Barbara's Quest to be Finally Fit and Fabulous at Fifty

[BarbaraG]

Hello,

I'm starting one of these diaries in the hope that sharing on here will help me on the road to finally being a healthy weight.... and staying there.

I am the classic yo-yo dieter. I was put on my first diet at the age of 11, did it myself from the age of 14, and in my early thirties realised that I needed a complete and permanent change of lifestyle. But even though I have had that knowledge, the change I need has eluded me.

So there I was at the beginning if this year - 48 years old, weighing 21 1/2 stone, with pain in my knees, ankles and hip, suffering frequent acid reflux, barely able to put my shoes and socks on, and with my type 2 diabetes getting out of control.

Enough!

I truly don't believe that "going on a diet" will fix me - I need to fix my head, the little voice that thinks that if one chocolate is good, 50 must be even better. So here's what I'm doing:

Eating healthy, tasty food in moderate portions - 3 meals a day, with 1 or 2 small snacks if I need them.
Simply not buying crisps, chocolate, puddings, cakes etc.
Trying to eat more mindfully and be aware when I have had enough
Cooking more from fresh ingredients, relying less on ready meals
Going to the gym 3 times a week and building up my fitness
Keeping a food diary
Using the CD from Hypnodiet (the last 2 only since last week- and it seems to be doing something)

I expect that most of these are things I will have to do for the rest of my life. Probably eventually I will be able to let go of the food diary and the daily CD listening, and maybe one day I'll be able to buy some of those pesky high fat/sugar foods occasionally..... But the rest has to stay.

I wanted to put all my goals in my signature - 15 of them, to get me to my ultimate target of 10st 7lb, fit and fabulous, by my 50th birthday in January 2014- but I haven't got enough space in my sig yet! Never mind - I am underway, with a loss of 19lb since January, and a LOT more to come. Most importantly, I am eating well, not feeling deprived, and enjoying my trips to the gym.

Thanks for reading, watch out for my updates, good luck with your own challenges, however you choose to tackle them.

Barbara

 

[BarbaraG]

Hmm... Well late last night I succumbed to the growing urge to.... buy a slimpod! Well, a package, actually, and I listened to the drop 2 jeans sizes one last night.

Now here's the funny thing - we always eat on the sofa with the telly on, and for years I have been hearing and reading how important it was to give full attention to your eating by NOT having distractions. And the past 2 mornings I have eaten my breakfast without the telly. Still on the sofa, admittedly, but no distraction ( other than the thoughts racing round my head)

I am am also thinking up stopping weighing. Definitely limit it to once a week - Sundays are my day - but maybe in a few weeks I will feel ready to just stop? After all, this is not about the number on the scale, it's about how my body moves and feels and the fit of my clothes. And if I am eating in the right way and keeping my promise to myself to get to the gym 3 times a week - I WILL be getting slimmer and fitter and moving better.

Barbara

 

[BarbaraG]

Did anyone watch the Horizon programme about exercise the other evening? The bit I took away from it was the effect of short bursts of intense exercise (3 bursts of 20 seconds, 3 times a week, to be precise) on insulin sensitivity.

I have type 2 diabetes, for which I am on 2 tablets. At the start of this year, my fasting blood glucose (BG) was in the high 9's. After several weeks of healthier eating and regular trips to the gym, it has come down somewhat, but I am still seeing figures in the 7's and 8's.

So - when I went to the gym yesterday, I incorporated these 3 20-second bursts of sprinting while on the exercise bike - although it was such hard work, that I reduced the overall length of my time on there. And this morning, my BG was.... 5.8!!! Blimey, that is practically normal!

Definitely worth doing again to see if the impact is repeated, but to get better results from less time overall in the gym has got to be a good thing. I do enjoy my time in the gym, but time is precious, and as I get fitter it will be easier for me to increase the intensity of my exercise than the duration.

Oh, and I'm not weighing until Sunday, but I noticed yesterday that my waist *felt* slimmer.

Barbara

 

[Emmaline]

Hi BarbaraG, A belated welcome to the forum...

Well done on your fantastic loss so far and the exercise routine that you have set up already...keep going!

I am DB T2 as well but only diet controlled but being at the age of 77 have lots of other complications so it's very good that you are doing something now as the older you get the harder it is for the weight to shift.
Must admit that I weigh every day and it's really whatever suits you best, isn't it?

Great that you started your own diary which I always try to emphasize to newbies as others then know where to find you and keep up with your continuing progress.

Wishing you all the very best in your exciting journey to slimdom...

Onwards and Downwards!!

 

[Eternal Optimist]

Hello

Hi Barbara

Just wanted to wish you the best of luck with your new healthy eating lifestyle.

I am the same age as you and I also started my own healthy eating programme at the beginning of this year (16th Jan).

