This stuff isn't all that easy

Gosh, it's so hard doing normal. I keep flipping in and out of ketosis, challenging myself to have a "normal" day, trying out different carb types, seeing what happens.  I totally don't trust myself not to put my weight back on, I am so nervous of overeating but keep having a go to see what happens! Then I decide to go back to low carb, then to packs, then to juddd, arghhhhh!!!  It's going to be a longer process than I thought. Then I see people who have just plain stuck to the plan and are almost at target and I start to wish I'd done that too.

What I need to remember I think is that I am a size 12. I do not for one minute believe that, cause my size 12's are holiday clothes, mainly in light jersey. But I got 12's (ooh, and a couple of 10's) cause my 14's were looking baggy. My size 14 skinny (!) jeans are too big on the waist. All my new undies are size 12. So, I guess I must be a size 12. I won't ever manage that on the top half though, cause even though my 34 back bra's are now on the tightest hook, I need a double F cup - wont be squeezing those bad boys into a cotton button up blouse in a 12 at any point ever!  I seriously need my head to catch up, and I seriously need to bin this daft bmi thing (I'm still obese on there), I need to forget the scales and judge me on how I look in my clothes.

Today has been a shocking carb overload day, an entire day of junk, and I feel dreadful once again. I am wondering how many times I will conduct this particular experiment before I start to believe the results! But - another result that has been repeated - an overwhelming urge to walk off the effects, get moving and do some exercise.  Brilliant!  I've cycled twice this week, first time was incredibly ouch, second time enjoyable. Missed out today with the awful weather but looking forward to next time - now that's a novelty!

So, the journey is ongoing, with little twists and turns along the way.  Been thinking more about being a consultant. It's most important to me not to be a poor consultant, so it feels right to keep on thinking for now, still have some of my own questions to answer before I feel ready to answer them from others.

Dieting for the mind - how to get my fat head thinner

It's been an interesting week or so.  I decided some time ago to go with the flow of things and take the learning points from them, so that's what I've done again.  Went back onto low carb - to lesson the pain of reaching ketosis I decided to do this with some yummy fatty food and then switch to vlc once I got there.  Good plan, but then got a poorly bug, had a wickedly high temperature for a few days and was dizzy in the extreme - a hideous bug for me as I really don't do well with lightheadedness at the best of times.  So vlc kind of happened as I didn't feel much like eating.  All in all, lost the 9lb I gained on holiday and coming out of ketosis last time during that week.

Then something happened.  I'm not sure what.  I was entirely focused on acheiving a specific goal for my holidays and had decided to up my calories from vlc to around 1000-1200 a day and do some exercise.  It didn't happen.  Bread happened.  I don't know how or why but I was overtaken by the urge to have what everyone else was having.  Bread, cake, chocolate, crisps.  So I did.  And I did not enjoy any of it.  Back to the stomach cramps, dreadful bloating, sitting all afternoon wanting to go to the loo, being absolutely full to the brim with trapped wind.  Just awful.  But I kept on doing it for a good few days.  I could taste sugar all the time, unbearably sweet fake tasting sugar.  Yuck.  So then I got to thinking once again - how can I low carb in a healthy way as a life plan.

Just as a small aside to remind myself really, it may or may not have had an influence - my Dad has taken to calling me "skinny minny" and my Mum thinks I have lost enough weight now, and jokingly (I think) pleaded with me "not to go anorexic" on her.  I think that flipped a switch that helped me to see how much I've lost and started the train of thought about accepting me for what I look like rather than what I weigh (still obese by the way - only just, but I'm still there all the same on the good old bmi scale).  From doing the diet clubs at work I know that there is a whole range of weight:dress size ratios out there, and I really should be more accepting of where I sit in that.  And so, back to the thinking.

