Anna’s Diary, Week 5

For the past month, Anna’s been keeping us updated on her weekly progress. If you’ve missed her earlier entries, you can find them all in the Diarist category. And without further ado from me, here’s Week 5…

The perennial question of “How did I get so big?”

I have a lot in common with a fruit bat in this weather. Since starting my weight-loss journey I have had to learn how to eat again. No don’t snigger, the assumption that because I was A Very Large Person I was also a complete glutton is not strictly true. I have tried of late to understand how I got so big, or sooooooooooooo big if you do the hand movements of hugeness!

I hadn’t got a clue about portion control, that much is true, and if I cooked rice or pasta I made enough to feed a family of 4 for a week and usually there were no leftovers, but I was very good at going whole days without eating! I have read so many articles on understanding eating and eating disorders in an attempt to try and understand myself, but perhaps its symptomatic of the fact that I was totally unaware of just how huge I was until the seatbelt incident that I really don’t fully understand why I was so fat.

Well, perhaps the whole family-sized bags of Kettle crisps might have contributed, and a love of all things yellow and fat or blue and smelly. Cheese … please hold on a moment whilst I have one of those moments when the bubbles come out of the top of my head and I dream. Stilton oozing off the plate, walking out of the fridge. Ok, snap back to now and cheese is one of the sacrifices I’ve made at the altar of trying to be a size 12. Maybe I do understand, maybe half a pound of cheese at one sitting is a bit excessive. Given that it’s a whole day’s calories now. Ooops – is this a light bulb moment?

Resisting breakfast buffets – but with no reward?

I digress, you want to know about last week. Travelling again, and I decided to have a healthy breakfast and stick to fruit during the day. Like thin people do! I am currently fighting myself to not give in to the temptation to eat less to lose more – because I know it won’t work but I want to get there soon. “There“ being 10 stone and normal, well normal for me. What is normal? Whoa, no more digression, back to the week that was.

I’m over the tempation to have a full cooked from the hotel buffets now, a poached egg and a slice of wholemeal toast may not be a fraction of the price you pay for breakfast but hits the spot. I even braved the hotel gym and apart from not realising it worked in miles not kilometres and setting it to 9 with the result that I have never run so fast in all my life or hit the STOP button quite so quickly. Quick look round to see if anyone noticed or was sniggering in the corner and gave in and asked the resident gym bunny for help.

The net result on the scales? Nothing. Nowt. Zilch. Zippo.

No wine with dinner – although goodness in the company I was in a half pint of Chardonnay would have helped – no bread, nothing vaguely caloried. Annoying! Time for some navel gazing – now that I can see my navel in roughly the right place that is and not more south pole than north pole if you know what I mean. I wanted to cry but decided that I hadn’t had enough water for the day so couldn’t spare the tears. I often feel that ‘dieting’ is so unfair but the only person setting the expectations is me. I don’t attend meetings where I have to fight to be the star loser of the week so what does it matter if I haven’t lost the 2lbs per week that my rate of loss according to scientific principles says I should on day 7? It doesn’t and that’s the hardest lesson of all to learn. Looking at the bigger picture isn’t what I want to do but it’s the most sensible. I abhor the word bigger now, I wonder why?! When you weigh daily as I do you have to be a very brave girl and accept that hidden salt, water, even the weather can change your weight by a little or a lot. That is goes as quickly as it comes and it’s the overall trend that matters. I hope I’m listening to myself now!

A happy ending to the week after all…

Back to the office and home and going every second day to the gym has broken the deadlock though and combined with sticking to the basic principles of eat right and move more, I have at last lost another pound. Which just goes to show me that I do need to eat, that fruit all day is not the answer for me, and that going without is counter productive. Not because I reach for the crisps or the cheese (a Stilton moment coming on), but because I have to learn to understand me again. It also takes me to just (JUST!) 21lbs to go. To go? To go to where? I think I’ll ponder that one for next week.

(Image above by fensterbme)