I, however, weigh monthly as, from past experience, I've found a weekly weigh in made me too obsessed with food and if the scales showed a 'stayed the same', or worse a gain, I would lose heart or give up entirely

With a monthly weigh in, you don't have to worry about the time of the month or if you have had a few days where you not made such good choices or had a few nights out in one week etc.

Over a month's period of controlled healthy eating/choices, everyone should show a loss - might not be a great loss certainly but a loss is taking us all in the right direction.

I'm a firm believer that losing weight is a psychological journey and weighing monthly keeps my head in the right place and helps me to lead a 'normal life' with the occasional glass of vino, piece of cake etc without stressing and worrying about it.

Looking forward to reading more of your posts and continued success as you are doing brilliantly

 

[BarbaraG]

Thanks for the welcome, girls!

Well Sunday is my "official" weighing in day, and today shows a loss of 3lb since last week, 1st 8lb in nine weeks, and as my sig shows, I have reached my 2nd goal of getting under 20 stone, yay!! Sadly because I am still a newbie, the limit on sig length means I had to delete the next goal in order to add the fact I had reached this one, so I had better post more often.

Eternal Optimist - I entirely agree that losing weight is a psychological thing- for the first 20 years of my dieting career I didn't understand this. However, even though I have known this for the past 17 years, I still hadn't got my head in the right place.

Now, though, it really does feel as though something is different. We shall see! Although I will probably carry on weighing once a week, for a while at least, my next goal is to get comfortably into a pair of size 24 jeans I bought on Friday - do-uppable only by breathing in. I'll keep you posted.

I spent a couple of hours in January setting up a spreadsheet which does rates of change and metabolism calculations and tells me what my predicted stable weight is if things carry on as they are and even has traffic lights to tell me whether my weight progress so far predicts an acceptable final weight or not.... and I don't want to throw all that effort away just yet.

 

[Eternal Optimist]

Very well done with your weight loss so far

I think my light bulb moment was when I finally accepted that losing 4 and half stone was not going to happen overnight....it certainly didn't go on overnight...so I was going to have dedicate all of 2012 to it.

That seems scary to think about but actually now 7weeks in it seems ok. I'm being careful with portion sizes and trying to focus on low carbs and high protein/fruit and veg but still having the occasional glass of wine, bit of cake, meal out as you would do in a normal lifestyle.

Looking forward to reading more of your updates

 

[Emmaline]

...And ditto from me Barbara....

 

[Baby-belle]

Hello I've just started healthy eating it's quite quiet over here so thought I would pop in and say hello, your doing great I'm finding it hard to adjust not following rules! A little lost but I will get there, i would appreciate support in my diary incase I make bad decisions

I think I'm going to steal the idea of a monthly weigh in as I get obsessed to I've also measured myself

 

[BarbaraG]

Yesterday I spent some time with one of the trainers at my gym to work out a new programme. I said I was happy wi the cardio machines and know how to build endurance and intensity on those,but wanted to challenge myself on resistance training, and also start to use some free weights. Boy, did she deliver! She has shown me 3 new machines, plus 4 exercises using free weights and/or a fitball. She has also told me to increase the number of sets I do.

Now even though I didn't do the full workout yesterday, as she was just showing me how to do each exercise, I can really feel these new muscles. Looking forward to my next trip to the gym tomorrow, and working towards greater fitness.

Food wise, this is what I ate yesterday:

B: bowl of porridge with a little dried fruit and a few almonds
L: ham sandwich on granary with some baby tomatoes and salad leaves; yogurt; orange
T: spiced honey roasted salmon with couscous, salad, 1/2 a melon

Also tea, coffee and water. No snacks, despite the presence of biscuits at a meeting in the evening.

I am loving life at the moment.

Barbara

 

[Baby-belle]

Yesterday I spent some time with one of the trainers at my gym to work out a new programme. I said I was happy wi the cardio machines and know how to build endurance and intensity on those,but wanted to challenge myself on resistance training, and also start to use some free weights. Boy, did she deliver! She has shown me 3 new machines, plus 4 exercises using free weights and/or a fitball. She has also told me to increase the number of sets I do.

Now even though I didn't do the full workout yesterday, as she was just showing me how to do each exercise, I can really feel these new muscles. Looking forward to my next trip to the gym tomorrow, and working towards greater fitness.

Food wise, this is what I ate yesterday:

B: bowl of porridge with a little dried fruit and a few almonds
L: ham sandwich on granary with some baby tomatoes and salad leaves; yogurt; orange
T: spiced honey roasted salmon with couscous, salad, 1/2 a melon

Also tea, coffee and water. No snacks, despite the presence of biscuits at a meeting in the evening.

I am loving life at the moment.

Barbara

Your food sounds so healthy and my kind of food!

