Deflating the Bouncy Castle

[shrinkin'violet]

Hello, just read through your diary, you're doing great, really fun read too are you back at school yet?
X

 

[wifeywoo]

Hi Spangles, glad to hear your doing so well. I know what u mean re the pasty. I was shopping with pals at Bluewater last night and they wanted a pizza express. I could've cried, pizza is our fave junk food. Anyhoo, at least I got to order baby a kids spaghetti bol and got a lot of pleasure out of chopping it up and feeding him and seeing how much he enjoyed it! Still sucks though. It's scary how much I use food for enjoyment - it always seems to be the highlight of any occasion.

I'm a teacher too - music! I just left my job of 10 years as they wouldn't let me go part time after baby but tbh, I've been miserable for ages with all the political rubbish and my head really was a bully in so many ways. I'm going to be a visiting freelance instrumental teacher next term, really looking forward to it! Went for a few interviews for varying classroom and instrumental roles and I'm sure the main reason I didn't get other jobs was because of my weight. Don't mean to brag by any means but this is what I figured: I have degrees and diplomas coming out my ears (more than most heads in fact), 10 years experience, intense experience of ofsted and hmi including being consistently judged an outstanding teacher and a fab track record, so by method of deduction I can only perceive it to be the fat thing - maybe I don't fit the corporate image and people do seem to have a subconscious 'thing' against fat people. Do you find that at all? The job I eventually got was the best organised interview, the only place to actually audition me as a performer and the kid I taught for the interview lesson made cracking progress in the 15 mins slot, plus I was interviewed by 2 women. Can't say I miss the thought of not going back to being constantly overworked and demoralised, and the arts consistently being treated as the 'joke' of the curriculum and I really hope it's not the case for you.

Keep up the good fight - we WILL do it!

W x

 

[spangles]

Hello, just read through your diary, you're doing great, really fun read too are you back at school yet?
X

thanks - back on friday.

 

[spangles]

Hi Spangles, glad to hear your doing so well. I know what u mean re the pasty. I was shopping with pals at Bluewater last night and they wanted a pizza express. I could've cried, pizza is our fave junk food. Anyhoo, at least I got to order baby a kids spaghetti bol and got a lot of pleasure out of chopping it up and feeding him and seeing how much he enjoyed it! Still sucks though. It's scary how much I use food for enjoyment - it always seems to be the highlight of any occasion.

I'm a teacher too - music! I just left my job of 10 years as they wouldn't let me go part time after baby but tbh, I've been miserable for ages with all the political rubbish and my head really was a bully in so many ways. I'm going to be a visiting freelance instrumental teacher next term, really looking forward to it! Went for a few interviews for varying classroom and instrumental roles and I'm sure the main reason I didn't get other jobs was because of my weight. Don't mean to brag by any means but this is what I figured: I have degrees and diplomas coming out my ears (more than most heads in fact), 10 years experience, intense experience of ofsted and hmi including being consistently judged an outstanding teacher and a fab track record, so by method of deduction I can only perceive it to be the fat thing - maybe I don't fit the corporate image and people do seem to have a subconscious 'thing' against fat people. Do you find that at all? The job I eventually got was the best organised interview, the only place to actually audition me as a performer and the kid I taught for the interview lesson made cracking progress in the 15 mins slot, plus I was interviewed by 2 women. Can't say I miss the thought of not going back to being constantly overworked and demoralised, and the arts consistently being treated as the 'joke' of the curriculum and I really hope it's not the case for you.

Keep up the good fight - we WILL do it!

W x

ugh - that's exactly like my situation. we're part of a federation of academies, which i believe makes it worse, but it's the way the wind is blowing in education.

Sadly i'm the breadwinner in our marriage - even when my husband starts his new job, it's a minimal salary - so i'm kind of forced to stay. am going to deputise for our NUT rep this year though - 'fight the power' and all that jazz.

 

[wifeywoo]

Yeah, there's deffo far too much politics in education! Essentially I will b the breadwinner this year as hubby only has 2 days a week as he's starting a Masters course so i'm working 4 days self employed (so nothing in hols) so things will b very tight but hopefully a lot, lot happier. We both get the odd bit of freelance performing too - weddings etc so hopefully there'll b enough for nappies! My new job is at an affluent private school and I'll b billing wealthy parents directly so things should b ok. X

 

[poppygreendog]

Hi Spangles - have loved reading your diary and thinking that perhaps I need one too to keep me on the straight and narrow. I'm a habitual restarter but am very determined this time. lol. Well done on your losses so far fantastic and I agree with you re porridge (bleurgh).

