Growl!

I really was good last week - and I got up to 12 activity points (best yet) - and I only ate 8 points over the ration - so had most of my bonus points unused.  I felt really pleased, I was a little worried, because I went out last night with M - we had a couple of glasses of wine and met some nice new people Jo and John and went to Osteria Posillipo with them, where I had another couple of glasses of wine - and a plate of Merluzzo caprese - basically cod in a tomato, caper and olive sauce - so hardly dreadful - and two tiny pieces of bruschetta... so still within the bonus point excess I should think, yes - it was, I just checked, I only ate half the bonus points.   And several days last week I only had about 30 points - 9 less than the full allowance.   So what went wrong?

Well, I was expecting to show a good loss - and in fact I put on 0.5 lbs... very unfair.  The official explanation is that activity increases muscle muscle produces glycogen and glycogen production causes water retention.   Hmmm.  Let's hope it's that, rather than a too carby diet.

So, although it was my goal never to put on weight, I really have can't blame myself for this.  It's likely that the wine I drank the night before would have given me a bit of water retention - so let's hope once it all "settles down" I will show a really good drop next week?   I am wondering though... Today I gardened and did almost as much activity (10 points worth) in a day as in the whole of last week... 

Any change?

I am going to be v. pissed off if I don't lose more than 2lb this week - I have been really careful - kept well within limits most days, only used 4 pts from the bonus points (so far) and have been much more active.  Well, continued with a slightly higher level of activity.  I have however, been having micro snacks - these are snacks that fall under the radar - a tiny crust of bread dragged across the butter - no points in that really, but how many can you eat before they register.

I have also thought (although I don't usually eat after supper) that this sort of time around midnight is a no-man's land for eating - you've had your day's worth - and it's not tomorrow yet, so I bet some people do eat stuff at this time.  Ah well, bed calls.

Patterns - wine

Habits, patterns, one looks for them all the time.  Although I was worried about some of the food I ate in week 6 (the sweet potato chips for example and the pork scratchings) I still managed to lose a pound.  So far, there have been 2 weeks when I lost nothing - in the first of these, I was incredibly good, and really disappointed.  In the second of these I had been decidedly borderline in my habits, so perhaps deserved it.

I suppose one just has weeks when one feels inspired to really try - and other times when one says "Oh Sod it!",.   I think too much of my life has been lived under the banner of "What the hell?" - but really, I have tried and enjoyed an awful lot of nice food and drink in my life - so I ought to be able to say "not tonight" occasionally, or just eat a minuscule catwalk model serving.

It's interesting the most of the women I talked to the other day seem to drink a lot as well.  I know this completely releases one's inhibitions and stops one achieving what one wants, so a habit I need to break is always having a glass of wine with food at dinner (well, nearly always).  These occasional glasses are often drunk without one even noticing them, so it must be possible to stop.

The other day at the Minster Village Fair I was really pleased with myself because although I was ravenous, and actually a bit wobbly - I refused to eat the sausage item... I thought, why ruin one's diet for something one doesn't really like?   And I think the wine thing should play a similar role - "Why ruin my diet for a glass of wine that I'm not really enjoying?"

Perhaps the solution would be to buy one £10 a week - then enjoy it slowly... but it wouldn't work, people would still drop around and we'd have to refresh them with something!

Latest weigh in

Well, after all that anxiety I lost 1lb - not great, but it was a loss - and if I felt it was less well deserved than it should have been, so be it.   I have learned that you really can eat pork scratchings - provided you don't go over your limits.     And that I need to be a bit more stringent in my estimates of what I'm eating.  Next week's goal: lose 3lb.... and do some more exercise.  Anyway, I have now lost 17lb - which isn't great, but when I say lost, I hope it will never be returned.  Poor K had a couple of weeks of social life, a big wedding etc. and put on 5lbs.  She seemed pretty gutted.  It must be very hard for her - I wonder if I can find out about zumba classes or something - for a bit of extra fun/exercise - might persuade A to come with me.

What am I eating wrong?

