Some random thoughts

[lnr]

I could be at post-pizza (hell I could have gone to pizza too but more on that anon) but why? Beer's no good if I'm not drinking. I don't even have the excuse of going to see the new format Grauniad 'cso rjk bought a copy. So that leaves the company and well, I'm fed up which makes just hanging out with the usual crowd of people unappealing. Not because of who they are but because I just don't feel like I can engage in anything that's going on, I don't know if that makes sense. And the part of me that really wants to see Mike is overruled by the part of me that thinks I'm pathetic and that I can't let myself rely on him for company, and besides I don't feel like risking making him feel even less like I'm a fun person to be with and risk a friendship as well as having lost more than that. So instead I'm home alone and a little lonely.

More positively, and yes at least partly because of conversations with Mike but not just that, I've somewhere found a little hard knot of resolve in me, and I *am* going to lose some weight again. I don't think it's just a flash in the pan this time. This morning's graph was in one way a new beginning, and in one way an end. Next week's data will go on file, and the following week there'll be new graphs, starting from today. I know it's cheating to be always making new starts, but I think this time it will actually help, and the failures of the past need to stop dragging me down. I'm going to ask Richard to take some photos of me when I get in. I don't expect them to be pretty. And I don't intend to look at them all the time and wince. But I want to make a record of how things are now.

Anyway as a result of this I went shopping at lunchtime and bought vast heaps of food :-) An odd way to start a diet perhaps, but I now have in my desk drawers a selection of stuff which can be filling, not unhealthy lunches, snacks and if necessary breakfast. All stuff that will keep, with the exception of the fruit selection on the windowsill. Living on pre-pack sandwiches with the need for extra variety being filled by crisps or chocolate or the occasional pork pie is the way of the expanding waist line, and the empty pocket too. This way it shouldn't matter that I just don't have the energy to make myself decent food for lunch when I get up in the morning. And that's my main reason for not going to pizza, which is a shame, as post-pizza would probably feel more worthwhile that way.

I've had conversations before with people (OK, mostly Ian, hi:-) where it was felt that diets of any sort just don't work. That even if you're apparently "successful" like I was then once the willpower wears off the pounds come back. The suggested alternative is to instead of changing your diet change your lifestyle so you get more exercise, burn off more calories and hopefully boost your metabolism long term. The thing is as far as I'm concerned this takes just as much if not *more* willpower, and certainly more time, than dieting. And equally if you stop you'll just go back to step one again in the same way. It's good to make sure you get a healthy amount of exercise but I would argue that in 15 mins cycling (more like 20, while I'm this overweight and unfit) twice a day 5 times a week I already do get enough exercise. [sorry, that's a little rant that's been nagging me since I worked it out after the last instance of this conversation]

So yeah. Stuff. And I'm knitting and crocheting various odds and ends. Don't show any sign of finishing anything else soon, having completed the second version of the hat in the icon using the same pink yarn I used for the top for Col and Kirsten's wedding. I could do with spending more time out of the house and with other people, but as usual for me I built my life too much around one person and don't know quite what to do any more.

Comments

[naath.livejournal.com]

Part of changing your lifestyle is changing your eating habits *permanently*, not just for as long as it takes to lose weight. I suck at this, mostely because my parents' house is *full of bad food*. Grr.

[juggzy.livejournal.com]

I concur with everything you say about changing a lifestyle being really hard. It's got to be something you move into rather than something you adopt. Doing a lot more walking has certainly worked for me; but I had pressure from my students to stick to something I said that I would do 'for them' (stop using the car, save the CO2 emissions), but it was very difficult - if I was going walking as an extra, it wouldn't have worked. But I now habitually walk to work rather than take the car; the kids nag me if they see me doing otherwise. Dunno, talking about me (again), but just saying that I share the pain!

[arnhem.livejournal.com]

I'm very wary of the risk of saying things that don't help, but from (extensive) personal experience: it is quite possible to have a very enjoyable time sober around people who are getting legless (or even just tipsy) - and what's more it mainly just requires a moderate amount of goodwill from them (mainly, a willingness to regard your sobriety as a harmless quirk rather than a challenge to them).

Admittedly, there was a phase when I made the mistake of keeping up with rounds, but in pints of orange-and-lemonade; six pints of O-and-L is something I wouldn't generally recommend.

I think the thing I'm edging around trying to say is "if you associate not-drinking with not being able to go out and enjoy yourself, I suspect it's less likely that not-drinking will help anything".

[lnr]

Actually the not-drinking is ony incidental really. I wasn't in the mood to join people at all, but the thought of nice beer nearly swayed me - and of course if I was only going for the beer that's just as bad. I'm quite good at being sober around drunk people, and I tend to only find it unenjoyable if I was likely to have a bad time anyway, IYSWIM. I have to admit diet coke can get *very* dull though, and it's one of the few reliably available drinks which isn't full of sugar or alcohol.

