Mifford
Silver Member
So I just finished my first month on Weight Watchers and decided its time to start a diary to help keep me on track and keep my head in the right space while on this journey.
4 weeks ago I walked into my first meeting almost shaking with fear at the idea of joining. Over the last god alone knows how many years I've tried every diet under the sun with very little success - on the old WW system years ago I actually gained weight despite sticking to it religiously.
Just over 2 years ago I bit the bullet and did the Cambridge Diet and lost 3 stone in 3 months but have really struggled since then. I've toyed with Cambridge on and off over the interim to keep the weight down but I've found it harder to stick to lately.
After I did the extreme version the first time round I finally got my doctors to listen to me when I kept telling them my weight was a symptom of a problem not the cause of the problems I was having with my health and that was why I did CD back then - I proved my point and the specialists carried out more tests and discovered that I had an autoimmune thyroid disease which was causing an underactive thyroid. So I wasn't just being a fat old cow eating my way through the entire kitchen cupboards every day and what I had been telling them was true - Ta dah! Problem solved right?
Wrong.
Over the last 2 years we've had real problems getting my levels even and I've been up and down like a yo-yo. The latest tests show that when I increased by 1/2 a tablet I went hyper (and gained weight - ironic huh?) but when I reduce it by 1/2 a tablet I feel and react hypo even though my blood tests are within range. Problem is each time it gets changed I gain 10lbs in weight and before I knew it I was back up to where I was before I started Cambridge and at the point of utter desperation again.
So I'm now coming down off a hyper episode and hoping that by sticking with WW I can keep it under control and not swing back to hypo again.
Anyway - back to the beginning. I tried to do CD again and just couldn't stick to it. In the back of my head I also have the knowledge that the first time I did it I ended up in hospital a few weeks after I finished with a suspected kidney stone and in more pain than I think I've ever been in in my life and I'm pretty certain that my brain is stopping me sticking to it out of fear of going back there. I kept reading on thyroid boards about how a lot of hypos were having a lot of success with the new pro points system when nothing else had worked at all.
Hence me biting the bullet and starting my first meeting. Shaking. Desperate. Terrified it wouldn't work again and that I would have no choice left but to do CD again.
My first week went well but I couldn't believe how much I was having to eat. I have always snacked on fruit and veg if I snack at all and I've spent the last 15 years being trained by nutritionists and dieticians to eat fewer and fewer carbs and that as my weight wasn't coming down I must be eating too much so my level of input was getting lower and lower. I've discovered that I can actually quite happily live on between 1,000 and 1,200 calories a day and not be hungry - unfortunately for some strange reason I do still gain weight at that level or at best stay the same. I worked out that on a typical day I would eat maybe 20 points and it was a struggle getting my head around increasing that to 34 and possibly using some of the 49 weekly extras on top.
I lost 1.5lbs the first week so was amazed.
Week two became a real mental battle - trying to persuade myself that it was ok to eat potatoes and pasta and stuff like that again wasn't easy. A friend of mine summed it up when she told me that after so many years fighting doctors to get a diagnosis and to get them to listen to me and eating less and less and constantly feeling guilty that basically I had to give myself permission to eat. That really hasn't been easy to do but I'm hopefully starting to get there. I managed to get myself up to my 34 points every day, we'll ignore the fact it was by adding in things like curly wurlies, and nearly fell over when the scales showed me as being down by 5lbs
So week 3 I decided that I needed to let go of the control over food. And boy did I! Unfortunately I was sick during the week so ended up eating a lot of rice and cream crackers and things like that as it was all my stomach would handle and I not only used my full daily allowance but I suddenly got a HUGE craving for cheese as well. I sat that weekend and just ate an entire block of it. No sandwich etc (bread is bad so can't do that!) - just the block of cheese on its own. I think I may even have used my entire week's extra points in one sitting :break_diet: I couldn't believe it when the scales showed I'd still managed to lose 1/2lb and I got my first super 7 after just 3 weeks.
So last week. Yeah - the less said about last week the better. Having spent so many years not eating and keeping my food levels to a minimum my body seems to have suddenly cottoned on to the fact that its ok to have food again. And I've been starving!!! I did have my nephew's birthday party at the weekend as well which didn't help - I was good in that I had chicken keebab rather than sausages and burgers but I didn't manage to resist the chocolate fudge birthday cake. By the end of the week my bonus points were all gone again and I'd only lost 1/2lb for the week.
But still its 1/2lb and its not a gain so that's good and when I did my measurements I'd actually lost 1/2 inch off my waist so it could be that I've lost size and its just not showing on the scales right now.
I am worried though that its about 3 weeks since I reduced my meds and my thyroid problems could be beginning to kick in again. I've seen my body do this so many times before where I do really well for a couple of weeks and then my thyroid kicks off and regains everything I just lost. Its like it torments me into believing that I can do it and then snatches away the prize at the last second.
But I do think that the last 2 weeks I relaxed too much and went with the fact I could eat whatever I want and my challenge for this week is to find a bit more balance in what I eat so I'm not using up my points by adding in 'bad' snacks. I still need to get my head sorted a little bit and start dealing with my totally screwed up relationship with food but I'm thinking if I stick with it and just keep true to the diet then little by little that will start to improve. And if I try and stay a little bit more rigid with the healthier foods this week and use fewer of my weekly bonus then I'm crossing my fingers that it will show on the scales next week.
Right - so that's my first post in my brand new diary and with any luck the others won't be quite so long!!!
Oh and why a Graceful Decent? Because a few weeks ago I was watching Rear Window and I decided I want to be Grace Kelly. No more than that - this time round I'm doing this for good and for the final time so I've decided that not only do I want to be Grace Kelly but I deserve to be Grace Kelly and no matter how long it takes I WILL be Grace Kelly damn it!!