I need to know the why of things.  If I understand the reasoning behind things, I find them a whole lot easier to get on with.  So, if a plan tells me I need to drink upwards of 3 litres of water a day, I want to know why.  This plan is telling me that I can't drink alcohol while in ketosis, but not giving me the why of that. Not that I'm much of a drinker, but I need to understand the dangers of drinking alcohol if I'm planning that my future eating is going to be low carb based.  So off I went on a trawl to find out what I could find out :).  And that's when I came across Dr Michael R Eades blog.  Gosh that man talks some sense about low carbing and the whole process of ketosis.  I'm still reading through it all, but I've learnt so much about the mechanics of ketosis and energy supplies in the body, that I'm actually feeling like I have some control.  I've discovered how to get back into ketosis quickly (my high fat flip back in from a couple of weeks ago was exactly the right way to do it, although I hadn't realised it at the time), the role of water, what insulin resistance does, what dehydration does, why I need to up my salt - all the things I kind of knew about but didn't quite understand, it all makes total sense to me now.  I've been pointed in the direction of a book that will give me all the science I need to understand the full workings of the human engine and for the first time I feel back in control of me and what I am doing to my body.

Not quite got to the alcohol part yet, but it's been a very interesting journey this weekend all the same.  I now totally get the similarities and differences between ketosis and ketoacidosis, I understand metabolic syndrome and how insulin locks fat into cells and patrols round to stop it getting out again (and how to change that!) amongst many other things that perhaps I would have learned more about if I'd paid more attention in biology (the krebs cycle rang a familar bell!).  I've found my interest and I'm back there in the zone.

Wish I knew how I flipped out of it, perhaps it was to take me on this pathway to getting a better understanding.  Perhaps this better understanding will give me a better basis for my future.  Who can say at this point.  All I do know is that I'm buying clothes in a 12 or 14 so I must be getting quite thin!

Hi low carbing - I'm back!

It's time to set myself a new set of goals. I've learnt an awful lot about myself over the last few months, and I'm quite astonished with what I've achieved with what feels like, not a massive amount of effort. I've just returned from a weeks holiday in our beloved Içmeler, first of this year and first as a relatively thin person. There are a number of things to note from this, might take me a while to get it all down.

Firstly, a reconfirmation that me and carbs don't get along so well. The cramping pain I got from eating wraps on the plane was agonising. This returned in a milder way whenever I had more than just a little bread or dough based food (pizza for example). A little was ok, slice of toast with breakfast, but following this with a sandwich for lunch - no. So, I used the week to experiment with different combinations of carbs to see what happens. Another thing I learnt is I don't get that hungry, even out of ketosis, so I really don't need to eat all that much (I didn't - maxed at 2 meals a day with a couple of small snacks; bite size pastry with coffee, handful of crisps). Given my previous consumption of food, I was surprised. I also am now much better at recognising thirst, and the difference between it and real hunger. I understand cravings and food desires - it's so simple to fall into, particularly when eating out often - look at the menu, what do you fancy? A craving and desire please, no chips! I also discovered I have quite a large capacity to drink alcohol! I've never been much of a drinker, so didn't bat an eyelid at 6 months booze free. To be honest I've made alcohol into a monster in my head, something to fear and shy away from (there are other reasons for that, maybe I'll explore them one day). But, I like to drink beer if the mood takes (that desire thing again!) and can actually get through a fair amount too. So I have returned from holiday having drunk my former body weight in Efes Pilsner. Oops!

I learnt that I really don't much care for my flabby body, however much smaller it is. I need to tone. Excess skin trapped between the top of the very structured scaffolding of a cup sized bikini top and my armpits is not a good look, and one I really don't like. But, I also learnt that even girls who look amazing stood up or laid flat sunbathing in a little bikini also have extra bits that hang over the top of their teeny shorts when they sit. That was some comfort, and a lesson to learn on the getting thinner journey. That's the hard part, sorting my head and getting it to catch up with my body. Apart from one occasion only (wearing a jersey but still quite structured maxi in a size 10-12) I felt in my head fatter than when I was fatter! There is a lesson in there somewhere, and a little flashing warning light too... I need to remember that laid down, I can fit into jeans that are too tight for Andrew!

