89.8

That’s my weight, this morning. I’m finally down to sniffing distance of my target weight.

After my personal disaster cascade [see earlier posts about me tripping on a chair], I honestly believed I would be battling weight problems and increasing weight until such time as I could actually walk again.

What I forgot is that I would also be less inclined to get up and grab another snack.

Here’s my regime - or what passes for one. Note that I do not recommend this to anyone.

* Wake up, battle forces of lethargy with the argument that one cannot bear to lie down any longer.

* Grab crutches. Hobble to bathroom. Take medication.

* Morning ablutions. Check weight while still clad in knickers. Note date, weight, weight to lose until goal reached, theory on why this is so, and how much up or down.

* Get dressed. Grab crutches. Hobble to computer. Get some blogging done before it’s time to wake the kids.

* Grab crutches. Hobble into Eldest’s bedroom. Wake eldest. Make sure he: feeds dog, preps breakfast, wakes youngest, feeds youngest, eats for himself, preps lunches, gets dressed for school, helps youngest get dressed, gets shoes and socks on for both, packs lunches/homeworks in bags, and gets the bags zipped up. Most of this is achieved sitting down. And yelling a lot.

* Sometime during the previous step, grab crutches. Hobble into kitchen. Prepare chia drink of cordial, chia, and water. Get Eldest to carry it to computer. Hobble back to computer and continue barking at kids to get them ready. And try to achieve breakfast for oneself.

* Grab crutches. Hobble to front room, don shoes, socks, and any athletic braces needed for supremely painful joints. I have one for each wrist, and two elastic bandages - they’re ‘wild’. And yes, I have used all four at once.

* Get eldest to restrain hound whilst I grab crutches, hobble to car. Get kids in car. Get kids to school.

* Come home, grab crutches, hobble to dog. Free dog. Hobble back indoors.

* Extract plastic bag from pocket, place inside 1 apple jelly &spoon, one daily ration of chocolate, and a couple of muesli bars. Carry same to computer.

* Work on various projects [FYI: One Minecraft adventure map, four novels, several stories of indeterminate length and potentially infinite fanfics.] until it’s time to get the kids home. Snack as needed. Drink chia drink.

* Grab crutches, hobble to hound. Restrain hound. Hobble to car. Drive to school. Wait in parking lot for kids. Harangue Eldest re: things he’s forgotten. FINALLY get rolling back home.

* Grab crutches, hobble indoors, chasing kids in also. Make sure Eldest frees dog, closes car.

* Make sure Eldest preps dinner, does homework. Make sure Youngest also does homework. Work on projects in-between progress checks.

* Make sure dishwasher loaded and going, washing machine/dryer likewise.

* Have dinner when ready. Do not have seconds.

* At bathtime, get Eldest to run bath, help Youngest. Grab crutches, hobble to bathroom once it’s time for bed. Get kids out of tub, dry, dressed, in bed. Hobble to own bedroom.

* Divest self of bracers, clothing. Change into night attire. Take medication. Sleep.

That’s pretty much my day, during weekdays. During weekends, I usually try not to do anything harder than typing. And I have to try and remember to eat. I spent this past Saturday not eating a damn thing.

Must hobble. Time to wake the kids.

Farging roadblocks!

No, this is not about traffic.

I seem to be cursed to stay at or above 91.9 kilos.

I bounced back up into solid 92kilo turf, today. Grrr.

I’m so mad at myself and frustrated and tired and, to add insult to injury, my right knee has decided to join my wrists in the Painful Rheumatism Club.

Which means I more or less have to rely on diet alone on the days when it’s painful to move.

Days like this, I keep wondering what happened to that experiment where they turned fat, lazy mice into thin, energetic mice with some chemical cocktail. How soon is that shit coming to a chemist’s near me? How much longer do I have to wait? Has the whole project been blackballed by the diet industry?

What?

Up and down…

I’m back down to 92.4, today. I did it by not eating very much, and yet, I also didn’t eat very much of anything that’s good for me.

I doubt I’m going to make it to 80 kilos subsisting solely on peanut-honey sandwiches, as I have been yesterday. [FYI: You mix almost-equal portions of honey and peanut paste/butter together and spread the results on a sandwich. Tasty and filling.]

I really should get into good habits.

Next time I want to sit down with a book - I shall sit down on my exercise bike and pedal whilst I read.

Next time I want something sweet - it shall be honey toast or a peanut-honey sandwich or a nice, healthy apple.