 

[BarbaraG]

I completed the first stage of my first wardrobe purge this morning. I have been through everything that hangs up, and separated into 3 categories: too snug for comfort, fine now, and raggy, saggy or baggy.

The first category (not too many items there) are gathered together at one end of the rail, waiting to be brought into use in a month or two. The middle category fills the rest of my rail, and contains a lot more items than I realised I had available. Does anyone else notice than, when they gain weight, they retreat into a small, and usually dull, section of their wardrobe - and kind of forget the other things are there?

The last category are on their way to the charity shop - bar one pair of jeans which were tight, and are now too big, which I am going to keep as my evidence trousers!

Next, to do the same process with my T-shirt drawer. There must be 20-30 items in there, but I bet I regularly wear fewer than 10 of them.

Barbara

 

[kateyb]

Hi Barbara, Just joined the forum again, just wanted to say well done, you are doing fab. I am older that you 56, and i am going to start a diary as well, they seem to be a real help. I think you are right, have finally admitted to myself today that no diet is going to fix me. Healthy eating is the way to go, am going to alter my lifestyle. Reading your diary has inspired me to start one aswell. So , good luck with your journey, looking forward to watching your progress. Have a good evening. Kateyb x

 

[BarbaraG]

Thanks for the welcome Katey!

I went to the gym last night and threw myself into it with gusto. I am working towards doing 3 sets on each of the strength exercises she gave me, not quite there yet, but getting closer. It was 9.40 when I'd finished those, so I thought I'll do 5 mins on the stepper and should still fit in a 2K row before closing time. But after a minute and a half on the stepper, I felt really lacking in energy and slightly sick, so I gave up and came home.

After a drink I tested my blood glucose and it was 4.1, which is not actually hypo, but low enough that you start to feel it, so I put it down to that and had a bowl of cereal. Then just as I was about to go to bed I got this pain in my lower abdomen - a kind of cramping, stabbing pain, low down and to one side. Owwwwww! Couldn't decide if it was TOTM ( but wrong place, and wrong sort of pain, really), intestinal cramping (metformin and Xenical can both do that to you.... but it didn't quite feel like that either), or if I had somehow pulled a muscle at the gym.... But then why didn't it start hurting at the time?

I lay awake for best part of an hour, unable to find a comfortable position, feeling tense through my tummy and back, slightly sick, and for some reason, shivering. I had to get out of bed and find a nightie! Then I started to wonder if it could possibly be appendicitis?

Anyhow, I eventually went to sleep, and come morning I am still alive and the pain has dropped back to the normal post-exercise soreness you get when you've done a bit much. So I guess it was the gym after all - not a pulled muscle as such, but I just did a bit too much and for some reason it decided to go into spasm an hour or two later.

Be careful of those fit ball ab crunches, they can cause havoc!

On the plus side, I remeasured myself today, 10 days after the first time I did it.... An inch off my bust, and an inch and a half off both waist and hips! Maybe I'll be shimmying into those size 24 jeans by the end of this month after all.

Day off today, but lots of chores to do, better get on with it.

Barbara

 

[BarbaraG]

One of my strategies from the beginning of the year was to cook more from fresh ingredients and rely less on prepared food. To this end, I had bought some new recipe books, and tried out several new, quick and healthy recipes.

But today I really went off piste, and just roasted 2 chicken breasts in the oven, no recipe, no nothing. Well,OK, a sprinkle of mixed herbs and wrapped it up in foil, done. Cooked some veggies, made up some gravy with a chicken Oxo cube and some cornflour, bish bash bosh, low fat chicken dinner for two. A low fat yogurt and a digestive biscuit for pudding, then I had to go out.

What else have I had today,let's see:

B: Porridge with dried fruit and a few almonds - but 3/4 of the portion I used to make, as I found I wasn't finishing it (see my slimpod diary for an explanation)

L: Homemade soup (spicy butternut squash and carrot - made a couple of weeks ago and frozen), with a slice of multigrain bread ( didn't finish the soup), yogurt, small orange

Hmm.... So really, not that much of a surprise that I felt a bit hungry when I got in and had a bowl of cereal. Now feel nicely satisfied.

Went to the gym today, got most of the repetitions in on the strength exercises, then went on the treadmill. There is a series of Olympic challenges going on, and the treadmill one is to do 1.5Km as fast as you can. Times on the leader board range from 7 minutes something to 10:05. My first attempt the other day - mostly brisk walking with a couple of short bursts of jogging - took 15:32. But today I deliberately increased the amount of jogging and did it in 14:52.

You know what they say - every little helps!

Barbara

 

[Emmaline]

Well done Barbara, sounding really good!

Used to love going to the gym and went regularly when I was in my 50s. So miss not being to do any exercise at all now..:sigh:

Anyway...keep up the good work!