I've been meaning to catch a spare few moments to sit down and write about how I'm finding Weight Watchers and how I'm combining it with this amazingly common sense probably should have been doing this all along and I've known it too PCOS diet (diet in this case being "food I eat" as opposed to "weight loss programme"...I'm doing WW for that part of it). Since today is my weigh in day and I've lost more weight this week and am two pounds away from an important personal milestone I figured I'd take this chance to talk about it. I could make seperate posts but I figure...let's condense it all...
I'll start with why in two pounds time I'll have hit this personal milestone. Looking over at my ticker there I've lost, since about this time last year, 15 pounds. Or in Brit speak, that's 1 stone and 1 pound. For a years worth of weight loss it is kind of pathetic but for most of that time I've been writing here and you know as well as I that I've not been sticking strictly to plan at all over that time. But when I started seriously trying (once again, this time last year, with the help of MFP) I got all the way down to 16 pounds lost in the space of about two months. It was the first time in my life I'd ever lost that ammount of weight, on any form of diet or weight loss programme (though I use that term loosely) ever, and I'd been on a fair few since hitting puberty.
I'm sure many of you will know that feeling and recognise that pattern.
So what messed it up? Well a family obligation took me way off of plan for a weekend or so...and it wasn't the kind of family obligation that involves merryment and cheerfulness...we basically all gorged our grief away on food and emotionally ate our way through a task that, simply, just had to be done. And since then I've always allowed myself to go off plan every time family came to visit or a friend had a birthday or Xmas...good God in heaven, Xmas...as soon as December hit, woosh, I said "fuck you, diet, you aint working anyway!"
And have thus struggled ever since. In the time since, I put on way over those sixteen pounds, I just don't class it as my heaviest weight because my scales were too puny to weigh me, and I can't remember what I was in kilograms at the dieticians during my brief forray down that avenue.
So once I've lost another pound I'll be back at that initial 16 loss and when I loose two pounds I will my own personal milestone...the lightest I'll have been in about four years.
But not to forget all milestones, because the very fact that I am at 15 pounds lost means that today I'm the lightest I've been since October last year, so that in itself is fantastic!
Now for how I'm finding my method of loosing this weight...Weight Watchers system is working for me in that it is essentially a simplified version of calorie counting, but it also includes a little of what I was doing for a while, when I was looking at long term intake so if I went over one day it didnt matter as long as I was under another day...doing that through its system of 49 points a week to splurge however you wish.
I just want to say now actually, I'm not raving WW and saying it's the way ahead, just that so far it seems to be fitting very nicely into my life.
As for the PCOS diet, it is essentially just what every health professional worth their salt would prescribe to anyone at all for optimum health, it's just that it's broken it down into steps to follow and there's no pressure, I can go to the next step when I'm ready. But the way they've put it works in my mind and makes sense to me, and giving reasons as to why I should eat that way specific to my situation really helps me stay focussed (ie, "how this will help your PCOS" as oppsed to "do it cause it's healthy to").
Seperating it from my weight loss has helped me too. When trying to loose weight before everyone has said, essentially, to count your calories and try to eat good wholesome food. But eating said wholesome food isn't a prerequisite. I always told myself...whatever...I'll eat healthy when I can be bothered, as long as I loose...except that 1000 cals of mars bar or pizza is not quite as fulfilling as, say, 1000 calories of vegetables...can you imagine trying to eat 1000 calories of celery? I mean...seriously...you would be sprouting it out of your ears...
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| I'M COMING FOR YOU DARLING! |
Which is pretty obvious, but when you just don't want to give up your nightly bag of crisps and massive bar of chocolate (why yes I did do this every night then complain I wasn't loosing) then you'll do anything to justify that. But the problem is that when it comes to losing weight I really will just say well...I may be eating crap but I am creating a calorie deficit...never mind the fact that I still crave more and more, and will blow my diet on a massive take out at least once a week, plus deciding that weekends are a "no go" when it comes to diets...
But for whatever stupid self delusional reason, I'm eating healthily now not to loose weight but to prime my body for child rearing, and am doing WW for weight loss. It works in my head. If I have to overcomplicate it then evidently that's just the way I'm wired to work!
Anyhow, I'm kind of doing steps one and two of this miraculous wonderful PCOS diet at once (though focussing on the first) as they are "eat more often" and "eat more whole foods". The eat more whole foods thing is a gradual process and involves us totally overhauling our old habits and food cupboard...I still have a few weight watchers frozen dinners but I have plans for them (out of necessity and convenience of my schedule more than anything) but the eat more often thing has already made a massive difference to me. Since fruit and veg is free on WW I've been making sure that I eat at least once every three hours, and if it isn't meal time I will just eat fruit and I just haven't been craving chocolate or crisps or anything since I started it. I haven't even had the room...
But it's not that I'm immune to it...Ben and I caved last night and got a takeout, but because I'd been filling up all day on fruit and then at Costa Coffee on yoghurt I didn't even eat half of what I ordered for myself, and I felt pretty ill all night. I remember when I first ordered this particular meal, I wolfed it all down and said to Ben "that was lovely, and just enough to fill me up without making me feel ill". Talk about a turn around.
Now, normally on a Friday it's our treat day, and I would blow my weekly 49 points allowance and get a pizza in and this that and the other. But I'm gonna be good. I'll still treat myself, but we're having lunch at "Skinnimalinx" which is a diet cafe on Castle Street here in Liverpool (gives you the nutritional information, calorie counts, WW points, Slimming World syns etc of all their food) so I don't want to eat something yummy and healthy there only to blow it all on Pizza tonight, so I'll probably pick up some nice ham and a granary sub and have a stacked out ham salad sandwich. I feel so positive about my progress that, actually, I don't want to blow it all! I'd rather save my weekly allowance and have a glass of wine sometime through the week with one of my lovely home made dinners.
In other news...more success since that's what we're talking about...I had my midway assesment at ChildLine, and it was like basking in praise for five minutes. Which, you know, absoloutely lifted my spirits since work is beginning to feel more like a drag at the minute. Not the job itself or the people, but I'm being pretty much pushed into doing way more hours than I signed up for and I'm worried about the bill I'm going to get from the tax credit office in April when it turns out the average hours I've worked is closer to 30 as opposed to the 20 I've told them I'm working, based on what my contract says. I understand why I'm working those hours and why my manager needs me to...and I don't mind working the odd 30+ hour week from time to time to help out...however it does become a problem when it starts to become something regular and I think it's probably about time some of the other part timers started pulling their weight with regards to filling up some of the gaps in the rota because I'm the only one doing as much as I am. Anyhow, I'll see how the next rota looks and then I'll start complaining!
And as for the ChildLine thing, well I shall tell you more about that next Wednesday when I have my report infront of me...honest to God it's like being in school again and getting a good report to take home to your mum! But until then...or anything else I happen to want to blog about...I give you a very happy farewell!
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