Week 6

I know at the start of this new healthy life style quest, I decided I wasn't going to gauge my success on the bathroom scales and have therefore stayed away from them for the last six weeks. Today after my shower I wondered how much weight I had lost as I am feeling so much better. I am finding walking is no longer painful and I am now enjoying the occasional stroll round our local village and our out of town giant Tesco. I have not had to take my prescription strength pain killers for my recovering back injury for over 3 weeks now. And my clothes are now loose and next week I'll be opening up the storage boxes to find my older clothes in smaller sizes.

In the last six weeks I have lost nearly 60 pounds. All of this has been achieved through sensible eating, healthy food and slowly increasing my activity levels. At times it has been difficult, but overall I have to say this time round has been the easiest. In the past I have tried Slimming World, Weight Watchers and a number of strange diet plans. Whilst the Slimming World plan is the easiest to follow and you are never hungry and I had great results whilst on their plan, as soon as I tried 'normal' eating, I picked up the weight again.

In reality all diet plans work, they modify what you eat so that your body sheds weight, some rely on restricting calories, others use weak or pseudo science to sell you their plan, which is really reduced calories wrapped up in a fad eating plan. For me I saw them a bit like a course of medicine, complete the course and you are fixed. Which in reality it isn't, I and many fat people like me have underlying issues that need resolving rather than just treating the fat symptom.

For me I need to re-educate my body and food habits. I can do diets but I can't manage the time between them. So my plan is, as I stated 4 weeks ago when I started this blog, I am looking to learn to listen to what my body is telling me. I need to think about what I eat, when I eat and why I eat. It used to be too easy to eat take away, junk food, sweets etc. it was quick and required no effort. I suppose it tasted good, but sitting here now, I probably couldn't tell you what it tasted like, the food was just piled in, in an attempt to fulfill a need. I ate when food was available, I didn't need to be hungry.

I am learning how to tell when I am hungry as opposed to just wanting to eat. I am unlearning the habit of set mealtimes and eating just because it is dinner time or some other meal time. This way of eating might not suit everyone as lots of people fix meals into busy routines, as we don't have kids, we can choose when we eat. To be honest a lot of the food I eat does fall into meal time slots, but I am finding that I eat now when I am hungry, I eat slowly, until am full and then only eat again when I feel the hunger return. This occasionally means I skip 'meals' but if you take a look at my calorie intake for the day, it averages out. I am eating a balanced diet, making sure I eat good food. Already my body has gone a long way to adapting to this type of diet. Last night I ate some chocolate pudding, it has no added sugar and was made up with skimmed milk and calorie wise it is acceptable, but this morning I woke up with a bit of a stomach ache, I feel this is my body telling me that something in the pack mix dessert it didn't like. To be honest although it tasted fine, I have to admit it wasn't that fantastic and I doubt I'll be eating it again any time soon.

It is strange to think that the human body can adapt to different foods so quickly. I know from past experience on the SW plan, which is very low fat, that one time when we were out for a meal and I had saved up quite a few of their 'sins / syns', which are the way they allow the 'naughty foods' into the plan in controlled amounts, I had chips with my dinner and really suffered the following day with what can only be described as a 'fatty hangover'. I was shocked by how much my body rebelled against a food that I had previously thought of as a staple.

So into week six with a positive outlook, and although the sixty pounds gone so far is only the tip of the iceberg, I am feeling positive.