I Did It!!!!

This week, for me, has been an utter whirl of anniversaries and accomplishments, and I still feel as if I’m floating on a cloud. Here’s hoping I don’t fall off too soon. As mentioned in my previous blog, May 14th was the one year anniversary of my initial meeting with my Cambridge Weight Plan consultant. And what a year it has been!! After last week’s horrible and unexpected gain of four pounds, which took me nine pounds away from my ultimate goal of losing 12 stone in exactly 12 months, and essentially “halving myself” in a year.  The gain was very disappointing, but I didn’t let it deter me. I stuck religiously to my 1200 calories a day plan, and kept up with the exercise. It was incredibly tempting all week to drop the calorie intake and hit the exercise even harder, in the hope that those pesky nine pounds would magically melt away. Instead I gave myself a thorough talking to and reconciled that “what will be, will be”. Numbers shouldn’t matter that much, it’s how you feel that counts…. Of course, that’s what I told myself…but it don’t stop me hopping on and off the scale several times a day and counting my calories to obsessional level….. The fated day arrived… Things didn’t go quite to plan. I had to change the time of my appointment due to a misunderstanding over the start time of my son’s new swimming class, but my consultant was able to accommodate. So, come High Noon, heart in my throat, I found myself knocking on a door that had become so familiar over the past 12 months.  My consultant greeted me with her customary light bulb smile and I presented her with an orchid, in Cambridge colours naturally, to commemorate “our anniversary”. My consultant blushed and immediately apologised. My change of schedule had ruined her plans, she had arranged for a florist delivery for me at her home to surpirsie me with, while our original appointment was ongoing. Oh well, that she would drop them over later. That would be something nice to look forward to. (and they were worth waiting for, a stunning bunch in shades of my favourite colour purple!). W e moved upstairs to her office and I sat down in the chair which, just a year ago, I could barely squeeze into. After a few formalities, it was time…to step on those scales. Now, as I have already said, I had been obsessively scale-hopping all week, however, the results had fluctuated all over the place, and, also I knew that my scales and my consultants (the ones that mattered..) rarely agreed with one another. All I did know was that I had definitely lost something… So, as I had done 42 times before, I stepped cautiously on to the scales, waited for the beep. The beep came…there was silence, for what seemed like an eternity. Then my consultant spoke…. “YOU’VE DONE IT…NINE POUNDS OFF!!! …YOU WEIGH 12 STONES EXACTLY!!” No way….No fricking way….really????? What black magic was this?  Actually, what white magic was this?  Had the Weight Loss Fairy taken pity on me and paid me a visit? Whatever it was, I was jubilant, there were tears in my eyes. There were hugs dished out. My consultant was delighted, but not in the least bit surprised. “I had a feeling you’d do it” she said, as she handed me the “12 Stone” rosette that she had concealed on her desk just in case the result hadn’t been quite so good. So there I was, I had achieved the goal I had wanted so badly, on the very day that I really, really wanted it to happen. And just after I had finally resigned myself to the fact that it didn’t really matter. Isn’t it funny how sometimes the thing that you have been desperate to attain for a long time finally appears after you have stopped stressing about getting it? Is it possible to want something too much? Is the key in this the acceptance of your current circumstances? I have heard many times of this phenomenon, especially in the stories of couples who have been trying for a baby for many, many years with no success who eventually reconcile themselves to the fact that it may not happen, only to discover, soon after, that they are blessed with a pregnancy.  Now I’m not trying to belittle the heartache of childlessness by comparing it to the tribulations of trying to shift unwanted pounds, but I think that the principle still stands in any scenario where we maybe want something too much….  Do we give off  “Desperation Pheromones” that somehow hamper our progress and prevent success?  With anything that you want so badly, I agree that determination and persistence are key, but I am coming to realise that, before that, we must undergo a process of Acceptance. When, many years ago, I was trying to come to terms with the effects of my father’s alcoholism I joined the Al-Anon support group who work in association with Alcoholics Anonymous to support the families and friends of alcoholics. Both groups subscribe to the Twelve Step programme, the keystone of which is Acceptance. This means admitting that you are powerless over alcohol / the alcoholic (or any substance or behaviour of abuse), and allowing yourself to feel and reconcile yourself with the negativity that these things have caused you. It’s not an easy process, it involves working THROUGH the pain that you have probably avoided for many years, allowing it to wash over you and weathering the storm. If you can do this successfully, you will learn that all storms do pass and you will emerge stronger for having survived. For me, in my weight loss journey, it involved looking at myself long and hard in the mirror and no longer the denying the undeniable facts. I was FAT, I was UNHEALTHY, I was UNHAPPY with my size. My weight RESTRICTED me, it PREVENTED me from doing so much. I was AFRAID of doing anything about it. The day that I gave in to those feelings was a very dark one, but it was also one of the best choices I made. It took COURAGE, it took DETERMINATION, but, hell, it was WORTH IT.