Next time I want something to chew - it shall be a carrot.

Next time I want something hot - it will be a balanced meal.

I will do my utmost to see that I don’t yo-yo straight back up again. No matter how many tempting treats Hubby-dear decides to bring home.

I must get healthy. I must be healthy. I must do all the things that are good for me.

Even when I don’t want to.

I’m up to 94 kilos :(

I successfully got down to 92.5 kilos. Shortly before it rained.

Now that it’s raining, walking the dog is out, and sitting on my behind and trying to stay warm is in. This is why I’m back up to 94.

What I need to do is get my fattening arse up on my exercise bike and pedal ‘till my legs fall off.

Not happening today, probably. Life is busy getting in the way.

Flooding rains, kids, school, packrattus… all have to be dealt with.

Phooey.

One more kilo

Including the standard daily wobble, I’m losing roughly a kilo a week. That’s progress of a sort. I did have an alarming jump of more than a kilo upwards, but I’m back down again.

Not by the kilo and a bit I gained, of course.

Weight is easier to gain than drop. Everyone should know that.

The slow diet is working. Exercise, chia and determination help.

Of course, since I am being good at my diet, I’m battling depression. Diets lead to depression, the same way that eating releases endorphins. I have to push through it.

Easy to say. Hard to do.

Harder, when the known universe seems to be conspiring against me to make me sad and angry and frustrated.

I have to stay strong.

Quick diets and why they fail

I’m more aware of them, now that I’m trying to lose weight. The advertisements. The shill proclaiming their new product and ONLY their product will help you reach your target weight and stay there.

It’s all bullshit.

Especially the ones where they claim you -yes, you!- can drop an extravagant number of pounds/kilos in an amazingly short time.

What they never tell you is that you -yes, you!- inevitably yo-yo back up again when it’s over. Hell, that’s how they make their money.

Many “fast” diets are simple fasting. Or losing ‘water weight’ aka 'dehydration’ in the medical circles. And what happens is simple to predict - your body makes you, the dieter, obsess about all the many, varied no-no’s until you snap and break down in a frenzy of chocolate and fizzy drinks.

And, of course, you pack on more weight because your body has entered 'famine mode’ and wants to store fat for another such crisis.

A wise writer [Kaz Cooke] once said, “Your body is the ultimate smarty-pants”.

Then there are the “one food” diets. The rice diet. The leek diet. The grapefruit diet. The shittons of chocolate diet. Okay, I made that last one up, but you get the idea. After a few days of the prescribed 'one food’, you start to go completely bonkers. Obsessed with everything else not on your personal menu. Eventually, the dieter binges on everything else but the 'one food’ and rises further above their goal weight.

Then there are what I like to refer to as “math diets”. You can eat the stuff you like, but it’s worth score points. Calories, carb-equivalents… you name it. The dieter in this becomes compelled to evaluate food as a number. Now I admit, some of these math diets work. Or seem to. I keep getting the mental image of someone in a grocer’s with a calculator, not working out what their total is going to be, but working out whether or not they should buy a foodstuff based on its point value.

Lots of math diets are bad - simply because the math is off. If the body fails to get a certain amount of fat intake, it once again goes into starvation mode and prepares to balloon when it encounters what it considers to be the good stuff.

One great scam in the weight loss industry is the pre-prepared-meal diet. The dieter pays a great fee for meals made the way the industry mogul decrees. And they have to keep paying or the meals will stop. This teaches nothing - especially in the cases where they make the dieter’s favourite foods for them.

When the diet goal is accomplished and the dieter steps away from the protective embrace of portioned, balanced meals that look and taste exactly like the real thing… the dieter gains weight with the same bad habits the programme did not curb.

There’s a reason why just about every diet book contains a food pyramid diagram. What follows after that is generally attempting to lead the dieter away from sticking with just the pyramid.

But following the pyramid is not enough. You need to eat less. And in order to feel satisfied with less, you need to eat slowly.

The slower you eat, the fuller you feel. Simple.

And the better you eat, the healthier you get. Also simple.

Getting in to good habits, like regular exercise, are also a great help.

But there is a point in a diet where the weight loss just slows down for no apparent reason. Most will convince you this is some kind of unnatural and sell you more products.

All slower weight loss means is that the body has noticed you losing weight.

Keep the three meals a day. Choose healthier snacks when the need arises to snack. Keep the faith.