[arnhem.livejournal.com]

ISExactlyWYM (and yes, that's been my experience too).

[juliet]

Lime & soda?

[lnr]

It's less bad than most fizzy pop, but actually lime cordial's typically quite sweet too. But it does make a nice change and it's refreshingly cheap too :-)

[juliet]

I usually drink it as one shot of cordial in a pint of soda, which doesn't taste *all* that sweet (being fairly diluted). Though yeah, more sugar than diet Coke.

I read recently that diet drinks may actually be a bad idea if you're trying to lose weight - basically because they taste sweet, but don't in fact contain sugar, so your body starts craving actual-sugar to go with the sweet-taste.

[ottah.livejournal.com]

Indeed....this is why I recently decided to stop with all the diet foods containing fake sugar - I am sure that they just make the cravings worse and thus in some way sabotage anyone's chances of trying to stick to a weight loss plan.

Also, by using diet rather than the full fat/sugar versions of foods, you are also limiting your ability to retrain portion control.

[ptc24.livejournal.com]

My brother (teetotal due to alcoholism) swears by grapefruit juice and lemonade. I think it's a good choice, too.

[k425.livejournal.com]

Grapefruit and tonic. I drank loads of that when I was pregnant. Just plain tonic, with ice and a slice, and it's almost a G&T...

[covertmusic.livejournal.com]

AOL, and it's even worse with Coke (the caffeine).

The quirk thing - yeah, there are some people it's not worth going out not-drinking with, it's just never going to work. This crowd's usually pretty good about it, though.

[stephdairy.livejournal.com]

A new start now isn't cheating. You didn't want to, but you're making a new start in other ways now anyway, and feelings about different things get associated with each other. I suspect it'll be helpful in a number of ways to make this a "Day Zero" from which things will only get better.

(S)

[perdita-fysh.livejournal.com]

A new clean start when you genuinely intend to approach things freshly is the very best way to do it I reckon. And the people I've seen do it at class have tended to be more successful than those who continue to drift and be held back by a weight gain above their original starting weight.

I've also come to the realisation that SW is for life, not just for the weightloss. Yes it works to take the weight off, but if you then take your eye off the ball it doesn't take long to come back. I was last 11.5 stone (my post-holiday weight) on 31st August 2004. A year nearly to lose a stone; 6 weeks to regain it. I will lose it again by Christmas (because if I don't, I suspect I'll find it really hard post-christmas) and then I will stick to the plan in order to maintain. I planned to do that when I got to target but it landed in the middle of a frantic time of house moving and holidays and it just didn't happen. I should be able to stick to it as a general principle and have a little more 'time off' for parties/weekends etc and stay the same, but I do have to stick to it for the brunt of the week or it just all goes to pot.


Best of luck!

[rmc28]

You have inspired me to give myself my own Day Zero - thank you.

[mpinna.livejournal.com]

Obviously and most importantly, best of luck with all of these things.

But one small point re willpower: I think the (sad?) state of affairs is that however you choose to approach an ongoing challenge (unlike say preparing for an exam which clearly passes and then can be said to be a success or failure, however you define these things, or something inbetween), you do need to retain willpower indefinitely in some senses. I don't think it's possible to change your habits permanently in a manner that will mean you stop having to try at all for the rest of forever. As you observe it's always possible to go back to step one, however you reached your goals in the past.

We've discussed before the benefits of allowing your ongoing success to motivate your continuing willpower, so that is one way in which things can get easier, but that doesn't stop the fact that any changes like this you make to your life or body can be reversed once you take your eye off the ball.

[lnr]

Yeah, it's so damned disheartening to know I'll *always* have to be careful, and it does make it all the more infuriating to see people for whom this isn't the case. Hopefully I can make at least some things more habit though in the process, and at least make it a bit easier.

[aldabra]

I'm not sure it's as bleak as all that; I think your tastes and habits do change, eventually. I lived with a vegetarian for ten years, and found the first six months *really difficult*, the next six months required some effort, and by the end the temptation had reduced a lot. I'm eating meat now, but not with the compulsion I used to, and my tastes have genuinely changed to some extent. I'd be entirely unalarmed now by a proposal that I should only eat meat two or three times a month (I think "never" is so much harder than "hardly ever" that it isn't worth the additional angst). I don't think it does stay *really difficult* forever.

She says, munching her way through the third pack of choc-covered ginger this morning. I don't have the psychological reserves for opting into extra difficulty just at the moment 8-)

[mouse262.livejournal.com]

Which kinds of foods do you put in your desk drawer for healthy snacking and lunching? I find it difficult to get a balance between one's I'll crave and eat at the next negative moment and stuff that I don't but it doesn't fill either. I found tins of baby food worked fine for the latter, but sometimes three tins later I was heading towards the vending machines...