Hello,
This is my first time posting anything on any kind of ‘personal’ level forum, so forgive me if I waffle on a bit… I’m hoping that if I log what I do and where I am with my weight/feelings, I might actually start liking myself again and feel some support from people in a similar situation to me.
I’m a 51 yo mum of 2, married to a wonderful man who is supportive and loving, so on paper I should have the tools I need to help me.
Not sure how much history I should put, so I’ll start at the point where I decided I was going to lose weight and get ‘me’ back again:
At the beginning of Feb, I used up/discarded all items in the fridge/cupboards which contained sugar/were processed etc, there wasn’t a lot, but with kids in the house, there’s always some of that type of thing and I want my kids to have a healthy attitude to food, with knowledge about what different things do to the body.
The reason for this is mainly that as a child myself, I had to look after and ‘cure’ (as my parents informed me to do this) my anorexic/bulimic younger sister. They sent us both to stay with an uncle in another country for 3 months, so I could ‘cure’ my sister of her anorexia. I did what I could, as I was studying biology and wanted originally to become a vet/doctor. I was 14 at the time, so I was in no position to be any real help, but I did get her to gain a little weight for a short time. Cutting a very very long story shorter, she’s alive and she’s still got anorexia/bulimia, but it set in my mind the obsession with food from a young age. I also learned a huge amount about food disorders and oddly, even back then, long before it was reported in the news, I felt it was more of a mental illness than a faddy food thing… The wisdom of children!
I was always a comfortable weight, though was constantly told I would become like my Aunt, who is very obese and always has been, so I set about exercising and channelling my inner ‘thin’ person so that I would never be like her. I now realise that all of those hideous comments aimed at me were wrong and I have made a point of always being encouraging and kind to my own children (who are thankfully active, healthy and perfect weights for their ages).
Aside from all of the very obvious (yes, now it’s obvious!) and huge mistakes/traumas that were forced upon me as a child, I always maintained a comfy size 12 and was super fit and always ate healthily… until I got pregnant.
I miscarried my first, I was an older mother at 38 back then and within 3 months of losing, I was pregnant again. Once my first was born, I was pregnant again very quickly and had my two at 39 and 41 yrs old – I know I’m lucky to have had such an easy time getting pregnant. My 2nd pregnancy was worse than the first in that I craved stodge… pizza/pasta/cake/sweets/chocolate milk (YUK!), things I never usually eat because I really don’t like them. I put on a lot of weight, but it crept up and kept going up until a couple of years ago, having not looked in a mirror or owned a set of scales, a man on the street called out to me, whistled and told me I was a fat cow.
I guess anyone reading this who has experienced similar, will understand how badly that affected me. I went home, looked in a mirror and just sobbed my heart out.
Having given up my successful career to stay at home with my kids, I lost touch with a lot of my friends who had done all of their child rearing when they were much younger, I felt very alone and fell into a very bad depression, which I managed to hide from everyone until now.
So I woke up my brain and told myself that I will change what has happened to me, as I am not going to be a victim of this awful change that my body has been through and I have so far lost almost a stone through limiting my food intake since Feb.
As I then plateaued and stayed the same weight for 4 weeks, I decided to try weight watchers… this was on May 1st…Up to that point, with my own system, I had lost 12 lbs. Weight watchers week one I lost a bit (took me to 1st 1lb lost), then it’s just been adding rather than taking off, so I started reading up on fasting and ended up here. I should probably also say that I am not on any medication, have not seen a doctor for over 10 years (very bad experience) and aside from aches and pains (ageing/menopausal maybe?) I don’t (luckily) seem to have any health problems… yet.
With my previous system, my food intake was roughly as follows;
I only drink water/coffee/tea (no sugar), no alcohol.
Breakfast: Either nothing at all, or I would have 2 boiled eggs and some spinach/veg, no sauces or anything.
Lunch: Again nothing if I ate breakfast, but if no breakfast, I would have a salad, 50g of cooked cous cous, with a medley of fresh veg (whatever is in the fridge/needs using up) and if I felt I wanted flavour, one of my home baked peanut cookies.
Dinner: More salad, no dressing, with either steamed salmon or baked chicken breast, or at times (one of my favourites) – mackerel fillets in tomato sauce, one of the small tins you can buy.
If I wanted a snack later, I’d prepare some celery sticks and cucumber and have them either on their own, raw, or use a small amount of peanut butter (which I love)!
This has pretty much been the main form of my diet since Feb, of course I switch it about a bit, as it gets insanely boring, but as I’m hungry almost all of the time anyway, I thought maybe doing a fasting diet would work better for me. I try not to eat bread much, though I do love it, but when I’ve been really hungry for days, I’ll mess up and have toast… I wake up thinking about food, I go to bed hungry and thinking about food, I dream about food and at the same time, I’m sick to death of food and it’s starting to scare me.
Then, the other night, I watched the Horizon programme with Dr Moseley and that’s what brought me here. I’ve ordered the book, so I have some 500 cal recipes to try and I’ll log my progress here after I read it (it’s not arrived yet, should be today!).
I should probably add that aside from dancing at home (I love to dance), I try not to go out, as I feel so disgusting… but I’ve made my kids a promise that today I will go for a long walk and I will take photos along the way, to prove to them that I did it. If I don’t do it, they are allowed to allocate a task for me to do (such as dancing in front of them, or sit ups (really?!! lol) or something else… worrying how much glee was in their faces at the thought of telling mum what to do if she fails!).
So I have started asking my family to hold me accountable, which, as I want to make them proud of me (well I know they love me, but ykwim!) I will go for a walk after I finish here, as have no work today. I’m going to ditch the whole WW thing, as though it may work for some, it’s definitely not for me at all.
I guess I should log some numbers here, so here goes:
I’m 5′ 4″
Starting weight – 06.02.19 – 15 st 13.75 lbs
Pre-WW weight – 01.05.19 – 15 st 1.5 lbs
Lowest weight – 08.05.19 – 14 st 12.75 lbs
Current weight – 13.05.19 – 15 st 4.75 lbs
Total weight loss = 9lbs
I’m not sure whether to make this a fasting day, as I haven’t eaten at all, just had a coffee and some water so far, but I’m working later in the week and my job is quite physical sometimes, so I don’t want to fast the day before a heavy work day. Is coffee allowed on fasting days? (with a little milk, or does it have to be black coffee?).
Any comments/advice/help/kindness accepted with thanks, I’ve been reading through others stories and it’s given me hope. Sorry for the very long post! I did warn you of my waffling…
10:59 am
13 May 19