Sunday 3rd September

Well it is weigh in day tomorrow and I forgot to mention that my LLC left a message on my answer machine saying that the Thursday meeting was busier but none of the development meetings had that many people in them.

To be honest I don’t even think that my lack of confidence in the development counselling is down to that. By definition people are on development for different lengths of time until they all reach their goal weight so there is no structured course to the counselling like there was for the foundation stage because we would all be at different stages with some closer to goal that others and facing different issues at different times because of this so I’m not going to get counselling tailored to where I am in my journey. I’ll just have to wait and see over the 3 meetings that are prepaid for.

I am paid up till 18th September on LL but if I am still not impressed after that then I will be swapping to CD. Mind you I think that as soon as you hit 25 BMI on CD then you are meant to start going back up through the CD programmes spending at least a week at a time, preferably 2 on each stage. These are add a meal, 790 plan, 1000, 1200 then 1500. I should be under the 25BMI by the time I run out of money. I have had another look through my mum’s CD book to see exactly what doing CD at under 25BMI entails. I haven’t decided what to do yet and have an open mind until the 3 meetings are over but I do think that if I hadn’t paid a month on advance of LL then I would have called it quits and swapped. Can this be fate telling me to hang fire and not make any hasty decisions? The biggest factor that LL may have over CD at this stage is that you get free management for a year after completing the route to management course but then I don’t know what CD do on that front? My biggest challenge will always be keeping the weight off and I have to think about what is best for me at that stage even at the expense of what happens to me at this stage.

Also I am trying not to let the fact that if I start CD after the next 3 meeting then I will be able to start eating with my family again and given that 2 weeks on each stage adds up to 10 weeks then I will be through the restrictions well before Christmas. I have to consider that this could well be affecting my draw to CD so I have to be careful about that because whatever I do it has to be for the right reasons.

I was talking to my hubby about the situation last night and he said that although I feel like I have come a long way with the counselling and haven’t learnt anymore about myself for weeks, I won’t know if I need the additional counselling of LL in management until I get there and he is as usual dead right – don’t tell him I said that though!

I enjoyed another bowl of chocolate porridge this morning and given that it is wet and windy it once again was a welcome and excellent start to the day. You get given a recipe sheet on how you can cook the packs for a bit of interest are only supposed to cook one a day. Nowhere n that sheet does it mention that PH could be such and excellent ingredient to make things a bit different.

The other small event of note which has really made my day is that I needed to adjust my SlenderTone belt so that the sticky pads were on the smallest setting. I have gone from not being sure that the biggest were going to fit to needing them on the smallest of the 3. This may be nothing to somebody else but I cried because it means such a lot to me.

Activity: 7,217
Water: 6l’s and consistent
Toning: 40 mins on ST
Weight: 12st or 168lbs
6 days of development completed, 44 to go.

Saturday 2nd September

I’m back into the habit of using the SlenderTone again now because I can do this working whilst I’m ironing or sat on the computer, both of which I spend a lot of time doing. In fact this morning I did it whist cooking hubby and daughter their brunch! Positioning the pads is definitely easier now I am smaller although I find it easy to work my waist and harder to get the centre pad right so it works my tummy which is the bit I really need to work. I also didn’t go into the third intensity level as this would have been too much for me this morning. I will keep making sure that I have it on the highest comfortable setting for me so that I am getting the most from each session. I’m going to aim for 2 sessions of 40 minutes a day in the hope of getting 1 session of 40 minutes a day. The trouble is that I have to take my trousers off when wearing the ST which means doing it indoors and having trousers at the ready in case someone comes to the door!

Somebody made an interesting post on the weight loss forum that got me thinking. I have been having more problems now that I am close to being a normal BMI than I have had at any other time during the diet. I have decided to get weighed this Monday and then not be weighed for a 3 weeks after that. This way I will be able to concentrate on what my body looks like and how it measures up. This will means that I will be stopping when I have reached the right place based on reality rather than wanting to meet an artificial target which is very inflexible. How I look and what fat I have left on my body are the factors that are keeping me motivated to continue whilst the weight I am and have lost are just damaging distractions. If I feel my body is ready then I will continue to stay on the packs for another 2 weeks after that to allow for the glycogen top up that will increase my weight by between 4 and 8lbs and keep me at my goal. This way when I go into management then I can concentrate on learning how to eat to maintain my weight which is what management is all about.