The theory of the WW points system is that you can really eat anything - so of course I could happily eat all that foccacia on Sunday - as long as I didn't go over the top... however, after years of eating a semi-low carb diet, I don't always feel comfortable about this.  Curiously on Sunday at the beach my lunch consisted of some mineral water, 4 bits of foccacia, some black olives and 2 glasses of white wine.  I felt great - maybe that was the swimming and the sunshine, but also guilty that I had eaten the "wrong" things.

Similarly on Saturday night I ate a meal that consisted largely of wine and salted snacks - with a bit of healthy pizza... but in theory I was within the limits so what's the problem?   I guess the answer will be on the scales tomorrow.  I did a lot more activity - and generally feel more active and energetic... although still find supermarket shopping a bit draining!

Is it just something ingrained in dieters that we feel we eat the "wrong" foods.  Actually, the most delicious thing I ate this week was probably (1) carrot and onion salad (2) tomato and pepper salad (3) coconut cake with strawberry ice cream - I have always liked the strawberry coconut combination - usually in the form of Italian icecream, but this strawberry ice cream I made was so good...I had to make the cake to see if it would work.  It did.   Then again, I only had a minuscule slice of the cake, about 1/20th of the whole, and a dessertspoon of the ice cream.  Hum, perhaps I am learning to eat better.  I have been here before tho'.

Another bad weekend

Oh Lord, I've been so good - but now I've had a wipe-out day... it was all just about OK until this evening, when I found all I really wanted was snacks - nuts, wine, pork scratchings, two tiny pieces of pizza, a piece of the famous coconut cake... more wine, nuts etc.   Grrrrr.  But still, probably only gone into the bad zone of the bonus points, probably haven't had all of those.

Why?
It was a sunny day - I just wanted to relax and enjoy myself.   Tomorrow it's beach, wine and foccaccia day...let's see how it goes.

Later, actually, I added up the points (although I forgot about the coconut cake - and found I had still got plenty of bonus points left, to enable me to go bit mad on Sunday too.

Also, I think that although I pigged out on Sunday - what filled me up was not the cheesy garlic bread, but the carrot salad and the tomato and pepper salad, which were nul points and 1 point respectively.   I went to the beach - which involved walking and swimming, lay in the sun and ate 4-5 pieces of onion foccacia, two glasses of white wine and some olives - and didn't feel at all hungry - just perfectly satisfied.

I suppose the great thing about the points system is being able to use it as one wishes.  I fear I may have been a bit generous to myself about the value of the foccaccia - the oil obviously makes it "worse" than bread.  However, I have achieved the goal of having some points left, and of having done some exercise.  This is good!

A bad weekend

It was all going so well, had stayed below my level nearly all week - then on Saturday I relaxed, I ate handfuls of almonds, and Belgian chocolate biscuits.  Then we had a spectacular Spanish dinner on Saturday night - during which I ate many delicious things... lamb, croquetas, crema di naranja...  and almond bics.  I tried to add it up - but rather failed... ate 20 points above the combined daily and weekly bonus allowances.

On Sunday I was not much better - we went to a Moroccan place for lunch - all you can eat buffet... it was fab.  Only had 2 platesful, but those plates contained (alongside a lot of salad) some lethal things... and I had some wine (only 250cl but...), and I still had room for some supper - burgers, even tho I didn't have the bun or the potatoes, just lots of salad!   And the last tiniest crema di naranja...

Today I felt completely lacking in commitment and picked at stuff - and didn't track all of it.  I ended the evening with 3 glasses of wine... oh dearie me!   I am in trepidation to see how my weigh in tomorrow goes.

I feel that it is just a blip, but I am also anxious that there will be a number of blips in the next few weeks and I will find it hard to get through them without giving up drinking.... I must make myself a delicious non-alc drink like Denise does and take that out firmly with me.    Oh Lord, it's going to be difficult to do this and maintain my social life... time to start mixing exotic non-alc cocktails.

Possible solutions

OK - I became brave and strong and added up the points and I found I had stolen 13 points from the week - so it wasn't that bad, although I may have been a little bit kind to myself... however, I feel that as I owned up and counted it all out - olive by chip by sugary strawberry that I could perhaps be gentle - and I think my steak was smaller than their suggested portion..