I now understand, completely, why Acceptance is so important in the process of self-growth.  It is the ploughing of the field before new seeds are planted. It is the clearing of the weeds so that healthy plants can grow and flourish. But, as I’m sure any farmer will tell you, the ploughing is one of the toughest and most laborious tasks in the farming calendar. But the most necessary…

So here I am now, just a few pounds away from my target. I have decided to call it a day on my weight loss when I reach “eleven stone anything” and then work towards the more challenging task of maintenance. 

For 12 months now, I have rowed long and hard in my little boat across vast and seemingly horizon-less seas. Sometimes the oceans have been treacherous, other times it has been plain sailing. 

A few weeks ago, I cried “land ahoy”, and now I have moored my little boat in shallow waters and am wading knee-deep in crystal waters towards the idyllic silvery beach of my Paradise Island…the land of Slimness!!! 

Oh, how I’ve dreamed of this moment, when I finally step onto dry land and sink my toes into the warm sands. 

The only problem is, that my dream always ended there, when I reached my destination. 

I have been so focused, for so long, on “the journey” that I haven’t given any thought as to what I will do when I actually arrive. From a distance, the Island looked beautiful and inviting, shimmering like a prize jewel from afar, but now I am here I am filled with trepidation. 

What awaits me beyond the sandy shores? 

Is my island populated by blood thirsty cannibals waiting to devour me when I step into their forest lair? 

Do hungry beasties lurk in bone-strewn caves? 

Will there be fresh water and enough food to sustain a permanent life there? 

Or will I run screaming back to my boat, rowing like crazy to escape what once seemed like Utopia? 

These are questions that can’t be answered right now, but to turn away at this stage would be folly. Once I arrive on the shore, I may allow myself a small time to fall dramatically to the floor, sprawling like an exhausted Robinson Crusoe. But then, I must pick myself and muster up yet again the courage and determination that drove me to row across the uncharted waters. There may well be cannibals and beasties, but if I was strong enough to master the oceans then I know that I have the strength to overcome these hurdles too.

Wish me luck……

"An Unexpected Gain| (apologies to Tolkien,...)

I don’t normally write blog posts on two consecutive days, but after yesterday’s positive and jubilant entry I crashed down to earth a little bit within hours of posting . I had my weigh in yesterday evening. Over the months I’ve come to actually look forward to weigh ins. In all the times I have been to visit my consultant, there are only two occasions where I have registered a gain, once after Christmas and then after my holiday in April. Those were totally justified gains, I had veered off plan, intentionally, and deserved the result that the scales showed me. All the other times have seen pretty significant losses. All is in balance in the universe….Until yesterday.

Straight after work, and before dinner, I took myself off to my consultant’s home for the Moment of Truth. I had made the usual contingency preparations. No big meal, no overdosing on the water, ensuring that I had selected lightweight clothes to wear, several trips to the toilet (including the one at my consultant’s – any opportunity to eke out a few more ounces..) and I was ready to see the results. For me it had been a good week. I had “stepped up” to Step 4 upon reaching the 11.5 stone milestone (you have no idea how excited was as being allocated those extra 200 calories a day!!) but, to offset this, I had also upped my exercise activity, throwing in a couple of weekly running sessions (several circuits of the pitch with some of the Rugby Mums during training) in addition to my thrice-weekly Zumba sessions. The previous day I had also clocked up some 18,000 steps on my FitBit during a mammoth shopping trip, achieving a personal  best on my footsteps. I was excited but also little nervous. Excited, because at the previous weigh in I had found myself at only 5lbs from a Twelve Stone loss, essentially “halving myself” since last May. Nervous because I had been doing some naughty scale hopping over the last few days trying to anticipate what the results might be. The scales had fluctuated a lot, some days registering a loss, others a gain. But I wasn’t too worried, last week my bathroom weigh-ins showed that I had stayed the same, but by the time I reached my consultant I had dropped five pounds. That pesky apparatus was clearly unreliable.