So, here I am, sticking to the Thursday morning weigh in. I've gained a total of 9lb since coming out of ketosis. I'm comfortable with that as a gain, it's still coming off though! Operation new Nicola phase 2 starts here. I plan to get back to S&S but with a little extra, and will exercise each day - 4 packs and a low carb meal. I started to cut the carbs yesterday, had 2500 calories, but just 68 grams of carb, and will continue this way into ketosis, then I'll cut the calories back too. 36 days til we return to Içmeler and I am targeting 1 stone 9 off for then. That will take me to a total of 81lb off on vlcd's, 109lb lighter than when I met Andrew (nearly 3 years by that point) and 129lb lighter than my heaviest weight. That's some achievement eh? A whole 9 stone 3lb person lighter!

In the words of our Turkish Tattooist friend - you are very changed this year :)

Life after low carbing - one week in

And I don't like it.  I mean, I really don't like it.  After the daft carb blow out I got to thinking long and hard about why I did it.  I'm not sure I reached a conclusion as such, but I do know that the saggy excess skin is bothering me.  And I know that it's bothering me cause I'm going on holiday next week.  I want to be as toned under the clothes as I look on the top.  I caught a look from my other half looking at my dreadful belly and it really stuck there in my head, I can see that look now without even closing my eyes, and it's in there, and it's bothered me.  Probably more than I can say out loud.  It's really very difficult to adjust to being a small person, particularly the very small person that turned out to be hiding under all that blubber.  When I was a kid I was always the tallest, right to being in my early teens I was always head and shoulder above everyone else, the boys as well as the girls, so that defined who I was - Nicola the very tall girl.  Of course I'd just hit my growth spurt years before any of them, and as a teenager I didn't get any taller, and felt like I was shrinking as everyone else began to tower above me.  I think that may have been a point where I've subconciously decided to become that stand out person again, but in a different way.  I've always felt big - there was not really any difference in my head between being tall big and being fat big, I always felt big.  So it would seem I just grew into the person I always felt I was.  Stay with me, I'll get to the point of these ramblings in a moment.  I'm 41 years old, and for as far back as I can remember, I've been a big person.  That is who I am, that is my entire being.  Now I'm not.  I really have to stand up poker straight to reach 5'5 and I fit nicely into petite cut clothes.  Despite my big hands and size 7 feet, I'm actually quite diddy.  And that's the bit I'm really really struggling with.  All this extra skin is putting a spanner in the works for me accepting what I see in the mirror cause I can't see beyond it.  I'm really trying very hard to, but I don't know how to do it.

So, that's how come, on day 193 I decided the summer break would start.  I decided that until I return from my holidays I can eat what I want, when I want, in the volumes I want.  And boy, have I done that.  But here's where the difference is in a real mind shift that I need to record and recognise and reward myself for.  Although I feel as "naughty" as I did before when I had blow out binges, and I do feel I've had blow out binges, when I look at what I've actually had, the volume and the calories - it's tiny in comparison to the "before binge".  That in itself is something really very huge for my head.  And here's the next thing - I don't like it.  I don't like feeling icky and bleugh.  I don't like feeling too full.  I don't like that I feel out of control.  I certainly don't like the hideous stomach cramps, hate that all afternoon I'm waiting for the clock to tick by til leaving time so I can get home and go to the toilet, don't like that I feel so tired, so lethagic, so blooming awful.  Carbs put me in a coma!

Turning into a bit of an experiment by noting how I feel after different things, I think the main culprits are the sugars.  I had flapjack and was in agony a couple of hours later.  Crisps don't seem to have the same intensity of effect, but cakes and biscuits clearly don't work for me.  All of these years of hideous gynae pain too - so much of that reduced and on most days actually gone without carbs - this week - it's back.  I've started to exercise again and then my knee pain is back with a vengance, and disproportionately to the exercise I was taking - I may have an injury, or it's more likely to be the carb effect.

So, here's what I'm doing.  I go on holiday in 3 days (3 days at this time we'll be above the clouds and on our way to our beloved Icmeler).  I want to have a drink at 7am at the airport cause that's what holidays are all about, I want to get a little bit tiddled on the plane and I want to enjoy the first Efes from the stop off point on the transfer, all warm and overpriced.  So, I'm staying as I am.  I'll likely avoid the sugary stuff in the main, but I will eat bread, I will eat fruit, I will eat crisps.  Also, I will be sensible.  I will have a wonderful week in the sun with my fiance and I will put my wobbly worries to the back of my head.  We'll walk a lot, I may even swim a lot.  I will eat when and what I want.

