for a picnic next to a lake and watched the ponies. I had to interrupts a game of bowls to go and chase off an indignant pony who thought it would be a good idea to investigate the half eaten nut crunch bar I left on our picnic blanket that I had left for ‘afters’. To be honest, if a raging lion had gone for my bar then it wouldn’t have stood a chance. I am very protective of my food packs!

55 days down, 45 to go.

Friday 14th July

This week seems to have gone really quickly, I just hope the rest of the 46 days go as fast. The trouble is that the end is in sight which is making me impatient to be there. This is a completely new one on me as I can never see much past the start of a diet let alone see me getting to the end of it.

I still can’t stop trying to predict when I will be starting management. I just want to integrate with the rest of society again now. I will get there but I just wish it was sooner rather than later. Mind you if it was sooner rather than later then I would get so much counselling in and do I still need as much as possible?

I drank loads of water today and met up with a lovely lady on the weight loss forum who has dropped 7 stone and has another 5 to go. I gave her a load of my tops but the trousers were all way to long as she is 5” shorter than I am. She was a delight to be with and a real inspiration.

I have once again been looking through the size guides online and I am anything from a 14 hips at Gap (no way) to off the scale so 20(?) at Etam. I do wish that women’s clothing sizes were standardised because this is ridiculous! How can they all be so different?

I seem to have lost my preoccupation with the scales but maybe this is because all is going well at the moment?

I had an early bath tonight and left my pedometer upstairs. The last time I looked at it I was into the 8,000’s which isn’t too bad so I won’t have been too far off the 10,000 again today.

54 days down, 46 to go.

Thursday 13th July

I was really angry with my dad again yesterday. I am having an ongoing battle with him about the crap he gives my daughter when we visit every week.

In an effort to get the association out of her mind between chocolate and treats I have been letting her choose a small amount sweet stuff every day regardless of her behaviour. This way she won’t associate deprivation of sweets and chocolate with being naughty and she will just consider them as a small part of her diet. This way I can explain to her that her body needs certain foods to keep fit and healthy and that if we have too much of other foods then our bodies won’t be as healthy. Treats are small toys and books or going out to where she wants to go.

Last night when she went out of the room I once again explained to my dad and step mum that my daughter had already had her choice of sweet stuff for the day and that if the ice cream van comes she can’t have one because she has already had some chocolate. Literally within 1 minute of finishing, the ice cream van comes and my daughter runs into the room wanting an ice cream. I explain to her that she has already made her choice and had chocolate instead of waiting for the ice cream van. She continued to whine so I told her that I didn’t have any money to buy any anyway so she turned to my dad and step mum who then put me on the spot and made me out to be the big bad wolf by saying that she had better ask mummy if it was ok! I felt undermined and angry to be put in that position having literally just finished explaining the situation to him so I said yes so as not to cause a scene in front of her. When she went out of the room I snapped at that that I had just told him that she had already had chocolate that day and that she wasn’t to have an ice cream, I got no response to that. She is my daughter, what I say should be gospel and apart from the balanced diet issue, how the hell can I get her to understand that she can’t have everything she wants and that she needs to decide what is most important to her. Most weeks a similar thing although usually this because she won’t eat even try any of her dinner (I’m NOT one of those ‘You must eat it all up’ mums) because she is saving herself for the biscuits and sweets that she knows she can wheedle out of nanny and granddad.

I really don’t want to pass my problems onto my daughter and given that Tuesday night’s group therapy bought up that my dad plays a major part in forming my attitudes that recognition, praise, success and reward are based on food I am even more upset and confused on how best to handle this. Do I give up trying to get through to my dad and keep her away from chocolate and sweets for the day so that there is no issue anymore or do I get angry and frustrated at continually being undermined and keep trying to get through to him that he can treat her by getting her books and toys that last longer and aren’t immediately forgotten? I don’t know what to do and am not in the best frame of mind to decide. Maybe the best bet might be to bite the bullet and make her lay off the sweet stuff during the day knowing she’ll be fed crap that evening anyway. By making this an issue, I am making this an issue (if that makes sense) which could be more damaging to my daughter in the long run than not drawing attention to it in the first place. Kids are adaptable and so not everybody in contact with them has to be consistent in their approach with them as long as the main care givers are. I don’t know, I just don’t know.

I forgot to put my pedometer on until later in the morning after I had done a lot of tidying up and dashing up and down the stairs but the result for today is still 10,525 by 9.20pm which is good.