So , armed with this information and mis-information, I tentatively stepped on the “official” scales and waited, with baited breath for the Beep of Truth…. 

Behind me, where my consultant sat, I heard an uncustomary sound…...the sucking of teeth. Having heard this noise many times emanating from mechanics and plumbers with bad news to impart about the cost of repairs, I bristled. This was unusual… 

Then came the words..”You’re not going to like this…. You’ve gained FOUR POUNDS…”

“What?????”  My inner monologue, more used to bathing in the glow of success, let rip a string of very demotivating expletives…”How the hell..???”.

I was confused, shocked, dazed…suddenly the world had tilted on its axis and thrown me about. “How can this be..? I’ve been so good…? What’s going on?”

I felt cheated. When I had gained before, I knew why and I had no reason to quibble. I had enjoyed  a good time and was paying the price. But this time was different, I had genuinely not misbehaved, in fact I had beasted myself on the exercise front. It was so unfair. What was the universe doing to me?If I had gained , at least deserved to have had a bloody good time earning it!!! This was wrong…

So, composing myself as best I could, I sat down graciously in the chair, trying to display a beatific smile but there was no hiding my dismay. My consultant did her best to console me, even to the extent of weighing me again and taking my measurements. But the truth remained. I had gained four pounds and not even lost any inches to compensate.  Sensing my need to “talk this out” my consultant offered what consolation she could. “it’s probably water weight from increasing your exercise, you’re building muscle and losing fat”. 

Now, when I first started talking about taking up running, even before I actually commenced on the programme a colleague of mine, a stalwart Marathoner had warned me that “you may actually gain a bit of weight when you first start”. Of course, I had brushed this off, because, naturally, this wouldn’t happen to ME, and they only said “may…”. I didn't want to hear those words so I dismissed them. But here were the facts, staring me in the face, those naughty, muscles, tearing though a sudden burst in activity were repairing themselves by holding on to the water in my body. And as any women of childbearing age knows, water retention is the enemy. It was the only answer. But I didn’t like it, I didn’t like it at all…

That night, I slumped back, a very grouchy Mummy, to my husband and kids, who were eagerly awaiting the usual jubilant announcement of how many pounds I had lost. They didn’t get the response they were expecting and over dinner that night the usual animated conversation degenerated to the occasional bark and mumble. I was not a happy bunny.

Once the kids had retreated to bed, and my husband had slunk off reluctantly on his night shift, I grabbed my laptop and started Googling “Exercise and weight gain” like a woman possessed. I wanted to be sure.. .. absolutely sure that there was no other reason, no other more easily remedied reason to be exact. But each tab I clicked on told me the same thing, it was very likely to be water weight gain from the exercise. So why was I so obsessed? Why did I need to KNOW so badly? Well Knowledge is Power. The only problem is that Knowledge can’t whisk away those pesky four pounds and that’s what I really wanted more than anything else….

Now that the dust has settled and my mood has been lifted a little by the beautiful summer weather we are experiencing, I've had a chance to contemplate and analyse my reactions to the gain. 

It is perfectly natural,  I admit, to be disappointed when our efforts aren’t rewarded in the way that we believe we deserve. I also admit, however, that my reaction was a little bit extreme and inappropriate and there’s obviously a lesson that needs to be learnt from this experience.

So what is life trying to teach me this time? Here are my thoughts…

Being a person of my persuasion with a tendency towards addiction and compulsion, and these go hand in hand with obsession. This can work well as a driving force to getting things done, but it doesn’t prove so useful when things don’t go as planned. I wrote a blog a couple of months ago about how “when you make plans, God laughs” but, clearly this message needs hammering home a little harder. 

