Lily's a loser (at least, that's the plan!)

[Lily]

Uh oh

I seem to have started a diary!

I'm going to state, right up front, that this diary probably isn't going to be full of super-inspiring stuff. In fact, I suspect that it's going to be full of me moaning about how I can't stick to SS for more than a week at a time (well, more than a day at a time at the moment, grrrr) and how rubbish I feel about that, etc, etc. So if you're looking for wonderful examples to follow, it might be best for you to click the back button now and go and read about someone else's weight loss journey. If on the other hand, you feel it might be helpful to read about someone who's even worse at sticking to SS than you are, then hey - welcome. It's very nice to meet you.

A little background detail...

After doing every diet under the sun (you name it, I've probably tried it - or thought about trying it), a work colleague of mine started losing shed loads of weight on LighterLife back in 2007. As I couldn't face the thought of her becoming slimmer than me I decided it might just work for me. It was, after all, one of the very few diets I hadn't tried and I'd started researching stomach stapling and gastric bands by that point, having reached the cusp of eighteen stones (which given I'm five foot four meant I was morbidly obese).

I figured that if I was going to take the drastic step of surgery that I might just as well try something just a little less drastic - i.e., LighterLife. So I spent a momentous weekend researching the diet and found a wonderful forum called MiniMins. It didn't take long to find the Cambridge subforum and when I realised that Cambridge was approximately half the cost - well, it was a no-brainer. I left a message on my CWPC's answerphone on the Monday morning and by Monday evening, I was at her house, being weighed and measured.

I was angelically good. Nothing, other than my shakes, soups and bars, passed my lips (apart from during AAM week which back then you did every fifth week - basically a week of doing SS+). And not surprisingly, by March 2008 I'd lost nearly five and a half stones.

I felt fantastic. Words cannot describe how it felt to be so much slimmer after being a very big girl for more than a decade.

But then...

I went on holiday. I had an amazing time. I looked fantastic in the photos (even though I still had another two stones to lose). And I ate whatever I wanted. Why not, thought I. I'll just get back on the diet when I get back home.

Ha! :8855:

Little did I know how hard it would be to climb back aboard that wagon. Basically, I've been trying to get back on board ever since. I've had more restarts than I've had chocolate tetras. I've managed to stay on track for maybe a month at a time - might even have managed 6 weeks. But then... :sigh:

I even gave up on Cambridge completely earlier this year. Tried first SW then WW again, but I couldn't stick to them either - which on paper is ridiculous (why on earth can't I stick to a diet that actually allows me to eat???).

So here I am again. Since restarting this time, I've managed 4 weeks of angelic-ness, followed by 2 weeks of rubbishness, followed by a week of angelic-ness followed by (so far) ten days of rubbishness.

I've decided that here is where that rubbishness must end. Or at least begin to end.

I have at least lost around a stone since I restarted. Which is just as well, because my weight had climbed back to 15 stones 3lbs.

But I want to be much nearer 13 stone by Christmas.

And so I've started a diary. It's not the first diary I've had here but I'd like it to be the last. I want to try to get to the bottom of why I keep messing up and I figure that writing stuff down might just help me do that. It might even stop me from messing up in the first place.

I'm starting again tomorrow. I made the mistake of thinking that I could do SS+ today but all that happened was that I worked my way through all the chicken, tuna and cottage cheese I'd bought for the next few days and then started on the bread bin...

The thing is, I even told my CWPC (same incredibly tolerant lovely woman who's been with me from the start) that I can't do SS+ without it feeling like I'm cheating, so what the hell was I thinking, LOL?

Never mind.

Tomorrow is Day One...

 

[LeaV]

Aw good luck lily!! I'm also a restarter too, just coming to the end of day 2
Same as u, tried everything and here I am again! I'm keeping a diary too, Im finding it's helping cos when I think of food I write instead, and I also hope ppl will b following looking for inspiration and good losses!! Keep us posted and hope this will b the last diet we ever have to do!! Xx

 

[Lily]

Well.

I'm sitting at work, trying very hard not to panic about all the things I don't know what to do about and fighting the most incredible urge to trough down as much chocolate I can lay my hands on.

But I'd better not. Chocolate's not going to help, is it? It's not going to help me lose weight. It's not going to help me understand my job. It's not going to help me deal with the emails in my inbox. The only thing I do about those emails is deal with them.

Or run away. Yeah, there's a plan - I'll run away.

Hating myself right now. Hate myself for getting all the way to 6.00pm yesterday - then spending the rest of the evening binging. Hate myself for trying to make excuses about it. Hate that I've actually lied to my CDC - ooh, she knows I've fallen off the wagon, but she doesn't know I actually fell off last Saturday...