I am so looking forward to getting onto the management phase of LL. I am really excited about the prospect of trying out new foods and getting into the GI way of things. I need to get into the habit of what is normal both in terms of food and portion size. In fact, I don’t think of much else except going into management and the lovely salads and veg dishes I’ll be trying.

53 days down, 47 to go.

Wednesday 12th July

Yesterday’s meeting was another one that really hit home with me with even though I didn’t think it would be relevant to me as I didn’t begin to have a weight problem until I hit 21. It was getting you to think about your childhood mealtimes and food and then work out how this has affected your core beliefs and how you behave now.

I found the session really difficult for me because it meant dissecting my childhood which I hold very precious because my mum and dad split up when I was 18. It also meant somehow placing blame on people that I love that had my best intentions at heart and I’m not very happy about this. I’m not quite ready to write about this yet as I don’t quite know how to so I won’t even try just yet till I get it sorted out in my own head first.

It was great to talk to my mum about yesterday’s session because she felt that I lot of how I felt was probably true. She also said that the reason that my weight problem started in my 20’s was that I took on the lessons I learnt from my dad and applied them to my own home when I moved in with my boyfriend so I am continuing the cycle which makes me feel dreadful. I mustn’t inflict my problems on others.

The pedometer reading was just over 9000 steps but as I took my little girl to an outdoor paddling pool and caouldn’t keep my pedometer on for this, it missed the running, skipping, jumping, hopping and pretending to be a shark, whale and crocodile in mid thigh deep water today with two 3 year olds (to begin with, I soon had a hoard of toddlers and felt like the Pied Piper of Hamlyn!) I am happy that I have been active enough!

I must put more effort into doing my home work this week. I have to do thought records to apportion feelings to the thoughts I have and assign percentages to them so that I can then spot any emerging patterns that might lead to a dependency on food. I think this is going to be very useful and I predict that sad and angry will come out top because the other big trigger for me was boredom and I’m not sure that the thought records are the right medium to catch this.

52 days down, 48 to go.

Tuesday 11th July

I went to my mums again this morning having drunk my usual 2 pints of water so I get a consistent result. I weighed in at…..drum roll…..13st 8lbs so my BMI is 29.8 and I am now ‘ONLY’ overweight! I don’t mind admitting that I cried in disbelief and I am crying now as I write this.

This means that my loses to date in 7 weeks are 37lbs or 2st 9lbs which is 1lb more than my 3 year old weighs and boy is she heavy to carry about for any length of time.

Based on an average loss of 3lb a week and 7 weeks to go, I could weigh 12st 1lb (169lbs) with a BMI of 26.5lbs and only 10lbs to lose before I reach 11st 5lbs (159lbs) to have a normal BMI. I would like to lose more than that though!

Pedometer reading was 13,213 which is great.

The meeting tonight was interesting, a lot of things for me to think about. It talked about the associations with food when you were a child and your core beliefs. I didn’t think this was going to be relevant to me because I only started putting on weight when I was about 21 years old. How wrong I was. I write about this tomorrow though because it is late and I am very tired.

51 days down, 49 to go. I’m on the downward slope now!

P.S. Most people weigh themselves in the nude after they have done their morning wee and before they have drunk anything so I would be even less if I had done this. How much does 2 pints of water weigh!






…couldn’t resist. 1lb 2oz. I had to see! That would have made me 13st 6lbs and no I won’t be weighing my clothes to factor those out!

Monday 10th July

Pedometer reading was 8,428 at 9.30pm.

Today hasn’t been too bad. I seem to have got over my constant thoughts of food. Although these were never nagging enough to make me want to cheat they certainly didn’t make things any easier.

Today is a special day for me. I have completed half of the foundation stage. I have never stuck to a diet for 4 weeks before let alone more than 7 so this is a fantastic achievement. I can’t wait to be at goal weight so I can start learning how to eat again. This isn’t because I want to stuff my fact but because I want to be a part of things again. You don’t realise just how much the world and family life revolves around food. My daughter now considers my food packs to be normal for me and I don’t like that.

I know I keep talking about the amount of weight I have/might lose but I have no control over the rate I lose it except by sticking rigidly to LL and drinking the water (I drink at least 6 litres rather than the recommended 4 litres minimum), both of which I have been doing. The biggest achievements for me, and the ones worth celebrating the most, are the amount of time I am doing this for and the way my thoughts have changed so that once I get to my ideal weight so that I have a better chance of maintaining it.

