207lbs and counting...

P

Pistachionut

Member
Hey!

So this is my first ever post on minimins, I'm sure I should do the whole introduction thing but I'm not that interesting so I'll just give a brief bit of background info and leave it at that.

I'm 32, 5'7 and 14st 11lbs. It's pretty bad but I made it up to 17st 7 some time in my twenties. I managed to lose it and get down to 11st with good ol' fashioned calorie counting and exercise but times change and now I have kids, work full time and all the usual malarkey that goes with raising a family and I find it almost impossible now to do all the meal prep and exercise that I did back then.

So after a bit of an internal debate with myself about doing things "the right way" but having a constant battle with my emotional eating, stress eating and comfort eating, I decided to take food out of the equation for a while and see where it gets me.

I've tried Atkins (too much cooking and not enough sauce / crunch), slimming world (I detest calling food "syns"), calorie counting (too flexible) and even 5:2 (not bad but it's all or nothing). This feels like a last ditch attempt to get myself back where I felt good and most importantly, happy.

So here I am, day one... except not really as my exante order hasn't arrived yet, instead I'm having 2 slim fast vitality shakes and 1 asda meal replacement porridge to get me through. So far I feel great, a slight headache around midday which was easily helped with paracetamol, but no real hunger and I've not actually had the porridge yet. My logic is that although I won't go into ketosis using slim fast, by the time I get the exante packs, i should have worked through a fair bit of my stored glycogen and so it'll be a bit easier.

I'm hoping to get back to 11st, or even better 10st 7lbs. I miss the old me, it's been a long time since I've been truly happy and confident. Time to change!
 
Good luck and welcome on this thread! Exante is a bit of of an "all-or-nothing" to begin with...so brace yourself... But then you realise how much it does for you in terms of thinking about your food..without planning it..without the burden of calorie counting! (if you dont like that). Exante has done wonders for me, and ive not even lost that much on it... Some of the ladies here are real superheroes and have amazing stories to tell!
 
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Good plan, Pistachionut! Hope yr delivery arrives soon!
 
Thank you Alecto, Aligal and Kelpie!

So day two is almost over. I don't have my delivery yet so I'm still swigging the slim fast, I've got the intense chocolate mint, and it is neither intense nor minty! But I have some sugar free flavour drops I got ages ago from my protein and adding just a few drops of toffee favouring makes it so much nicer. I might try warming it up like a hot chocolate for dinner 😊 can't wait to have some more variety though!

More headaches today, but still nothing paracetamol doesn't fix. I've been walking quite a bit too; walked my middle child to school, then the youngest to the park and then later had to visit my eldest school so decided to walk back from there too. I'm working tomorrow, I easily do 15000 steps a day when I'm working so at least I'll be active.

I've only just found out the whole thing about citric acid, back when I did Atkins about 15 years ago it wasn't mentioned, so I've been having a few diet drinks and herbal teas which never caused a problem, so I'll stick with them but I will bear it in mind if I have any trouble losing. I've also realised that although I can give up food, I cannot give up coffee with milk. Not at all. So I've decided to go with the man plan and use the milk allowance (I'm using arla lactofree as it's lower in carbs than regular milk) for coffee. At least I can stay sane!

So I'm all ready for my package to arrive (should be tomorrow) I have ketostix at the ready and I should have started depleting the glycogen by now. Bring in the weight loss!
 
Google keto flu - helpful hints on supplements for managing headaches as you go into ketosis.
 
Thankyou Aligal, I had a cup of bouillon last night and that made a huge difference to my head ache, much nucer than relying on pills!

Got home from work to be greeted by my delivery. I ordered a couple of each item available so there was too much to choose from! I finally chose the shepherds pie - quite what I expected from a packet of powder named after a delicious meat and potato layered dinner, I don't know. However once I'd got my head round it not being the hearty meal I know and love and I'd likened it to a bowl of smash with a tiny dollop of gravy with unidentifiable bits, it was... ok. I think a tweak using herbs will make it much more palatable.

Then only 2 hours later I realised that I had only had 2 "meals" today and even though I didn't feel remotely hungry, I should eat a 3rd given that I've been busy today. I went for the Apple crumble and custard. Not at all bad. I can see that will come in handy when I need something sweet.

On a massive plus side, I cracked out some old ketostix from my days of low carbing and was surprised to be showing a trace of ketones! That explains why I've felt good today and not at all hungry 😊

On the downside I was up in the night with diarrhoea. Not much, although I assume that's because there isn't much to get rid of, given the lack of food. But it was inconvenient given that sleeping is my favourite activity and I'd rather have been doing that than lying in bed wondering "is that just a fart, or should I run to the loo?" (Excuse the TMI!)

On to the rest of the week, I just hope it stays as easy as the first few days!
 
Yup! Never trust a keto fart!! A spare pair of pants in my handbag and if possible some trews in the car - when starting off were essential. Nothing too bad happened - but one day in bed.......OMG!
 
