Lighter-Life?

2006-09-03T12:24:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-09-02T12:50:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-09-01T15:40:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-09-01T15:38:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-08-30T14:04:00.000-07:00

Wednesday 30th August

Last night I didn’t have the usual dreadful cravings I have been fighting for the past few weeks. I am definitely firmly back in the driving seat of this diet.

I am starting to get somewhat obsessed by clothes now! I know that I will end up a size 12 top so I can’t stop looking on eBay. I wasn’t going to shop on eBay for clothes anymore as it robs me of the chance to shop in real shops but there are some wonderfully original clothes on there and my style is distinctive. I like items that are a bit wacky and different and I can find these on eBay.

I have bought 2 belts to wear round my newly found slinkier hips, 2 pairs of trousers, a cardigan and a leather jacket!

Having worn my size 12 trousers (mistake to buy them as the pockets on the rear make my arse look the size of the Isle of Wight- size 14’s still more flattering) all day yesterday and found them comfortable, I feel another trip to West Quay Southampton coming on to visit the hops I did previously when I wanted to affirm that I was a size 14. So not this coming week but next week it’s Southampton here I come! This time I want to see what size I am top and bottom.

My pedometer is less than pleasing but in terms of activity I spent 2 ½ hours cleaning windows so I am happy. Time was that doing just 1 window would knacker me out, this time I did the lot with no problems. I am definitely healthier and fitter now.

I also nipped into my mum’s house tonight to weigh myself. Bearing in mind how much I have drunk today I was happy to come up as 11st 9lbs. I hope my weigh in on Monday night is as good, I could do with being 11st 7lbs to get back on track after Monday’s disastrous weigh in but that might be asking a bit too much!

Activity: 7,368 steps and 2 ½ hours of window cleaning!
Water: 7l’s and consistent
Toning: None
Weight: 12st at last weigh in
2 days of development completed, 48 to go.

2006-08-29T13:54:00.000-07:00

Tuesday 29th August

Last nights’ meeting was absolute shite! Firstly I didn’t test in the pink again with the ketostix which was no surprise given my past history on that. Secondly my predictions of no change in weight was wrong, I put on 1lb! Of all the fucking weeks to retain water it had to be this one. Mind you 4st 4lbs loss in 100 days is still shit hot and something to be proud of...and I am.

Thirdly including me there were only 3 at the meeting last night and I didn’t know the other 2. Of them 1 is starting management this week so I won’t see her again and the other is starting management next week. I hope some of my foundation group start coming to this meeting because otherwise I’ll have to think about swapping to a busier day because this won’t be worth paying out for the counselling otherwise.

When I got home last night I was determined to go out and get a small shish kebab with cabbage, cucumber, tomato and no bread. I think having finally given myself permission to eat and fully intending to do so, I then couldn’t then bring myself to do it and my rebellious child having nothing to rebel against finally shut up for 2 minutes and let the adult get a word in edgeways. Hopefully that will see the end of my adaptive and rebellious child ego states and the adult should be at the forefront of all my decisions which won’t leave the rebellious child any space to get going. I can choose to eat or I can choose not to. My choice, I’m in control! Now it is back to the countdown 1 day down, 49 to go and I am feeling settled and good about this whole diet again.

I have decided that I am in need of a treat so I took the leaflet down off the fridge door and looked at the prices for a private horse riding lesson for when my daughter is at school. I keep looking longingly at all the horses I pass so I think it is time to use my birthday money that I had been saving for flying and use it for what I really want at this moment in time. I want to go riding again. I will have 2 food packs just before I go so that I have some energy to draw from and see how I go.

The other thing to note is that I have had a bit of a dodgy tummy over the past 3 days or so and last night I couldn’t sleep so I came back downstairs and went on the computer for a while. Whilst I was typing away my tummy upped its’ uncomfortable feeling and gurgling noises to unbearable proportions, let’s just say that I am probably about a stone lighter and the gurgling has now stopped! I felt a lot more comfortable and not so bloated although I still needed to completely empty out, which I did today.

I don’t think the tummy situation has been helped by the fact that I have been doing a fair bit more on the activity front because of having the new bike but not only have I not upped my water consumption to make up for this but that my water consumption still isn’t even the normal 6l’s and consistent.

So my aims for this week are to:
1. Continue on the activity front either via pedometer or bike
2. Do toning exercises as often as possible even if I forget and just do 20 sit-ups. I have to tone what’s left
3. Drink a minimum of 6l’s a day in a consistent manner.
4. Get up earlier so I am ready for bed earlier to ease the night time difficult patch and break the cycle.
5. Try to take the packs au natural for a while, no cooking them as I have been doing this too much.

Activity: 6,131 steps crap but a housework day so stuck in the house all day!
Water: 6.5l’s and consistent
Toning: None
Weight: 12st, estimated 25lbs to go.
1 day of development completed 49 to go!

Life is good again!

2006-08-28T14:52:00.000-07:00

Monday 28th August

This is it, the day I have been waiting for. I have successfully completed 100 days of sole sourcing on LL with no cheating although I have been sorely tempted in the past week.

From tomorrow I start my estimated 50 days countdown. This is a conservative estimate of when I expect to reach the weight at which I am happy with, I just wish I knew what it was now so I could aim for it in black and white!

Today has been much better and I have been considering what I can do in the evenings to make them go easier and deal with the temptation. I am doing to have to start getting up much earlier so that I am ready for bed earlier. I am also going to try to remember to save bath time for the evening again as this seemed to work. I might even start putting the telly on and I can’t remember the last time I did that as I live on my computer. I have to crack the evenings if I am going to be able to stick solely to the packs. I will not compromise on my goal to be slim and slinky rather than just acceptable.

I really don’t feel any thinner this week and my clothes don’t seem any looser. So in an attempt to give myself the best chance of losing the 2.2lbs required to get to me 4 ½ stone I drink loads of water up until 3.30pm and then didn’t have anymore after that to give it a chance to go through my system a bit. I know this is self defeating because I won’t be doing the same next week and so will have a poorer weight loss week then but I couldn’t give a stuff about next week because I want my 4 ½ stone total loss THIS weeks for the end of the foundation stage.

Pedometer: Buying a new one at tonight’s meeting.
Water: 5l’s and inconsistent
Toning: None
100 days of foundation completed with no cheating! 0 to go.

2006-08-27T13:27:00.000-07:00

Sunday 27th August

Can there really only be 1 day left until I have completed the 100 days? On this Tuesday’s blog I will be counting the 50 days down until 17th October which is the date I conservatively estimate I will be starting management on. When you consider that this is ½ as much time again as the foundation stage then I am definitely not nearly at the end as people in my group even have been saying for the past 4 weeks or so!

Being acceptable is no longer my goal I want to be slim, not skinny just slim.

I think getting onto development and having a new time countdown to focus on will make things easier on me as it will give me something tangible to focus on.

If I hadn’t lost the pedometer then the results would have been poor. Having said that my daughter and I went out for the longest bike ride to date, I think we covered about 8 miles altogether so my activity rate is good for today.

Today has been another really shit day. I just keep craving protein and keep thinking about tins of tuna, KFC and a nice rare steak. I can’t give up now and am wishing my life away.

It’s funny because even though this has been another tough one for me it has gone quickly and I hope the rest of them will go the same way.

I really need the developers meeting tomorrow because I don’t think I can take much more of this. If I crash then I just carry on after that. I don’t want to crash though because I fear things will be worse if I do as I might not ever be able to get back into sole sourcing – just taking in the packs and no conventional food.

Pedometer: Pedometer’s lost so have to buy another one tomorrow.
Water: 6l’s and consistent
Toning: None
99 days down, 1 to go.

2006-08-26T13:28:00.000-07:00

Saturday 26th August

I woke up this morning to welcome in a much better day all in all. I did my hubby and daughter a cooked brunch of scrambled eggs (laid fresh this morning by our chickens), toast, mushrooms, beans, hash browns and bacon. I was not tempted to pick even though I would loved to have tucked in if I had been at goal.

I tried on the size 12’s I bought last night (which I couldn’t do when I bought them because Tesco shut their changing rooms in the evening) and they sort of fit. According to hubby they fit because they don’t look too tight but for comfort sake I think another 4-5 lb off would be best so they are in my wardrobe ready to shrink into. The size 14’s I have now are all too big and the 12’s I have are too small so I am at that annoying stage of being slap bang between sizes. I never had this experience when I was larger because all my clothes had elasticated waists so this is all new to me.

The speed at which you lose a dress size on LL never fails to amaze me. 3 weeks ago I realised that I was a size 14 now in another week or so I will be a size 12! Given that I know I have at least another stone to lose after the weigh in on Monday which would take me about a month to lose, I could be a size 10 top by the end of all this which is what I was hoping for. Having a flat chest does have some benefits! Taking into consideration that the shops have changed their sizes so that a size 10 is equivalent the old size 12 and an old size 12 was what I was aiming to be based on my size/weights 13 years ago I don’t think my guess was far wrong.

I won a pair of Miss Sixty jeans in a size 28 on eBay and they arrived this morning. They are stunning and I bought them as an incentive to get to my goal waist size. The trouble is that although the waist is what I am eventually hoping to be, we go back to the fact that I have big legs and these jeans look a bit too skinny for me. Mind you I did say that about the size 14’s my step mum gave me and there hasn’t been a problem with those once I shrunk. I’ll keep the jeans and see what happens. If I don’t manage to lose enough off my legs then I will sell them on again and should get my money back if not a bit more.

My water consumption and toning have been dreadful over the past week even if the activity hasn’t been too bad and I am not sure I will make it to the 4 ½ stone mark by Monday night. I tried upping my water consumption back to 6l’s today and just feel like a beached whale. Even if I don’t reach the 4 ½ stone then I have still had a far better than anticipated result but I do like nice neat numbers! I am still going to be making a special effort with the water for the next couple of days. I only have to lose 2.2lbs to reach my 4 ¼ stone target. If you want to get all technical about it I probably reached my 4 ½ stone target last weigh in because the first weigh in was done first thing in the morning and my weigh ins have now changed to evening. My morning weight would definitely be 2.2lbs lighter than in the evening! I have never limited my water intake to fix a weigh in before but I am seriously considering doing it for this one.

My mum went and saw a Cambridge Diet counsellor today. To be honest I am quite offended by the term Cambridge Diet counsellor because, with few exceptions, most of them aren’t counsellors at all they are just sales reps as no counselling training required by CD. Anyway I was able to give her a few pointers like using a bit of the vanilla milkshake in coffee and spitting the packs into 6 smaller meals. I know mum will be successful on this because she has done CD before and lost a lot of weight.

Having read through the info in mum’s books about what the stabilisation and maintenance bits of CD is I have decided that CD can’t offer me what LL can. On CD the foods are not reintroduced a few at a time and there is no mention of finding out about trigger foods etc. It has been a very useful exercise for me to read what the different CD plans consist of as this have taken away any thoughts I may have harboured about going for the cheaper option. Cheaper in this case is not better. I owe it to myself and my family to get the most important stage of the diet right. OK LL is a lot more money but I have lessons to learn that will last a lifetime and CD can’t come close to offering what LL will give me. It’s a shame I can’t swap to CD for the development section because I am so bored of the LL food packs and then back to LL for the management bit as that would be the perfect solution!

Pedometer: 2,594
Water: 6l’s and consistent
Toning: None
98 days down, 2 to go.

2006-08-25T14:43:00.000-07:00

Friday 25th August

I have been really bored today and am glad the day is over. Nothing bad has happened but I am just fed up which makes my thoughts turn to food. Roll on tomorrow.

In an effort to distract myself I went to Asda again tonight and tried on some more size 12’s. baggy cuts fit me because I have big lags and bum but slimmer cuts do not as my legs just won’t even go in them.

I then went to Tesco and bought my favourites brown fitted t-shirt that I wear all the time with my combats in a size 12 ready to shrink into. I also bought another brown fitted t-shirt but this one has a V neck and I bought a pair of wide legged brown combat type trousers in a size 12 too.

Retail therapy took the edge of my crap day and put some steps on my pedometer although it was still crap for today.

Pedometer: 4,812
Water: 4.5l’s
Toning: None
97 days down, 3 to go.

2006-08-24T14:17:00.000-07:00

Thursday 24th August

My pedometer isn’t very good today but as I am taking an overall approach to activity this doesn’t matter because I spent 55 minutes on the tag-a-long-bike with my daughter. More than enough activity for today!

I asked my husband to do my monthly progress shots today. I prefer them to the LL ones because you can see the differences in my body more clearly and where I still have weight to lose. The difference between me and my fellow LL’ers is that I want to concentrate on what I have left to do whereas they what to see how far they have come to keep them motivated. I do have 1 ½ stone to lose still no matter what anyone commenting on my fully dressed figure says.

My motto is ‘Keep your eyes on the prize’.

I have to continue to ride the momentum I have now because a restart after falling off the wagon will be infinitely harder to do.

Pedometer: 8,912
Water: 5l’s, not consistent in the evening.
Toning: None
96 days down, 4 to go.

2006-08-23T13:40:00.000-07:00

Wednesday 23rd August

It’s that time of the month were I need to get my hubby to do some more progress shots of me in my swimsuit. Trouble is that I had to ditch the old one because it was all ‘Nora Batty’ on me!

My daughter and I went over to the Isle of Wight with friends today and I have to admit that all the food everyone was eating looked very tempting. I’m looking forward to conventional food again like you wouldn’t believe. What got me through was the thought that the 100 days are soon up. After that I’ll have to go back to setting short term goals again like the next ½ a stone etc. I have to get to goal weight and then start eating in a controlled way by following management to the letter. I owe it to myself and everyone who has supported my efforts finish the job properly.

In the meantime I will keep my ‘after’ shots in my bag as motivation to stay on the programme. I am not where I want to be and the ‘after’ photos reinforce that well.

Pedometer: 8,961
Water: 4.5l’s not very consistent
Toning: None
95 days down, 5 to go.

2006-08-22T15:22:00.000-07:00

Tuesday 22nd August

I did another trip to Asda today to try on that dress I keep thinking about. It was the right thing to do because although it looked good on my body shape it really wasn’t me, I’m not girly! Having said that, I did pick up some lip gloss and mascara and walked down to the hairdressers to get my hair done for the ‘after’ shots at the LL meeting tonight. Incidentally I hated my hair and brushed it out but at least it was clean and smelled nice after last night’s fireplace removal session! My friend then straightened it for me and made it look very nice for the photos. I made sure I was wearing my combats and brown fitted t-shirt (a bit lose but never mind) which is miles away from the cover me up tunic of my before shots! I wanted there to be as big a difference between the before and after photos as possible. I think I look younger despite getting wrinkles on my face which I never had before the diet. I never thought that my outlook was that much different than it was before I put the weight on but there is no doubt about it, I have got a younger attitude and my daughter certainly appreciates the changes in my outlook even if she doesn’t see the physical changes.

The photos themselves were interesting. Others in my group kept looking at their before shots and were amazed at how far they had come, for me the focus was on the after shots and this has really focused my mind on the extra weight I need to lose to get me to where I want to be. I could see it all in the photos so it isn’t just in my mind!

Once again I hadn’t done my homework or thought records for this week and had to copy them up by reading back through the week’s blog entries but with the problems with my hair I didn’t get a chance.

It was a joyous and sad LL meeting tonight. Joyous for those got through this far but sad for those that didn’t make it or weren’t there because they were on holiday. After tonight we are no longer a group and will go our separate ways.

Next week is the first of my ‘development’ meetings and this will be on a Monday night at 5.45-7.15pm. I am looking forward to it because the weigh in on that night will be on my 100th Day and give me the true result of the foundation stage. I only need to lose 2lbs this week to reach the 4 ½ stone mark and although I don’t want to tempt fate, this should be very doable.

Pedometer: Not ideal at 7,378
Water: 4l’s and fairly consistent
Toning: None
94 days down, 6 to go.

2006-08-21T14:26:00.000-07:00

Monday 21st August

I have completed 3 months on LighterLife.

Today has been a big step forward in terms of my daily activity. Yesterday we used my daughter’s birthday money to buy a tag-a-long bike and today I took my bike down to the shop to get it fitted and then my daughter and I had a practice on it for about 40 minutes. From the start of doing LighterLife I knew that a tag-a-long bike was going to make a big difference to me because my daughter was definitely too big for the baby seat so I avoided using the bike. This new bike is going to be great because I can then leave the car on the driveway for most journeys. Our town sits on a peninsular jotting into the sea and nowhere in it is more than 3 miles away. Combine this with the walk to and from school twice a day which adds up to 2 miles walking and I have my weekday activity sewn up. This will all fall by the wayside at weekends though until I can persuade my hubby to start trying to do a bit more.

This afternoon my daughter and I went on another long (for a 4 year old) walk which helped with the pedometer because of course the bike ride doesn’t register on it.

This evening was spent helping hubby knock out a fireplace but I was so knackered after today that I didn’t do that much. Better than nothing though.

After that I had to go and feed my mum’s cats because she is away tonight and I couldn’t resist standing on the scales. I wish I hadn’t because I was 12st 2lbs which is the same as I weighed last weigh in. So much for the 11st 11lbs I was yesterday morning! Oh well, can only be water retention and having gone back to a 4 week cycle the week after my period is traditionally my worst weight loss week so combine that with the crap water and pedometer results and you have a recipe for not a lot of weight lost or even none lost!

Oh well, next Monday is the important weigh in as it comes on the 100th Day and it should hopefully be a good one to make up for this week because all a bad result can be down to is water retention.

Pedometer: Very acceptable at 10,367 given the rest of days activity.
Water: better at 6l’s but not consistent as I am still not back into my normal routine
Toning: None
93 days down and only 1 week to go. Who’d have thought I’d get this far let alone this far without cheating!

