Its no exaggeration to say that so far the diet has been a complete failure because it has. Weirdly enough, I haven't gained a huge anount of weight, perhaps a few pounds but it is going in the wrong direction and thats a problem.
I started off this blog as a challenge but I haven't made any steps towards achieving its aims at all and i'm feeling really quite unhappy about that. I've had a stressful few weeks and A LOT has changed in my life since the beginning of this year, work-wise and life-wise, i'm much busier and I'd definately say that i'm finding things a struggle. The thing is, my way of coping seems to be constantly turning to food and I seem to be binging everyday and consequently i'm feeling really out of control. Its so self-destructive and all i'm doing is sabotaging myself. Its such a frustration.
I'm asking myself:
- Is eating and getting fatter making coping with my current struggles any easier? No
- Is it making it harder to cope? Yes!
- So why am I overeating? Well thats the million dollar question (i'll come back to this later)
- Is my weight the prevailing factor that prevents me from living the life I want to live? Yes
I want to rise to this challenge I set myself! It was intended as a fun way to motivate myself and I used Frankie as a visual aid to inspire me to see how good my body could look! I still am doing that but it does seem like its an unattainable fantasy. Its like a pot of gold at the top of a huge mountain and i'm constantly fighting my way up the mountain. As soon as I think i'm getting somewhere I lose my footing and tumble right back down to where I started. Each time that happens I lose hope, lose heart and feel more and more defeated. I dont want to wallow in that feeling though, I think it just serves to send me tumbling down that mountain at an even faster rate.
So here I am drawing a line in the sand and setting myself the challenge afresh!
When I defined my goals and my plan, I said I was going to be using the cambridge diet, but I soon gave up on that. Nothing wrong in the plan I guess but somehow I didn't manage to stick with it. Then I joined Slimming World, which i'd never considered before (I think of myself as something of a dieting connoisseur - theres not much I haven't either researched or tried). Now, I'm either working or have commitments Mon-Fri evenings so it would be difficult for me to commit to group meetings but I went along to one and collected the pack detailing how the plan works, got weighed and decided to give it a shot. The thought of losing weight slowly (but probably most sensibly), fills me with dread as I've been using 'crash' diets for quite a while now, but I told myself it must be preferable to gaining weight so I was prepared to try. The diet seems complicated and difficult to work out at first but I don't believe it is and, actually, of all of the plans i've tried from the major dieting industry players (Rosemary Conley, Weight Watchers, Lighterlife, Cambridge) it seems the closest to teaching people a realistic, attainable approach to weight management and how to make sensible decisions on what and importantly, how much they need to eat to maintain a healthy weight and re-learn about true hunger and satiety. Having said all of this i'm going to completely contradict myself. I didn't say I was logical! So I have nothing but praise for the slimming world plan and I would say is that its the closest I have seen from the dieting industry to what I would call the dieting 'holy grail', NOT DIETING AT ALL! So thumbs up for Slimming World.
Unfortunately, right now, I don't seem to be able to allow myself to follow what I obviously consider to be a sound plan for weight-loss. Oh no, I have other ideas! Which leads me on to the plan I am INTENDING to follow from this coming Wednesday - Lighterlife. Now, I have HUGE doubts about whether I should be going down this road at all, but I have a place in a group on Tuesday evening and I will be taking it up. I'll pay £280 for 4 weeks in advance and be a member of a group. The cost includes all foodpacks (4 per day), and group councilling led by a LLC (Lighterlife councillor), where we'll work through activities from Lighterlife workbooks, take part in discussions and do some self-led work outside of the group in-between meetings. This group councilling is something I really like about Lighterlife and leads me back to my earlier question:
why am I overeating?
I hope to explore this with the group councilling. It seems perfectly sensible to me that exploring reasons for overeating and feelings about self-image, self-esteem and relationships with food would be benificial in working towards ensuring that one can change the behaviours and habits which have caused them to gain weight in the first place. (Would combinging the eating plan from Slimming World and the councilling from Lighterlife create a fantastic overall plan? I think it might!) I'm not entirely convinced that the abstaining from food part doesn't just make me fatter in the long run, but i'm giving it one last shot for the group support and CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) approach and I hope for the best. It seems to me that I need more than I can get from a group which asks me to show up for a weigh-in once a week and get on with it by myself. So even though i'm dubious, this is what i'm going to do and i'm going to give it my all. My dream scenario is this:
1. Follow Lighterlife for several 4-week blocks, to lose around 3-4 stones.
2. Work my way through the re-introduction of food in a controlled way and still under the support and guidance of Lighterlife (whilst hopefully shedding the last of my excess weight)
3. Use the principles of Slimming World to teach myself how to eat in a sensible, realistic, controlled and sustainable way FOR LIFE.
Phew! So thats the plan from now.
On Tuesday I'll post my weight and stats from my first Lighterlife meeting and go from there.
The challenge still remains, so in honour of my re-start (does it count as a retart if you never actually started the last time?) i'm going to post a couple of pictures of the lovely Frankie so I can begin to visualise my goal again. Actually, I feel like posting lots of pictures of celebs who I think look stunning so i'll do that in my next post. For now enjoy a couple of recent pictures of Frankie. I think shes looking a bit thinner these days and I wouldn't be surprised if shes weighing a bit less that 8st 7lbs now. Of couse it could just seem that way in these pictures and regardless i'm not moving the goalposts so I am still aiming for 8st 7lb!!
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