On bananas and crisps

Banana crisps? not quite what I have in mind...

I met up with E yesterday, and showed him my food diary for the last three days. I think doing a food diary is so important… and it also was really useful to have someone else look at it. What jumped out at us was the volume of crisps I’d eaten in three days. I’m almost ashamed to admit to it… 11 packets! I was shocked. We decided that this was my most pressing issue, so E has set me the goal of only one pack a day. He (rightly, he is very wise!) felt that it was better to reduce rather than cut them out because I need to learn to be in control of eating crisps. If I cut them out, there would come a point where I couldnt hold out any longer and I’d just go on a crisp binge and be back to square one.

He’s right. All these experts who are against dieting say that dieting fails because we feel deprived. Going cold turkey is going to make me feel deprived, then if I break the cold turkey, classic dieter behaviour is to then go ‘oh well, I’ve broken the diet, I’ll just have some more and re-start the diet tomorrow. Then follows a huge crisp binge because tomorrow I won’t be able to have them anymore, ‘ever’, and so I must eat as many as possible NOW. Which is unhealthy behaviour and isn’s helpful in any way.

Soooo… reduction in volume is the key. I was actually talking to a friend with ME about bingeing on crisps and chocolate the other day. I was surprised that I came up with so many ideas to reduce the crisp habit. I’ll put what I wrote below because the time has come to practice what I preach!

plan a snack for certain times. If you know you have one planned, you are less likely to go down the ‘unplanned eating’ route. If you have the munchies before snack time, you can tell yourself ‘aha, i have a snack at # O’clock, thats only an hour away’, then you can look forward to and visualise that snack and once you have eaten it, you will consciously know that you’ve had it.

I tend to find that unplanned eating keeps on going because I didnt start out with a plan to eat it, so it kindof becomes ‘off the record’ eating and for some reason its then soooo much easier to munch mindlessly through piles of food.

Another thing to do is to put your planned snack on a plate… that way you have predetermined how much you will eat and your brain will eke that snack out for longer. Im not sure about you, but when I binge, I tend to just be putting stuff in my mouth that I hardly even want anymore but theres this compulsion to carry on because its there beside me and it isnt finished yet. By putting it on a plate, and keeping anything else firmly in a cupboard, you then behave as though it is a mini-meal. and finish the plate instead of the multipack… *ahem… yes thats what i did last night!!!* 

I find that with crisps and chocolate, it only takes one bite and I want to finish off all the junk food in the house. A good plan to overcome this if you still want to eat them, is to, again, have a predetermined amount, but then have something filling afterwards, like porridge, or a banana… to fill you up and kind of break that sudden urge to eat until you are full… coz crisps and chocolate take a VERY long time to fill you up… *hence the multipack incident * so your planned snack would be a controlled amount of the foods you usually turn to, followed quickly by a predetermined filler to get you to the full point BEFORE you’ve finished off a whole day’s worth of calories without feeling satisfied.

Alternatively, if having the filler after the 1st portion of junk food doesnt work, then it would appear that the planned snack will have to be something satisfying and healthy(ish) so that you dont get the initial trigger to eat the junk food. I’m thinking a banana, oatcake with peanut butter on, small bowl of porridge, slice of toast and choc spread, a hot choc drink… something small thats interesting enough for you to look forward to, that youcan prepare, put on a plate, and treat like the mini meal to avoid the junk raid afterwards.

So… in order to be sucessful in my plan to stick to one pack of crisps a day, it looks like I will have to have something else after the crisps to signal that I am full. I’m thinking a banana… 

The big bad one four

14st0lbs

I knew I shouldn’t have stepped on the scales this evening. I knew it was a bad idea before I even did it. Fourteen stone!!! This is ridiculous. This must be the lowest point of my weight-loss journey so far. I’ve put on one and a half stone from my slimmest, and I’m nearly back to square one. I was 14st7lbs at my heaviest. Not so far to go before I’m back to that size!!!

Why am I doing this to myself? Last night I had a binge. A proper binge. 8 biscuits, 4 packets of snack-a-jacks popcorn, two flapjacks, two packs of crisps and a cereal bar. That was after my dinner. I didn’t need any of it, but I still ate it. Why? What on earth is wrong with me? And yesterday morning I’d got up and decided that I would follow a diet for one day. One day only, and I still blew it!

I KNOW it’s self-destructive to binge, I KNOW crisps and cakes are bad for me, I KNOW healthy food makes me feel better and more energised, I KNOW I’m happier when I’m losing weight and getting compliments, I KNOW I’m eating food my body doesn’t need, I KNOW I’m not hungry even when I’m eating that thing I have a compulsion to eat.

It’s all crap. I’m crap, dieting is crap, weight is crap, low self-esteem from being overweight is crap. And yet, I’m responsible for my size. I, I am the one that feeds myself, I am the one that pushes food I don’t need down my throat. I am the one that acknowledges that I’m not enjoying eating the third or fourth biscuit or packet of crisps.