I don't know how to stop feeling so tired.

Basically, I'm a wreck right now - and no one sitting around me knows. Which is probably just as well...

 

[Lily]

Back home now. Sorry about all the whinging. I was having a pretty crap five minutes there.

But hey...

I survived Day 1. Again.

I've decided that smiley face therapy might be in order, so I've just put the number of days until my 41st birthday down in my signature. For every day I don't fall off the wagon, I get a smiley face.

I was quite surprised to realise there's still 26 days to go until my birthday, actually. That's nearly a month. Which means it isn't beyond the realms of possibility that I could lose a stone before then.

So...

I know I'm going to have to eat next Tuesday - yes, that sounds defeatist, but I don't want anyone other than my OH and my CWPC to know I'm doing Cambridge just at the mo. I really don't need people being all negative about it. Besides, I'm going for a lunchtime curry buffet which means I can get away with picking at chicken and my friend won't even notice that's all I'm eating (I know this for sure cos I've done it lots of times!). And I'm going to have to eat (chicken again, I'm planning) on 9 December cos I'm going out that evening with my Dad and sister.

But other than that, there's nothing else in the way. I've noticed that so long as I'm eating out of the house, it doesn't seem to be too difficult to rein myself back in again. It's when I start eating stuff at home that I have a tendency to lose the plot! Obviously I'm going to have to deal with that at some point, but there's no rush, is there?

Okay. I can do this. Feeling much better now.

 

[Felix]

Hi Lily Good luck with your restart! I really hope you stick to it. It's been a rocky start but you're going in the right direction!

Can't wait to see all the smiley faces in your signature haha.

 

[Lily]

Yay, that's day 2 out of the way!

See my smiley face?
|
|
|
|
|
\/

 

[determinator]

yay to getting through day 2 i am a restarter too , came off for 6 months for many reason and although I managed to maintain on SW didt loose .. so back again I am sure you will be able to loose a good amount before your birthday good luck for day 3 .. looking forward to seeing how you are doing

 

[Rae Rae]

Wow- i just love the honesty of your diary!!

You have done it before so most definitley you will succeed again, theres no doubt about it,u just need to have your head in the right place, which seems to be happening for u. GOOD LUCK!!

 

[miss-r]

Hi Lily
Well done on your restart.
Well done for getting past day 2.
How is it going today?? xx

 

[Lily]

Aw, thanks for dropping by to say hello, all of ya. After my first post (which turned into 'War and Peace'...) I kinda thought I'd managed to put everyone off!

Well, I'm on Day 3. I've had a malt toffee bar, a vanilla shake and a banana shake and lots and lots of tea (yes, with a lil' bit of milk) cos I just couldn't face too much water today - it's c-c-c-c-cold! I know that means I'm not being strictly SS, but to be honest, I don't find it makes much difference to my weight loss having a drop of skimmed milk. Let's call it 'SS+ Lite', what d'you think?

So... I've survived another day. I'm going to pop another smiley face on my signature in a mo to prove it. I'm not in the least bit hungry, so that's a plus. All my clothes feel really tight though, which is a bit odd, but I'm putting that down to it being close to TOTM.

But the really interesting thing is that I've lost all that 'anger' I was feeling the other day. God, I'm such a control freak. When I'm in control of what's going into my gob, I'm in control of the rest of my life too. Funny how that works, although I've got a feeling that it's probably got something to do with that notion of being either a 'good' girl or a 'bad' girl - which is all wrong, cos why should eating stuff make you a 'bad' girl? :sigh: But that's the terminology we use, isn't it? "I've been good" or "I've been bad"...

Ah well. I'll have to work on fixing that dodgy thinking at some stage, methinks. When I get to goal and start working up the steps, maybe?

Right. Let's go and add that new smiley face.

 

[Lily]

Huh. Yesterday I was a lot nearer to TOTM than I thought. I thought it would be next week, but no... :sigh:

Still. At least I know now why I'd got such a mardy head on mid-week. And it's actually really good news in a way, cos I always find doing Cambridge easier at this point in my cycle.

The scales have dropped back to 13 stone 13 lbs this morning (phew). I think that means I've lost around 4 or 5 pounds since Thursday, so that's good (I couldn't face weighing in on my own scales back on Day One of this current restart so I'm working backwards from what I weighed on my CWPC's scales on Thursday).

So, so far I've had a chocolate orange bar and three very big cups of tea. Yes, I should be drinking water, not tea, but I think I've hit ketosis big time now cos I'm freezing!

 

[Lily]

Pants. :break_diet:

I crashed and burned. I ate an entire French stick, all of it, bar a knobbly bit on the end. For heaven's sake...