If you are still losing weight, then that’s the good thing [I am, of course, assuming anyone reading this is above a healthy weight]. Not the speed.

Permanent weight loss takes time.

Three meals a day - eaten slowly, of course - can help fuel the body through the exercise regime of your choice. They also help prevent the body from entering panic mode and wanting to keep or whack on the weight.

A little fat is not a bad thing.

A lot of fat is.

It’s that simple.

Which is why they never tell you that.

I’m losing weight at last!

I started this year at 95.4kg, just a few small kilos away from 100kg. I made a resolution to lose weight and get fitter, so immediately I went out and stuffed myself for the annual new years’ rello visit.

Hubby didn’t help, either. Next night, he took me out to Sizzler’s.

Today [the 5th of Jan] is the day where I finally dipped below my starting weight. I’m now 95.2kg. You might not think this is a big whoop, but my peak weight was almost 97kg.

There’s lots of things people do when they want to lose weight, and the first thing most do is spend a ton of money on useless shit. Diet meals, diet meal replacements, thin shakes, that powdered stuff that allegedly turns into jelly in your stomach [creepy…], and the exercise machines… My good gravy, the exercise machines.

Listen.

You don’t need any of that shit to get fit.

You have feet. You have a place of residence. You can walk. Hell, if you live in a block of flats, quit taking the lift. Exercise, right there. Who needs to buy a stair master?

And you don’t need diet food [or food replacements].

If you’re going to buy anything, buy some chia seeds.

All you need to do is change your habits.

Avoid what I call “the white foods” - all the processed, bleached, chemically-enhanced whatever that’s ever-so-tasty and also ever-so-bad-for-you. Buy bread with bits in [seeds are great for you if you really can’t stand wholemeal]. Skip the potatoes and rice and definitely, definitely steer clear of pastry products.

Swap sugar for honey, wherever possible.

I ration my sweet foods. As someone who loves the sweet things, I have to have some little treat or I will go simply bonkers. So now my chocolate stash is strictly regulated. It should remain so. Last time I went off track, I started eating an entire block of chocolate for lunch, resulting in where I am today.

One of my new little tricks is honey toast. When I’m feeling peckish, but it’s not mealtime, I make a slice or two of toast and spread some honey on it. Very simple. BUT - it also gives me an extra serving of grains and cereals [bread with bits in, remember?] and staves off the cravings and desire to -say- eat an entire bowl of popcorn with butter in one sitting.

My other tip is also deceptively simple: Walk everywhere.

The easiest method of exercise is walking. You walk inside your house, so why not outside as well? The trick that I still employ is look for parking in the middle of buttfuck nowhere and walk to my ultimate destination instead of getting ulcers looking for a place to park near the doors.

Back when I knew where my pedometer was, I walked up to 10 kilometres just fartarsing around. This is based on a rough estimate of steps taken divided by a thousand, assuming that each step is a metre.

It’s amazing what you can do when you’re busy doing other things.

And my diet breakfast of choice? Oatmeal porridge.

It’s naturally low GI and stops you feeling hungry all morning. This with a side of chia could probably work miracles.

Oh yeah. The chia. I nearly forgot.

Chia seeds are available in health shops everywhere. If yours doesn’t stock it, ask. I like the white chia, but you don’t have to get it. Now let me tell you, this stuff is VERSATILE. If you soak it until it becomes a thick goo, you can use it as an egg white replacement. They pre-process sugar for you and turn it into low GI energy. Mix it with your favourite beverage to get an energy drink. Add it to cakes/bread/food of any kind to keep your energy up all day.

And, as a bonus, it’s gluten free. You can make gluten-free bread out of it. My mum-in-law sprinkles a teaspoon into her morning cereal.

I have yet to get my mum to try it, but I think that’s more her being a big scaredy-cat than anything else [yes, I know you read this, Mum. Try half a teaspoon in your coffee sometime. It will not kill you] and I really should get back to pestering her about it.

It looks like frog spawn when it’s been soaking up the liquid. It hardly tastes of anything at all [some report a slight bitter taste, but it’s easy to get accustomed to] and the only big worry is getting used to slightly lumpy beverages.

I take some chia and let it soak in a litre of water until I have a thick goo that I can mix with any beverage of my choosing. This is one of those rare few things that the more of it you take, the better it is for you.

I’m going to have some with my porridge. See what happens next.

Further bulletins as progress [and boredom] dictates.