2006-08-20T10:53:00.000-07:00

Sunday 20th August

I’m still coming down after yesterday’s party and I’m knackered so I had a lazy day because I just couldn’t be arsed! Yesterday couldn’t have gone better and I had trouble sleeping last night because I was still on a natural high after the success of the day. More than half the kids cried when they finally had to leave which has to be a good sign! The parents were relaxed and happy too. I always feel very awkward at kiddie’s parties normally as I don’t know all the parents and you can feel a bit of a spare part. Because my hubby also really worked his socks off to make things a success I had time to ensure that the parents were all introduced by name and how come we knew them to give them that starting point for conversation and then left them to it after they were chatting away. Social niceties like an introduction by name and an interesting fact about that person seem to have gone out of fashion but there is no doubt about it, a good introduction helps people to settle more quickly and help prevent that ‘Billy no mates’ feeling.

My plan of getting the children together and lining them up to receive goodie bags at the end of the party to provide a useful prompt to get people to leave if the party hadn’t gone too well was not needed. The kids and adults were enjoying themselves so we let the party run on well over time.

During my sleepless night last night I had an idea of how I can work for myself to fit in around my daughter and husband. I was up at 4.30am typing out a few ideas before I forgot them but I still need to consider the boring practicalities like insurance implications. I won’t earn a fortune but I will be able to pick and chose my hours to be flexible around my daughters needs and my husband’s hours. The part time jobs available that fit in with my need to take my daughter to school and collect her again dictate that you must work at least one day of the weekend and then what about the school holidays? I’d have to work those too if I worked for somebody else. Being self employed solves this problem and means I can always be there for my daughter rather than palming her off into childcare. I obviously wouldn’t be able to get sick or holiday pay but I also wouldn’t have to fork out for child care in the holidays which we wouldn’t be able to get any financial help with from the government.

My sleepless night also meant that I slept in until 10.15am this morning and means that once again I will have to play catch up with my water consumption. The fact that I didn’t drink very much yesterday and that I had 2 bars on Friday night means that the chances are that I will have constipation. Not looking forward to that!

Given that I was up so late and behind with my water consumption I decided to nip into my mum’s house and use her scales. Given that I didn’t drink very much yesterday and hadn’t had anything to drink before weighing myself, I thought the chances of being in the 11’s would be good. I did at least keep my clothes on and weighed in at …*drum roll*…11st 11lbs which puts me just 6lbs off the top end of my healthy BMI. I bet that my weigh in on Tuesday is nowhere near this because it is an evening weigh in and I will have water and food packs sloshing about inside me!

I find my thoughts keep going back to that dress that I tried on Friday, I may well go and try it on again in the size 14 and think about getting it in a size 12 ready for Christmas at my goal weight.

If Thursday’s prediction that I will be starting management by 9th October is correct, I will have finished to 12 week management course slap bang at the end of December and be starting New Year’s Day from scratch. I would love to think that would happen but if it isn’t to be then I will not be compromising on my goal weight just so that I can go into the New Year having completed management. God I wish I knew what my goal weight will be!

Pedometer:
Dreadful!
Water: Inconsistent and only 3l’sToning:
None
92 days down, 8 to go.

2006-08-19T13:02:00.000-07:00

Saturday 19th August

Today was great. The party was enjoyable and despite the forecast we got a break in the weather so the kids were outside for a lot of the party. Doing the food was not the chore it was yesterday because there were no cooking smells to drive me wild with desire!

Although I stuck to the packs and didn’t cheat, everything else diet wise went down the tubes! My water consumption didn’t even meet the minimum, the pedometer showed the worst ever results, true to form I didn’t do any toning. But given all that I have been on the go from 8am-8pm and am absolutely shattered!

I must do better tomorrow.

Pedometer: 3254
Water: 3l’s and as inconsistent as can be!
Toning: None
91 days down, 9 to go. Single figures at last!

2006-08-18T14:37:00.000-07:00

Friday 18th August

Today saw me in the kitchen cooking up some party food for my daughter’s birthday party tomorrow. I was very good and didn’t pick although the pastry was really calling to me. Tomorrow will be just as hard as I open all the packets and lay out the food not to mention preparing all the fruit which is what I had be hanging out for up until the tough day I had yesterday.

I think I know the problem, I had only had 1 of the 3 food packs I should have had by then and so I have to admit that I was very naughty and then not had 2 LL bars but I also made both into biscuits. It got me through though and I don’t regret the choice I made given the situation I was in.

I remember back to my dreams of a summer garden party for my daughter where I would be playing lady muck in a summer dress for a lazy garden party and sat around chatting with the adult whilst the kids amused themselves in the paddling pool or on the bouncy castle and other outdoor toys. The party tomorrow will be very different as a 70-80% chance of rain is predicted so we will have 12 2-4 year olds in the house needing to be entertained for 2 ½ hours! I’ll be in my combats and brown t-shirt as they are comfy as well as being the most flattering things I own, it will be no where near to being the lazy garden party in a floaty chic summer dress I dreamt of!

I had a quick skim back through my blog to remind myself how far I have come both in terms of weight and in my attitude and this is a quote from 27th May – having completed one week on LL.

“I am hoping to lose 4lb over the 3 stone predicted loss on the foundation stage so that I can be 12st 13lbs. It sounds a lot better than 13 stone!”

I passed that milestone on 1st August with 5 weeks to spare! I might even have lost 4 ½ stone and be 11st 10lbs by the end of the foundation stage! At any rate I will be into the 11’s as opposed to into the 12’s and I could never have dreamt that was possible when I started LL and if somebody had told me that it was then I would have been very angry and upset at the sick joke they were playing on me.

I went to Asda tonight and tried on some more size 12’s. Again I got them on and could just about do them up as my dough belly is very good at moving upwards but they did look funny. Mind you, given the state of half the women in my town with their muffin tops it must be the fashion to go for a size smaller than you are and then have the excess spilling over the top!

I also tried on a lovely stretchy dress in a size 14 which clung as far as the hips and then just hung below the knees. It looked good on me (if you ignored the fact that my black pants should have been white!) which is amazing for a few reasons: I don’t do ‘girly’ stuff, I don’t show my legs, the material clung and it still looked good. I am very tempted to get it in the next size down for my final size and force hubby to take me out to a restaurant when I can eat again. Shame we have no money again this month what with my LL and the monsters birthday.

Pedometer: 4,612 Terrible!!!
Water: 6l’s and consistent
Toning: None
90 days down, 10 to go.

2006-08-17T12:48:00.000-07:00

Thursday 17th August

I had yet more serious suggestions made to me today from concerned friends that I should not lose any more weight but I have found a way with dealing with this quickly and effectively without offending anyone. I tell them that as LL requires a medical every 4 weeks to allow you to continue and that my doctor would not sign the form to give the go ahead for the next 4 weeks if I were to try to get too thin I have no concerns about losing too much weight as I can rely on his professional and objective opinion. This puts an end to the debate as there is nothing that can be said to contradict that!

I had a lovely walk with my daughter until it was cut short because she was naughty, the walk helped to put a few steps on the pedometer and when she starts school in September the ½ mile journey to school twice a day will mean that I will be walking 2 miles a day 5 days a week. I might even consider jogging the legs I don’t have her with me as ½ a mile is nothing – wouldn’t have said that 3 months ago as running wasn’t something I would have wanted to do!

I still can’t help trying to predict what my final weight will need to be, if I knew this then it would be so much easier for me as I would have a target to work towards but the not knowing is really difficult given my love of control. I can be flexible, I can be flexible, I can be flexible….!

By my reckoning I should be starting management by about 9th October. Having read a heartfelt post on the weight loss forum by a lady in management who confirms the LL assistant’s assertion that you must get to goal before starting management so that you can concentrate on maintaining your weight rather than still trying to lose, I will be looking to get to goal and then do at least 1 more week solely on the packs to allow a bit for the weight I will stick back on when my body replenishes it’s glycogen levels.

On reflection, I know I predicted last week as being a slow weight loss week given the 3 week cycle my body was following but having gone back on the pill and had the required week’s break this month, my period has returned to the 4 week cycle I was used to pre-diet. For this reason I think there is a possibility that next weigh in might be the slow one. Although next week is our last meeting I still have the week to complete to be at the 100 days so there is still the possibility of reaching the 4 ½ stone loss mark (11st 10lbs for that) at the completion of the 100 days. My first development meeting falls on this day so I am looking forward to the result of that weigh in for the final result of the 100 days foundation stage. LL say that on average you can expect to lose a stone a month so I have done really well even if I don’t lose anymore before now and then but it is always good to hope for higher. My ‘after’ picture will be taken at the meeting on Tuesday and my hair appointment make in readiness. I just need to make it plain to her that I want a natural yet neat ‘daytime’ look not a solid and complicated night time look.

Pedometer: 10,738
Water: 6l’s and consistent
Toning: None
89 days down, 11 to go.

2006-08-16T14:24:00.000-07:00

Wednesday 16th August

Today was poor for activity and toning as I took my daughter to Play Shack and spent the day sat on my bum while she played with her friends!

The water consumption was good though so at least I got something right.

Today was the day where everyone wanted to know the details of LL with a view to either considering it themselves or recommending to others that need to shift a bit of weight. Compliments came in thick and fast today and were very welcome!

I also floated the idea with the owner about wanting to work there when my daughter goes to school full time at the end of October so I am considering job options, a weird prospect after nearly 5 years of not working.

Pedometer: 5,011
Water: 7l’s and consistent
Toning: None
88 days down, 12 to go.

2006-08-16T12:45:00.000-07:00

Tuesday 15th August

I went to see the nurse to get my blood pressure checked and it is now within the normal range at 110/80 with a 60 pulse.

I also cleaned out the chickens today which involved bagging up 400l’s of woodchips and taking them down the dump, buying another 400l’s of woodchips and getting them up to the run and then spreading them out. This took the best part of 4 hours in total and I took my pedometer off for this because it kept falling off and not a lot of steps were involved anyway. Then my daughter and I went on a 2 hour walk which then helped the pedometer along.

The LL meeting was nice but a bit sad because although it is the last meeting of the group next week 2 of the ladies will miss it because they are off on holiday.

I weighed in at a touch under 12st 2lbs so I’ll call it 12st 2lbs which takes my over-all LL loss to 4st 2lbs. Hopes of a 5lb loss for the coming week are a bit futile considering that the last 3 weeks have all been 4 ½ lbs but it would be nice to have a nice round 4 ½ stone as my loss on the foundation stage. I should at least be in the 11’s by the end of the foundation which I never dreamed would be possible when I started out.

The other thing that was mentioned at the LL meeting is that you need to lose enough to take you under your target weight because when you start eating again then your glycogen levels will be topped up and this will account for 4-8lbs of weight gain. I still have at least 1 ½ stone to go.

Pedometer: 12,751
Water: 5l’s and consistent
Toning: None but cleaning out the chickens was more than sufficient toning.
87 days down, 13 to go.

2006-08-14T13:55:00.000-07:00

Monday 14th August

I am not so obsessed with getting to goal; I seem to have settled back into acceptance. What a weird feeling to know that for the first time in since I was a child I will be actually finishing a task without excuses.

I have been moody as hell again for the past few days because TOTM is due and I have retaining water too which hasn’t been helped by the fact that my water consumption hasn’t been very good up until today. So much for the diet putting a squash on the mood swings, this just goes to prove to me that the contraceptive pill I am on is to blame for this. I have an appointment with the nurse just before lunch time tomorrow to do my blood pressure ready for the evening LL meeting, I might see if she knows anything I can do for contraception instead of that pill because the moods are even registering on my consciousness so it must be bad!

My daughter wanted to ride her bike to the park today and we ended up doing a tour of 4 parks this afternoon which meant that my pedometer results are more than acceptable for today, plus we had a fun afternoon.

I’m really looking forward to my meeting tomorrow despite the fact that the weight loss won’t be good this week. It will be the last time I see a couple of the ladies in my group as they are going on holiday and one is doing what she said she would from week 1 and calling it quits after finishing the foundation stage whilst the other will be going on to development the same as I am but to a different meeting time. I am hoping that the ladies will want to meet up outside of LL for a proper chat without time constraints.

Pedometer: Over 11,000 by 9.30pm
Water: 6l’s and fairly consistent
Toning: That’s a point; I’ll let you know tomorrow if I do it!
86 days down, 14 to go. There are only 2 weeks left of the 100 days!

2006-08-14T00:48:00.000-07:00

Sunday 13th August

I couldn’t drink as much as I wanted to yesterday because of the journey to Gloucester and could have had the same thing again today because of the journey to Hereford and then back home but I made a special effort. Life will get in the way and I will need to be able to deal with that.

Hubby and daughter went to the hotel restaurant this morning for their cooked breakfast whilst I lazed in the bath, heaven!

The pedometer and toning went out of the window on both days too as the realities of life impinge on the diet progress. I resent this because I don’t want to be doing this for any longer than I have to.

We spent the day with friends in Hereford and the others had a lovely diner of roast chicken, new potatoes and salad. I made a double chocolate muffin and wasn’t inclined to cheat.

Today was easy in the whole scheme of things with no temptations at all. Roll on the next 6-7 weeks so that I can begin learning to eat again.

Pedometer: 2,293. Very bad – worst day yet.
Water: 5l’s fairly consistent
Toning: None
85 days down, 15 to go.

2006-08-12T09:06:00.000-07:00

Saturday 12th August

The pedometer yesterday ended up at just over 7,000 but this still isn’t good. Last night I decided to do another late night shopping trip to Asda and tried on a pair of size 12 combats which although I could get them on and do them up without pinging the buttons off and breaking the mirror, they were by no means comfortable! Another 4 weeks or so and I’ll be there.

I have been reading up and my theory about dress sizes being bigger is true. Since I was last a size 10/12 the old size 10 is now a size 8 and so my goal of getting to be a comfortable size 12 is in fact the equivalent of being a comfortable size 14 of old. I don’t think that is too far to stretch and in fact it puts a size 10 easily into reach for me.

I also made the fatal mistake of standing on the scales this morning and weighed 12st 4¾lbs so when I get weighed on Tuesday night I can’t expect to lose very much as predicted. Mum was also saying that she thinks it is a matter of lbs to lose rather than stones and that toning up what is left is going to be the key. I’m sort of convinced that by just looking at my tummy there isn’t stones of weight left there but I do think that if you take an inch off everywhere then that soon adds up to stones. I think maybe 10st 10lbs might just do it for me. This way I can aim to stay in the 10’s as my comfort zone. That leaves me about 1 ½ stone to lose and I should be through management in December and ready to start the New Year afresh. I just want to start learning how to eat again.

Pedometer: Won’t be good as we are travelling to Gloucester today
Water: Won’t be good for the same reason
Toning: Won’t happen
84 days down, 16 to go. At least that’s one thing to go in the right direction!

2006-08-11T10:28:00.000-07:00

Friday 11th August

On reflection, yesterday was very useful to me because I now know that the body shape I want to get back to will not be achieved by diet alone and may not be achievable at all. I really need to focus on the sport and toning. I remember making an observation a while back at Romsey Rapids that of those that were slim and wearing bikinis many of them weren’t doing themselves any favours in showing off their slimness because of the saggy skin problem. It gave me hope because I then knew that I could look good in clothes as a slim person even if I had saggy skin. Not all slim people have the perfect body but they make a great coat hanger, I’d be happy with that although my primary reason for losing weight has always been about how I feel and getting back to the lifestyle I used to enjoy as a slimmer person.

I am prepared to be more flexible about my goal weight as long as I can be sure that the want to change the goal is coming from the right motives rather than just wanting to finish a bit sooner. Knowing my weakness of giving up towards the end of a challenge has allowed me to tackle it head on and see just how self defeating it has been. What a waste! Still, I know better now and have the power to change to put some alternative behaviour in place but it will need practice before this new behaviour becomes second nature.

That is going to be the key to success, making the right behaviour and choices my first reaction rather than needing to get some distance to think about thing logically and this won’t come overnight as it requires some reprogramming to change 33 years of habit!

The other thing I really need to change is the amount of time I spend on the computer. I am finding the weight loss forums very inspiring and excellent at keeping me focussed but if I am sat at my computer I am not living my life and I need to see if I can get inspiration from myself for a while.

I have had another ‘fat’ day today and am retaining water like nobody’s business as trips to the loo are less frequent and my size 14 trousers feel tighter than normal across the belly. I have upped my water consumption as a result. At least now I am able to deal with my fatty days by knowing that it is just a feeling that isn’t in proportion with a change in how I look. Anyway, when you have lost nearly 4 stone in such a short space of time then a fatty day is nothing in the scheme of things!

Pedometer: Not good at 5,528
Water: 7l’s and consistent
Toning: 20 mins at 4.40pm
83 days down, 17 to go.

2006-08-10T14:46:00.000-07:00

Thursday 10th August

I do wish our last LL meeting was on the 100th day. It is really disappointing that it isn’t as I would love to see the ladies then and would like to know my completion weight and loss exactly to the day. I might see if I can arrange a pop in for then. Mind you that would still probably be in the evening and our first ever weigh in was in the morning.

I had an interesting talk with one of my friends today who pointed out that the 2 stone I still want to lose would need to come from the waist down to the thighs only and that 2 stone is a lot to lose from just that limited section of my body so I may well have to stop before then. I decided to show her what needed to go and so flopped my belly out and leant forward so it did its’ dangling trick and she said that in all honesty I still have a self image problem because the dangly belly isn’t down to carrying much more extra weight and more to do with toning up and doing exercise so the heavier end of the BMI scale might well be what suits me. Given that this is another stone away, I would be a size 12 at 11st 5lbs anyway. We’ll see when I get there. It really depends on whether any remaining weight lost come off my problem areas or the areas that I am happy with. If I were in completely in proportion with my hips and bust then I would actually stop now and say bollocks to the BMI!

I also nipped into Pilot to see just how far off of being in a size 12 combats I really am. I think another stone would do it comfortably although I have been informed that Pilot come up as one of the smaller cuts on the high street.

It was a very interesting afternoon all in all.