I have been thinking a lot about whether to swap over to Cambridge diet after the 100 days are done because CD is only about £35 a week. CD makes the food packs for LL but don’t do the therapy every week which makes it no better than the happy clappy diet clubs that would be of no use to me. So many people on my diet forum have swapped from LL to CD but I can’t help but look at all those that made the swap and then fall off the wagon and stick weight back on again. You only have to do CD twice to lose the same lb and you have paid out more than you would have on LL without getting the therapy you have had on LL which makes CD very expensive indeed.

I did start a thread on the forum a while back to ask if anyone had completed LL maintenance and then still put the weight back on. Nobody responded that they had completed maintenance and stuck weight back on despite me bumping the thread up for a few days. On the flip side of that, the board is littered with those on CD who keep falling off the wagon all the time even when they are trying to lose the weight let alone when they try to maintain it. I have to just swallow the cost of LL and continue to the end as this is an investment in my future. At least LL support you for free for a year after you have completed the maintenance stage which is more than happens on CD. A lot is said on the diet forum about the cost of LL in comparison the CD or Lipotrim (the other VLCD) but these people just see the costs of losing the weight in the first place. I personally think that is very short sighted. LL is introducing me to being more active, it provides a framework for challenging my attitudes to food, and it will support me free of charge for a year after maintenance so that there is more chance of the weight staying off very long term. CD doesn’t do that.

The other reason I am not keen on CD is that I think it is seen as a quick fix. My mum lost a lot of weight 15 years back on CD because my granddad was a Cambridge Diet counsellor (the term counsellor is misleading – it means salesman!) and got her interested in it. She did really well on this but didn’t address her ‘issues’ with food which is why she put the weight back on again. My granddad always seems to be yo-yoing up and down with his weight too. I’m not saying that this happens in all cases but I know that I have many issues with food and I don’t have the confidence that I can work through them on my own. I think that there are too many of them for me to be able to get them in any sort of order to think about anyway! Now I’m not saying that LL is a sure fire way for me to keep the weight off but with the real ‘counselling’ I will be giving myself the best chance of doing so.

Having said all that, I wonder if I am just saying all this because I have to be 100% committed to the diet to be able to succeed. If I wasn’t…

50 days down, 50 to go. Halfway there! In some ways it’s flown, in others it is really dragging!

Sunday 9th July

Yesterday’s pedometer reading was 7,???. Sorry I forget but it was nowhere near the 10,000 I am aiming for every day. 9,358 for today but I did go swimming as well.

Hubby and I took our daughter to the fun pool again. I seemed to spend a lot of my time looking at the other ladies there and trying to work out where I stood in the fatty stakes, I hope they didn’t think I was some sort of pervert! This was because I happened to catch site of me and I lady I thought looked fine in the mirror (top half only) and I was the same size if not smaller than her. The trouble is that my bottom half is still much bigger than my top half and many of the mirrors I look in only show my top half.

The last time we went to that pool I found it really difficult because of the smell of chips and vinegar wafting through the place but this week it wasn’t the usual problem and we didn’t stop in the café afterwards anyway because he didn’t have time.

Hubby went straight from the pool to the airport and will be away until late Wednesday night so I’m going to miss him especially since he was away last week too. I really can’t see how he can do his job. There is no way on earth I would want to see such little of our daughter, no matter how naughty she is!

Despite my daughters promise from yesterday, she nicked another LL bar this morning so I have had to move them as I now don’t have any spares.

I really wish we had one of those tag a long bikes for my daughter because she is too big for the baby seat now and I really want to leave the car at home more. Here nursery is 2 miles away which is too far to walk but just right to ride. I just can’t afford to buy a tag a long at the moment but I will have to get one for the summer holidays.

When we do our weekly visits to get her used to her new school we walk there and she knows that we will always be walking no matter what the weather.

49 days down, 51 to go.

Saturday 8th July

Yesterday’s pedometer showed 8,881 steps.

Those 2 hours yesterday from 5.30pm-7.30pm were really hard for me not just because I could imagine myself eating then and there but because this put me in such a bad mood. Even so I wasn’t what I would call really tested, I came out at about an 8 out of 10 on the temptation front which is the highest yet but still within my comfort zone. That is the most extreme mood I have had since being on LL. I don’t know if my moods have been more even because I am finally doing something about my weight, the counselling or because I am getting the complete set of nutrients my body needs through being on the packs. Whatever it is I haven’t had the extreme mood swings that I was prone to.