The good news is - we have 36 points still to enjoy!  That's 2 bottles of wine... but I need to work out a strategy for tomorrow.

The important thing is to make some good veggie soup - and have that ready for emergencies.  That will be fine - filling etc. and perhaps I can make some more room for wine in the evening.  Or alternatively not eat anything.   Or get fish and chips - which isn't as bad as you'd think.

Goals

This week we talked about having goals - just small goals, to encourage us.  I suppose my goal might be to put my plimsolls on one day, in the hope that I might go out.   It would help if it stopped raining.


The first WW goal is to lose 5% of one's body weight - which I have done, the second one will be to lose 10%.  

My next short-term goal is to get down to that weight by the end of August (28th is the last meeting) - which means I will have lost 2 stone. This means I will have to lose 11lbs in the next 6 weeks, which doesn't seem impossible, but does require a certain amount of concentration... I can certainly lose 6lbs, but but... I haven't seen a pattern yet.

My medium-term goal is to get down to roughly the weight I was at my mother's funeral by September,  I'm not sure I could do that though - I've just worked out that I was about 17st 9 then - so that's out of the question I think (well it's 8 weeks to beginning of Sept - so even if I lost 16lbs I'd still only be 18.11 - heigh-ho!).  On the other hand, 112 kg on our old, wildly optimistic scales was probably about 6kg out - so my weight was probably nearer 18,.7lbs so not that far off...


My long-term goal - is to be about 12 - 14 stone.... I don't think I'll ever go right to the bottom, not sure if I want to. I only want to be healthier - not to become a haggard stick!


General goal: not to increase weight any week - the worst can be to stay the same.

First goal 3rd July
Last week's goal was not to eat all my bonus points.   I had 23 left (out of 49) so I really feel that contributed to my "excessive" weight loss (2.5lbs).  Achieved

Second Goal 10th July
This week's goal is - what?  To go for two walks down towards the harbour...

Third Goal 17th July

Well - I didn't succeed with that goal - so it's the same goal for next week.   And the secondary goal is not to  use up all my bonus points!  Last week I was 20 over the limit!   Lucky I stayed the same weight.

Result: I didn't walk to the harbour - but I walked a great deal more - and swum and so got 10 activity points up to Monday.  Also, today, Monday, I still have some bonus points left...so perhaps I won't do too badly tomorrow.

Fourth goal 24th July
Try not to use any bonus points - have at least one long walk, a swim and two short walks - even if it's only round the block or to the library.  I yearn to lose 3lb this week - perhaps if I don't drink?  But I've already had a glass today!

You are losing weight too fast!

Naughty Weight Watchers - this week I lost 2.5 lbs - and only used half my bonus points.   When I recorded this on the computer record, a little pop-up appeared and told me I was losing weight too fast, and I needed to slow down or else I might suffer terrible effects, such as headaches, anaemia, etc.

This is a bit silly - last week I lost 1.5 lbs and they didn't tell me it was too slow.   What they mean is losing weight too fast for WW to make a proper profit out of me.  For heaven's sake - if I lose weight at the recommended rate they will have my money for over a year...  One needs to have above-average weeks to compensate for the below average weeks...  Oh well, at least I haven't lost any more points for getting below 20 stone.

Bonus points -

I am writing this before my next weigh-in.  After the panic about eating at JoJo's I found I really hadn't been so bad after all.  In fact, because my Friday night booze-up was cancelled I actually haven't used all my bonus points this week  This is the first week that I haven't used them all.  Most days I have had less than the full complement of points.

I am a bit suspicious about Bonus Points - we all get the same allocation - and WW say "you will still lose weight" if you eat them.  I wonder about the points system - according to WW you should lose 2lb a week on the diet.  That seems good, but what if you want to lose more?  Can you? Should you?  Have they designed it to ensure you don't feel hungry (not really - unless you live off Healthy & Filling foods)?  Or to ensure you continue paying a sub. to WW for as long as possible?  I suspect you will lose less weight if you eat the bonus points....   Well, we'll see what happens tomorrow.