Pedometer: Good 10,541 by 5.40pm without even thinking about it.
Water: 6l’s fairly consistent
Toning: None
82 days down, 18 to go.

2006-08-09T13:49:00.000-07:00

Wednesday 9th August

The meeting last night really helped me to find my focus again. It has taken the edge off all those feelings that were beginning to overwhelm me. Although I still wish that I were at goal weight to begin eating again, I am not willing to compromise on my goal weight to begin eating a few weeks early because I know from those on the weight loss forums that have done just that that they have regretted it eternally.

The meeting last night basically dealt with the concept of delayed gratification for increased satisfaction. For example it takes time and money to learn to drive but it is worth investing both for the delayed pay out. This was particularly apt given the week I have had where I have been obsession about joining in again! There is homework to chart the time I spend in any given day doing tasks that give instant gratification, am still trying to master or are purely pleasure. I don’t think the homework will be of particular use to me because the thrust of what the topic was hit home straight away last night. Still, I will make sure I do my homework even though it will show up just how much time I spend sat at my laptop and that is a scary prospect!

Could I have lost 4st on LL by my next weigh in? It stands at 3st 11lbs to date so only 3lbs to go to meet that target. My weight loss has seemed to go in 3 week cycles and this cycle puts next week as being my slow weight loss week but then I was having a period every 3 weeks and although I have started on the pill again and this is my second pack, I did take the pill right through my last one so the 3 week cycle wasn’t extended to 4 weeks, this month should be different but it will be interesting to see. On my last slow weight loss week I lost 1.5lbs which puts me only 1.5lbs off my 4st target loss. I need to concentrate on doing the pedometer, water and toning to get the best weight loss possible this week. The weight loss has definitely slowed down as I have been losing the weight but I am delighted with my results and with the amount I have learnt about myself in the time I have been doing LL.

I expect to have to do about 8 weeks on development to get me to 10st 4lbs which puts my start date of management at 20th October and the finish of management at 12th January although you can continue to go after that at no charge and you are not expected to buy anything.

I’m not as excited at the thought of management as I was and this is because I am now facing the task in hand which is to continue solely on the packs until I am at my goal weight. I need to concentrate my mind and energy on this. It looks like thanks to LL, this could be the first medium/major task that I will see through to the end. This will be a major turning point in my life that is at least on a par if not surpasses the weight loss itself. If I can break the cycle of giving up for fear of failing then who knows what I will be able to achieve with the rest of my life. I’m very excited by the thought, the sky’s the limit!

Pedometer: 9,468 without thinking about it
Water: 5l’s and fairly consistent
Toning: None
81 days down, 19 to go. Yippee I’m in the teens!

2006-08-08T15:30:00.000-07:00

Tuesday 8th August

I was woken this morning by a nightmare that has really shaken me up. It starts off where hubby and I are driving and talking as usual when he made a comment that ‘perhaps I should just eat normally instead of just getting away with the bear minimum’ and then did a false laugh. I in my usual way say ‘I beg your pardon, what did you just say?’ at which point he knows he has offended me because my tone is very thick with anger but repeats what he said anyway and we are both looking for a fight. I tell him that if he actually bothered to look at what I ate he would see that I ate loads but that is tended to be the right stuff and that I now have a healthy attitude to food which is more than I can say for him because he still hasn’t got a fucking clue! At which point I get out of the car which has stopped at this point (luckily), slam the door and start walking home feeling extremely guilty that my daughter was sitting in the back witnessing this exchange and that I been so touchy about it because it had touched a nerve and I obviously wasn’t as ‘together’ in my head as I thought despite not needing to struggle to get my nutrition right. When I finally get home I find he has locked me out and my car has gone as well as well as his and that he has gone away and taken our daughter with him. My immediate hot thoughts are concern for the welfare of our daughter because he has never lived up to my standards of what a meal should consist of and doesn’t provide a routine so she knows where she stands. That is the worst bit of the dream for me because in it I don't trust my hubby to look after our daughter and am not at all upset about him being gone, just angry. Before I know it what was an irritated exchange of words between a hubby and wife in a pretty good marriage has escalated into divorce and me criticising his parenting skills and being frightened for the future of our daughter. It was an awful way to wake up and I am still shaken now.What I am getting from this nightmare is that I need to be careful about being the controlling parent to ‘make’ others start to work through their own food problems in the way that I have been so lucky enough to be able to do and that this will be a lifelong struggle. I need to stand back and try to lead by example and hope that others can follow. I need to be careful that I don’t alienate others by being too zealous and extreme in my views on 'bad' food and try to strike a balance. I see this dream as a warning and am grateful for it even though I am now having a very low day.

I’m looking forward to the meeting tonight, hope it is a toughie. I’m looking forward to catching up with the ladies especially the ones that couldn’t make it to last weeks meeting. Trouble is that I am getting obsessed by my weight again, what I might be and how long I predict I might need in development. Could I be in the 11’s by the end of the 100 days? Touch and go.

Please let me join the real world again soon. I don’t want to eat again so I can have the naughty stuff, I just want salad, fruit, veg and a bit of protein so I can eat with my family again and get stuck into doing new healthy eating recipes and get out of the family favourites rut! I want to eat with my daughter and husband again. I don’t want my daughter to think that living on food packs is the norm.

Having realised what I actually look like thanks to my shopping trip on Wednesday, when I look in the mirror now it is like seeing an old (but not so much of the ‘old’ thank you) friend again. This is more or less the me I knew from before but that people who met me post weight gain could never see. How I look now is roughly what I used to be like give or take 1 ½ stone or so and with the help of the counselling I am getting back to my old adventurous, confident self too which puts me firmly in the danger zone for giving up!

It is from this week on that what I have learnt so far in the counselling is being put firmly to the test. I wish in a way that I thought I was still an 18 so that I wouldn’t be thinking that giving up now wouldn’t be so bad but I know this is just me wishing my problem away rather than actually dealing with the here and now.

I know I will have to monitor my weight carefully for the rest of my life but I really do feel that at the same time as losing the weight, I have made a lot of the necessary changes to ensure that my attitude has changed and the weight has a better chance of staying off. Plus I am more in tune with my body. I know my weight will continue to fluctuate for the rest of my life but I am fairly confident that I won’t let things get out of hand again because I now address reasons for binging and over eating in a more practical way, it is hard to do this though and what will happen when food does become an option for me again?

All I can do is wish the time past and pray that I find the strength to carry on.

The other thing of note is that I spoke to the flying lesson people today and if I weighed 11st and we had a morning flight so a full tank of fuel had to be allowed for then I could have a passenger of 11st. If the flying lesson was later in the day so there wasn’t a full tank of fuel then I could have a 13 stone passenger with me. That isn’t very heavy for a bloke is it? I’m disappointed that my hubby can’t be with me but I think what I will do is have my lesson, see how big the seats in the plane are and then get him one of his own booked for xmas if I think he wouldn’t feel too uncomfortable about his size. Actually talking to the lady has made the flying lesson a reality and now I have the embarrassment of asking my friends their weight! I might just go on my own as I have always been a bit of a loner anyway.

Later on
I just came back from my LL meeting and am fully back to my old self again and 100% committed. I’ll do the details tomorrow as it is late.

Pedometer: 9,751
Water: 6l’s and consistent.
Toning: 10 mins in the afternoon.
80 days down, 20 to go.

2006-08-07T15:26:00.000-07:00

Monday 7th August

I am really looking forward to this weeks weigh in and I have never before needed it to be a goodie otherwise as much as I do now otherwise I’m going to be on such a downer. I don’t want to be on development for any longer than I have to be. I just want the rest of my life to start. The count down to the end of the foundation stage is good to get me past the first time goal but I am going to be on this for about another 7 weeks after that so abstinence will stretch on for another 10 weeks in total which is a heck of a long time.

Doing a VLCD gives you fast weight loss but not fast enough for my liking. Mind you what did I think was going to happen? I had approximately 6 stone to lose when I started LL, how could I have abused my body and mind in that way?

I just hope that when I get into the 11’s it will prove to be enough and the 10st 3lbs target I set myself for a nice even target of 6 stone loss will be unrealistic. I want to be a size 12, that is my aim but at what weight will I comfortably be a size 12? I’m thinking that around 10st 7lbs might be about right with a 3lb comfort zone around that in which my weight can fluctuate.

I took the time today to look into the flying lesson as a little pick me up. I asked about weight restrictions as I really want hubby to share this with me as he has been pretty good throughout my LL struggles and he is losing weight and inches too, even if the results have been eclipsed by my dramatic ones. It can’t be easy for him.

Pedometer: Crap! Just over 6,000.
Water: Excellent. &l’s and consistent
Toning: 20 mins before bed as needed to given the pedometer!
79 days down, 21 to go. 3 weeks today till the end of foundation but only 2 weeks 1 day until the last weigh in and ‘after’ photo!

2006-08-06T12:29:00.000-07:00

Sunday 6th August

I have had an inkling that this week will be quite a good one for weight loss. Mind you, I need to keep in mind that a 1lb loss off a 12st 11lbs body has a far greater impact than a 1lb loss off a 16st 3lb body. Every lb lost will really show so a 2lb loss is just as important at this stage. In fact what I would now consider to be a good loss in terms of percentage is much lower than before. It could well be that although I think I have lost a lot in weight this week, it is quantifiably a lot less than what I would have considered a good loss in previous weeks.

I went to the car booty this morning in an attempt to drag my pedometer results up and to find some size 12’s ready for when I drop to the next size. The pedometer showed over 4,000 steps which was a result but I didn’t find any size 12’s I liked but I did manage to hold back from buying another pair of size 14 combats. I’ll be out of them in another month and I do have those trousers my step mum gave me even if the legs don’t do anything for me.

I had a call from hubby just as my daughter and I were about to go out for a walk, he’s off to Italy for the week for work and he realised once he was at Gatwick that he didn’t have his passport with him. So we had the long drive up from the Hampshire coast and back to contend with. My water consumption hasn’t been the best today. I managed to get in the 6 litres but it was inconsistent. Because I felt my daughter deserved some exercise, we stopped on the way back at the Devils Punchbowl and had a walk there. That and the car booty this morning served to get me my 10,500 steps. I still keep thinking of food and this morning when I was doing breakfast for hubby and daughter, I put my finger in my mouth without thinking when I got some sauce on it. I can safely say that this is the first time I have tasted conventional food since I started LL and I wasn’t that fussed by it although I was shocked that after all this time I haven’t broken the habit. Oh well, nothing to beat myself up over. I am looking forward to the weigh in on Tuesday. I must get through not only the 100 days but also the development stage to get me to my ideal weight and not sabotage myself for once in my life.

Pedometer: 10,711
Water: 6l’s and inconsistent.
Toning: 10 mins in the morning, 10 in the evening.
78 days down, 22 to go.

2006-08-05T13:39:00.000-07:00

Saturday 5th August

There is no doubt that the past few days since finding out that I am already a size 14 have actually been the hardest of my diet so far. I wanted this to be over, I’m getting bored with it and the temptation has been to listen to my chatterbox telling me that as I am already a size 14 I must be acceptable now and just to go straight on to management after the foundation. This week has been the first real immergence of my chatterbox as it has been very quiet before as I have been either in adult or adaptive child mode.

The first part of today has been a more positive day for me. I need to focus on my waist size because no matter what the rest of me measures at 33” my waist is hardly what you would describe as slim and it fact poses additional health risks as the accepted recommended maximum is 32”. My toning exercises are focusing on my torso now as this is the place I need to lose the most from. I would like to be a maximum of 28” which equates to a size 12.

Hubby and I took our daughter out to a place with lakes, a miniature steam railway and a play park. I really enjoyed it as we ran after the trains and climbed in the play park. Unfortunately whilst we were out I started to feel very dodgy indeed, so much so that I broke out in a sweat and thought I would pass out. I then couldn’t walk back to the train and thought I would be sick. I was really worried because I thought I was going to throw up and didn’t think I could make it back to the car. I don’t know how we got home but hubby was wonderful and put me to bed and switched the aircon on to make me comfortable. I must have slept on and off for about 3 hours and kept trying to sit up but having to lie back down again immediately to stop myself from passing out. In the end I had to make a dash to the bathroom for the loo. Whilst there I had that familiar feeling of passing out and then I threw up in a big way in the sink. I felt better immediately after that but absolutely knackered so I went back to bed again.

All I can say is that it is a bloody good job that I am so healthy and getting all the vitamins and minerals from my pack because within 5 hours I feel almost back to normal again. None of these 24/48 hours bugs for me.

Pedometer: 3,926 but as I spend most of the day in bed that can be forgiven
Water: 6l’s and consistent for the time I wasn’t in bed
Toning: 5 mins in the morning but none in the evening as this is just asking for trouble!

77 days down, 23 to go.

2006-08-04T13:40:00.000-07:00

Friday 4th August

I am determined to sort out my pedometer problems after today. Whilst the weight loss forum are a great learning tool and motivator they do make you immobile which isn’t good. I need to think of somewhere to drag my daughter out to tomorrow to take me away from the computer. I’m going to try and limit myself to 2 sessions a day because I know I have a problem and spend too much time on it.

Whilst I have been looking forward to when the first 100 days are up, I am feeling this inexplicable feeling of nervousness. I’m sure if it is because I fear the self sabotage element of my personality creeping in, I am putting too much pressure on myself to try and lose as much as I can in the foundation stage so I can limit my time in development and because I am scared of compromising on my goal because I am in a size 14 now. I’ll have to have a think about best I can deal with this head on.

The other thing is that now the 100 days are close to being up I should be booking the flying lesson but as my resolve to continue on LL is being tested I have decided to change this to when I get to my goal weight.

I keep imagining eating again and it is getting to be something of an obsession, nothing I can’t handle but more of a problem than it has ever been. Please let me lose this weight quickly so that I can start the management programme.

I decided to dig out the body fat monitor today and the results were 33.6% fat 27.8 BMI 1634 cal. I wish I could work out how to get my previous results but I think it was 43% before.

Pedometer: Poor again at only just over 7,000!
Water: 7l’s and consistent
Toning: 5 mins in the morning and the rest at 7pm again.

76 days down, 24 to go.

2006-08-03T12:14:00.000-07:00

Thursday 3rd August

Today has been a non-day really. Nothing of note happened and I’ve been bored but couldn’t arsed to do anything about it, today would have been the sort of day where I would normally have grazed all day.

I was naughty today. I went round to my mum’s in the morning after my usual 2 pints of water and weighed in at 12st 8lbs, the first go was 12st 7lbs so I retested and was a lb heavier. If I’d been in the nude and not had that water then what would I have been? I suppose based on that then I would only have about 1 more stone to lose to get within the ‘normal’ BMI range but I don’t want to be just about normal.

I got another comment today about not needing to lose anymore weight so I flopped my belly out over the top of my combats and said that if you weigh that, that is the weight I still want to lose so yes I do still have a load to go. Point made I feel! The trouble is that as I am getting closer to my goal, so am steadily getting thinner than more and more of the population so when you speak to anyone you are thinner than and you say you want to lose a bit more you are saying in a backhanded way that they are fat! The other problem is that if you choose the right clothes to wear then your dressed body doesn’t resemble your undressed body but people won’t realise that which is the whole idea!

One thing I did notice is that not only do I have cheek bones but they are also starting to get quite a nice shape to them so that was pleasing.

I’m hoping for another reasonable weight loss week this week. I am making an extra effort to focus on drinking consistently, do the exercise and tone for the whole week.

Pedometer: Having said that I have a very lazy day today and by 6.30pm my pedometer still only read 3046 which is crap!
Water: 6l’s and consistent
Toning: Wore wrist weights for most of the day and did more than 20 mins of rubber band at 7pm to try and make amends for the pedometer.

75 days down, 25 to go. Yippee, ¾ of the way through foundation.

2006-08-02T13:49:00.000-07:00

Wednesday 2nd August

I am now introducing a new format to the each day’s entry. The first part is my ramblings about thoughts and feeling and the last is a list of the mundane bits that I need to keep in mind every day.

The pedometer was crap for yesterday at just 7,350 steps by 10.40pm so a walk was needed to bring it up to the 10,500 I have pledged every day because jogging on the spot for that many steps wouldn’t have been too good, but I didn’t do either. I couldn’t be bothered. I am a morning person and if I can’t get my activity and exercise in during the day then I have a big problem with motivating myself in the evening.

The meeting last night was nice but devoid of people due to holidays, illness and one thing or another. The topics didn’t really hit home with me like last weeks did but then I’m sure that in time I will get the benefit from it. We did have a lovely time though and my LighterLife counsellor again ran through the options of what happens after foundation. At least one of the ladies from my group will go onto the same development group as I want to go to so that will be nice but I hope more will too.

Other news from the meeting is that for the first time in over a month, my pee stick went pink! I also lost 4.5lbs this week to take me well into the 12’s at 12st 11lbs. This takes my average over the last 2 weeks to 3lb a week. I knew the weight loss would slow down but hoped it wouldn’t! In the previous 2 weeks the average was 5lb.

I could be just creeping into the 11’s by the time of my first development group meeting on 1st September. It is going to be touch and go though as the weight loss seems to be really slowing down now based on the last 2 weeks.

As part of my homework from last nights meeting, I went into Southampton and visited the shops. I started in M&S and picked out a lovely pair of silk pyjama style trousers in a 14 & 16. The 14’s fitted. So I ventured over to the Per Una section and picked out a tailored jacket and trousers, very girly & very chic and took a size 14 & 16 into the changing room with me. The 14 fitted but my dangly tummy didn’t give the best shape but that’s what supportive underwear was invented for so I’m not worried!