And you never know, I might even come back a bit more toned.  And when I do return, it's ketosis time again for me :)

188 days later... possessed by a rebellious child with sabotaging thoughts

Habits... why is it that bad ones are so good and good ones are so difficult to keep current?  Why is it that feeling bad, feeling poorly, feeling a bit sorry for yourself can be cured, according to my head, by putting sugary substances into my mouth and chewing?  Why is it that I can't allow myself to achieve something amazing?  What is it about my life that the fear of success overrides everything else?  Why can I not love what I've done so far and embrace it?

Arrrrrggghhhhh!!!  My name is Nicola and I'm a carbaholoic.  Here's what's left of the evidence:

Firstly, I've not updated this blog for about a month I think, that seems to be point one in my undoing.  Then I've got to the point where I'm just 3lb from acheiving something amazing, and as we all know, us fatties are not achievers.  Add into that a good dose of pmt, the start of a head cold and you've all the excuses under the sun for "deserving" to be "treated" by having an entire pig out session on carb heavy foods.  Here's what I had - all gone, nothing left to evidence! - The other 2 bread rolls with bacon, butter and hp sauce.  2 lemon muffins filled with fresh cream, most of another packet of Thai sweet chilli crisps (yes, I got 2 cause they were on a multibuy offer!!).  Here's what happened - awful pmt yesterday, not so much of the agonising pain, but overall yuckiness, coupled with the start of a head cold.  It was so hot at work and I just felt icky all day long.  And all day long I just wanted some Thai sweet chilli crisps, and failed to notice in any of that, that I was allowing those sabotaging thoughts to take control, and take over all the good habits I've developed over the last 6 months.  A good learning point I guess, but that's just an excuse for what I've done (although it is a good learning point!).  So, instead of just buying a packet of crisps in a shop I needed to go into to drop some parcels off, I went to Morrisons, cause by then I needed to have a bacon sandwich.  And once I was there syrup sponge and custard was just the cure I needed for my sore throat and banging head (I know, paracetemol is far more effective).

So I got home, having had half the packet of crisps in the car on the way.  My headache wasn't any better by this point by the way, it clearly wasn't the miracle cure I'd figured it would be.  Had one of the muffins, felt sick.  Did the bacon sandwiches, more crisps and the other muffin.  Felt sicker.  Really couldn't face any more of the "cures" and needed to drink plain water.   I could hear a tiny voice somewhere in the distance, shouting loudly, but muffled, asking what was I doing?  To be honest, I'd been bugged by it all day but I got those crisps to tie it to a chair and gag it, it seemed it had broken free.  This morning I have got out of bed, knowing exactly what to do.  The good Doctor Beck has spoken to me - I can waste those carbs inside of me, it's my choice, they'll be around longer than just eating them, and will take a while to process through to waste disposal, all the while causing much more damage than just adding the pounds and throwing me out of ketosis, all the time they are giving energy to that rebellious child, and feeding that giving in muscle, making it stronger and stronger.  Or I can waste those carbs with the least amount of damage done - by putting them straight into the bin and laughing at my giving in muscle, sitting my rebellious child on the naughty step and taking back control.  So here's what I did:

 

The next stage is confession.  Getting it all out into the open, not hiding what I've done.  So here I am.  I am human, I make mistakes, I have a whole suitcase full of excuses to use, but ultimately I made a choice.  And today I'm making another choice.  Yesterday I got a pair of size 14 skinny trousers.  I've never been skinny anything, my legs have always been rather larger, however big I've been, so trousers have been a thing I don't own many examples of, cause I can never get them to fit.  I looked at these trousers and asked myself why on earth I thought a garmet so tiny would actually fit me.  They did fit me.  I'm returning them cause they are too tight on my legs and I don't like how they look, but I got them on, and did them up.  AND, they were actually a little bit big on the waist.  So there giving in muscle, I'm NOT letting you get stronger.  You've ruled my life for far too long.  I'm not that big person anymore.  I will get used to being a size 12/14 and I WILL BE STAYING THERE!