I CAN'T do this!

Today I started well - we had good intentions, we went to a nice place for lunch - a special treat for us - and I chose meat, salad etc.  We shared everything so the meal was:

Cured pork shoulder, served with bread, houmous with pitta, (M's choices),
A large salad with fetta cheese (M's choice), patatas bravas (M's choice)
Grilled lamb - my choice.

My idea was that I would drink a nice glass of wine - slowly - nibble a spoon of houmous with a tiny bit of bread, eat a slice of the pork shoulder - then eat grilled lamb and salad.
Except, I also ate more of the houmous, and some of the patatas bravas and some olives.  It could have been worse, but I realised at the end of it that I didn't have much capacity for supper.

We had steak for supper - and special low fat oven chips which I've invented... although I only had 2 of them.  I had steak, mushrooms, mangetouts and tomatoes.  Unfortunately we were bought a bottle of wine by Rafa, so my intention not to drink was lost - and after two glasses (arrgghhh) of very nice Chilean Pinot Noir - I thought "what the hell!" and had some of the chocolate cheese cake and strawberry compote (pure sugar!)

So, I feel I've had all my extra points in one and now have nothing to save for the weekend.  Oh dear!

The point is, if this happens once a week as it has so far (week 1 trip to France, week 2 boozeathon, week 3 Pa's birthday, and this week we still have tomorrow night with Anna to look forward to...)  That said, I think if I can keep well down on the regular days, perhaps I will continue to lose weight - maybe not as fast as I would like.

WW claim you should lose 2lbs a week - well, hmmm.  That would take me a year and 11 weeks to get down to 11st (if I wanted to).  But if I keep having these splurges - my rate will be considerably lower... but it's too early to say how bad it could be.

Your 100 best diet tips!

Well, even dwarves started small.... here's the first one.  I hope to add more in due course.

1. Reduce your drinking by: mislaying your glass after the first drink or so.   If you have plenty of water between alcoholic drinks, after a while you won't feel thirsty and if you don't have a glass you aren't prompted to drink.    So much behaviour is habitual - it takes ages to retrain ourselves and an empty glass means another drink... It helps if there is something interesting happening so that you don't need to drink.


2. Don't drink at all.  It is well known that drinking reduces inhibitions, in fact seems to dissolve one's superego completely... so don't.  Learn to love slim line tonic with slices of lemon or lime.  If it's boring, mislay your glass and stop drinking (see above).


3. Reaching a weight plateau  This was an observation made by someone who'd successfully lost about 10 stone.  She said for many years she'd been around 15 stone - before creeping up to 20ish - when she lost the weight again she was stuck for weeks around 15 stone - she thought perhaps her body "recognised" the weight - and felt right and was happy to stay there - this seemed a very clever and sensible observation.  The only answer is just to keep on keeping on and find other ways to reward yourself for your apparently fruitless efforts.  The weight will shifte eventually, and after that her weight loss proceeded normally.

Why am I so Hungry?

3rd July

So, it's 5.00pm and I feel hungry.  I ate lunch early, at about 12.30 and I had a very delicious wrap with smoked salmon, cottage cheese and salad.  I think it's justifiable to feel hungry so long after lunch, and I am going to have some water and an apple while I cook supper - or perhaps a little bit of something proteinish...

But actually, I had half a slice of sourdough bread and some butter - much nicer!  Oh dear.  Didn't drink water. 

A bit of structure

I know how boring it is when people go on about their diets, and tell you what they do and how they do it, but it is necessary for me to write about things somewhere, and sometimes it's helpful to hear other people's experiences.

I think I will be revisiting certain subjects while I write this blog - and it will be interesting to track my views on them.  I expect I will have different entries - on drinking, carbs, exercise, useful advice etc.  So each entry will be updated, and enlarged - rather than a more piecemeal approach.   I hope it will work, it means that people can just read a section that entertains or interests them - rather than having to wade through a lot of irrelvancies - but I'll probably write a few "diary" pieces as well.