From there I went into Kew but looking in through the door I nearly bottled actually going in. When I got inside I had to concentrate on breathing slowing and walking slowing round and kept repeating in my head ‘I have a right to be here, I fit in now’. The 2 shop assistants looked very young and trendy and I felt very intimidated by the whole feel of the place, the bright lighting, the clothes, everything! As I was browsing one of the girls side hi to me in a very natural way and gave me a lovely engaging smile. I found some cargo trousers and bravely picked out a size 14 & 16 and made my way towards the changing rooms which were next to the counter. There I asked the second girl if I could try them on. She took the items and hung them up in a changing room and said that I needed anything then all I had to do was ask…(sorry, I had to break off there for a bit as I am in tears writing this). I got in the changing room and tried the size 16’s first which were too big. So I tried the 14’s and they were wearable but would be perfect by next week. I came out of the changing room and felt guilty telling the girls that I didn’t want to buy either of them and so I tried to justify this by explaining that I had lost a lot of weight and this was my first trip out high street shopping. Then I did my usual trick of getting over emotional and thanked them both for being so kind and explained that I had felt so intimidated I nearly hadn’t ventured in. They were both lovely and ignored my tears and snotty nose and said that when I felt ready that I should come back and that they would dress me as they love doing that. That just put the icing on the cake for me, I was good enough not only to go back but also worthy of getting some attention and being dressed. It is my dream to be Trinny and Susannah’d!

From there I went to Kaliko, East, Wallis, Benetton, H&M, Next, Dorothy Perkins, and Warehouse and picked out a 14 & 16 in cargo trousers in each accommodate my thighs. Of those only in Warehouse and was I a 16, the rest were all 14’s apart from Benetton when I couldn’t get the 16’s much past my knees, no way that they were labelled correctly but the quality was so crap that it is on a par with Asda so I’ll just go there and pay less. Apart from actually getting me to realise that yes I am indeed a size 14, the other benefit was that I actually got to see what sort of clothes and prices each did. I hadn’t a clue you see! It’s a real bugger that I’m not at goal now because all the shops had sales and I could have bought everything I tried on! Mind you was liberating after a while as I just wandered in, located the cargo trousers, tried them on and went back out again. If I had actually been shopping to buy things then I would have been overwhelmed. I now know that my style hasn’t changed from 13-14 years ago. I will still need to go for cargo, pyjama style, relaxed cut, classic or whatever you want to call it. I can’t do the straight leg styles because of my legs. Or I could do skirts of coarse but I never did skirts when I was thin before so that will be something to consider.
Will I have to revise my goal weight of 10st 2lbs? What size would that take me to?

What a day. Thank you again LL!

Pedometer: 9,500 so jogged on the spot to make up to 10,500
Water: 6l’s and relatively consistent.
Toning: None by 9.45pm so assuming none today.

74 days down, 26 to go.

2006-08-01T14:46:00.000-07:00

Tuesday 1st August

Well I’m yet another day down on LL and I really am stunned not only at how quick the 73 days have passed but also that I haven’t strayed in all that time.

Everybody’s initial reaction when I tell them what I am doing is to say ‘I couldn’t do that as I’d miss my food too much’ ‘What! More than somebody that was 7 ½ stone over weight would?’ I would say. It is so much easier to abstain from conventional food completely than to try and monitor and limit it. This is a concept that someone who has never had weight issues can’t get their head around because they don’t have any problems in that direction which is why they are thin! Those poor sods that have never given a very low calorie diet wouldn’t be able to relate to this either so I am in a very exclusive club.

I look forward to eating conventional food again, even the fish food smelt nice tonight, but I have to remember that I will find it difficult to monitor/limit what I eat in the same way that I found it difficult to stick to the healthy eating/lifestyle thing in the first place. The difference now is that I will be armed and ready to recognise/deal with many of the behaviours that I know I can expect that got me into the obese club in the first place. I will also have had about 160 days or so to break old habits, form new ones and retrain my taste buds. Anything has to be enjoyable after 5 months on food packs doesn’t it?

I’m looking forward to my meeting tonight and go there knowing that yet again this week I have worked really hard on the thought records. Also, having thought about last week’s topic about the games people play, I mainly start as the rescuer or the victim. Starting as the rescuer causes me the most stress though and having had a moment of revelation back on last Wednesday that when you get control over your own life you don’t need to control anyone else's I think this has to be a step in the right direction. I know from that that what I thought was just me being kind and trying to help was actually me trying to assert some sort of control in my life and seek approval and attention. The danger now is that in an attempt to cut out this controlling behavior I stop actually being of any use to anyone for fear of taking over! Striking the balance will be hard.

It also struck me today as I was shopping I actually fit in with the general female population, if anything I am a bit slimmer given that the average size of the UK woman is size 16 and 5’ 5” and I am a 16/14 and 5’ 7”. I have a lot of toning to do as I need to bring down my body fat ratio to about 22%. I’ll get weighed tonight and then dig out the body fat monitor again, I think I’ll test once a month.

73 days down, 27 to go. Less than 4 weeks left till the end of foundation!

2006-07-31T11:56:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-07-30T12:46:00.000-07:00

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!

2006-07-29T15:22:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-07-28T13:06:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-07-27T13:03:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-07-26T13:35:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-07-25T14:51:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-07-25T00:49:00.000-07:00

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!

2006-07-25T00:34:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-07-22T15:39:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-07-21T16:08:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-07-20T15:51:00.000-07:00

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!

2006-07-19T13:38:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-07-18T15:12:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-07-17T14:38:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-07-16T16:07:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-07-15T21:16:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-07-14T14:35:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-07-13T13:46:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-07-13T02:16:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-07-11T15:45:00.000-07:00

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!

2006-07-10T13:46:00.000-07:00

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!

2006-07-10T01:10:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-07-08T11:30:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-07-07T14:42:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-07-06T13:21:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-07-05T12:42:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-07-04T15:12:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-07-03T15:36:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-07-02T12:38:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-07-01T16:34:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-07-01T06:00:00.000-07:00

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.

2006-06-29T13:13:00.000-07:00

Thursday 29th June

I am beginning to think about getting some elasticated waist size 16’s so that they will do me when I then drop to a size 14 too. I never thought I’d be buying elasticated waists ever again because they allow your weight to fluctuate without causing you discomfort in your clothing but I can’t afford to keep buying new trousers at the rate I have been going through the sizes. I have been lucky so far in that I was a 22/24 so I had both those sizes and already had some size 18’s in my wardrobe that I had bought on a previous weight loss foray ready to shrink into before I gave up so they weren’t worn. Not only that but my mum gave me a couple of pairs too, one of which I have practically lived in but these kept falling down when I was running round Play Shack with my daughter so I do think it is time to look for a couple of pairs of elasticated 16’s!

I know I could probably do without new clothes and just let my existing ones hang on me but to be honest, if you have new clothes that fit you people notice the weight loss more and the ‘strokes’ I get from this are a valuable commodity in my motivation. I might have a look round today if I get a chance.

This weekend is going to be a very testing time for me. My daughter has a birthday party to go to on Saturday which shouldn’t be too much of a problem and then we have a BBQ to go to as it is the birthday of one of hubby’s friends. Sunday we have another BBQ to go to. This weekend will be the first time that I am being tested around food in a social setting and not just that, I will be tested by my favourite foods. Not only that, with BBQ’s the food is there all the time so there is no specific eating time for me to have to geld my resolve in after which I can relax, the whole of each day will be hard and I am a very worried. I need to make sure that hubby supports me on this and if I show signs of cracking I will have to rely on him to remind me of my resolve and put a bit of time between the urge and the action so that I can remember exactly why I am doing this rather than acting on a whim and regretting it.

The last time I went to a BBQ on 14th May I was meant to be dieting although I wasn’t on LL then and I ended up ‘pigging out’ on meat and strawberries and cream. I really want to stay on my diet and continue being a success. Everything is screaming at me that I should go to the BBQ’s but after hubby’s horrible comments on Sunday that we can’t do anything ‘until I have broken the back of this diet’ and pointing out how difficult it is to socialise because everyone expects to be fed, I just felt that he was waiting for me to say no I couldn’t go so that he could be the martyr and say that he couldn’t go if I couldn’t go because he would feel awkward if I wasn’t there. To my mind, a challenge had been thrown down by him.

This is exactly why I have been asking him to ask people to ours. That way if I am hosting, we can make people aware of how things will be so they know to eat before they come to us, I then have no temptations and hubby doesn’t feel he is missing out because we would have a good social life albeit without food playing a part.

Part of me is thinking that I should be considering what would be best to ‘cheat’ on so that it causes the least damage. I do not want to come out of ketosis and have to go through the hunger and trials of the first 4 days of LL again. But on the other hand, this is like admitting defeat before I have even got there! I haven’t as yet been tempted to cheat so what makes me think that I am going to start now? I know that I have been prone to self sabotage when things go well in the past but I am armed with this knowledge and that’s the difference. I have learnt so much on LL already that I do have a great chance of getting through this and not feeling like I’m having my teeth pulled!

I think the best I can do is to arm my self with a short letter to myself for this weekend to remind myself just how far I have come and to give me strength to resist if I need it. I can always disappear off to the loo to escape and read it if I need to. I’ll also give my LL counsellor a call for hints and tips on how to deal with the BBQ’s because she may well have some useful tips I haven’t thought of. If we were going to one of my friends there wouldn’t be so much of a problem as they all know I am on food packs and water only so there would be no explaining my actions whist they are stood there with food doing what I am rejecting. I don’t want to be going through the explaining stage again, this is why I was upfront and open about what I was doing with all my friends and family from the start.

40 days down, 60 to go.

2006-06-29T01:42:00.000-07:00

Wednesday 28th June

Not a lot to report today. The pedometer was over 10,000 steps for today. Water consumption was the standard 6 litres. No temptations, no new insights.

39 days down, 61 to go.

2006-06-28T00:20:00.000-07:00

Tuesday 27th June

Today has been a busy day for me. I went straight out this morning to my daughter’s nursery to continue the task of computerising the library. After nursery it was on to daughters swimming class and then to my step mum’s after that. From there it was down to my LL meeting and back to my step mum’s to collect my daughter after that. My water consumption was as per plan today so no problems there.

On the way to nursery I popped into my mum’s house and weighed myself having had my usual 2 pints of water to ensure a consistent result. I weighed in at 14st 1½lbs or 197.5lbs, I’m less than 200lbs! I only need to lose another 2lbs to get me into the 13’s. I’m trying not to be too blasé about these stunning results but it is difficult not to come to expect them now. I have lost 29lbs since I started on LL on 20th May.

I had previously hoped to be 13st8lbs so only ‘over-weight’ as opposed to ‘obese’ by the 18th July so I need to lose 8lbs ish in 3 weeks to reach that goal so this is still doable.

As I have already weighed myself today and told my group last week that I know longer want be told my weigh in weight, I no longer feel apprehensive about the weigh in and conversations regarding it and this is the most relaxed I have been about my meeting in the whole time I have been doing LL. Not weighing myself at all was my original intention but having done things this way round I now know that my anxiety about the weigh in was purely down to the awkwardness I felt about somebody having a great weight loss and somebody else’s disappointment when they aren’t losing what they had hoped. Weighing myself each week IS a great motivator no matter how much I try to convince myself that I don’t it!

I haven’t had a chance to complete my ‘stroking’ homework from last weeks meeting but last weeks meeting was enough to focus my mind and I now accept compliments in the manner in which they were given and make a point of smiling, making eye contact and beaming my head off to show how delighted I am that somebody has taken the time to compliment me. The initial compliment has been a real boost but the way in which I am now able to react to them has certainly been a change for the better. I will be coming out of the other side of the foundation course a happier, much improved and more confident person with the added bonus of being smaller and lighter!

The only little downer which I could do with combating is that I only seem to get or remember ‘strokes’ regarding my weigh loss rather than who I am and how I behave. O well, can’t have everything and I am still smiling despite having just typed this so it can’t be that bad. Maybe I just notice the weight loss ones because they are coming from acquaintances who have nothing to gain from them. More probably though, I probably remember them because LL is my main focus until I reach my goal of getting my eating habits under control…actually, that’s quite a telling statement to make. Before today I would have typed that my goal was to get to 10st 2lbs and maintain it but now I know that it achieve that goal is purely about gaining control of my eating habits – interesting!

I’m really looking forward to tonight’s meeting to see what other insights I can get into how and why I behave as I do. There is no doubt about it, LL has been the best thing I have ever done if only from a personal development angle!

I have just been working out the weight. I am now 197.5lbs, based on an average loss of 3lb a week I could lose another 26.5lbs to take me to 171lbs or 12st 3lbs but wouldn’t getting into the 11’s after just 100 days be something else!

Later on
It was lovely seeing the ladies in my group again. The meeting was a bit rushed because it started with a recap from us of how we had found things so far and most of us in the group aren’t backwards in coming forwards so it took longer to do than our LL councillor expected and we then had to rush the rest of it. The rest of the meeting I didn’t connect with anyway so I wasn’t bothered about that. My pedometer results were much better than expected at 10,449 steps so that’s surprising and quite a bonus.

I didn’t want to know my weigh in weight and my group know that now so things should be a lot easier in the future.

The other thing of note is that my ketostix wasn’t showing any sign of pink when I first tested so I had to do a second test before going home which then did show pink. I was a bit bemused by this because I hadn’t cheated, I hadn’t been having the water flavourings and I hadn’t just had a bar so it had to be a blip.

38 days down, 62 to go.

2006-06-27T06:52:00.000-07:00

Monday 26th June

I had been seriously considering going onto management straight after completing the foundation stage. I don’t think this is a good idea though because from what I have read on the weigh loss forum I visit, it is more difficult to get back into purely taking the food packs once you have come off them. This purely comes from a place of finding abstinence a bit of a chore at the moment.

I am really looking forward to management now whereas before I was dreading it and thinking I would be out of control when I can start having conventional foods again. Management introduces food types gradually and teaches you how to eat healthily. I don’t think I’ll have much of a problem doing that because hubby and I had been steadily losing weight prior to me starting LL but it will be great to get fresh ideas and to put what I think I know into a format where I know I know it if that makes sense! I’ll have to get used to the new smaller portions though and hope that I have conquered my emotion driven (mainly boredom) binging habits. Having now had no choice but to replace my binging with habits with alternative behaviour such as a bath or the gym should help when it comes to it. Learning through the therapy to rely on myself to make my own happiness rather than waiting for somebody else to do it for me should also help as should recognising the fact that I have always self sabotaged in fear of not being good enough when I have tried my best.

When I start eating again my daughter should be at school fulltime so I will want to work towards starting my own business and finding something productive to do. This should make me more interesting and well rounded (although not in the physical sense!) as a person and give hubby and I more to talk about in the evenings.

I must make sure that I weigh myself every week after management and set a ridged comfort zone inside which my weight can fluctuate without worry. I know it is defeatist but it is comforting to know that should I need to I can go onto Cambridge Diet if my weight falls outside my comfort zone. Having a comfort zone of ½ a stone means that I will never be more than 3 weeks away from getting back to target. I will need to be strict in monitoring myself because I can’t afford to let it slip and wake up being 7 ½ stone heavier again. I know it sounds optimistic but I really can’t see things getting that bad again but then at the moment I don’t have food getting in the way of my thinking do I?

At least losing the weight whilst my daughter is 3-4 means that she won’t remember this dreadful time or analyse what I am doing too closely. At the moment she has been told that mummy is only allowed to eat the food packs the doctor said I can have. She sees them more as medicine rather than introducing the nasty word ‘diet’ to her so early in her life. Losing the weight and getting my eating under control means that I can be her shining example of how to look and what to eat. My watchwords for her will be everything in moderation even if I need to tell her that I don’t like certain foods so that I can avoid my trigger foods.

I will also start doing more with her in getting her to recognise the red, orange and green traffic lights of various foods to help with her understanding of nutrition. It will be a nice accessible way for her to learn the basics that every child should be taught. Cooking from scratch will show her what goes into a dish so that she can appreciate the content of her meals rather than just thinking it comes from a packet and having no idea why or if something is high in fat or sugar. I’m really looking forward to all this.

14,440 steps today so that was good.

37 days down, 63 to go.

2006-06-25T14:00:00.000-07:00

Sunday 25th June

Well I eat my words from yesterday – at least that is not considered cheating on LL! I stayed in bed until nearly 11am doing my logic puzzles and hubby got up at about 10ish and gave our daughter breakfast which was great. Mind you we still didn’t leave until gone 1.30pm. He was using the England world cup match at 4pm as an excuse to go out later despite the fact that I have been out already and it’s dead out there. I do get really upset at how our family days out go. I don’t think it is too much to ask that we actually have a DAY out! I feel really sorry for our daughter that her daddy can’t manage a day out for her. Of course she doesn’t understand any of this and thinks that just going out and spending time together is wonderful but I can’t help get upset because his balance of family life isn’t what I consider to be great not least because he doesn’t tend go to bed much before 1pm and then sleeps for most of the morning. What a waste.

The upshot of me getting up late today was that by 12pm, when I would normally have drunk my first 2 litres, I had only managed ½ a litre and gulped down 2 milkshakes to catch up with my food packs. I just managed 5 litres but it was mainly all in one go.

Also today I was told by my hubby that he couldn’t ask friends round until I had broken the back of this diet as it would be difficult with me on this diet because people would EXPECT to come round and eat. I was really upset by his attitude. What’s wrong with explaining the situation so they know there will be no nibbles or anything? People can come for drinks which is a normal thing to do and they can eat before they come round, they won’t starve for a couple of hours. As I pointed out, this isn’t unreasonable or difficult. He’s a project manager for Christ’s sake so why can’t he think for himself. It’s hardly rocket science and there was no need for him to bring the topic up in the first place and make me feel like shit. Wanker!

I thought the pool would have been a safe enough place away from temptation but the smell of chips and tomato sauce was wafting round the pool. I don’t even particularly like chips but it smelt so nice. I was feeling a bit venerable after the ‘friends’ conversation in the car on the way there and then because I didn’t have my handbag with me, I didn’t have a LL bar with me and because I had hardly had any water compared to normal, I felt empty to start with – my fault entirely. When we got out the pool hubby and daughter ordered a portion of chips and I warned that I might have to go to car when they arrived but when they came out I remembered that I didn’t really like chips after all so it wasn’t too much of a problem although the baguettes at the counter kept calling me.