PGD x

 

[spangles]

Yeah, there's deffo far too much politics in education! Essentially I will b the breadwinner this year as hubby only has 2 days a week as he's starting a Masters course so i'm working 4 days self employed (so nothing in hols) so things will b very tight but hopefully a lot, lot happier. We both get the odd bit of freelance performing too - weddings etc so hopefully there'll b enough for nappies! My new job is at an affluent private school and I'll b billing wealthy parents directly so things should b ok. X

Ooh. Sounds quite a good gig - hope it goes well.

 

[spangles]

Hi Spangles - have loved reading your diary and thinking that perhaps I need one too to keep me on the straight and narrow. I'm a habitual restarter but am very determined this time. lol. Well done on your losses so far fantastic and I agree with you re porridge (bleurgh).

PGD x

Ooh, yes - definitely do a diary. For your own benefit - but also because reading other people's diaries really helps: you'll be inspiring others.

 

[spangles]

Went to visit my mum today: she was really encouraging and went totally OTT about how much thinner I looked, bless her. My mum is about a size 22/24 too, and has her own eating issues - so I wonder that maybe she feels a bit guilty about passing it on, either as a 'fat gene' (which i doubt) - or more likely through behaviours.

Anyway, she was lovely and I had a long chat with my middle sister on the phone while I was there, and she's recently been doing Atkins before her holiday (she's much slimmer than me). We were talking about how great ketosis is, and I started envying her all her meat and cheese etc - but i have to tell myself "You've tried atkins, it didn't work. This works."

And it does.

 

[spangles]

I keep dreaming i've put food in my mouth - it's really upsetting!

tonight I went to see Pulp at Brixton academy. Fab, brilliant gig - but the first time i've missed booze. it was completely fab - but i just couldn't get swept up and out of myself by the atmosphere - i was too self-aware. Funny, that - i really wasn't expecting it. but then, i haven't gone to a gig completely sober since i was about 16, i think.

the other thing was that my dress was too big... I know i should be pleased but it's the most flattering, leopardprint fifties style thing. I adore my clothes, i have a fantastic wardrobe and although i'm looking forward to buying great clothes when i'm done - i shall still miss the fab stuff i have now. Oh, and my engagement ring keeps sliding round. hmm.

anyway, farewell my friend - i shall find you a new home via ebay.

(a photo from better-fitting times)

 

[mama22]

I know what your talking about with rings, I have had my engagement and eternity ring reduced by the maximum 3 sizes and gutted the still spin. My wedding ring can't be done as we have righting in the middle :-(

 

[mama22]

*writing lol

 

[spangles]

well, yesterday i managed to stay 100% SS at a wedding!

I made up my tomato soup in the hotel before we left - cos it mixes properly with just a stir. Then when we sat down to dinner I had an orange chewy bar, which i made last for ages, until everyone finished their desserts. I toasted the speeches with water in a champagne flute, and just generally had lots of tapwater, and then later in the evening when they brought our bacon sandwiches and some really nice cheeses I had a tetra.

Like the diet generally, it was boring and not especially pleasurable - but worth it (the food aspect: the wedding itself was lovely). I hope i don't speak too soon, but at the moment i can't see me cheating at all on SS. I don't want to put of my sub-30 BMI and IVF treatment a single day longer than is necessary... and also, i worry (knowing myself as I do) that if i come of the wagon once i'll do it again and again. It's easier just to tell myself (and everybody else) that it's a blanket 'no' to food.

anyway - this was me yesterday. wonder how many more times i'll be able to wear this frock before it's too big (clearly the jacket'll be good for aaaages!).

 

[mama22]

Hi spangles
I may be new to minimins but not to CD I have lost 100lb and I did it all for IVF I was given Clomid once my BMI was 28 and they kept telling me they still had me stuck in the menopause (I was only 24 an had been given zoladex for 6 months) I found out I was pregnant the week before my referral for IVF. weight and how you feel is a big part of it, I found out I was pregnant with my second when my first was 9 months old I had had no help clomid or anything.
Fingers crossed for you and your journey for a family xxxx

 

[spangles]

thanks mama. i have fallopian tube damage, but natural conception isn't 100% impossible, and i hope losing weight will help anyway. fingers crossed.