I made a chocolate porridge with the psyllium husks this morning and it tasted just like chocolate Ready Break! Trouble was that I had to stuff it down because I was full up after ½ of it. So tomorrow I will split my pack and do it with ½. I will stick to using the PH in the morning so I get a proper breakfast to set me up for the day and will try to keep the other half back for the evening which I find most difficult. The good thing about the porridge is that is isn’t cooked as it is just made using boiling water.

Activity: 5,112 steps. Very poor but it always is at the weekend.
Water: 6l’s and consistent
Toning: 2 x 40 minutes on the ST
Weight: 12st or 168lbs
5 days of development completed, 44 to go.

Friday 1st September

On the recommendation of one of the ladies on the weight loss forum I use I bought some psyllium husks (PH) to add to my shakes and soups. This is non-absorbable soluble dietary fibre which thickens the liquid and provides bulk to stimulate the bowels to empty more often. It has no impact on the body other than that because the body can not absorb it so it just keeps things moving along nicely without affecting the diet. I tried 2 small teaspoons of it in a chicken soup and added some white pepper for good measure. OMG it was lovely! The soup took on a cream of chicken texture and taste so I can’t wait to see what it will do to the shakes. I mustn’t have too much of it though because otherwise I won’t be able to drink enough extra water to deal with it. If I don’t drink enough water then I will become constipated as the body won’t allow fluid to go into poo making it hard. Having the PH to use has actually made me excited about having my shake tomorrow. I feel full up to the point of bloated (not sure I want to do that again – ½ packs might be better for this) after my soup but I really want to see what will happen with the shakes. The lady who recommended PH also said that she makes up a warm porridge with part of one of her shakes to have for breakfast, I’ll try that one day too because that sounds good. I’m wondering if the use of PH will mean that I don’t need to cook as many packs? That would have to be a good thing.

The belts and trousers I ordered off eBay have arrived and are all stunning. The belts I have are wonderful and can both be worn with my brown t-shirt/combats. The leather jacket also in a size 12 is beyond my wildest dreams and looks great with the combats, size 12 t-shirt and my new belts, I love the jacket and can wear it now undone even though it is just a touch too small to be done up comfortably and be able to do a full range of arm movements. I’m chuffed to nuts with trousers too but I need to shrink my wobbly tummy and saggy bum to get into them. I am disappointed because they are size 12’s but I wasn’t even close to being able to wear them and put this down to them being designer size 12’s not high street ones. I know I shouldn’t be downhearted at not truly being a size 12 yet because I did buy them as my final size but I am not a logical person. My disappointment was also challenging my belief that I could be almost into a high street size 12 and made me nervous about going and trying anything on. Normally I would avoid the situation until I had shrunk a bit more in the hope of limiting my disappointment but instead I challenged it head on and went to the high street to assess the reality of the situation. So I went to the high street and tried on 2 pairs of Dorothy Perkins jeans, the baggy styled ones on the tight side of ok round my bottom and tummy but not at the waist and the other style didn’t fit round my thighs so I do still have big legs! In New Look I tried on a pair of combats that again were on the tight side of ok on the bottom and tummy but not on my waist, so it looks like I am a couple of weeks off of comfortably being a high street size 12 and even then I will still have to be seeking out the loosest fit styles available to accommodate my legs. I couldn’t try any more shops after Dorothy Perkins and New Look because I had my daughter with me so it wasn’t the best time to be doing a fact finding mission as she had had enough!

I think I have got the buying bug out of my system and from now on I will stick to actually shopping in REAL shops from now on. After all I can now go shopping in shops knowing there will be loads of things to fit me and without fearing the changing room mirrors and quizzical faces of people questioning why I should even be there because of my size – I never actually experienced this because I avoided the real shops as my size increased but it was my nightmare. Because I avoided the real shops I didn’t even know that many of them had a plus size section or went up to a size 22 in some of their collections until I lost weight and then ventured in by which time I didn’t need them.