4 weeks ago I walked into my first meeting almost shaking with fear at the idea of joining. Over the last god alone knows how many years I've tried every diet under the sun with very little success - on the old WW system years ago I actually gained weight despite sticking to it religiously.
Just over 2 years ago I bit the bullet and did the Cambridge Diet and lost 3 stone in 3 months but have really struggled since then. I've toyed with Cambridge on and off over the interim to keep the weight down but I've found it harder to stick to lately.
After I did the extreme version the first time round I finally got my doctors to listen to me when I kept telling them my weight was a symptom of a problem not the cause of the problems I was having with my health and that was why I did CD back then - I proved my point and the specialists carried out more tests and discovered that I had an autoimmune thyroid disease which was causing an underactive thyroid. So I wasn't just being a fat old cow eating my way through the entire kitchen cupboards every day and what I had been telling them was true - Ta dah! Problem solved right?
Wrong.
Over the last 2 years we've had real problems getting my levels even and I've been up and down like a yo-yo. The latest tests show that when I increased by 1/2 a tablet I went hyper (and gained weight - ironic huh?) but when I reduce it by 1/2 a tablet I feel and react hypo even though my blood tests are within range. Problem is each time it gets changed I gain 10lbs in weight and before I knew it I was back up to where I was before I started Cambridge and at the point of utter desperation again.
So I'm now coming down off a hyper episode and hoping that by sticking with WW I can keep it under control and not swing back to hypo again.
Anyway - back to the beginning. I tried to do CD again and just couldn't stick to it. In the back of my head I also have the knowledge that the first time I did it I ended up in hospital a few weeks after I finished with a suspected kidney stone and in more pain than I think I've ever been in in my life and I'm pretty certain that my brain is stopping me sticking to it out of fear of going back there. I kept reading on thyroid boards about how a lot of hypos were having a lot of success with the new pro points system when nothing else had worked at all.
Hence me biting the bullet and starting my first meeting. Shaking. Desperate. Terrified it wouldn't work again and that I would have no choice left but to do CD again.
My first week went well but I couldn't believe how much I was having to eat. I have always snacked on fruit and veg if I snack at all and I've spent the last 15 years being trained by nutritionists and dieticians to eat fewer and fewer carbs and that as my weight wasn't coming down I must be eating too much so my level of input was getting lower and lower. I've discovered that I can actually quite happily live on between 1,000 and 1,200 calories a day and not be hungry - unfortunately for some strange reason I do still gain weight at that level or at best stay the same. I worked out that on a typical day I would eat maybe 20 points and it was a struggle getting my head around increasing that to 34 and possibly using some of the 49 weekly extras on top.
I lost 1.5lbs the first week so was amazed.
Week two became a real mental battle - trying to persuade myself that it was ok to eat potatoes and pasta and stuff like that again wasn't easy. A friend of mine summed it up when she told me that after so many years fighting doctors to get a diagnosis and to get them to listen to me and eating less and less and constantly feeling guilty that basically I had to give myself permission to eat. That really hasn't been easy to do but I'm hopefully starting to get there. I managed to get myself up to my 34 points every day, we'll ignore the fact it was by adding in things like curly wurlies, and nearly fell over when the scales showed me as being down by 5lbs
So week 3 I decided that I needed to let go of the control over food. And boy did I! Unfortunately I was sick during the week so ended up eating a lot of rice and cream crackers and things like that as it was all my stomach would handle and I not only used my full daily allowance but I suddenly got a HUGE craving for cheese as well. I sat that weekend and just ate an entire block of it. No sandwich etc (bread is bad so can't do that!) - just the block of cheese on its own. I think I may even have used my entire week's extra points in one sitting :break_diet: I couldn't believe it when the scales showed I'd still managed to lose 1/2lb and I got my first super 7 after just 3 weeks.
So last week. Yeah - the less said about last week the better. Having spent so many years not eating and keeping my food levels to a minimum my body seems to have suddenly cottoned on to the fact that its ok to have food again. And I've been starving!!! I did have my nephew's birthday party at the weekend as well which didn't help - I was good in that I had chicken keebab rather than sausages and burgers but I didn't manage to resist the chocolate fudge birthday cake. By the end of the week my bonus points were all gone again and I'd only lost 1/2lb for the week.
But still its 1/2lb and its not a gain so that's good and when I did my measurements I'd actually lost 1/2 inch off my waist so it could be that I've lost size and its just not showing on the scales right now.
I am worried though that its about 3 weeks since I reduced my meds and my thyroid problems could be beginning to kick in again. I've seen my body do this so many times before where I do really well for a couple of weeks and then my thyroid kicks off and regains everything I just lost. Its like it torments me into believing that I can do it and then snatches away the prize at the last second.
But I do think that the last 2 weeks I relaxed too much and went with the fact I could eat whatever I want and my challenge for this week is to find a bit more balance in what I eat so I'm not using up my points by adding in 'bad' snacks. I still need to get my head sorted a little bit and start dealing with my totally screwed up relationship with food but I'm thinking if I stick with it and just keep true to the diet then little by little that will start to improve. And if I try and stay a little bit more rigid with the healthier foods this week and use fewer of my weekly bonus then I'm crossing my fingers that it will show on the scales next week.
Right - so that's my first post in my brand new diary and with any luck the others won't be quite so long!!!
Oh and why a Graceful Decent? Because a few weeks ago I was watching Rear Window and I decided I want to be Grace Kelly. No more than that - this time round I'm doing this for good and for the final time so I've decided that not only do I want to be Grace Kelly but I deserve to be Grace Kelly and no matter how long it takes I WILL be Grace Kelly damn it!!