 

 

12 days to my holiday.  12 days of Beck concentration.  12 days of reminding myself why I'm doing this, what I've achieved and how brilliant that is, how brilliant I am.  I've lost nearly 5 stone for heavens sake, I've lost 5 dress sizes - what's not to shout about!  :)

Hello my friends, it's been a while...

Since my last blog post, and since I started this journey too.  I'm on day 160 or so today since the start, but I have to say that I've not been doing a vlcd for 160 days.  In the main I have but there have been times when, well you know.  It's a long complicated journey to reach my destination, and whilst I'm fairly sure of the right direction, I don't have a sat nav and occasionally I take the wrong turning.  But it's all progress towards to the end point that I will reach.

To say this is life changing is an understatement.  My life has changed completely and I hope it will change some more sometime soon.  I hope I can have the opportunity to share the learnings of my journey with many others, something I'm working hard to reach.  However, I need to refocus once again and now look at my life goals rather than my weight loss goals.  I've toyed a little in the last couple of weeks with low carb food.  Some of it I like, some of it I don't, but all of it doesn't like me!  Awful stomach pains and cramps, so it's not the way forward for me, experiment done!

I'm at a point where I'm looking at daily achievement goals, I need to break it down and get through each day.  I need the headspace to work through other areas so can't focus on longer than a day at a time at the moment.  I have some brave decisions to make!

Oh heck, that's all a bit downbeat, and I've not been here for so long either.  I think I'm actually quite happy, but I'm a bit scared about tomorrow and making the right choices for then (metaphorically speaking, I'm not talking about Wednesday!).  I'm very clear on what I want to do, but I'm not clear on whether its the right decision for me.  Maybe none of us are able to have that privilege and I should just go ahead and give it a go - what's the worst that can happen?

What was all the fuss about?

I don't know how I went off the rails.  It wasn't in a spectacular way and I always stayed in ketosis, but I was totally off the plan and eating too many calories.  I probably needed to do it to learn a few life lessons, and maybe reminisce about the old days, rebel a little at the control I need to have around eating, and indulge in feeling a bit sorry for myself for a bit.

I did totally lose my way and couldn't see a way back through to getting back to just the 4 packs a day.  Until I asked for help.  Everybody was so lovely and so kind, and so right, but I think the catalyst to destroying the sabotaging me was the process of asking for that help.  It really was a problem halved, at the very least, and felt like a huge burden lifted.  And since that point - 100%.  As a little bonus, I've been puzzling for a while now about my losses, I was sure I'd miscalculated somewhere along the line, so I set about sorting that once and for all today, and indeed I had.  Three weeks into the plan I changed from LL to S&S, and also changed from evening weigh in to morning weigh in.  I'd made an allowance for the difference, but had added it up wrong - I owe myself another pound - yay!  So I'm only 2lb off 4 stone lost now - and I've not hit 20 weeks.  I'm really really pleased with that, despite all this messing about, I've lost all that weight in under 5 months.

I've also started to look at how I can tone more, and have treated myself to some zaggora hot pants.  I bought some last year in XL and had to send them back as they wouldn't go beyond my knees.  I ordered large this time and they are fine :).  Also got their creams on a groupon bargain, so I'm using them too, along with 10 minutes a day on my virbroplate toner.  Already, and it's very early days, I'm over an inch thinner on each thigh - cracking!  I'm starting to think more about my final target, and what I should look to get to.  Less than a stone and I'm into overweight territory, and to be honest, it's not that much further to reach "normal" - I think I can do that, but I don't know if I want to.  I've still a way to go and I'm already smaller than I ever thought possible, I seem to be shrinking before my own eyes!

I don't think it's too much to say that doing a VLCD is life changing.  I cannot believe the difference in me.  Going away for a short break to Marrakech this week, in smaller clothes!  Will be fabulous to get a bit of sun on me as a smaller person, give me a taste of what Turkey will be like in June, with me at target :)