Then to top it off hubby and daughter baked a cake early evening. I’m glad they did because I feel guilty that I haven’t been cooking with her much so kudos to hubby for attempting to bake with her. When it was in the oven he then went out and I asked him if he would be back in time to get it out of the oven, needless to say he wasn’t so I had the delight of doing this and making sure it was cooked I then went up in the bath to escape the gorgeous smell permeating the house and to distract myself, when I come back downstairs the cake was still out on the kitchen side. Fucking insensitive or what! He doesn’t think. At least he’s away tomorrow night thank god.

Pedometer showed just over 2600 steps but bearing in mind that I was either in bed, in the swimming pool or in the bath, I’m amazed it’s that many.

36 days down, 64 to go. In fact I’m 36% complete!

2006-06-25T04:35:00.000-07:00

Saturday 24th June

Today was a bit of a disaster on the pedometer front. I went round and raked our back lawn and the pedometer didn’t register the steps. I think this is because the skirt I was wearing was far too big so the pedometer didn’t pick the vibrations from my steps. Oh well, I know I did ok today because it still registered over 11,000 steps but this could mean that when my size 18 trousers all start getting far too big my pedometer won’t be as useful to me as it was until I get some size 16’s. At least having the pedometer is making more aware of what activity I do or don’t do in any given day.

I usually hate the weekends as I get so bored but today I decided to not wait for my hubby and I am just going to do what I want to do when I want to do it. I have always used the waiting for hubby reason as an excuse to be pissed off and bored but the truth is that I am responsible for me being bored. From now on I am going to be responsible for making my own happiness so if he does fit into that then who cares!

It might be a bit more difficult tomorrow because we are meant to be spending some time together as a family and going to Romsey Rapids. I get very angry when people do or don’t do things that affect my daughter’s happiness. I’m laying bets on the fact that he won’t be up before 11am and that it will take him at least an hour to get through the bathroom and then another hour before he has had breakfast and done all the bits he wants to do so we can actually leave the house. I hate the fact that this forces me into a position where I have to nag. I don’t enjoy nagging and I resent being placed in that position. As you can tell from that rant, this drives me mad for a number of reasons, not least because we never get a whole family day together.

I hopped on the scales again today and I am stuck on 14st 4lbs. I’m not bothered by that because I am in this for the long haul (although it would be great to see the lbs falling off!) and I know the weight will catch up but the losses will drop to about 3lbs a week which still equates to 1 stone (or 1 dress size) a month. I’m going to keep on weighing myself every week on my mum’s scales because I now they are accurate and I don’t have the pressure because I weigh myself when I want to weigh myself so none of that anxiety around weigh day and I don’t get into the whole ‘what did you lose?’ dialogue which means that somebody is at the bottom of the heap and feeling bad. That bit of the meeting, which although it doesn’t form part of the structure of the meeting still happens whilst everyone is getting weighed, really depresses me.

I’ve completed 5 weeks today on LL and I am only 1lb shy of losing 2 stone since I started on 20th May but I lost another 7lbs between 4th May and 20th May so I am 2st 6lbs lighter than I was just over 7 weeks ago. That’s some going and I am delighted! Only another 4 stone to go now!

As if that wasn’t enough, I have written 30,000 words about my weight loss journey since 4th May too! I’m now wondering if I have the beginnings of a book! I could have losing the weight as the first one and the maintenance of the weight and finding my way in the world of conventional food as the sequel! My god that’s a brilliant idea, I’ve always wanted to write a book and now I’m considering 2!!!

Yes, I can safely say it’s been a better day than yesterday!

35 days down, 65 to go.

2006-06-24T01:38:00.000-07:00

Friday 23rd June

Doing my blog yesterday and posting the progress pictures has made me face up to just how far I have left to go on my weight loss journey. It’s funny because I am looking the best I have in 9 years but now I am actually forcing myself to have pictures taken I am actually aware of how I look and there is no escaping it for me. I feel worse about my body now than I did 2 ½ stone ago. I think that having these progress shots done will help me to continue to my goal rather than thinking at 12 ½ stone at the end of the foundation stage that maybe I’m ok after all. I have to get back to a normal healthy weight which is less than 11st 5lbs and I would love to go back to being a 10/12 or even just a 12 but a 10/12 would be my absolute dream. I’m not sure my body would be able to attain this after having had a child so all I can do is see when I get down there. Even when I was a skinny teenager I was only about 10st 2lbs so I need to be objective about how much weight I can actually drop whist still looking healthy. There’s no point in going bull headed for a set goal weight if it won’t suit me.

It has been a difficult evening again for me. I went up into the bath whilst my daughter and hubby had the meal I cooked for them and because I found things difficult I snapped at hubby. Once I had put the dinner out I told him that I was going straight upstairs because it [the dinner] smelt lovely to which he replied ‘before you go can you just tell me what you think of this top?’ and then started to get it out of a packet! I snapped back ‘can I do it later as I am really having problems here’ and got back (in that disappointed/annoyed voice that I get when I don’t do what he wants which I hate so much) ‘Oh, all right then.’ This left me fuming out loud as I go up the stairs ‘Just a little consideration, that’s all I ask for!’ I wasn’t happy but on reflection I know that he doesn’t do it on purpose, he just doesn’t understand, nobody does fully. Thank god I have my LL group and the forum, everyone understands on there.

8568 steps today until 9.30pm

34 days down, 67 to go.

2006-06-23T01:40:00.000-07:00

Thursday 22nd June

I had another good day today. Excellent water consumption, great results on the pedometer at more than 11,000 steps. Nothing to report!

However, I do have some progress photos taken 1 month after the first lot. I’m still not a pretty site but at least there is some improvement on last month although it is difficult to tell as hubby took the pictures in landscape rather than portrait. The improvement when I am wearing clothes is more obvious.

33 days down, 67 to go.

2006-06-21T13:52:00.000-07:00

Wednesday 21st June

Yesterday I did 10,200 steps exactly. Today at just before 10pm I had only just managed 6800.

I am pleased with the 6.5lbs I lost this week but others were disappointed at only losing 1lb. This only stiffens my resolve to only get weighed every now and again.

I can’t help feeling that in about 2 weeks time I will be in the 13’s despite trying desperately not to think about my weight!

A lady withdrew from the group last night and everyone really felt for her even though we don’t know her reasons for doing so. I really hope that she finds the right answer for her.

Last nights session looked at how our typical day is comprised and got us to consider when our ‘danger’ times were so that when we go back to food, we will have already developed past times and habits to combat the danger. I already knew my danger times so there wasn’t anything new there but it was interesting to see it down in black and white. This makes it more real some how. It is the times of enforced withdrawal that are my triggers which was sometimes when my daughter is at nursery and I am bored and after she has gone to bed when hubby is busy doing something else and I am bored. In the evenings I have already been combating this by doing my blog, having my long soak in the bath and going to the gym. I have also occasionally been doing a bit of housework during the evenings rather than the day.

The ideal situation would be for hubby and I to actually talk all evening like we used to. I’m really looking forward to next year when I can set up my new business as my daughter will be at school so that not only will I be able to bring in an income in my own right, but I will also have something independent to talk about. Not having so much contact with people is the one thing I really miss about being a stay at home mum.

The second topic was about ‘strokes’. This isn’t rude like it sounds but looks at how we receive feedback – mainly compliments – from others and how the way we receive compliments affects the likelihood of receiving more. For instance, if hubby tells me that he is proud of me, I tend to get embarrassed, look away and change the subject. I love it when he says things like that to me but he wouldn’t know that from my reaction. So If I can just stop and think for a moment and then react to reflect the way I feel deep down about it then I stand a better chance of getting more which makes me feel even better in the long run. The better we feel, the more successful we will be in whatever our goals are.

The ‘strokes’ topic is another example of how modifying behaviour can result in improvement and as responding differently to compliments and criticism would not have occurred to me naturally then is just shows how much LL is helping me. I am again thanking my lucky stars that I have found LL and am in a position to finance it.

I went to Asda again today, parked a long way away to get some more steps on my pedometer and bought a size 36B bra (down from a 42B, a orange size 16 top (which I am wearing now) and some pants so I can bung out my size 22/24 ones which keep rolling down!

I also micro-waved a food bar so it turned into biscuits which were very nice so I’ll have to be careful there. I have had a little urge for a decent meal again today. Not enough to tempt me off the straight and narrow but I think this is because I didn’t have my bar until 2.30pm and my water consumption has been poor today. Lesson learnt!

Late night
Ahhhhhhh, what is it with me? I had to feed my mum’s cats tonight and you guessed it, I couldn’t resist standing on the scales. 14st 4lbs which is great but my water consumption has been the lowest it has ever been since starting this crazy diet. I’m sure this is why I have had to be wary around food today.

32 days down, 68 to go.

2006-06-20T15:46:00.000-07:00

Tuesday 20th June

Last nights pampering in the bath had the desired effect and I feel a lot happier today apart from the fact that the hair removing cream that I had no problems with a few ago decided to react with my armpits! There’s no doubt about it, the better the bath is the more hair and gunk there will be left around it when you get out and believe me there was tons – not enough hair to affect my weigh loss unfortunately! I feel great now and have decided that instead of going and getting a facial, I will get my eyebrows shaped instead. See, I am getting more feminine.

The other thing I thought of was measuring my wrist. I knew my pre LL wrist size because it was 7 ¼ inches and most bracelets are 7 ¼ or 7 inches long so I had a job finding any to fit me. Anyway, my wrist is now 6 ½ so most bracelets will now fit me and I am happy.

Well it has been one month on LighterLife. I have never stuck anything out for that long before. Despite all the ups and downs, this has to be the easiest diet I have ever done and is so worth while. I can see how my life if changing already. When I take my daughter to the indoor play centre, not only do I go in and run round with her but I race her and win too! We dance round the kitchen when anything amazing comes on and laugh at ourselves. My hubby is noticing the difference too. The combination of me being smaller and being more confident is having an effect…

I am sleeping better
I am more confident
I feel like a success
My libido has increased
I feel in control
I am taking time to look after me rather than everyone else
My back doesn’t ache like it used to do occasionally
I am more interested in my appearance and mental wellbeing
I am calmer (except around the days I weigh)
I don’t seem to swell up as much as I did except for my fingers.
I never used to go out if it was 23c+ but now I don’t mind 28c.

In short, I feel great!!!!!

Writing this, I am actually looking forward to my weigh although still with some trepidation because I know that it will be an end to the pressure that I am putting on myself. Why the heck I have to put pressure on myself on something I can’t control I can’t understand. Hopefully by the end of the counselling I will.

I went to see my doctor today for my 4 week check up. The first thing he said to me is how amazing I look! He could not have been more supportive and my blood pressure is falling. I told him that I couldn’t thank him enough for pointing me in the right direction and he told me that LL is the only diet he will ever recommend because it deals with how you got yourself in that mess to start off with. I gave him a top quality bottle of wine and made sure that he realised how much of a difference he has made to mine and my hubby’s lives. I couldn’t ask for a better GP!

Later on
I have just got back from my weigh in and I lost 6 1/2lbs off my last weigh in total last Tuesday. I have told my LLC that I don’t want to know how much I weigh every week and she said that I do still need to be weighed but that I just need to remind her that I don’t want to know the result. Tonight’s session was another real eye opener but I’ll write more about that tomorrow when I have had a chance to mull it over and it isn’t so late.

23.5lbs down 60.5lbs to go.

23.5lbs lost to date
3 x 10 weeks remaining = 30lbs
53.5lbs = 3st 11.5lbs predicted loss
16st 3lbs = 227lbs start weight
227 – 53.5lbs = 173.5lbs = 12st 5.5lbs!

31 days down, 69 to go. Yippee, I’m in my 60’s!!!

2006-06-19T12:56:00.000-07:00

Monday 19th June

I’m on a bit of a downer again today. I wish I’d never weighed myself yesterday. I feel the lure of the scales drawing me in again today but I will resist it because if I weigh myself in the morning then this will mean that I am disappointed when it comes to tomorrow nights weigh in and if I weigh myself in the evening then what will that gain me? There’s no point. I was considering not drinking so much tomorrow and wearing lighter clothes in an attempt to get my weight down but what will that achieve? I go as normal and know that that will be it until the next month. I’m hoping that I will feel relief to have the pressure of weighing taking from me every week. Reading back, it wasn’t just getting me down on the day but on the days surrounding the even too. I should find my mood are more on an even keel by dodging the weigh ins.

I am fed up with not having much that fits. My skin round my tummy and breasts is loose and empty and I can’t feel it very much. I suppose this is because it has lost touch with my nerve endings? I know it is silly to feel down about all this because it means I’m succeeding but I can’t help it so I thought I’d measure myself today to get a bit of a lift.

In the past 30 days, my waist has shrunk from 102cm to 94.5cm. My hips were 125cm and are now 110cm. I don’t know if it was under my bust or over it that was measured (I don’t have much of a chest as you have probably been able to guess from that!) but the before chest measurement was 110cm and my over bust is now 107cm and under my bust is 94.5cm. None of this has managed to cheer me up because I am now starting to look at myself in mirrors – actually I can’t stop! – and that means that I now know what I actually look like and how much more I have to go.

I must have looked truly dreadful when I was 17st 10lbs which was my heaviest (my heaviest was probably more than that but I would have known that it would be bad and not wanted to weigh myself) and at my stable weight of 16st 4lbs which I managed to be 1lb less than at the weigh in and felt the thinnest I had in ages. It’s no wonder I never liked having my photo taken. Mind you I never liked having my photo taken before I got fat because I always have my eyes shut of something daft and have never been a looker anyway. I will just keep plodding along with LL and wishing the time past until I get to me goal.

My pedometer reading is crap at just 5498 steps for today but then doing the ironing isn’t conducive to getting 10,000 steps a day.

I felt hungry today but I know that is just in my head and not a physical hunger.

I just wish tomorrows weigh in was over. I always get depressed and anxious around weigh in time and it makes sense not to weighed after tomorrow. That will give me my first months weight loss and then I’ll try to stick to just finding out every month after that. I’m really looking forward to seeing the other ladies in my group. I just wish we had more time to talk amongst ourselves but the meetings are only long enough to get weighed, sort out next weeks packs and then do the therapy bit.

I haven’t been able to get motivated to do my homework so that will have to be another late night last minute job which means it won’t be the best it can be to help me the most.

I have used the Slendertone a couple of times today which is a plus although I needed new batteries again.

It was exactly a month ago at 7.45pm that I ate my last non-LighterLife food! Now that is something to be proud of.

What did cheer me up was my hubby’s encouraging words about how small I was getting and how he could almost encircle my top half with just one arm. Bless him, that’s just what I needed to hear. If he thinks about it, he does exactly the right thing at the right time. That’s the sensitive man I married and love to bits.

I’m going to cheer myself up by going in the bath and doing my legs, exfoliating my body and face and washing my hair. I should feel like a new woman by the end of all that. I have never been one for wearing makeup or dressing nicely but I am now starting to get a bit more girly which is taking a bit of getting used to!

30 days down, 70 to go.

2006-06-18T14:18:00.000-07:00

Sunday 18th June

I have had another good day. I batch cooked 1 months worth of meals for hubby which took 4 ½ hours and enjoyed cooking but was not tempted. I drank 8 litres of water.

Had the family round for Father’s Day this evening and we all sat in the garden. I didn’t cook for them as I normally would have done. It was a great evening and when I dropped my mum home I went and stood on her scales. 15st and I am very disappointed. I read back through my Wednesday entry to see that I weighed 4 lbs more at night than I do in the day but that still only takes me to 14st 10lbs which is no difference to my Tuesday weigh in.

I have drank an extra 2 litres today but I have been peeing for Britain, having said that I still know that not a morsel has passed my lips so I must be losing fat but standing on the scales hasn’t helped. I just need to keep going and count the days off.

I will get weighed on Tuesday and after that I don’t want to know.

I still haven’t done my homework but then I really haven’t stopped today so didn’t get a chance. I’ll have to do it tomorrow.

I didn’t get a chance to do my Slendertone this morning so I’m just going to bed now and I’ll do it then. Last night I had to alter the pads and move them in. That has to be a good sign.

29 days down, 71 to go.

2006-06-17T14:49:00.000-07:00

Saturday 17th June

I had a great day today. I forgot to wear my pedometer. Drank 7 litres of water, forgot to have 2 of my packs and had to stuff them down last thing at night. Did my Slendertone twice today, I definitely think I am getting results from that already.

I still think that I won’t bother getting my weight recorded on a regular basis. They can weigh me on Tuesday and then after that I’m going blind on this until such time as I need the motivation or curiosity gets the better of me! I can feel even my smallest trousers have room in them so I am shrinking. Obviously if I still need to be weighed for the LL records then I’ll do that but I just don’t want to be told the results.

I have a load of the family coming round for Father’s Day tomorrow; obviously I will not be cooking! Hubby said today that we need to get ready for everyone coming tomorrow but there is nothing to get ready. This excuse of not cooking because of my diet is certainly making my life a lot easier if nothing else!

I must knuckle down and put some thought into my homework.

28 days down (or 4 weeks as that sounds more!), 72 to go.

2006-06-16T12:57:00.000-07:00

Friday 16th June

I’m felling more positive today. I went to Tesco’s late last night and bought a burgundy tunic top that finishes just below my tummy so it hides the bulge of my tummy. It has a tie waist and the perfect neckline for me, I’m really chuffed with it. It’s size 18 but the tie waist will mean I can draw it in as I get smaller. I got a nice ethnic necklace to go with it but not just any old necklace, it is practically the same as the one I drew in my LL meeting a couple of weeks ago when we were asked draw how we wanted to look in a years time.

When I got back, I lay on my bed doing a logic puzzle with my Slendertone working my tummy muscles. When I work up this morning I did the same thing. It was a nice way to start the day and my muscles still feel tight now. You may not have to think about moving with the Slendertone but all this means is that you get a consistent workout. I’ll continue to do the Slendertone morning and evening if I haven’t gone to the gym.