When I woke up yesterday I saw a LL bar wrapper on the kitchen floor and put it down to either my daughter or one of the cats hooking it out of the bin but this morning there was another one. My daughter has had one of my bars for breakfast each morning. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. They are so expensive and I feel like my programme has been jeopardised which is daft because I had bought an extra 7 to be leave 1 in the cars, at my dad’s, my mum’s etc so I do still have enough but I can’t help feeling violated somehow? At least this shows me that the bars can’t taste that bad if a 3 year old chooses to eat them!

Talking of 3 year olds, we all went to a country show today and I got very tired carrying my 3 year old round which is when I suddenly thought, she weighs 2st 8lbs and as of last Tuesday I lost 2st 4lbs on LL so in another 4lbs I will have lost the equivalent of my daughter in weight and in 5lbs time I will only be over weight! Now that will be worth celebrating!

48 days down, 52 to go.

Friday 7th July

Last night I used my LL resistance band for the first time. I was amazed that I got a really good workout from a rubber band. I could replicate the workout I get using all the expensive weights at the gym including the bench press, bicep curl, triceps extension and loads more that I can’t think of off the top of my head. I did them all in the comfort of my bedroom, in the nude in front of my mirrored wardrobes so that not only was I more than aware of what I look like but I could also make sure that I did the exercises properly to ensure I got the best results and lessen my chances of injury. I’ll certainly be doing that again as I was able to work all areas of my body including the back, core, legs and arms. Amazing! Why is it that it takes me so long to get inspired to actually try the suggested physical activities? I still haven’t even looked at the exercise DVD we were given so I will need to do that when my daughter isn’t about. The other thing I did learn is that having done the exercises using the rubber band I need to makes sure that I wash my hands properly because I irritated my eyes when I rubbed them and it bloody hurt!

The other thing to note is that although I came on last Friday, I am still bleeding slightly now a week later. I have never bled for a week before. The most would be 5 days and more usually 4. I don’t know whether to put this down to the diet or the fact that I started taking the pill again after a break of a year. Who knows! I’ll have to see what happens next month.

The early part of the evening through till about 7.30pm I found really difficult as I became obsessed with food. I did jacket spuds with chilli for hubby and this is one of my favourites. Luckily this obsession only lasted 2 hours and I know enough to now that if you can just get through the day then next morning goes back to being wonderful again. It doesn’t help that I am having a big fat bloater day again! I got through the obsession but I am feeling deflated yet bloated at the same time.

I find it really bizarre that now that I am at my lightest for probably 9 years, I feel fatter than ever! I think this is because I now take EVERY opportunity to look at myself be it in mirrors, shadows, reflections…Having spent years avoiding looking at myself I now know what I look like know I have a long way to go still. At least I know I will get there. I just wish I was there now and starting to reintroduce food but on the other hand, am I ready?

47 days down, 53 to go.

Thursday 6th July

My step mum was kind enough last to give me a load of size 14 trousers to shrink into. I can see that I will be able to shrink into the waists and bums of them but am not sure if I will ever be able to get my thighs in them. Even when I was a size 10/12 my legs reflected my chosen sports of sprinting and horse riding and I was very muscular so I have always preferred pyjama style wide leg trousers. We’ll see I might surprise myself.

My dad was full of compliments for me last night too. He also offered me a polo shirt. My face must have fallen because I think he them rushed to put me at ease by telling me that it was the same size as he wore – I looked it was an XL. I tried it on and he and my step mum told me how good it looked but I wasn’t happy because it really was baggy. So I explained that I thought it was a bit baggy and he told me that was fine and polo shirts looked good baggy so I then had to explain that in another month it would be too baggy and I wouldn’t wear it anymore but if it had been the next size down then I would have loved it. He then went out to a box in the hall and had a rummage through and announced that he didn’t have one the next size down but that he did have a medium. I put that on and it was a bit baggy round the chest and a perfect fit around the hips. I was chuffed to bits with it (I’m wearing it now) and I think even dad and step mum were surprised it fitted. It just goes to show that it even takes those around you a while to get their heads around the fact that you have lost so much weight. Seeing myself in their wedding photographs as bridesmaid just made me realise how far I have come. Yuk!

We all took my 3 year old down to the play park by the beach and I ran round with her and went on the tire swing and ran on the beach. I felt so happy and full of energy and she was so happy that I could share the fun with her. My time at the park/beach makes all this worth while. I can see just how much my size was depriving my daughter of us having physical fun together. Now I can be more of a role model to her in both my size and my activity. It’s wonderful!