Shopping on eBay robs me of the shopping experience and also you never know what the fit is going to be so you can end up with clothes that don’t do the best for your figure. Also if I go into REAL shops I can have a go at trying colours and styles that I wouldn’t risk if I have to buy before I try. I want to explore what my style is going to be. When I first went to Southampton to confirm that I was a 14 I looked in all the shops and didn’t find much I liked. I know realise that this is because there was a distinct lack of tunic tops and Evans styling which I have felt safe in all these years. I need to challenge that and find style and colours to suit my new shape and outlook on life.

Another 6 weeks or so and I’ll probably be in the designer size 12’s and that is roughly how much time I have left to do on LL to get tome goal weight so I should be bang on with my estimated final size and weight fingers crossed.

I also rang my LLC today and left a message asking her to call me back when she can. I don’t want to have another development meeting like last weeks. That was definitely not worth the extra 30 quid or so that LL costs over Cambridge Diet. I asked her to confirm if the meeting might have more people this week, if not I want to change the day I go for a busier one. I’m not sure how good the counselling on development will be. By definition people are on development for different lengths of time until they all reach their goal weight so there is no structure to the counselling course like there was for the foundation stage. I’m going to give it another couple of weeks and then think about changing if I don’t like it. I am not going to keep forking out loads of money for something that isn’t worth it. I am feeling more confident about my ability to maintain my weight but I am not happy about the fact that I will lose my backup for a year of maintenance if I do swap and also I am not happy that the refeed process on CD is as good as the LL process, not do you get the counselling with that.

Activity: I forgot to put my pedometer but wouldn’t have been too bad today at approximately 9,000 steps or so.
Water: 7 l’s and consistent.
Toning: 40 mins on ST in the morning
Weight: 12st or 168lbs
4 days of development completed, 46 to go.

Thursday 31st August

I decided to test myself on the body fat monitor using yesterday’s weigh in result of 11st 9lbs. The results were 31.1% fat, a woman’s body fat ratio ideally needs to be between 25 and 31% so I am just nudging up to the normal range there. My waist to hip ratio (waist measurement divided by hip measurement) is .82 and should be under .8 for a woman. My BMI is 25.8 and should be between 20 and 25 so I am getting close on all these indicators. I want to have a bit of leeway so that I am not at the top of any of the ranges on these calculations in the morning only to go over in the afternoon or after putting on 3-4lbs in my proposed comfort zone. That gives me something else to think about apart from weight.

I am definitely still in the dieting zone with no thoughts of giving up. I am focussed 100% on continuing until I have reached a stage I am happy with. Between needing to tone and build muscle on what remains of my body and waiting for my skin to shrink back to match my new smaller size I know I won’t have the shape I want by just losing the fat so I am realistic about when I will need to stop and the additional indicators will further help with my decision when the time come. I think what I will work to get to where I want to be and then do 2 weeks more to get me under that so that when my glycogen stores refill I will then be at my goal weight rather than trying to lose when on the management stage when I should be learning how to maintain it.

Having the countdowns at the end of each day’s blog to focus on has really helped to concentrate my mind on the task in hand and make me comfortable with where I am and what I have left to do. The last 3 days seem to have whizzed by in much the same way as the foundation stage mainly did so it won’t be long before I can start the process of learning how and what to eat and considering my food weaknesses with food actually being in the picture again.

In addition to the criteria below, every morning after weigh in day I will also include a calculation for BMI, h/w ratio and body fat ratio.

Today has been an active day for me and I have the challenge ahead of making tomorrow active too. I had to take the pedometer off because I didn’t want to lose it again as I ran round PlayZone for 1 ½ hours with my daughter and I forgot to put it back on again. After 1 ½ hours of running, climbing and rolling about like a lunatic (I’m not a passive mum and never have been but I can just do it for longer and faster now!) we had a walk round a castle for 40 mins, not fast but a walk none the less. Then when we got home in the evening I put the Slendertone on again and it is much better now as I put it on in the right place first time round and I can move about and don’t wobble so much so it still works without me having to lie down on my bed and not move like I had to last time. I can also have it on the first setting of the third intensity which was a big improvement on last time although I’ll make a decision on whether this was sensible or not tomorrow morning based on whether I can move without being in agony!

Activity: No pedometer results. 1 ½ hours of running round Playzone and 40 minute walk round a castle. Great!
Water: 6.5l’s not very consistent
Toning: 50 minutes of slender tone.
Weight: 12st or 168lbs
3 days of development completed, 47 to go.