Drinking

I love drinking - but I am beginning to realise (the examples of friends who already show signs of vasculardementia) that it is not great for the ageing brain.   Naturally, drink is not the dieter's friend either, so I need to cut it down.  I have not drunk much during meal times since I started.  That evening glass of wine or the pre-dinner drink has gone.  On the other hand, there have been days when you have points left and you could...

However, there are definite downsides with the drink issue.  I get joint pains (ligaments!) and I am fuzzy in the morning... so clearly I need to find non-alcoholic things to drink.

July 5th

Had a lovely evening sitting in the garden with J, S and A - the mini-book group.  We talked about book, art and films... I started with a white wine and soda - the white wine was so delicate it was drowned by the soda, so I drank a lot of fizzy water.   Then I had a proper glass of wine - then more fizzy water and another proper glass of wine.   Then it rained and we went inside.  I forgot to bring my glass - and, here's an interesting thing without my glass I didn't feel any great urge to drink!  I am going to make a diet tips entry - and include that.

Results
sudden emphatic raid on the cashews... sore knee this morning.  Head not v. fuzzy due to all the water.

July 5th (2)


Drank a large 175cl glass of rose at lunch - felt distinctly sluggish afterwards, and picked far more at the food than I would have, so ate quite a few patatas bravas  - they were delicious.
At supper was honour-bound to drink wine kindly presented by departing student Rafa.  This loosened inhibitions so that I had small slice of chocolate cheesecake (wonderful!) and stawberry compote...we await the results.

Goals

In my first week I miraculously lost 12lb - thus getting very close to my first goal - 5% of my body weight.  I haven't set a long-term goal - because it's too scarey.  I could go down to about 11 stone - that would mean losing about 10 stone - arrrgh.  Which would mean losing 47.6% of my body weight.   I have a feeling that I might be perfectly happy to lose about 7 stone... I would still be other people's definition of horribly fat - but I'd be happy, could wear my silk dress and my linen suits again.

There's a lot of psychology about goals - being something one can engage with.   I have a "magic weight" - when my waist reappears... that is my medium term goal I suspect, but just getting rid of my creaky knees has been so wonderful.

The first 3 weeks

Today I attended my 4th Weight Watchers meeting.  I lost 1.5 lbs, which was a relief, due to my slightly ricketty adherence to the programme over the weekend (lost count of red wine and cashews on Friday night) - pulled in my horns carefully on Saturday night (ate uncounted leftovers for lunch, and tastes of stuff from cooking) then went to a party where I only had two glasses of wine (we were only there for 2 hours) and two flat breads with roast beef.   On Sunday I ate whatever I wanted and drank a great deal.   This included a delicious charlotte russe with coffee and almond filling....

So - here I am again, this is the 4th time I have joined WW - and that doesn't include when my mother put me on a WW diet when I was 11.   I was at my heaviest ever (non-pregnant) weight 3 weeks ago and I have now lost 13.5lbs, which is excellent.  I thought the best way to deal with it was just to get on with it and not obsess about food, the strategy seems fine, but it doesn't quite work.

Firstly, I am hungry a lot (this is meant to be good), the correct response to which is to eat more "healthy & filling foods".
Secondly, I am deeply cynical of WW - I believe they have a pro-carb policy which is unhelpful to me.
Thirdly, although I enjoy it, I am deeply unhappy about eating carbs in any quantity.
4th I am deeply cynical of WW as I believe they are encouraging people to indulge their sweet tooth - and are thus in cahoots with the whole mass food processing industry, and all their works and pomps, which include High Fructose Corn Syrup, hydrogenated fats/ trans fats, palm oil and all the other ethical and health nasties which are included in manufactured foods.

I have therefore decided the following:

I can tell myself I can eat whatever I want, but I should make efforts to eat low carb foods - rather than bread etc.

I am going to continue to avoid sweet things.

I am going to note when I feel hungry and what I have eaten.  This will go in an entry called Why am I so Hungry? which will see if there are any common factors.