Not sure what triggered it. I've tried to work backwards and to start with, I thought it was just that (after my OH suggested our son might like it) I picked up the bl**dy thing in Waitrose - and it was still a bit warm and, oh, I wanted it.

And because I wanted it, I ended up eating a second bar (yes I know, very stupid in the circumstances). And having done that, I ate a few chocolate coins. And then - because I hadn't really wanted chocolate coins in the first place, but at that point, I'd reached the 'what the hell' stage, I fetched the French stick.

Or... (and actually, thinking about it, it's more likely)

... when I weighed myself this morning, I hadn't lost enough, if you know what I mean. Yes, I was down a few pounds, but not as many as I'd hoped. Which given I started TOTM this morning really isn't surprising, but where's logic and reason when you need 'em?

Grrr.

So no smiley face for me today.

Pants.

 

[determinator]

sorry you have had a bad day , but dont beat yourself up , forget about it and jump right back on the wagon , one french stick is not going to ruin your hard work as long as you get back on track straight away you will be out of ketosis but should also be able to get back in pretty quickly

 

[LeaV]

Don't worry lily we all have bad days do sone extra exercise today to try and make up for it?

When I used to go to WW my leader always used to say to me

"don't let a bad day turn into a bad week"
Cos once I'd been norty I was like aw well what the hell I'll start again Monday. But just get ur mind back on it and u will be great! I always put around 4lbs on during totm so ya will be just fine
If u feel like eatin again just come on here and u have lots of friends who can talk u out of it xx

 

[leeds123]

lily, i just love your diary. its so honest and so real and reminds of mine when i started. dont be hit by the lows, keep at it, and dont ever consider yourself a failure or a bad girl.

 

[Lily]

It's never a good sign when your diary drops to the second page...

Doh. I made it to Day 4 and fell off the wagon. WTF? :sigh: Oh well.

Climbing back aboard wagon today. I have had a litre of water, 1 large mug of decaff coffee and 2 large mugs of caff. coffee. So there.

Bit fed up with myself, cos if I'd managed to stay on track, I'd probably be in the 12 stone somethings by now. Instead, I was 14 stone 5 lbs again this morning. Not good.

Somehow, I've got to find some other means of stress relief other than stuffing my face. It's just when you end up dog-tired all the time, stuffing your face is by far the easiest thing to do, isn't it?

Grrr.

 

[Lily]

Well...

I'm going to call Day 1 (again) a success and add a smiley face to my siggy.

You've gotta stick to the plan when your CWPC texts you to say that if you can be good until your birthday, she'll take you out to the new Thai restaurant in town, right?

So even she's resorted to bribing me with with food. Tsk.

I'm still finding my new job a struggle. I've got a feeling I'm going to find it a struggle for a while yet, too. It's so completely different to what I used to do. I've had to learn a whole new language, a whole new set of acronyms. I seem to spend my whole time phoning up important strangers (and phoning people I didn't know was once something that I had to have therapy for - go figure).

I keep thinking that I really should be a lot more grown up about this stuff. Keep it in perspective. Remind myself on an hourly basis that no one'll die if I screw up. And that if I do screw up, eating myself into oblivion probably won't help.

 

[Lily]

Day 2 done and dusted. Got quite a headache but that's not surprising, given that (a) I've spent the day holed up in London in a meeting and (b) I'm probably sliding back into ketosis. Methinks I should just get myself off to bed and quick!

 

[Lily]

14st exactly this morning. So that's 5 pounds off in 2 days. And yet it's never fast enough, is it?

 

[Lily]

13st 12lbs this morning. So that's 7 pounds off in 3 days. Can't really complain about that, can I? And it's nice to see the 13s again. Now I've just got to stay there.

I'm Day 4 again (which is where it went pants-up last time) so I just need to be on my guard. Felt a bit achey and headachey when I got up so I've dosed myself up with paracetamol and it seems to have done the trick.

I'm starting to feel a bit panicky about some reports that I've got to write for work this week. Silly really, because it's the fear of getting started that's the worst bit. I just need to have a go, don't I? God, I'd forgotten how horrible having a new job could be. How you feel like everything you do is being watched - how you feel like the people that recruited you might be thinking, "Oh dear - we shouldn't have picked her!"

I kind of thought I'd have grown out of feeling this way by now. I'll be 41 on the 13th December. When do you reach the stage when you think, "Well tough - this is what I think, if you don't like it, tell me and I'll think about changing it"? Self-confidence - it's an odd thing. Outwardly, I appear to have it in spades. Inwardly - I'm a wreck!