The funny thing is that I have just as much trouble seeing myself how I truly am even now because having lost nearly 4 stone off my top weight I feel very slim! Obviously I’m not because I’m a size 16 top and smaller than an 18 bottoms but not small enough for a 16! Not only that I need to weigh 13st 8lbs before I am not classed as obese but having more energy than I have had in years and feeling so fit (in relative terms) is throwing my judgement.

I had a dream last night that I finished a carton of milk that my daughter didn’t want. That led to me cheating by being drawn back into eating. I’m taking this as a sign to stay on the straight and narrow and to put the progress I have made into perspective and make sure that I continue to stick 100% to the diet and more importantly, complete the management programme even if I think I didn’t need to. Trying to save money or thinking I have this licked will only jeopardise everything I have worked so hard for. 9 out of 10 people who have successfully lost weight put it back on again and I need to do everything I can to ensure that I am the 1 in 10 that doesn’t. Dreams can be great for focusing the mind.

The other thing that came up in the meeting on Tuesday that I forgot to mention is that the information that I got from the weight loss forum I go on that you can’t stay purely on the packs when you reach 25bmi is wrong. You can carry on the packs if you want to get a bit more weight off. To reach a bmi of 22 then I need to be 10 stone. I’m really looking forward to getting under the 11st 4lbs I need to reach to be 25bmi so I can see if that suits or whether I need to lose a bit more.

I have been wearing my pedometer more towards my waist where the wobble factor is reduced and did a test walk to see if the pedometer was any more accurate and it is spot on! That sorts that one out but I have to start the comparison of my pedometer results from today onwards and disregard the previous readings.

Today could well have been a bad day for me today under normal pre-LL conditions. But life is great despite the knock backs it sometimes deals you and I am a very lucky lady (?) indeed although thoughts of food kept creeping into my mind this evening which although nowhere near to being tempting, were unwelcome nonetheless.

Water consumption has been crap and the pedometer stands at 7,949 steps which isn’t great.

46 day down, 54 to go. I’m creeping to towards the halfway point of the foundation stage.

Wednesday 5th July

I did a test to see if my pedometer was accurately counting my steps, it isn’t. Given the fact that my skin can’t shrink back at the same rate of my rapidly diminishing belly, the wobble factor is getting the better of the pedometer! Even though the figures I get at the end of the day aren’t accurate, I can still get a comparison of my daily activity so this hasn’t put me off using it. In fact, I might try wearing it more towards my waist rather than on the front at one side.

I am really happy again today despite the fact that my hubby is still away, it is wet and miserable outside (great for the garden, not so good with a rear year old stuck in the house) and that I have been trying to catch up with the housework.

The counselling at LL has played a pivotal role in giving me the perspective to analyse my life so that I can change the things that can/need to be improved and appreciate the many positive aspects that already exist. There is no doubt about it in my mind, even if I had had this kind of counselling without the food packs side of the programme, I would still be losing weight albeit at a much reduced rate because I am so much happier. I just wish the NHS recognised the importance of counselling in the role of weight loss for some people. Mind you, the NHS wouldn’t help me despite being more than 6 ½ stone over weight and I can’t help but be disgusted at that. Surely it would be cheaper to offer counselling before problems set in than to have to deal with all the weight related health issues once they have happened. Just think how much happier and productive the workforce would be too! Positive economic implications all round if a government was forward thinking enough to invest. Rant over!

One thing that has started to really register with me through abstinence from food and the topics covered at the LL meetings is that it is purely the occasional binge eating and portion control of all the stuff that your diet should consist of has been the reason why I have put on the weight over the years. A change in lifestyle away from exercise and activity meant that I then didn’t have the unmistakeable indicators that I could no longer do the things I liked to do as easily as I once could so the weight piled on unchecked. Once I did realise that my weight was a problem, it wasn’t so important to me what size I was like as the light of my life, my boyfriend (now my hubby) love me to bits no matter what size I am and he was obese too.

I have never finished my daughter’s food, I have never cooked unhealthy meals, or grazed, so the fact that my problems are limited to portion control and the occasional massive binge should make maintenance easier in the longer term because gaining control over 2 demons is easier than dealing with a plethora of problems. Abstaining from food has already forced me into making new habits and finding new coping mechanisms not involving food. Doing the therapy to find my weaknesses has been even more useful to spot problems as they arise and to make my life happier anyway. I still have along way to go but I am confident that maintaining my weight is the ultimate attainable goal for me in the long term.