Am I really that rubbish? Am I really that weak-willed and shallow that I give in to every craving I have and lull myself to sleep with mouthfull after mouthfull until I feel sick? Why do I do that? do I really hate myself that much, that I want to punish myself week after week at the scales with a gain? Do I really hate myself enough to overfill my body with junk food? Do I really hate myself that much that I want to carry on looking fat and feeling uncomfortable in too-small clothes, and getting indigestion from eating the wrong things?

Am I really that crap that I can’t respecct my body enough to look after it? I know exactly what I could and should be doing for my health. Believe me, I’ve probably read more dieting magazines and books than 50 people together. I know what foods support my health, and what foods don’t. I know every trick in the book, but I don’t USE the tricks. When it comes to it, I don’t care, I want food and I want unhealthy food.

When did my relationship with food get so warped? When did food become a comfort, a way to switch off, a way to let go and forget? When did food stop being fuel and start being an obsession? Why do I think like a fat person? Why do I prefer the fatty foods and see them as treats, treats to be had numerous times a day? Why can’t I eat only when I’m physically hungry instead of when I’m having cravings?  Why can’t I stop when I’ve had enough rather than eat and eat and eat and eat? Why can’t I make the right food decisions and why on earth can’t I choose foods that are supportive to my heath rather than detrimental to it?

I AM RUBBISH. I AM TOTALLY UTTERLY STUPIDLY RUBBISH. I need to get a grip, but I’ve been trying to get a grip for a year. And I’m failing to get a grip. I’m under a dietician, I go to Weightwatchers when I can. And I still can’t get a grip.

I’m USELESS. Totally USELESS. Utterly USELESS. I hate myself. I can’t even maintain a diet for a single day. What sort of crap is that. I can’t even eat healthily for a single day. I’ve tried dieting, I’ve tried ‘not dieting’, I’ve tried eating healthily, I’ve tried eating diet foods full of chemicals. But my head’s not in the right place.

But I’m panicking. I do NOT want to get back to my heaviest weight. I want to be slim, I want to be the old me, the me with a healthy relationship with food, the me that’s independant, the me that’s healthy, the me I was before I got ME and before I got depression from the frustration of having ME.

I want the motivation I used to have- I want the energy I used to have- I want to be able to get up an hour early each day and go jogging like I used to do before the ME, I want to cut my calories and diet properly without nearly fainting with fatigue like I do now, I want to be full of vitality instead of being constantly trembly and weak (a weakness that makes me want to eat). I want to be able to go to the gym, use the rower, the treadmill, feel the burn, get the endorphin high from being able to exercise and push myself. I want to go out and do things on my days off instead of lying on my bed exhausted and incapacitated. I want so much, and my illness has taken so much away from me.

No wonder I’m unhappy, no wonder I turn to food. Eating is one of the few things I can do. Eating is my way to feel good. My way of ‘treating’ myself. Eating is easy, it gives me energy. Everything else in my life takes my energy away.

Life with ME is hard. Right now, it feels very hard. It’s hard because my health stands in the way of my dreams. It’s hard because I feel ill most of the time, and when I feel ill nothing else matters. Not even losing weight. When I feel nauseous and shaky and my heart is racing and the room is spinning, carbs and sugar seem a very good idea indeed. Carrots and apples just don’t do it.

My heart is bleeding, It’s bleeding for the me I once was, the me that jogged every day, the motivated, energised, can-do me. In fact I guess what I need right now is a good cry. Perhaps I need to sit down and acknowledge that my life is hard. Maybe I need to allow myself to be struggling, maybe it’s ok to be weak and rubbish and a dieting failure, because I have good excuses. Maybe I should realise that I have good excuses. Maybe I should stop trying and maybe I should let myself balloon up into a size 24, and just not care, because I have excuses.

Maybe I should give in to my situation, and acknowledge that losing weight is a rubbish thing to do when you are ill, maybe I need to realise that I am too weak, to ill, too messed-up to be a successful dieter. But the tears running down my face make me think that that would be soul-destroying to give up. I don’t want to give up. It seems like an impossible mountain to climb, it seems like I have a wall of thick concrete to pull down, it seems like my whole life opposes me losing weight. That’s how I feel right now.

But I won’t give up.

Weigh-in wonders

13st4
1lb lost this week
1st3lbs lost
3st4lbs to go

I’m still feeling quite mashed-up health-wise, so I decided not to go to WW again today. I’ve got a lot going on at the moment and felt that a day resting at home was more valuable than pushing myself to get to weightwatchers.

I weighed myself on my home scales and I’ve lost a pound this week. I’m really pleased about this because I haven’t been tracking my food intake at all.

I have, however, been eating my nuts and seeds for snacks and that’s been going well. Also, I think the warmer weather has reduced my cravings so I’m making better food choices and finding it easier to recognise when I am not hungry.

Or maybe it’s the nuts and seeds reducing the cravings?

Anyway, all round a good week considering. Here’s to next week!