I think I might go shopping today down town. I am now a size 18 (although not for many more weeks!) so I don’t have to go browsing in Evans! We don’t have many decent shops in my town but I will have a look round Dorothy Perkins. I won’t be buying anything as the only clothes I will be getting whilst I am still losing is the cheap supermarket ones or cheap eBay bargains because I won’t need them for long whilst I’m still shrinking.

Once I have reached my goal size, I will be going to all those outlet shopping centres that have the designer shops that I could never go in before as they only went up to a size 14. I can’t wait. I have never gone overboard with clothes before so I won’t mind spending extra on quality pieces that I know I will get lots of wear from.

Just thought, I must go and get my pedometer on. There is still so much to do at the school library but I need to catch up on the housework and I do deserve to go window shopping if I get the chance.

Later
I have been down the town and bought new glasses, clothes for my daughter and had a nose around DP’s as I had wanted to. Unfortunately I didn’t like anything in the shop although I remember why I liked it when I was working as there is loads of great office wear in there.

I also couldn’t stand the thought of another veggie soup (I won’t be getting anymore) so I added a bit of garlic powder which is not on the ‘can have’ list. I am definitely looking at food a lot more now, but not enough to be tempted. I have also been looking into the GI diet. It is exactly what we need as it isn’t a diet, it is a lifestyle and one that is tailored to hubby’s type 2 diabetes. So we’ll be following that when I start eating normally again.

It’s 9pm and I have done 10,992 steps today. I’m just off upstairs to pop on the Slendertone and do another logic puzzle as I won’t be gyming it today.

27 days down, 73 to go.

2006-06-15T11:13:00.000-07:00

Thursday 15th June

I only did 4374 steps yesterday. I spent most of the day down to computerise the Nursery’s library. I must think of ways to increase my base activity rate. I forgot to stick my pedometer on today but it will be as bad as yesterday as I had another day in front of the computer.

I have also become overly preoccupied with my weight. I had to drop a couple of bits off at my mum’s this morning and couldn’t resist going on the scales again (14st 11lbs). I must stop doing this. I am sticking to the diet, drinking the water and getting a bit of exercise so I can’t do any more than that. I really need to stop being weighed as it brings me down when it doesn’t go to plan. I know the weight loss is going to slow down to about 3lbs a week which doesn’t sound a lot after the losses I have been getting each week but I have to remember that pre LL I would get to about 15st 4lbs and not get any further. Even had I got past that sticking point, weight loss would have been 1 to 1 ½lbs a week so this is at least twice as last as I could expect on any other diet despite how low 3lbs sounds.

I have no plans to stop doing LL, it provides a lifestyle. I can see myself still being weighed in a year from now on maintenance. Putting time pressures on myself isn’t helpful, just the opposite in fact.

I will be on foundation for 100 days. I will then be on development until I reach 25 BMI, I will then remain in management beyond reaching my goal weight to make sure that I stay on the straight an narrow. I will stick to the programme all the way through and that’s all there is to it.

We have homework to do from this weeks meeting and to be honest, I couldn’t get my head around it. It gets us to think about how we communicate with ourselves. I can tell you how my communication with others is broken down with no problem what-so-ever but am really having trouble thinking about how I deal with myself. I know I have to knuckle down to it because it is part of my recovery but I can’t seem to build up the enthusiasm.

Reading back through what I’ve written today, I can see that it is very negative. It would have been this sort of day that would have led me to seek comfort in food. The great thing is that I’m not doing that today. I did open the cupboard for my food packs and glancing in got a glimpse of a packet of seeds and for a fleeting moment (not even long enough to be considered a temptation) a flicker of a thought about eating them went through my head. I got the comfort I want, but from knowing that a day that would usually make me turn to food has not done so. I’m beating my demons.

Not only that, in an attempt to put a more positive slant to the day, I put the Slendertone on and stuck with it until I had it correctly positioned so that it was working both my abs (what abs!) and my tummy. I know that it does work and that I just need to get used to positioning it correctly to get it working. From now on this will be used twice a day. I need to do something to sort out my waist as the weight starts coming off so I don’t go all saggy.

26 days down, 74 to go.

2006-06-14T12:18:00.000-07:00

Wednesday 14th June

I did 10049 steps yesterday.

I have been fed up today with peoples responses when I told them that as predicted, I was heavier last night than I was on Saturday morning. They don't realise how their disbelief and shook affected me. I tried explaining the concept of the weight of water and how I was retaining water because I hadn't drunk consistently the day before and that's even before you consider that you are heavier in the evening than you are in the morning. But I still kept getting the "you can't have done" response despite my best efforts at explaining it. Hubby was the only one who didn't upset me and understood or kept quiet about it if he didn't! So this morning I drank my usual 2 pints of water, exactly the same as I would have done for a morning weigh in and then went on my mum's scales. I weighed 14st 10lbs. That's 4lbs less than last night and 2lbs less than on Saturday morning. It looks like I am on track to hit my 14st 7lbs target by Tuesday but will this still be the case on Tuesday night weigh in which is what I what I had hoped for? I can't see it happening because I would have to lose 7lbs off of my last nights weigh in of 15st. I have never lost 7lbs in a week. At least the next weigh in will be a like for like one as we stick to evening weigh ins from now on. I'll get to see exactly what I have lost in one complete week.

One thing that was mentioned last night is that we have to make sure that we do have all 4 packs every day to stop our bodies going into starvation mode. Not only is this counter productive to losing the weight but it is also dangerous. So if I find I have forgotten one during the day, I'll make sure I have it as a thick milkshake at night. Also in the hot weather we have been told to up our waterintake to at least 6 liters. I have been drinking that anyway so I might consider upping it again. I swear the additional water is what makes all the difference to my results.

I was working at my daughter's nursery again today but made a big effort to get the water down me so I won't have the same problem again as I had yesterday with water retention.

25 days down, 75 to go. ¼ of the way there!

2006-06-13T15:06:00.000-07:00

Tuesday 13th June

I am going to get myself weighed tonight after all. I’m a big girl and can take the bad news because I KNOW I will have lost fat even if I am retaining water. Being heavier doesn’t mean I have put on fat, it has to be water. It would be a physical impossibility to put on fat when you are only taking in 500 calories a day.

I know I have been retaining water because yesterday I spend all day in voluntary work and didn’t get the required water down me so today my body is storing it and I feel like a big fat bloater today.

I bought a size 18 fitted t-shirt last night and wore that today. I have had loads more comments about how trim I am looking and how I even have a waist. To be fair, I think a lot of that was because my normal clothes were always baggy tunics and were never tailored or fitted. The contrast would therefore seem much greater.

I went out and bought a body fat monitor today. It was only a fiver and will be well worth the outlay. I just have to figure out how to use it.

Anyway, I need to psyche myself up for the weigh in tonight. God I hate weigh ins!

Later
Well I definitely know my own body. I weighed in at 1.2lbs more than Saturday morning and am back in the 15’s again. It was expected and I am looking forward to next Tuesdays meeting so that I can find out my true weekly weight loss from evening to evening. If I find that this is upsetting me too much then I will give my LL councillor a ring and arrange a pop in. As it stands at the moment, my head and all the reasoning I have done in anticipation of this gain is winning and I’m feeling subdued but very matter of fact about it. I wonder how I'll feel tomorrow?

24 down, 76 to go.

2006-06-12T15:24:00.000-07:00

Monday 12th June

Yesterday I actually put my pedometer on at 11.30am. I had been avoiding doing so up till now because I knew I wouldn’t be anywhere near the 10000 steps. How daft is that? It’s my fear of failure creeping in again. The whole point of wearing it is to find ways in your everyday life to increase the amount of activity you are doing so that you hopefully then won’t need to go down the gym to make up the deficit. You have a greater chance of keeping the weight off and being that bit fitter without having to make a special effort and so it comes naturally. So this week I will be monitoring my steps and looking at ways to improve the level of activity I do in my daily life without specifically going out to exercise because if I don’t go down the gym, I am not active enough. The gym should just be the icing on the cake and not relied upon to take you up to the level of activity you need to reach as standard.

The pedometer showed 8500ish steps yesterday (since 11.30am). Today (6,500) and the rest of the week is going to be far less as I am at Esme’s nursery getting their library computerised which means I’m sat down and not even remotely active. On the plus side, I have had so many comments today on my diminishing size. Everyone is noticing now and can see a big enough difference to be confident to make a comment without risk of putting their foot in it!

I made up for today’s lack of activity by going down the gym again. I am now doing weights to help firm up my rapidly appearing saggy bits and really enjoyed going back to the weights again as I have been concentrating CV work. As a warm up I went on the treadmill and having had a bit of a yearning to do some running, I ran for 6 ½ mins without my knee feeling jolted and painful like it used to. I was fit enough to run for longer than this but running on a treadmill has to be the most boring exercise ever so I swapped to something else. One thing I would like to be able to do is run a mile without keeling over so I’ll have to work towards that as another goal.

Also, I didn’t realise till I read it on the weight loss forum that once you reach a BMI of 25 then you must go onto the management programme and lose the remaining weight through that.

As I am 5ft 7 inches my BMI will be 25 when I am 159lbs which equates to 11st 5lbs. What bothers me is that as soon as I starting eating again my body will replace the stores of glycogen which could immediately increase my weight by 7lbs again (big losses in the first week are due to your glycogen stores being depleted and the associated loss of water). I will double check this with my councillor at tomorrows meeting but if that’s true, instead of just having the extra 1st 2lbs to lose, I will have about 1st 11lbs and it will have to be lost in the old fashioned way at a slower rate. Heaven knows how long that will take but it will get me back into the healthy eating lifestyle that I was doing before I went on Slim Fast and then LighterLife. Hubby has lost 6 inches off his waist since Christmas when we went organic and I started cooking from scratch. And that is with the odd binge still thrown in! I am still not looking forward to management because it requires restraint and judgment. There is something scary about going back to eating again.

I think I’ll get that GI Plan book where the foods are colour coded for simplicity. That will certainly be the best bet for hubby with his type 2 diabetes and seems to fit my idea to stick mainly to veggies, lean meat and fruit whilst cutting down on sugar, carbohydrates and starch which are my trigger foods.

I am predicting that I will still have 16lbs to lose to take me to the 25 BMI after I have completed the foundation stage so I will need to be in the development programme (which is just a continuation of the foundation stage) for 5-6 weeks. I complete the 100 days of the foundation stage on 28th August and 6 weeks from then means that I will start eating again, all be it in a limited way, by 2nd October.

Tuesday night is the first of my meeting in its new time slot. Because I was only weighed on Saturday and the weigh in is in the evening and you weigh more in the evening than you do in the morning. I am predicting that there won’t be any weight loss and there might even be a weight gain given the amount of water I get through. So I have decided to request that I am not weighed at this meeting. Although my head is telling me I could well be heavier and that this will only be because I am carrying more water and my body fat levels will still have decreased, can my heart take the disappointment?

23 days down, 77 to go.

2006-06-11T10:50:00.000-07:00

Sunday 11th June

When I tried on my wedding dress earlier in the week I made a bit of a boo boo. I said there was only 1 ½ inches to go before it would do right up comfortably, but what I didn’t realise was that the zip only went up that far to start with and I mistakenly thought it had only stopped there because I was too big but the rest of the way was buttons! In my defense, I had never put the dress on by myself before as somebody had always dressed me. Anyway, the upshot of all this is that it fits! I am delighted as that is another major goal achieved. It’s sad in a way because I know in a couple of weeks it will be far too big for me. Back in the days when I was just wishing rather than achieving, I wished that I would fit into my wedding dress in time for my 10th anniversary so we could have our union blessed. I’m going to have to rethink that but for all the right reasons.

I am having trouble with my clothes repertoire now. Despite only doing so 10 days ago, I went back through my entire wardrobe trying things on and weeding out the things that are humongous and as such make me look daft when I wear them. I am trying to hold onto the clothes for as long as possible because I can’t afford to keep replacing them every time I drop a size. I have trousers in the right size (size 18 in M&S yippee!) or bigger but with elasticated waists so it doesn’t matter too much, but all my tops are huge as I have dropped 3 sizes and I didn’t have any to shrink into. My mum has given me 3 size 18’s that all fit me now and although they are the wrong colour and neckline for me, they are a vast improvement on the tents I have and I am very grateful to her as that save me a few quid because I would have had to have got some from Asda to tide me over. I’m down to just 7 tops and 7 bottoms which sounds more than ample but most of these are winter or office type clothes which are going to have to be a last resort in this hot weather. I’m going to have to start listing like crazy on eBay to pay for my next lot of clothes because the size 18 trousers that I have are all fitted waists so once I get smaller there is no elastic to take up the slack.

I am thinking about my next goal now. At the moment I am 14st 12lbs and now want to get to the half stone goal of 14st 7lb. I think that the weight loss will definitely ease off to a jog now I am into my 4th week so my target is to get there by Tuesday 20th June which is only 9 days away. This is cutting it fine so let’s see how it goes. Even after yesterday’s blog when I discovered that I play things safe so that I don’t ever fail, today I was still in 2 minds whether to give it a 2 week timeframe to be on the safe side. But no, I’m setting a harder goal even though I can’t do much to affect the rate of loss (or is that just me preparing my excuses now ready just in case I fail?).

Having just checked on the NHS website I know that when I reach 13st 8lbs I will then be ‘overweight’ rather than ‘obese’ so I also have to aim for that as a slightly longer term goal. I’ll make that my 5 week goal so I’m aiming to be ‘merely’ overweight on 18th July.

I have also been doing some sums and have checked my maths 3 times because I nearly fell off my chair when I got the answer the first time around! If I continue to lose 3lb a week, after rounding down, this is where I could be at the end of the 100 days foundation stage:

19.5lbs lost to date
3 x 11 weeks remaining = 33lbs
52lbs = 3st 10lbs predicted loss
16st 3lbs = 227lbs start weight
227 – 52lbs = 175lbs = 12st 7lbs!

Fucking Hell (excuse the language but this warrants it) I could be 12 ½ stone by the end of the foundation stage!!!!!

I think that is roughly what I started off at when I first hooked up with my hubby 12 years ago although it is so long ago I can’t be sure. This is SO worth doing.

22 days down, 78 to go. COME ONNNNNN!!!!!!!!!

2006-06-10T09:49:00.000-07:00

Saturday 10th June

First thing
I really hate weigh day because in anticipation of it I have been so wound up over the past couple of days and this morning. It’s my old demon of not wanting to aim too high in case I fail which all ties in with the revelation I made earlier in the week that I self sabotage to give me an excuse to fail. Better to fail having not done my best than to fail because I’m not good enough. It’s holding me back. I also set lower goals and then anything achieved over that is a bonus and I am never disappointed. I can’t emphasise enough how great my fear of failure is and tackling this is going to be a huge on-going task.

For this weigh in I wanted to be 14st 13lbs which was a higher goal than I would normally set. The tension in me over the past couple of days has almost killed me and led me to keep visiting my mum’s house to use the scales so that I would have time to downgrade my goal if I didn’t think it was achievable. As it is it is still touch and go if I will reach it and I really have a problem dealing with uncertainties. LL has taught me so much about myself already. Factors that I always thought of as strengths are anything but. I have some serious work to do in the rest of my lifetime to change these.

Later
I am absolutely over the moon. I weighed in at 14st 12lbs!

Although I am thrilled, the greatest achievement today has not been the weight loss, it is the lessons that came to me about myself that I wrote about first thing this morning. Yes the weight loss is great but learning lessons about who I am and how I act is ultimately going to make me a better person and stronger for the journey ahead. The longer I am on LL the more I realise that the weight is a symptom of who I am and that merely losing the weight is not going to solve the cause of the problem. LL is giving me that framework to recognise who I am and the ability to start making changes. If I had a magic wand and wished 5 stone off of my weight, it would still creep back on because losing the weight in the first place isn’t the answer. The answers have to come from me.

My daughter said something that really made me laugh this morning, mind you if I hadn’t been doing something about my weight then I would have cried. She told my mum that she [my daughter] had no waist (she wears a smaller size because she is so slim) and my mum said ‘why’s that do you think?’ to which she replied ‘I think my mummy got mine!’ Now I don’t know if she understood the implications of what she had said but there was never a truer work spoken!

19 ½lbs down, 64 ½ to go.

21 days (3 weeks!) down, 79 (yippee, I’m in the 70’s!) days to go.

2006-06-09T14:24:00.000-07:00

Friday 9th June

I’m really looking forward to my weigh in tomorrow morning. Will I be 14st 13lbs or not? Fingers crossed but if I’m not I’ll hit it on the next weigh in.

Having had my little ‘moment’ in Asda yesterday, I decided to go online and have a look at all the size charts for varying companies and I seem to be a size 20 on paper. It does confuse me that all the shops differ. I wish there was a standard as this would make it so much easier. Of coarse I am disappointed than on paper I’m not an 18 but I will get there and beyond.

Later
I couldn’t resist and dropped into my mum’s to weigh myself and I am 15st on the button. Mind you I was in shorts and a vest top and I was 1lb heavier on my start weight weigh in than I thought I would be, can you see how desperate I am now to have mentioned that! It really is going to be touch and go for being 14st 13lbs tomorrow but I know that it is achievable by the new Tuesday night slot for our meetings if I don’t get there for the pop in tomorrow. It looks like the weight loss has slowed down now as I know it would but prayed it wouldn’t.

It has been a really nice day today and I have been out in the sun. The car says it is 26C and normally I would be hiding away inside if it goes much over 23C. Losing weight and feeling colder through ketosis is certainly helping me this summer, good job as it is going to get hotter. I am thinking about getting one of the water flavourings to make ice lollies with.

Please please please let me be under 15st. I bet I'm not though.

20 down, 80 days to go.
or
1/5 completed! Hooray!!