Having already done the time line of my weight gain (8th June blog which was well before I even knew we had a similar exercise to do later on in LL) I already had a fair inkling of where my problems began but LL is helping to flesh this out and knowing what the problem is more than 50% of the way to solving it.

14,620 wobbles on my pedometer by 8.35pm! Pedometer will be in a new position tomorrow to see if that helps. I can’t be bothered to test the theory tonight that there are less wobbles on my side.

45 days down, 55 to go.

Tuesday 4th July

It’s been really hot here again today. I haven’t measured my water consumption because I was working at the nursery again but I think it was ok given the heat. The pedometer was better than hoped at 10,335 considering I spent most of the day sat on my bum computerizing the library again. I wonder if it has been counting 2 for 1 again because I have had a loose skirt on again today.

I weighed in this morning at my mum’s place having drunk my usual 2 pints and came in at 13st 13lbs. Typical isn’t it, I was expecting to be delighted as per my blog yesterday but I’m not bouncing off the walls with excitement because I was hoping for a loss of more than 2lbs. I am in the 13’s though which is not to be sniffed at! My next goalpost is 13st 8lbs so I can be classed as overweight rather than obese, funny because I feel ‘thin’ now. My previous hope was to be ‘merely’ overweight by 18th July which is 2 weeks off so that is a 2 ½ lbs a week loss to get there which is still attainable.

I need to be 11st 5lbs to have a bmi of 24.9 so I have 2st 8lbs more to lose before I can be considered ‘normal’.

The meeting tonight was great although it was a shame because a few couldn’t make it. The topic of crooked thinking really spoke to me. That includes all or nothing (I remember using the same term to describe myself when I first started writing my blog) thinking and ‘I can’t do this because…’when really no evidence is there to support your thoughts…but more on that during the upcoming week as I take in and apply what we have covered.

One thing that I did do today, now I am looking back, is to have my excuse for not being in ketosis ready. I had a food pack before I left for the meeting. But why did I have an excuse for not being in ketosis ready because I hadn’t cheated? Just because I had to do another ketostix at the end of the evening last time as there was no pink in it, didn’t mean this was going to happen this time – and why make matters worse by eating a food pack? I have fallen prey to that old demon of self sabotage again and it crept in without me realising it at the time. I knew that self sabotage was a big issue for me but it is bigger than I though because despite knowing that I did this, I still fell foul of it. I’m going to have to really work hard to address this.

45 days down, 55 to go.

Monday 3rd July

This morning has been slightly stressful as my hubby left for a business trip this morning and I have decided for once not to take the path of least resistance on an issue. This means contesting a fixed penalty notice and going to court effectively to call a policeman a liar! My 3 year old had moved my tax disc from bottom of the passenger side of the windscreen to the top and neither the policeman nor I spotted it in its new position at the time so I got a failure to display notice. Talk about choosing a difficult issue to take a stand on – I do pick ‘em. I am trying to get his audio/visual off his motorbike to show that he didn’t even bother to look properly at my car when it wasn’t passing him doing nearly 40mph and that I was so upset that all I thought to do was look down thinking it had dropped off. [Just a quick note to say I got a call back to say the bike wasn’t fitted with any of this equipment so I can’t pull the clinching evidence ed.]

The fact that I am actually going to contest this shows progress. Through LL I have been able to identify areas in my personality that make me unhappy and try working on them. Taking the path of least resistance was one. I would always talk the talk but never followed through; well this time will be different although I never thought that I would ever end up in a court!

Now before I get all chuffed about my progress I must just remember that last night I was in the frame of mind to just pay it, but having done a quick appraisal of finances I can’t afford to within the time limit. Fate seems to be giving me a helping shove!

I also took another trip to Asda today and for the first time since losing weight I tried on size 16 fitted waistband (I have to make that distinction!) trousers (2 pairs just in case they were cut differently). Both were styled to fit round the hips, not come up to waist as you just can’t buy high waisted trousers at the moment because they aren’t fashionable. When I got into the changing room I thought that I had blown my morale as there was no way they were never going to pull up round my thighs and bum let alone do up. But they pulled up easily and did do up. If I had had on my hold my tummy up (note the use of the word ‘up’ not in) pants on then they would have fitted although that would have looked hilarious with 3 inches of hold me 'up' (that word again!) pants being very obvious above the trousers! So I thought I would try the old sucking my tummy in trick (I haven’t done that for about 12 years because I have had elasticated waistbands). Well I had to laugh because all this did was make my torso slimmer and had no effect whatsoever on the bit dangling round my hips that needed the help! The trouble I now have is that as I am losing weight quicker than my skin has time to shrink back and my belly is heading south at quite a rate and is currently residing around my hips! Oh well, it’ll shrink back eventually and it saves me have to do my bikini line!