I just had a read through that pdf Aligal, I am so guilty of a lot of that distorted thinking. I've got a CBT book that I really need to sit down at read, I'm going to put it by my bed so I read it before I sleep rather than watching YouTube videos!

So yesterday wasn't a good day. I woke up feeling terrible with a stuffy head, sore throat... the usual cold symptoms. So I stayed home from work and slept. Woke up, had a shake (lemon cheesecake, very nice, a little sweetener heavy) but gave in and had an Indian for dinner, I've always had a takeaway on payday, although its a habit i coild do without. Although I didn't over do it with extras like I usually would and I didn't stuff myself to the point of being sofa-bound for the rest of the evening so at least even though I cheated, i didn't go crazy like I often do.

Back on it today... Well I haven't eaten anything yet, I'm just not hungry. I've had 4 cups of coffee and loads of water. But I'll make sure I have something soon. Even with the cold I've tried to potter around and get the housework done, got to keep active to try and minimise the wrongdoing from yesterday!
 
Hope you are feeling better.
 
Well done for not overdoing it, Pistachio! I think you can really give yourself credit for that. Draw a line under it and carry on but remember for next time - you can order less and not have the same big portions as back in the day. I think you having done that is a great achievement:) hope you start feeling better health wise!
 
Thankyou Alecto, I'm feeling much better today 😊

So day 6 done and dusted, I've come to the realisation that the savoury food is not for me. I've tried the carbonara, can't quite put my finger on what was so awful about it, the cardboard shepherds pie and the beef and black bean pot. The beef and black bean wasn't terrible, I added a little stock powder and it was an ok meal. But I'm not looking forward to having the others again!

The shakes are a different story though, I've been making them in the blender with ice and ohmygod they are lovely! Also tried a hot chocolate and that was a nice treat too.

I'm thinking about making my own meals, 200 cals and however many carbs there are in an exante pack (10-20ish) I could bulk cook and freeze them into portions for convenience, but i think it would make the diet a lot more bearable!!

Feeling good today, ketostix are pink, I've got more energy... I wanted to go for a nice long walk but I was so cold and it was cloudy outside so I used the energy to declutter a couple of cupboards instead. I will start adding in exercise, I enjoy it and do it fairly regularly but I'm not going to be pushing myself while I have a cold. Maybe next week.
 
Day 7 done, one whole week!

Felt a little rough today, but that's due to stuffy sinuses. Not sure if I'm going about this right as I've been having 1 shake about midday (It helps me to know that if I get hungry in the pm I still have 2 meals to go) 2nd shake about 6, then I'm not hungry anymore! Because I've been having milk in my coffee I could get away without the 3rd pack, but I like to have it as I am fairly active and I don't want to cut too much and then binge. But it's a learning curve and I'll work out what's best.

Porridge and Indian curry today so far. Surprisingly the curry actually tastes like curry! Will definitely order that again.
 
I really wouldn't go under the 600cals and even if you have a bit of milk - the packs are designed to have the nutrients your body will need. As long as you don't have other stuff in the day besides a bit of milk in your coffee (maybe measure it once for you to know how how much you're having?) i think you should be fine. I really wouldn't go under 3 packs a day tho...
 
Well I just had a coconut smoothie to make up the 3rd pack. Was lovely. It's just so odd to be not hungry on so few cals. I'm not even light headed or anything like I thought I'd be. But I will make sure I stick to 3 packs, I'll end up hungry and then overeating and that's what got me here in the first place
 
You are using those calories you've snugly stored on your body! The clever thing about keto is that we feel good on it as long as we have enough minerals and salts. I think the key to long term success is staying at goal is using keto (5-2, low carb, Intermittent fasting, keto ) to assist us staying there.
 
Yeah I'm thinking about using 5:2 to maintain, although maintenance seems so far away right now!

So first weigh in... 10.5lbs in one week! I'm amazed at that given that I had a Chinese at the weekend and I've not given up milk in my coffee! Only 1lb to get to my first goal, under 14st.

Had mushroom soup, was ok but needs a little favouring. Honeycomb shake, very nice and then dinner... I really wanted some food, so I had a man plan day, I made a tomato sauce using 100g chopped tomatoes, 1 block frozen spinach and a little bouillon powder and chilli flakes, chucked in 100g of frozen seafood and 100g konjac noodles. It tasted great and comes out as 158 cals, 7g carbs, 17g protein and made enough to fill a side plate. Definitely nice to have a meal and I was surprised at how I'm really questioning my portion sizes already!

Need to up my water intake... That's the next challenge for me.
 
Been on track this week. Last night everyone at home was having a curry night so I joined in by having an Indian curry pack, but I added 80g chicken breast, some coconut drink (sugar free) and coriander. Served with cauliflower rice, it was amazing! It added about 210 cals, 6g carbs and 15g protein. So I just didn't have my 3rd pack. Definitely didn't feel like I missed out on the curry.

Had a cheeky weigh and I've lost 2.3lbs so far this week, 3 more days to go before weigh in, so a round 3lb would be great and I'm now under 14st!!!
 
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