Coming up to the home straight on my weight loss journey, I am finding myself desperate to get to the Finishing Line, which, last week, was just a half stone or so away. But the problem is, I forget that I have been running a Marathon, and not doing the 100 metre hurdles. 

How many of those completing the 26.2 mile slog are witnessed crossing the end line with a hop and a skip, and a sudden burst of energy? Not many. In fact the majority of the runners take the last few steps with palpable and visibly painful effort before slumping unceremoniously to the ground in sheer exhaustion and relief. They are not inclined to do the “lap of honour” like the sprinters….

And I must realise that this is how it may be for me… 

My journey, so far, has been a relatively easy one, the weight has come off quickly and regularly and I have seen the pounds and stones slip behind me. Now I have to work harder on the final stretch. This does not rub well with my psyche and I’ve come to realise that I am still very easily seduced by instant gratification.  Only now I had replaced the buzz that comes from consuming sugar and fat with that of seeing another great result on the scale. Life is telling me to slow down…and to calm down…and this could be my biggest challenge yet.

The little “devil on my shoulder” , who never misses a trick, has already been whispering suggestively in my disappointed ear. Just yesterday, as I stomped around my local supermarket, in a post weigh-in fugue, he began with his little words of temptation…”Go on..buy yourself a chocolate bar…you deserve something even if you’re not rewarded with a weight loss… Feck it..what harm can it do?”  Thankfully the angel (or Fairy Godmother) on my other shoulder has upped her game in the recent months and was able to carefully steer me away from the confectionery aisle. 

I was also offered a form of “temptation” by my consultant (although I believe that this was done with the best of intentions) in the form of suggesting that, perhaps I would like to reduce my calorie intake again, or decrease the amount of exercise I took. 

I did consider those options but in the end I decided against it. Fairy Godmother had the upper hand… I suddenly understood that my focus had to be on the Big Picture and not the relative minutiae of one “bad” weigh in. 

Why had I embarked upon this journey in the first place? 

Was it so I could clock up a number of rosettes on my fridge for every stone I had lost? 

Was it so I could boast about an unblemished record of losing weight each week? 

Nope – I did it for my health. 

And what could be better for my health than a good exercise regime and a long-term healthy attitude towards food? I needed to keep going forward not turn backwards, just for the sake of the thrill of another big loss on the scales.

I see, now that, that this is going to be a tough lesson to learn, but it is an absolute essential one if I am to sustain the healthy life I have craved for so many years. I need not to find another outlet for my obsessions and addictions, but to release the need to indulge these at all. I need to stop feeding the monster within, the one that craves thrills and gratification, and instead to learn to nurture a stillness in my soul and a quiet satisfaction that I am on the right path. 

Ronan Keating got it wrong. Life is, in fact NOT a Roller Coaster…well not all of it. Yes, there are times we get to go on fairground rides in our lives, and these are equally exhilarating and terrifying times. But these rides only last minutes. We spend a lot more of our time just queuing up, waiting to get on the ride, and even more just doing what needs to be done in life. But it doesn’t mean that our lives are any the less enriched by the quieter times we experience. 

It has been one heck of a ride for me, so far, but now it is time for me to find a sweet spot by a tranquil riverbank and just “be” , content that it is ok to sit still and exist.

This is going to be a tough one…wish me luck!!!

The Secret.....