Water consumption has been excellent but it has been very hot again today so it has been a necessity. I have had all my packs without problem too albeit a couple at a time. On the down side I forgot to put my pedometer on until after lunch time but as I was only doing the ironing I can’t see as to how I missed out on a lot of steps which is a shame because my pedometer was 1,500 steps short today.

Life is good despite my dangling belly! My LL meeting is tomorrow and I will weigh myself tomorrow morning after the usual 2 pints of water for a consistent result. I hope that I am in the 13’s. Actually, ‘hope’ is the understatement of the year!!! I would be over the moon, chuffed to bits, tickled pink…well you get the idea!

44 days down, 56 to go.

Sunday 2nd July

I forgot to mention yesterday that I did 12,887 steps so going shopping is good for your activity rate even if it isn’t good for your bank balance.

One other thing from yesterday was that I am not very confident meeting new people, especially women. So much so that I didn’t actually engage in a conversation with a woman yesterday, it was all throwaway comments and the conversations were with the blokes. That is something that I think I will need to work on. I don’t want people to think I’m standoffish just because I feel uncomfortable in a situation so I must make more of an effort.

Today was another good day, we had a cracking time and the BBQ was not the tempting prospect that I had feared although on a non-LighterLife day I would of enjoyed all of it as there were lots of healthy tasty things on offer. Also, because there were less people, I did eat my bar there unlike yesterday when I would not have felt comfortable eating the bar and nobody noticed me not eating anyway because there was so much going on. This time if I hadn’t eaten then this would have raised more questions than not eating so I just did it.

It just goes to show that thinking the worst will often make it happen but having a positive outlook will not. I could have been worrying away since Thursday morning about today but my ‘adult’ ego state did the necessary work and talked me round. I have learnt a lesson today that I want to stick with me until the day I die as I am always expecting the worst and it drags me down. No more though!

I must go shopping more often though because by 8.30pm today I had still only done 3,388 steps – probably the poorest day yet. At least my water consumption was good but then it was such a hot day it had to be.

I’m already starting to look forward to this weeks LL meeting on Tuesday night. I’m going to have another read back through all the bits we have covered so far to refresh my memory and work my way through the previous activities to see if anything has changed or if anything new that might help me will come to mind.

I am really looking forward to management now so as I have another 3 months of this I should really up for the experience.

43 days down, 57 to go.

Saturday 1st July

This morning was good and bad for me. Bad because I didn’t eat my food packs or drink my water and couldn’t find any elasticated pyjama style trousers, but good because I went into Dorothy Perkins and mum said she needed to pop upstairs to Evans so I went up with her on the principle it wasn’t for me. Whilst I was sat down waiting for her to come out of the changing room, I found THE wedge sandals of my dreams. I tried them on, they fitted and they were half price reduced to 15 quid so I got them. I don’t normally DO girly shoes so this is another first for me. I am really starting to take pride in how I look and stop trying to hide away under tunic style tops.

Having been unsuccessful yesterday at finding trousers to buy I remembered this morning that I had a couple of sarongs I bought about 7 years back and that have never fitted me. I dug them out of the ‘to be eBay’d bin’ and tried them on. They were too big but because the fabric is light then they don’t all bunch up at the waist and combined with the sandals from today and one of the tops and the jewellery I bought in Tesco’s yesterday, I feel and look great for these BBQ’s this weekend. This is giving me oodles of confidence that I will be able to get through, enjoy myself and stick 100% to the LL plan. BBQ doesn’t make me feel like this so who needs it this summer! I am in the right frame of mind for todays BBQ and children’s party and that could be the key to today. I’m glad I am not in the same frame of mind I was in a couple of days ago. I have had time to think things through and let the ‘adult’ (from the ego states LL meeting a couple of weeks back) bring me back on track.