 

[spangles]

Right. First proper day back at work today and I doubt it's a coincidence that I could eat a scabby horse, i'm so hungry. Have drunk 2 litres of water already (5pm), so I don't think it's that. Does stress make you (one) hungry?

God, I hate my job. Our annual several dozen page report is due in on friday (oh the joy of being a head of dept!) but our evil headmistress has said she wants to see it at our meeting tomorrow afternoon. Gee, thanks...

So - yeah - stress.

Anyway, I had my half my bar at morning break (11.10am) and the other half at lunchtime (1.35pm). I've normally been having it at about 12ish, so I thought it would be ok. Mostly it was fine - i was a bit peckish by about ten, but I can live with that.

But then by 3pm I was absolutely starving. I had my tetra, but it seems not to have made much of a dent at all. So - busy afternoon teaching drama? or 2.50pm email of doom from the boss?

who knows? both things are likely to happen everyday anyway, so i'll have to learn to live with it.

when i was trying to stabilise my eating disorder, i read a lot of books - and the only one that really resonated with the OCD elements of binge eating disorder, was Eating Less: say goodbye to overeating by Gillian Riley. She works from an addiction model to start with (she started teaching smoking cesation) and one of the things she talks about is living with your addictive desire. Learning to say: "I can be hungry. That's ok - it's not going to hurt me."

I think the book is brilliant and will definitely use it after i've lost the weight (it's about normalising eating - which is the opposite of dieting, really - so i never found it compatable with actually losing weight)... but the idea of living, being content, not panicking with the feeling of hunger... that's something i will have to practise now.

 

[Cerulean]

Yup - stress = cortisol = blood sugar going all over the shop = desire to munch munch munch munch munch. But also abrupt routine change can trigger the same response as your body goes 'Waitaminnit!!! you used to feed me at this time....WHAT HAPPENED??? IS THERE A FAMINE???? MUST HAVE FOOD NOW!!! Get food, find food, really, I neeeed it'

 

[spangles]

thanks Sarah - better today.

anyway, rubbish weigh in today: 1.25lbs. and that's despite staying SS at a wedding in saturday.

i sometimes feel like my body doesn't want me to lose weight.

last week my own scales suggested a two or three pound loss and my CDC's scales said five and a bit. This week my scales and hers seem to have caught each other up. It's still 6lbs in two weeks so i'll live - but it's a pig of a thing.

 

[spangles]

I posted this on another thread, but thought it might belong with the rest of my story... Why I started CD when I did:

I think most people would agree with all kinds of diets, that if you aren't in the right headspace it's going to be an uphill, and probably ultimately fruitless battle.

But that's not to say you can't get into the right headspace.

For me, what worked was reading up on lots of people's experiences of vlcds - and looking at their photos. Really believeing that i could be transformed.

Because it was the first time and because that sort of thing is important to me, i did a lot of research into the science of ketosis etc - I didn't really trust the simplified explanations you get on the CD website etc, because there's a lot of bad science used in the diet and nutrition business, especially where there's big profits to be made. So, when I got to a point where i was confident explaining it to my much cleverer husband... I was pretty confident about what would happen and how and why.

And then also, in myself, I got to a point where my motivations became overwhelmingly important to me. For me it's a perfect storm of infertility, growing obseity and ageing. Dwelling on my looming forties and being referred for gastric surgery, while at the same time paying a small fortune to investigate my infertility privately (my weight meant i couldn't have tests on the nhs)... just brought everything into alignment, eventually. all those factors had been there for a while and i'd been considering a vlcd for a couple of years, but the more i dwelled on them, the more this became the perfect solution.

Lastly, I really gave some thought to the perfect start date. I have a really stressful job so i waited till i was on holiday, gave myself a few days to eat and drink up a storm - and then on the 1st august, which was also a Monday I started. New month, new week, new era.

obviously, that's just personal - but i think you know when it's the right time. I was really excited by the prospect of starting. That's a good mindset to be in.

 

[girlygirl1]

There seems to come a time - if we are lucky - that it all comes together, as you say. Lots of different factors, some good, some bad. Lots of reasons why we finally decide, THIS IS IT! And pretty soon afterwards we realise, wow, I really do mean it! Because suddenly we are sticking to our plan as best we can, most of the time, and we just know - this time I won't fail. This time I'll keep going until I get there.

It's like something just clicks into place, and you know that, come what may, you will not give up. Not this time.