This week saw quite the landmark for me. At my last weigh in I found that I had lost another five pounds, bringing my current weight down to 12st 5lb. This figure means a lot to me as it was my initial target when I first began trying to lose weight this time. I’m not exactly sure why I picked this figure, I think it may have been the lowest I managed to get down to on a previous weight loss attempt many, many moons ago. By ‘many moons’ I am talking a good twenty years if not more. It struck me just today that I have spent at least half of my Twenties, the vast majority of my Thirties (give or take a year, when I lost the weight before piling it all back on again) and the first part of my Forties in a physical state where I have weighed in excess of 20 stone. Not a very nice statistic, but no more – that figure will be relegated forever to ancient history… So here I am now, just five pounds away from “halving myself” , from a life, and happiness, threatening 24 stones down to a comfortable, energetic 12st. And I’ve achieved it, so far, in just under a year. So I am feeling contemplative and very, very grateful…. People approach me all the time, now, to ask me how I managed to lose weight. The ask me what is “The Secret” to my success. Well, after keeping it under my hat for a year it’s time for me to do the Big Reveal, to disclose the Truth about how I have so succeeded so far. So here goes….. The Secret Is…(drum roll…)…There is no Secret! (oh dear, I can hear the sounds of people reaching to click off the page as I type….) But, bear  with me, please. There is no Secret but there is a Big Obvious Truth ( the kind that comes in neon, six feet high letters) that is staring us all in the face. The problem with Truths, is that very few of us, including me, actually want to see them…. If you want to get scientific, the basic equation of weight loss is : More Calories Out + Less calories In = Weight Loss. But I think that there’s a little more to it than that. Science is all well and good but it doesn’t take into account the emotional and spiritual factors that have an inconvenient way of interfering with our day to day lives.  So I’ve been doing a lot of exploring over the past twelve months and come to this very simple conclusion. You can apply this to any diet you like, be it Cambridge, SW, WW, 5:2 or any other convoluted nutrition plan… So here is my Secret -…… Losing Weight Does NOT Make You Happy. It will NOT fix your problems for you. Ok, I can sense the impending mouse clicking already…. I am sure that this simple statement will l disappoint a great number of people. How many of us have told ourselves that our lives would be much better if only we were thinner, that our quality of life would be somehow magically enhanced on the mythical day that we slip effortlessly into those size 8 jeans? Some of us get to that target, but many of us don’t, or if we do, it’s a fleeting moment of glory before we slide back in bad habits and the ensuing conclusion that “it can’t be done”. So I maintain my statement. Losing weight cannot possibly make you happy. Only you, the wonderful person inside can do that. It took a very long time for to realise this and to finally understand that my weight gain was a SYMPTOM of all the bad things that were going on in my life, and not the cause.  Long before I was able to embark on this weight loss journey,  I had to work on fixing my head, getting myself straight and reconciling myself with the poor image that I saw reflected in the mirror.

I have come to believe that we each possess a certain amount of energy within us. Not the physical stuff, but the emotional and spiritual energy. Trying to lose weight, especially if you are or have been an emotional eater, expends a vast amount of that energy. It takes a lot of effort, determination, dare I say it, Willpower. The problem is, that if some of our energy is diverted dealing with other matters, which, more often than not, can be more pressing and urgent, then we simply do not have the resources required to dedicate ourselves to changing ourselves into the people we want to be. It’s pretty simple, really.
 The problem is that Obesity has been cited as the One True Evil, it’s the first bastion that the medical researchers cling to. And it is also one of the “Easiest” things to fix, if you believe all the hype of the diet industry. “Just eat less and you’ll get skinny” they cry. What they don’t tell is HOW to eat less.

My advice to anyone who wants to embark on a challenging journey such as I have is this: 

Get Your Heads In the Game First. Take a long, deep look at your life and see what other things you need to change first. What are the aspects of your life that are draining and blocking that emotional energy? For me, it was Toxic Relationships. It took me a while to realise but I was beset by Emotional Vampires in my life, and I was allowing them to suck the very life source from me. And as I became more and more drained, I needed to find a replacement source to sustain me. For me it was Food. But it didn’t work. The Vampires kept sucking and I kept eating, and all that happened was that I got fatter and fatter. And the problem didn’t go away. Eventually, I just cracked, nothing else had worked, I couldn’t run away so I had no choice but to turn around and face my demons. I stood up to them, I told them to leave me alone. It was a painful, terrifying process but one that I had to go through. And I do not regret it. Once the dust had settled and the Vampires had retreated from my life, slowly and surely I began to feel stronger…the energy that had been stolen from me for so long began to ebb back into me. With this energy came a self love too, an innate pride in having mustered the courage and strength to take what I deserved and reject what I did not. And so, a little seed of thought began to germinate in my head….If I had the inner strength to tackle those demons, maybe I had the power to broach others.  Finally I had the energy to tackle my weight loss. And I haven’t looked back so far…..

So that is my Secret… straighten your head before you tackle your body.