2006-06-08T23:41:00.000-07:00

Thursday 8th June

I measured myself this morning and my waist has reduced from 42ish inches (107cms) to 37 ½ish inches (96cms) so I have lost 4 ½ish inches off my waist since 20th May! I feel so in control and I love being in control.I tried on my wedding dress this morning now I feel more confident after yesterdays Asda dress incident and was only about an inch and a half off of getting it comfortably zipped up. Being able to fit into my wedding dress again is really important to me. I remember preparing for the wedding (about 8 ½ years ago) and being really upset to be shopping for size 20 shorts for the honeymoon and how fed up I was with the size I was. I was devastated that we got to the Maldives on honeymoon and were not be healthy enough to go diving. That’s why I now keep getting thoughts about going diving. If I’m honest, I don’t really think that diving is for me but I was so gutted at not being able to do something sporty that I would like to do it once to get closure on it. It’s the first time I remember my weight being a barrier for me.My friend told me today that her daughter has gone veggie. It was then that another revelation hit, I started eating meat again at the same time as I started putting on the weight. Coincidence?My first short-term goal is to be 14st something then my next one after that is to be able to fit comfortably into my wedding dress again. I remember a conversation where I said that I was ?st 10lbs at the last dress fitting because I lost 5lb in one week and the lady helping me to dress was amazed at the difference and told me not to lose anymore or the dress would need to be altered again. I couldn’t remember if it was 13st 10lbs or 14st 10lbs but as I know that I am not far off the dress fitting me then it must have been 14st 10lbs.As my average weight before and after having my daughter was 16st 4lbs that’s only an average increase of just over 1 ½ stone in just over 8 years since this incident which is approximately 2 ½lbs a year. That’s quite a revelation as I thought my weight increase was quite steady over the years when in fact I have now been able to work out that I put on over 3 stone in the first 3 ½ years of moving in with my ‘boyfriend’ as he then was.It’s really strange that I have had all of this information all along but never thought about it? My weight seems to have piled on in the times when I have had a major underlying factor of unhappiness.Hubby and I lived together for 3 ½ before getting married and although I was happy, I always felt like I was on the take because I moved into ‘his’ house with him. I felt like I a fake because I hadn’t contributed anything to buying the place and although hubby constantly reassured me that this wasn’t an issue for him, it was for me. This only got worse we got our present house because it was his Grampy’s house but Grampy had a stroke and so he had to move in with hubby’s parents after that. This wasn't helped by having a confrontation with his mum who suddenly decided that we should start paying a nominal rent for living in a house that was supposedly ours. I now know that she had our best intensions at heart because she was going to use this as a sort of enforced savings scheme but I was always bought up to be independent and make my own decisions. It took over a month for me to make up with her as I resented having to explain myself and our financial position and had stormed out. She couldn't have know how unhappy I was to be living in a house that I didn't feel was mine to begin with which only increased by being told I had to pay rent for a house that was supposedly mine to start with! It was only after Grampy eventually passed away and we had made major changes that I felt that the house was mine too.One thing that today’s blog has raised is that I need to do my homework.After the carefree day I had yesterday, today it is back to being serious again and trying to get to the bottom of why I abuse food in a destructive way so that I can work out some coping strategies ready for when I start the Management Phase.19 down, 81 to go.

2006-06-08T03:20:00.000-07:00

Wednesday 7th June

Last thing last night
Last thing last night I went late night shopping at Asda and had a look at the clothes. I did see a summer dress with a boned top (so it would have to fit properly) and floaty skirt (because I am larger at the bottom) that I thought would be perfect for the garden party we always have for my daughter's Birthday in mid August. I thought I'd buy one in a much smaller size so I could shrink into it. It’s only £22 so I won’t waste too much money if the weather for her birthday is rubbish, or I decide in a couple of months that I don’t like it on me, or I am the wrong size for it. I have only bought clothes from George once before because I think that really cheap clothing is a false economy. Previous cheap clothes I have bought have never been cut right or they have needed replacing very quickly because they don’t last. I have clothes that are more than 10 years old that have been ‘old favourites’ and all of them have been mid range clothes (I have never bought designer before so that’s something to look forward to). However in this case I won’t be any one size for very long (except my goal size!) so I would only get one wear out of it anyway. I’m not sure – I’ll go back when I have dropped Esme at nursery and have another look. It is a boned fitted top so it would be good to know what size I am now in George clothing anyway because I think I am going to have to get some cheap summer tops to see me through. The size 20’s I have saved from when I first put the weight on I still love as they are timeless but they are not at all summery and they are baggy already.

Today
It’s been another great day for me. I am amazed that LL has become a lifestyle for me so quickly. This gives me comfort that when I begin the management programme the same thing will happen.

The only thing is, I don’t ever savour my food packs, I just knock ‘em back. My attitude is that they are just nutrition and I’m not hungry anyway and this ‘food is just fuel’ attitude is what I am hoping for when I go back to thinking about what I actually need to eat post LL.

I’m going to give in and weigh myself again on mum mum’s scales as I have to drop a top round to her anyway. That will then be the last time and I WILL stick to just being weighed at my weigh ins. I don’t want to become too obsessed with weight again like I used to be. I’m trying to get out of all that and just count the days I have completed.

The other thing is that I have dug out my Slender Tone from the loft thanks to being reminded about it on the weight-loss forum. I know it won’t help me to lose the fat but it will help to build muscle tone round my torso and there is no doubting that I need it!

Later
I have just had a 'moment' right in the middle of Asda!

I went back for a second look at that dress I saw last night and to try one on in my current size although I didn't have a clue what that might be having lost over 2 1/2 stone since I last bought anything.

I ended up in a size 18 having previously been a 24 and heaven knows what the queue waiting for the changing rooms thought as they heard the laughter coming from mine!

It was only as I walked out of the store that the enormity of what I'd achieved so far had hit me and I began to cry and just couldn't stop once I’d got started *oops*!

I got some very strange looks I can tell you as I walked out the doors laughing and crying at the same time but I don't care as the LL is working and all this is worth it.

I dropped in at my mum’s for one last weigh in. I will not be doing so again. I was 15st 1lb so it looks as if my dreams of being 14st something could be coming soon!

What a day, the best yet.

18 down, 82 to go

2006-06-06T12:20:00.000-07:00

Tuesday 6th June

Yet another uneventful day today. The sun is shining and I am happy as everything is going to plan.

No problems with the food packs or water intake.

My dad and step mum took me and my daughter up to a local beauty spot and I had a bar whilst they all had burger and chips. I do get fed up of keep asking my dad to give Esme healthy things to eat. At least I know she eats well at home and she has had enough fruit today to make up for the fact that she didn’t get any fruit or veggies with her ‘meal.’ It all smelt nice but all I could think of watching Esme was how nutritionally devoid and full of saturated fat it all was. She doesn’t get that sort of crap from me.

I need to sit down and do my homework one day this week and then mull over the issues it raises so I’ll have more to say after that.

18 down, 82 to go.

2006-06-05T12:55:00.000-07:00

Monday 5th June

Well I haven’t even thought of doing my blog (which I usually do at least 3 times a day as I think of things) or checking my emails during the day as I have been so busy all day buying loads of plants and then planting them. If I can keep myself busy when I have lost the weight then I won’t need to use food in an attempt to improve my life. My life needs to be back to being full of activities that involve getting out of the house. I have got a real sense of achievement from today and my efforts will last for years to come unlike the housework which needs doing again 5 minutes after you have finished it.

The downside of being busy today is that I am well behind on my water intake and I have 3 food packs to catch up on. Oh well, can’t win them all!

17 down, 83 to go.

2006-06-04T14:33:00.000-07:00

Sunday 4th June

It’s been a bit of an uneventful day today with no problems or temptations. I drank 7 litres of water today though! I’m going to try upping my water intake to 6-7 a day if I can. Everyone on the weight loss forum says this makes a big difference to how much you lose so what have I got to lose except weight!

After the intense emotional nature of yesterday I have decided to have a day off from the thinking side of things and am going to relax - apart from a bit of dancing in the kitchen to the radio with my daughter!

I did read the first part of the LL foundation manual which relates to reasons for doing LL just to get me in the right frame of mind to start the day.

Life is great, the sun is shining and today is far warmer than I would usually like but the combination of being lighter than my top weight by 2 ½ stone and the fact that ketosis makes you feel cooler means that I am able to sit out in my south facing garden which I would never have chosen to do in the past! Normally I would have hidden myself away in the house so now I have another indicator of yet more progress that can’t be measured on the scales.

One thing I didn’t mention yesterday is that our regular meetings are moving to a Tuesday so this week we have to wait a whole week for our pop in which is going to be on Saturday and then the meeting is going to be on the following Tuesday.

I know I said on Friday 2nd June that I would need to have a mid-week weigh in as motivation but thinking about it, I don’t think I will. What a difference 2 days makes!

My reasoning for this is that I am well into the swing of things now and the results I have had, I can see that this is working so I’ll just tick the days off as they go past.

Not only that, the weight loss will start to slow down at this stage so having a weekly weigh in will show similar results in weight lose to the ½ weekly ones. Do I really think it is worth the 1 hour out of my day to get to, complete, and get back from the pop in just to be told I have lost 1 or 1 ½lbs? NO!

My daughter goes back to nursery tomorrow so I will be able to go back to the gym everyday again. Bring on the rowing machines…

16 down, 84 to go.

2006-06-03T13:31:00.000-07:00

Saturday 3rd June

Having felt much thinner yesterday after the whole smaller costume experience, I don’t feel so confident this morning prior to today’s weigh in. in fact I feel positively apprehensive, I don’t know why. I don’t want to get my hope up only to be disappointed. It is safer to try and think in terms of time completed which is the one variable I can control.

In an attempt to turn my ketostick light pink I got up this morning and downed a couple of pints of water and just like last time I have given myself a tummy ache. I am sat here with a 3rd pint but I don’t think I will drink it. Sod it, if the stick is dark then the stick is dark. I hate these early morning weigh ins because I am only up ½ hour before I have to leave.

Once again I am trying not to build up my hopes and I am dreading the fact that I always lose less than the others. This shouldn’t be important as I have been losing at a rate I have been happy with, I feel great at being in control, I have done 2 weeks with little trouble, I feel the best I have felt in more years than I care to remember, my mood swings are diminishing and life is good. But at the end of the day I am on this to lose weight so weight is important!

I was 15st 8lbs on Tuesday so I would be disappointed if I was more than 15lb 6lbs today. I know I shouldn’t put pressure on myself like this and am trying to shift the focus to the time completed and all the other factors listed above that have improved since following LL but I can’t help it.

I am just off to decide what food packs I want for this week and to get my record card ready for the meeting.

Later on
Well I am delighted. I lost another 6lbs in total this week and am only 1 lb shy of losing 1 stone in the 2 weeks I’ve been on LL! I am now 15st 4lbs and I have a good chance of clearing that 15 stone marker by this time next week. I can’t believe it!

Despite all this, the best thing was that I found the meeting this week really difficult for me which means it must be working. My LL councillor talked about Transactional Analysis and we tried to gather our thoughts and feelings about food over the years in accordance with TA. I won’t try to explain this here because I’ll only make a hash of it. I found the process quite hard as I realised that a lot of the attitudes I have about food come from my favourite times as a child when cooking with my dad or having dinner parties where I helped prepare them because we got time with just the 2 of us and had such fun. He always majorly over-catered and I felt I had to eat as much as I could to show that I appreciated the time and effort he had put into the meal. I never felt I could have a small amount. Because the time and effort was not spent on the veggies then you ate the main bit of the meal which was the most fattening etc. The veggies were always plain and a bit of an after-thought.

I’m sure dad didn’t engineer this attitude in me but that is the way I now am and it is going to have to change because I do this everywhere now. Whenever hubby took me out for a meal I couldn’t leave any in case the chef was upset and wanted him to think that I’d appreciated his creations.

What is worse is that I realised that I am putting the same pressure on my daughter and husband now and so am continuing the cycle. That really upset me because I have always wanted to be the best mother and wife I can, today gave me something to think about.

We couldn’t complete the exercise for this week in class time so I need to complete that over the next week. The therapy is now beginning in earnest and the expense of doing LL is definitely going to be worth if today is anything to go on. I have a lot to think about and am feeling very sombre. I think this week is going to be a big week for me in the realisation stakes and I’m sure I’ll be writing a lot more about my TA homework as the thoughts come to me. The tracking of my thoughts is going to be more valuable to me in my recovery than anything else I can do. I have to come to recognise my conscious and unconscious behaviours and feelings around food and then rationalise them and literally retrain myself to change the way I react. This is exactly what I was hoping the LL would be able to give me the tools and framework to do. I am going to have to do this if I want to ensure that when I have lost the weight it stays off.

No doubt about it, losing the weight is the easy bit but changing the way I think and react so it doesn’t pile back on again is going to be the greatest challenge I have ever faced because it has been a part of who I am for so long.

Apart from changing the way I think and react I know that once I start eating again then the meat and tatties bit of the meal should remain a constant serving size with extra veggies to make up the deficit. I have to make sure that I serve in the same way for hubby & daughter too.

I know that if somebody is especially hungry then the meat and tatties bit of the meal should remain constant with extra veggies being consumed to make up the deficit. I need to train myself in fixing the portions of meat and tatties and piling on extra veg if needed.

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!

There’s no doubt about it, I am definitely making progress in many non-weight related areas thanks to LL.

15 days down, 85 to go.
Weight:- 15st 4lbs
Total lost:- 13lbs
Remaining:- 5st 1lb.

2006-06-03T00:39:00.000-07:00

Friday 2nd June

It’s my 3rd LL meeting tomorrow and I’m looking forward to it and the weigh in. In fact I can’t wait! I know I haven’t been as committed this week as the focus has been on my 3 year old over half term week. I have been forgetting to eat the packs and I have only been to the gym once but I still want to see some progress. My preoccupation with weight rather than time is continuing despite my best efforts. But weight is a guide to what clothes size I am and those magic stone markers just can’t be beaten as an incentive.

I expect/hope to be 1-2lb under the 15st7lbs mark tomorrow which is dangerous as it sets me up for a fall. I want to be working towards the 14st 13lbs mark.

I am really looking forward to seeing everyone else and have my fingers crossed that my group are all sticking to the programme.

I am definitely getting smelly breath (and noticed at the pop-in that one of my group had too although I couldn’t say anything) and conscious that oral hygiene is paramount. I don’t want to be fat and smelly! I will make a general comment on Saturday about trying to persuade my hubby that I won’t thump him if he says I smell! Hopefully this will make the other lady more aware that there could be a problem even though I have made my domestic life the butt of a joke.

We get another drop-in in the coming week but don’t get anymore after that. It will be interesting to see if I have the same dependency on the mid-week weigh ins as I have had so far or whether I grow out of them. If I don’t then I will be asking my councillor to allow me to continue doing drop-ins until I feel I don’t need that motivation.

The longer that I am on LL the easier this is getting. I have told hubby that he doesn’t need to avoid eating at home and that if I am having a bad day I will keep out of his way rather than the other way around. I need to start dealing with food again.

I felt really guilty today as my daughter wanted us to do some cooking and I said no.

I do feel really thin today compared to normal (I hope I am not jinxing myself for the weigh in tommow). I had a Rocky Horror screening to go to and travelled all the way over to Portsmouth to the fancy dress shop to get the same costume I had on 13th April for the last Rocky Horror show I went to. I have to travel a bit to that fancy dress shop as they are the nearest place to do outsize costumes. The lady bought the costume out and luckily said I had better try it on first. I did and it swamped me. I thought she had bought the wrong size out as it was that badly wrong! Can you imagine, I was actually miffed that I’d have to wear another costume that wasn’t as good but was a hell of a lot smaller.

It was my first social outing since starting LL and the film was shown at a rugby club so the drinks were cheap and everyone was smashed out of their faces except me of coarse who stuck to the water and made sure it didn’t have lemon in it.

14 days down, 86 to go.

2006-06-01T14:06:00.000-07:00

Thursday 1st June

Last night I joined the Discovery Health weight loss forum having been dipping into it over the past couple of weeks to find out how others on LighterLife are getting on. There are a few on there that have been on LL a couple of times and then out the weight back on because they haven’t gone through the management stage. This just confirmed what I always feared which was that losing the weight in the first place is a walk in the park compared with keeping it off.

I also went to Asda last night because I am really not happy with they way that hubby is feeding my daughter. He doesn’t think about her first and despite trying to be supportive of me I still have to make sure he has actually fed her because he still expect me to do it subconsciously and just doesn’t think about her. Not enough fruit and veg and no routine. He himself has only been heating up the portions I made and not putting veg or tatties with it and even then he isn’t getting them out of the freezer to defrost and I did keep reminding him to the point of nagging but it is not to be. If there isn’t anything defrosted then I can’t nick some out of them for my daughter. So last night I bought a load of ready meals (especially for kids so supposedly controlled salt and sugar but I still don’t trust them) so that she is at least getting cooked meals with veggies and I’ll warm it through myself. I am not at all happy that she will be on ready meals but needs must, I have to lose this weight or the effects on her could be far worse. Since hubby was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in December 2005 we have been on a healthy eating drive trying to cut out all processed foods and had gone fresh organic on the veggies and free range non-additive on the meat and cooking from scratch – which is how come I was a stone lighter than I thought I was when my health issues arose in early May. Now all of that has gone out the window as I am feeding my daughter ready meals and I am eating food packs chocked full of chemicals! I have to remind myself that this is for a limited period only as in September my daughter will be starting school so she can have school dinners and they have the same principles I do with the food they give the kids. As for me, I’d rather have the chemicals for 6 months and be a more normal size than to have to wait for 1 ½ years to get to the same place no doubt getting down hearted along the way.

8am
This is going to sound a bit mad but here goes…

One of the reasons I want to lose weight is so that I can walk freely into any high street shop and know I can buy clothes in my size. I won’t have to think about whether they do big sizes and avoid them like the plague if I’m not sure so that I am not embarrassed or disappointed.