Later on
The BBQ wasn’t as bad as I thought it as going to be despite the hostess saying ‘You must eat something, just have something…’ but hubby dived straight in with ‘no she can’t as she is on a perfectly balanced diet.’ Genius, as it also drowned out my ‘please don’t do this to me it’s not fair’ reaction. Hubby was great as he phoned the host on the way there as asked him to make sure that nobody offered me any food or drink so he did as much as he could. It’s not his fault the instruction wasn’t shared. We were also sat right next to the BBQ and food table which could have been a problem if I was having a bad day but after this morning I have had such a positive attitude that it would have taken a lot to shake my resolve and the whole day wasn’t the trial I feared it could be. Once again the bits I would have been tempted by was the ‘real’ meat (eg not sausages burgers etc) and the salad so maybe my tastes have changed already or maybe this was because subconsciously it would have been the stuff to do the least damage? I chose not to eat my food packs whilst there as this would have drawn attention to the fact that I wasn’t eating and there were enough people there for nobody to notice too much about what I was and wasn’t doing. Anyway, we had a great laugh and everything was fine. Let’s see what tomorrow brings?

42 days down, 58 to go.

Friday 30th June

There were just under 9,599 steps on the pedometer yesterday. I hope I have a better day on that front and my dieting attitude today.

One thing I have realised is that I haven’t been to the gym or used my Slendertone in what seems like ages. I must start getting back into the swing of things.

I came on today with none of the normal warning cramps or cravings again. My tummy feels a little bit uncomfortable but nowhere near enough to get me reaching for the Neurofen. Looking back through my blog, I didn’t seem to be any moodier than ‘normal’ either but I’ll have to ask my hubby about that and try to make it clear that I won’t thump him one if he says I was moodier in the past couple of days!

This is a quote from 3rd June which also contains a further quote from my previous ‘month’ to that:

The other thing of note today is that I came on. This completely took me by surprise as it was a bit early but most amazingly I had none of the usual early warning signs. I usually crave red meat 1-2 days prior to coming on and get stomach cramps approximately 4 hours before the bleeding actually begins. This gives me ample time to be prepared.

Here is a quote from 8th May:

Thinking about it, the only times I really seem to crave red meat is at this time of the month, the rest of the time its carbohydrates. I have never thought about it before and put 2 and 2 together but I wonder if the craving for steak is because I have something lacking in my diet around this time of the month? I’ll look into it. This blog is proving useful to me already!

Well all I can deduce from this is that it is likely that my diet is lacking something. I am going to be solely on LL for at least another 3 months so I’ll see if this was a one off and I get any of my normal symptoms in the next 3 cycles? It would be amazing if I can get rid of my symptoms by changing my diet or taking a supplement. I have never been keen on supplements because I always thought my diet contained everything I needed plus tonnes of extra calories thanks to the binges!

Well that’s confirmed it for me, 3 months in a row since I have been either eating carefully or on LL and on each month I have come on unexpectedly because I haven’t noticed any warning signs. I can only conclude from this that my ‘monthly’ problems are down, in part at least, to diet.

I went to Tesco again and thought I’d better see if their size 16’s fitted me. I took a couple of things into the changing room and then looked at my nemesis, the 3 way mirrors! Well for once I was pleased to see myself in them. Yes I’m saggy (good sign as this means the weight under the skin is coming off) and yes I have a long way to go but even I could see my progress and be pleased with myself. I came away with 3 cheapy t-shirts and treated myself to a gorgeous necklace which was ½ price at just £5 and matching bracelet. I couldn’t have worn that style before as I didn’t have a neck. The t-shirts will do for the BBQ’s this weekend. Even the radio had been playing all my favourite songs today.

I have had yet more comments including ‘Don’t you look well’ which is code for ‘Bloody hell, you’ve lost loads of weight!’

I also got a comment from an acquaintance saying that I will need to stop soon as there’ll be nothing left. I told her that I am still classed as ‘obese’ rather than ‘overweight’ and that my waist is still 35 inches. I said thank though and helped her out by saying that I think it is the contrast with how I used to be that makes it seem more extreme.

Also today the wrist weights I ordered from eBay arrived. They weigh ½ kilo each and I wore them for most of the day and then took them off when I swapped to one of my new vest tops. It is getting a bit hot for them now (28c) so I’ll pop them back on again tonight when it has cooled down. They are going to be just perfect.

I’m feeling much happier about the BBQ’s this weekend. I can get through it and enjoy myself.

Tonight I went to a music festival and really enjoyed myself. I stuck to water all night and enjoyed the smell of chips and vinegar for what it was without being tempted.

41 days down, 59 to go. Yep, I’m in the 50’s so not too long till the halfway point.