Strangely enough, “The Secret” is the title of a best-selling book, all about the Law of Attraction. I have yet to actually read all of this, but I do know that the principle of this book is that “Like Attracts Like”. This means that, as I did, the more you give into Negative Energy , the more likely it will seem to be bestowed upon you. Conversely, if you approach life with a positive and thankful attitude,then life will give you more to be grateful for. Of course, this could be dismissed as hokum, and I’m sure that there there are plenty  who will provide examples to the contrary, but it certainly seems to be working for me! Ever since I took that momentous decision to pick myself off the floor, then blessings seemed to start landing on on my doorstep. Maybe they were always there and I was too deep in my own misery to see them, who knows. All I can say is that life seems a lot rosier to me right now. Of course, even in all this glowing positivity, I am acutely aware that I am living in a very comfortable, unchallenged lifestyle right now so it is easier to see life from the sunny side. We are not beset by illness or poverty, we are secure and happy. I often ask myself, how would I cope if life were to suddenly throw me an unpleasant curve ball. Would all my efforts diminish and would I resort to the destructive and self-defeating coping mechanisms that I relied upon so many times in the past?

This is where the true hard work comes in, and I am currently at the stage of re-assigning my beliefs and thought patterns and endeavouring to change the way I think. Even now, as I suspect we all do, I have that little voice (or Devil on My Shoulder) encouraging me to stray off the righteous path. This voice can be pretty convincing, it knows me well, how to exploit my weaknesses and foibles. Thankfully now, I am learning to listen to another voice that exists within me, one that is learning to speak up and put the Devil in his place. For a very long time I believed that initial Devil voice, after all, it came from within so it must be true. And I became a slave to my Devils’ wants and desires, most of which were very bad for me. I am learning now not to give credence to this voice and to stop, think for a moment and wait before  acting compulsively upon its demands. If I slow down for a second, and wait, the other voice, soft and reassuring, like my own little Fairy Godmother, slips in and gently guides me back down the right path. You just have to wait for a moment. After all, Cinderella’s godmother was clearly a bit of a last-minute merchant, But it did Cinders the world of good when she finally turned up!! So when the Devil speaks up , telling me of the virtues of that delicious cake I hang around until the fairy Godmother slips in with a whisper, “you don’t really want that, dear, you’ll feel guilty and terrible for eating it, and it will make you fat…”

The Devil is at his strongest when we are at our weakest, when our energy is diverted by trauma, drama and tragedy. He is the ultimate Emotional Vampire. So how do we defeat him? This is my strategy… The Devil hates repetition, he doesn’t need it, if he is doing his job properly he only needs to slip in one seductive suggestion and we’re hooked. So to really piss him off, find yourself a Mantra, some affirming positive words you can repeat over and over in your head until you have drowned him out. I was thinking long and hard about this recently and I have now found something that stroingly resonates with me: “Food Never Got Me Through Anything. It Didn’t Fix the Bad Times”. Let me explain…when I reflect on the bad times that happened in my life, the times I struggled and faltered, what are the things that I remember that  helped me to survive, the little life rafts that I clung onto that stopped me going under forever? For me, it was mainly people, good friends that supported and tolerated me, folks that held me up when I had no energy of my own. I can remember the things that they said to me, the gestures they offered and the places they took me.   I can remember songs, movies, quotes that resonated with me at the time because they gave me hope or made me fell less alone. These are filed under "Good Times through Adversity" and they really were life savers. I can draw on these unforgettable moments to sustain me when I'm feeling blue. Strangely enough though, I simply cannot remember the foods I ate during those dark periods. I know I ate, lots of very bad foods, because I got fat, but that’s where the details fade out. So why was the food so forgettable? Because it did nothing for me, it gave me nothing of use to aid me in my recovery…. So, why oh why, did I consistently turn to food when the going got tough?? What magic quality did I think it was going to impart to me? So that is my mantra when I’m feeling down and want to reach for something sweet and sugary because I’m having a tough day:

“Food Never Got Me Through Anything. It Didn’t Fix the Bad Times”. I will repeat it over and over again until the message finally sinks in.

Try the exercise for yourself, think of a difficult period in your life. Firstly, congratulate yourself for surviving, And then, make a note of all the things that helped you get through. I bet you won’t find any list of any foods there.

The only person whose life can be changed for the better by food is a famine victim….

I guess you can call that my Secret. I’m still working on the rest. Wish me luck….