Even when I was a size 12 I was never really into clothes. I took my size for granted and never though I was slim – in fact I never even thought about my body and I dressed baggy because I have never been good looking and going baggy was a way for me to subconsciously put blokes off and then say it down to the way I dressed rather than my face. As it was, I never had a problem attracting the other sex because I was always a bit of a laugh and usually ended up with my male friends after a few years who liked me for me. That’s how my hubby and I finally got together and why we are so perfect for each other.

Anyway the upshot of all this is that I have never really been a one for clothes and that is especially true now that I can’t buy the ones I really like because of my size. However I have one skirt (I don’t normally ‘do’ skirts unless they are full length – I only have 2) which is so gorgeous and perfect for day or night and I love it to bits as it makes the best of my figure and makes me feel female.

It is chocolate brown moleskin cut on the bias so it kicks out at the bottom. It has always been huge round the waist even when I was at my largest at 17st 10lbs and just sat on my hips. When I tried it on in Evans I had to drop down 2 sizes to a size 20 and could have done with an 18 but don’t get me wrong they just got the waists wrong on them all so this means nothing.

Well today I put it on with a size 20 top which I haven’t been able to get into for the past year and found that I could pull the skirt down without undoing the button and zip. The sadness I felt at knowing it won’t be long before I can’t wear this skirt anymore was huge! How mad it that? It means all this is paying off! I really wish I had this skirt in another couple of sizes though for me to shrink into.

This has led me into going through everything in my wardrobe including the ‘other’ side which has clothes that never fitted or I never wore and trying the lot on. I have ditched a load of clothes that I wont ever wear and neither should anyone else, I have a load to stick on eBay and I have about 4 pairs of trousers to shrink into.

What was really depressing for me today was that I looked at my belly and despite only being about 2 ¼ stone under my top weight, I have a saggy tummy. I made the mistake of watching 10 years younger where the lady lost 1/3rd of her body weight and had loads of floppy skin. I’m felling better about it again tonight though because I know that it is better to have floppy skin than to die prematurely due to being obese.

It got to 8pm when I realised that yet again I had forgotten to have my food packs. I have a very thick chicken soup and have just had a bar and now I’m stuffed! I had 7 litres of water today without much effort or loo visiting! I must do better on the food pack front tomorrow so I don’t make myself ill by not getting the nutrition I need.

I am really looking forward to the weigh in on Saturday morning even though I haven’t been to the gym except on Monday because it is half term. When I go back next week I am going to spend time on the rowing machine before anything else to try and do the best I can for my tummy.

13 days gone, 87 to go.

2006-05-31T12:32:00.000-07:00

Wednesday 31st May

I can’t begin to tell you how difficult it was for me last night. I had that fixation on a kebab and the demons kept whispering in my ear that there weren’t that many calories in it so it wouldn’t really matter that much in the whole scheme of things if I just had one. One thing I did learn from Dr Atkins when I did the Atkins diet was that even if you cheat a little bit you’re done for and have to start over again. Not only that, but one of the aspects of this programme that I have been especially delighted about is that I am starting to feel back in control. That one cheat would have done irreparable damage to that main motivatory factor.

Thinking about it, I think a lot of my problems from yesterday are because once again I forgot to have my food packs when I should have done. I say this from a vitamins and minerals point of view rather than for the calories because if you don’t get what vitamins and minerals your body needs then you are prone to moodiness. I really have to think about getting into a routine for the food packs as well as the water but it is so difficult because you are not prompted to eat due to hunger so you have to go by the clock which is all mucked up at the moment because of half term.

Luckily now that I have been doing LL for a short while I know that I am going to get times where I crave something but I also know that if I can only ride it out it goes away again like nothing happened! I can see now that this foundation stage is not a 100 day struggle; it is just a struggle for about 1/10th of that time and the rest of the time I’m either not thinking about it or am getting a kick out of being in control!

Last night I finished reading Sharon Osborne’s autobiography in the bath to try and distract myself against the thought of kebabs (incidentally you could put one under my nose now and I wouldn’t have the slightest problem). The first bit I read about was on Sharon’s weight issues (timing or what!) and how she had surgery to combat it and is now unhealthy but thin because she still eats crap now although less of it because of the stomach band. I don’t want to be like that. I want to be able to choose to eat healthily with the odd treat that doesn’t become a binge. Her story gave me strength and reminded me that when I have lost the weight I will still have an eating disorder but just that nobody will be able to see it because I will be disguised in a thin persons body. Mind you the therapy might have worked by the end of all this so I might be fretting over nothing.

Today I am back to my usual happy self. I’m delighted to be just over 15 ½ stone and at having some semblance of control back in my life. I’m itching to get to be 14st something which I was just over 8 years ago. Passing those magic stone markers is a real buzz far superior to any chocolate cake!

One other thing that I do need to start doing is being around people that are eating. My thought on this at the moment is that I need to cut out as much contact with food as I can to limit temptation whilst I am still in these initial stages. However as time progresses I am going to have to be able to increase the self control I know I have because the greater my self control becomes, the more chance I have of getting through to my goal weight and then being ultimately able to control my weight which I have always said would be the most difficult stage of all this.

12 days down, 88 to go (and lovin’ it!).

2006-05-30T14:01:00.000-07:00

Tuesday 30th May

Well it’s my birthday today and I haven’t wanted to celebrate this year which is unusual for me because I love birthdays. The trouble is that everything is wrapped around food. My daughter asked me yesterday what sort of birthday cake I would be having and I told her that I couldn’t have a birthday cake because I had to stick to the food packs the doctor wants me to have. It is easier than explaining about ‘diets’ and I don’t want her to be aware of all that at such an early age so making the food packs seem like medicine is a great way of putting in such a way that she can understand.

I had more temptations today (tuna and cucumber sandwich – my favourite) but I am holding fast. I need to make this work. Having said that I forgot to have breakfast this morning and also forgot to take food packs out with us. I think that had I done so the temptations would not have been so strong. To make up for it I am trying to scoff 2 food packs now (4pm) to being me up to where I should be. It’s funny but one of the reason I discounted going on Cambridge is that there were only 3 food packs a day, now I find I am having trouble remembering to eat anyway!

In recognition of my birthday I am going to make a chocolate muffin tonight!

I have my weigh in tonight which I am facing with a degree of trepidation but it has helped to keep me on the straight and narrow today. I know that I can expect to lose around 3lbs a week with LL which would mean a loss of only about 1.5lbs tonight. I am still trying to set my goals in terms of time which I can control rather than weight which I can’t. I have to say that I am still struggling to do so but I can’t afford to be demoralised in any way which I stand a chance of happening if I continue to focus on weight.

There’s no 2 ways about it, I haven’t felt this good in years. My skin and hair are fab, I have loads of energy, I’m sleeping well and my moods have improved and become more stable. Not only that, most importantly I feel relatively in control. For these reasons alone I have to be thankful and stick to the programme.

I have to keep thinking that by sticking to this, when my daughter has her party in the middle of August I will be about 13 stone and approximately a size 16 again which is the average size of a UK lady. I will be average again (although still overweight)!

Actually, one of the things that has just occurred to me today is whether my shoe size will change? I always used to be a size 6.5 and although I had wide feet, I never had such a problem finding wide enough shoes. Daft isn’t it?

9pm
I lost another 2lbs since Saturday so I am now 15st 8lb which is only 1lb off the target weight I set on Saturday of 15st 7lbs by 6th June. I should be 1 week early on that one. I am now 99.1kgs which is under the 100kgs target I had set.

The craving for a small chicken shish with shed loads of white cabbage is almost too much. I have to remember why I am doing this and be strong.

It is such a long time left and I am starting to struggle. There’s an inner voice trying to convince me that one lapse won’t make too much difference given the number of calories involved in a healthy chicken shish. That’s not the point though. All I can do is wish my life away until all this is done.

9lb lost on LL.

11 days down, 89 to go.

2006-05-29T14:22:00.000-07:00

Monday 29th May

Once again I am not hungry today and this is normal so I will only ever mention hunger if it changes and I become hungry. I always have to actually think to have my food packs so that I get the vitamins and minerals I need. My eating problems didn’t involve me eating only when I was hungry so although not being hungry helps, it isn’t the whole answer.

I have the usual battle of trying to remember to drink consistently. I don’t have a problem physically downing the stuff but remembering to do so and trying to do so consistently is still proving to be a big challenge for me. I don’t how anyone holds down a job doing LL. I used to work in a call centre and we weren’t allowed to drink at our desks and used to have to put our hands up for permission to use the toilet! Needless to say I couldn’t have done LL whist working there.

I know that LL is the quickest way for me to lose the weight but it still feels VERY slow to me! I hate the fact that I am wishing away the summer and autumn. 6 months is a very long time. I envy those that only have 3 stone to lose and will be finished in half the time I will be.

I went to the gym and did a 550 calorie workout. I am really going to have to makes sure that I stay on top of going to the gym. I’m not keen to actually make the effort and go but once there I do enjoy it.

James defrosted the other half of a take-a-way curry I couldn’t eat a while back and had frozen. He left out on the hob at first till I pointed out that this wasn’t fair on me. So it defrosted it and warmed it through in the microwave. It smelt delicious but he was considerate enough to go upstairs in the office to eat it.

Once again it has hit me that my plans to have our friends round every weekend for bbq’s now the decking has been done is not going to happen. This summer won’t be as I had envisaged and I am disappointed. I have to keep reminding myself that 6 months out of the rest of my life is worth it.

I looked into micro-lighting and flying lessons. I emailed the nearest micro-lighting place to find out weight limits hoping (for once) that they would confirm that I was too heavy so that I would be further motivated to lose weight and have a reward and the end of it for ding so. Unfortunately they told me the limit is 100kgs and I am that already! Sods law!

10 days gone and 90 to go. Yippee, I am now a 10th of the way through the foundation stage but oh how it’s dragging!

2006-05-29T01:09:00.000-07:00

Sunday 28th May

You would think that being on a VLCD would have an effect on my moods. Well today I can confirm that it has. I got up this morning to find that my 3 year old had raided all the kitchen cupboards to make up a concoction on the kitchen floor (literally) which she poured into cake tins and put in the fridge. I can’t begin to explain the mess she created! Given this situation and her history of concoction making, you would think that I would have gone mad and screamed the place down, but I didn’t. I told her that I wouldn’t be taking her to Play Shack today as a consequence of her naughty behaviour and sent her upstairs out of my way. Once I was sure she was gone I had a laugh at her creativity and took some photos.

I don’t feel hungry at all again today and am really going to have to think about making sure I have all 4 food packs so that I get all my RDA of vitamins and minerals.

The smell and thought of all my favourite foods is getting to me but not enough to tempt me off the path.

I’m seriously thinking about not having the food bars unless I am out. They are only 50 calories more than the shakes but I have managed perfectly well without them and I do want to do as well as I can so that I don’t have to be on LL for any longer than necessary. Not only that, but if it does get to the stage where I fancy a change then I have something else I can try. We had tasters of all the flavours at the LL meeting and I love the lemon and the toffee flavours and couldn’t believe how gross the nutty one was and that was the one that I was looking to.
I tried making ice cream from a chocolate shake today and it was lovely and I will being doing this again on hot days. I’m going to try a different recipe each time I feel the need for a change and only resort to the bars as a last measure because I have about 6 months of this!

I had a lot of thoughts last night about what things would be like for me once the weight had gone. Would I enjoy having salads and such for dinners? Would I go back to my old ways and then intermittently starve myself to try and maintain my weight? Or would it all just pile back on again? At this stage I think it would be either one of the last 2 options but I still haven’t started the real therapy side of things which was my reason for choosing to go on LL in the first place.

Of course this countdown that I keep doing at the end of every entry is only to take me to the end of the foundation stage. I will still have weight to lose after that. As I started the programme with just over 6 stone to lose I can expect to spend around 6 months on LL. The countdown till the end of the foundation course is useful as it gives me something to aim for in the medium term so that I have my 6 stone as my long term goal, medium term goal is to complete the foundation stage goal and short term I have the ½ stone markers to reach.

I do have problems remembering to have my food packs. Because I am not hungry and for the first time in a long time I am not thinking about food ALL the time, I am going to have to be very strict to make sure that I am having the food packs.

If someone had told me 11 days ago that in such a short time I would have to make a point of eating I would have laughed in their face!

I do wish I could just stop the world from eating though. In time it will get easier as the therapy progresses and I know that I am going to have to deal with food again at some point but it is just too soon now.

9 days completed 91 to go. (It feels like a mammoth task now but then my hubby is sat opposite me eating chicken in peppercorn sauce and it smells scrummy. It would do because I cooked it!)

2006-05-27T11:44:00.000-07:00

Saturday 27th May

6am
Well I never thought I’d see this time in the morning! I used to get up at 8-8.30am and although I have been getting up earlier since starting LL, today I was wide awake at 5.15am and by 5.40am I had given up all hope of getting back to sleep again, so I got up and got ready.

Last night I was browsing the Discovery Health forums reading the experiences of those that have followed VLCD’s. I consistently drank whilst doing so and by the time I went to bed I had consumed 8 litres of water! I also didn’t go to the gym. If the Keto stick isn’t pink today I don’t know what else I can do?

I am really looking forward to the LL meeting today. It will give me something else to think about in the coming week and I am looking forward to seeing my fellow LL’ers, some of whom are real characters!

I hope I have lost at least another 3lb to make 7lb in total this week. Despite telling myself after the last meeting that I would not set my goals in terms of weight I can’t help but continue to do so after a life time of thinking in this way. I wish it were LL now because I am finding the wait difficult.

I have always been an all or nothing sort of person but when committing to something I know that I don’t stick at it for very long because I get bored. This has always been true. I have taken up jobs or hobbies only to last for about a year tops (except horse riding) and then once I have mastered it I’m on to the next thing. The same has always been true when losing weight. Just before last Christmas I dropped down to 15st 3lbs by cutting out the binging as much as possible but changing nothing else diet wise and by doing 800-1000 calorie workouts. Needless to say I got fed up of that as the rate I lost slowed down which is another reason I need to stay with LL. I need relatively quick results and the therapy to enable me to change the way I eat so that there is not a case for getting bored, the way I eat and normal exercise will be instinctive. In other words I need to instil in myself a lifestyle change which doesn’t need thinking about when I’m living it.

I do think that the changes I had already made to my shopping and cooking habits have helped me for when I start on the management phase. I swapped to getting a weekly box of organic veggies delivered every week and these had to be used up before the next one arrived so I knew we were getting the required veggies down us. Also I had swapped to free range additive free meat. Although this is much cheaper than organic it is still dearer than cheapo supermarket meat but much better quality and a more ethically sound choice. The way I got round the price was to reduce my meat portions back down to what they should be (except when I had my red meat cravings). If you look at the size of the chicken breasts you buy nowadays, they are far larger than the recommended portion of meat. So I would trim them down and before freezing them and use the trimmings to make dishes that require diced chicken like curry or stews. This wish to cut down on the meat portions has mainly come from a desire to be more ethical in my food choices. At the end of the day meat comes from killing animals and so making sure there is no waste and only eating what you need makes sense from an animal welfare point of view.

Since December 2005 I had been cooking more from scratch too. My daughter and I have really enjoyed our time together in the kitchen and I know that I am already giving her the right attitude and life skills even from such a young age (3). When I have used jars in my cooking, I have been more careful about what ingredients are in them. It has amazed me at how much salt, sugar, additives and fat is in processed food. As an example just try and buy ham now that hasn’t been ‘reformed.’ Even many of the dearer hams have had this treatment. Gross when you think about what this actually means.

It’s 6.30am now and I know I ought to try and get some more sleep now so I’ll go up and try again.

1pm
…Oops! I didn’t wake up until I was meant to be leaving for my LL meeting. So I panic drank 3 pints of water and set off. I was still there a few minutes early.

I have lost 6.5lbs this week (which makes 1 stone since I started writing this blog on 4th May) which wasn’t what I was hoping for but I’m not as disappointed as I thought I would be – I’m still trying (but nowhere near succeeding yet) to re-educate myself into thinking about the time goal rather than the weight because this is a sure thing.

The colour of my stick was mid range so better than last time. I’m going to try not to get too hung up on that as long as I am meeting my 6 litre goal.

The next pop in meeting is on my birthday and I will be under my second target of 100kgs by then so I am now starting to think about reaching my next target weight of 15.5st. Given an average weight loss of 3lbs a week, I should be under that by the 10th June meeting in 2 weeks time.

When I eventually get to 13st 8lbs I will only be classed as ‘overweight’ as opposed to ‘obese’ so by the end of the foundation stage I should ‘only’ be overweight! I am hoping to lose 4lb over the 3 stone predicted loss on the foundation stage so that I can be 12st 13lbs. It sounds a lot better than 13 stone!

The one thing I have learnt about LighterLife is that when you stick to the programme you can’t really do anything to affect the rate you lose at because even exercising off 500 calories a day 7 days a week only increases your weight loss by 1lb a week. All you can do is stick to the programme and count the weeks as they pass and watch the weight come off. For that reason you have to be really patient and get used to not having any control on your rate of weight loss, lack of control is the same issue I have had for years with over eating so I’m used to it!

This week the meeting was mainly about how to set goals to focus on. Next week will start to get interesting as it examines what we think and why and starts to challenge this. From then on the group meetings will reflect why I chose the LL programme rather than the cheaper Cambridge Diet who incidentally make all the LL food packs. I could lose all the weight by just going on CD for half the price but as I have said before, losing the weight isn’t going to be the tough bit for me, keeping it off is going to be the challenge. Without the Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) or the Transitional Analysis that makes LL the whole package rather than a quick fix, I would only be treating the course and not the symptoms so after losing the weight I would soon be back where I started or worse!

8 days completed 92 to go.
6.5lbs lost so 79.5lbs to go.
Target weight 10st 1lb for a BMI of 22.