Tracey's Diary. Slow and Steady - again.

tarotwoman

Loves life
Starting my diet again this week.

12 years ago I lost 4 and a half stone to get to my target weight and kept it off with maintenance :D. In February my OH went to Nigeria :wave_cry: to do voluntary work and the weight is going back on :cry:.

I eat when I'm bored :confused:, I eat when I'm sad :(, I eat when I'm happy :), I've never been one of those people who is ever 'off their food'.

From now on everything I put in my mouth will be weighed or measured and written on my diet sheet - no cheating coz I'm only cheating myself :479:.

My first target is to weigh less next week than I do now and then to lose 9lb to get to 10st 7lb.

My next target will be to be at goal weight or near to it next time my OH comes home :welcome:.
 
Was it as hard as this last time I dieted?

I've had my tea and all I can think about is food. It's not as if I'm hungry - I'm not. I had salmon, very small potato and lots of carrots to fill up on. I don't know whether it's boredom, comfort or what - I just want to eat.

I'm gona try to do a list of all the reasons I'm dieting to remind myself. I don't think it'll take my mind off food but it might stop me putting it in my mouth.

1. I'll be able to choose what I want to wear instead of picking something on the basis of whether my belly protrudes too much or the tops of my arms look too wobbly.

2. My belly won't protrude and the tops of my arms won't look too wobbly no matter what I wear.

3. Cheaper clothes will look better on me than expensive ones do now.

4. I'll be able to walk better and further with less weight to carry. (I had a major car accident in 1996 and smashed my heel)

5. My bum and thighs won't spread across the whole width of the bath.

6. I'll be able to sit on my OH's knee without squashing him to death.

I'll have to try and think of all the things I used to do when I felt like this. Things must've got easier coz I did it for such a long time.
 
Morning Diary,

Woke up in the middle of the night wanting food - jelly sweets to be exact. This has happened every night for the last week. My own fault because before I started the diet if I woke up , I ate a few sweets. It seems my body had got used to it and is reminding me now it needs them.

I resisted them because I had no calories left for the day - I had been saving 50 cals for this before last night, but I have to get out of the habit. Took ages to get back to sleep but managed eventually.

Most people wake up in the night for a wee or a drink, I wake up for sweets - stupid really. Cross my fingers for tonight.

Tracey
 
So far, so good. Today I've had

Breakfast: 1and half oz choc branflakes with skimmed milk.
Dinner:2oz boiled ham, rocket on 2 slices bread, no butter but a bit of diet mayo on bread.
Tea: 2 egg omelette with 2 slices bread.

2 diet yogourts
small glass orange juice

Got full 250 cals to eat watching TV tonight!

Tracey
 
First weight-in since I started my diary - 3lb lost this week. Coming on this forum is doing me good, I only lost 2lb last week before I came on this.

Managed to get a proper ticker going - hope I don't forget this password.

Menu for today

1 and half oz chocolate branflakes
2oz chicken on 2 slices of bread
chicken tikka masala and 2oz (dry weight) rice.
Only 200cals for tonight because 100 has been used up for masala sauce. Never mind.

Tracey
 
Whatshould I do?

OMG, What am I going to do for the rest of tonight? I've no calories left. :cry:

I've surfed the internet looking for a new laptop, not bought one though.

I've had a bath in bubbles up to my neck and now I'm half watching Emmerdale and half messing about on this.

10.15 is too early for bed so I'll have to persevere a bit longer and then go - bring on tomorrow and another calorie allowance!

Tracey
 
Hi Tracey

how did it go last night? How dou you find counting calories , when I did it I recall I always had to have vegetables on hand for emergency steaming when I had no calories left .Cauliflower is my favourite still, steam with some chicken stock. I also used to make a big pot of chicken broth.

I think its great that you weigh measure and record. I think it’s also important for each of us individually to have some thing we do consistently that keep us mindful of what we are doing.

I laughed when I read your goal of being able to sit on your O/H knees without squashing him to death. I think my O/H is so frustrated with it all he would put me over his knee if I would fit. As he has watched the weight go up he has threatened and I don’t think he was totally joking. Yieks!:eek:
 
Hi,

I went to bed early so that I didn't eat anything more, but I've been very good this morning and been down to the market early and got a lot of fresh vegetables for meals and soup.

I have to calorie count if I diet coz it means I can eat almost the same as I would normally but without butter and portion control. I make up for the small portions by having tons of free-veg soup. Most diets don't allow chocolate, sweets and alcohol so I'd soon give in. I find this is easier when you get to target as well coz you get used to the portions of real food that you should be eating.

The weighing and writing down is essential for me otherwise it's too easy to forget what you've had and what you've got left. That's how I put the weight back on so from now on it's weigh and record even at target.

Tracey
 
What I write down now is purely what I eat and drink - with the exception of water everything that goes in my mouth is written on that sheet. It includes free veg, diet drinks and coffee (I have it without milk and sugar so no calorie count).

When I first dieted if I wanted to eat at a time other than mealtimes I used to write down on the back of the sheet how I was feeling. Bored, unhappy, annoyed, happy, irritated. I found out from doing that that I ate whatever I felt like.

I tried at first to deny myself if I thought I was eating for a reason other than hunger. It didn't work for me, I just kept craving whatever it was I wanted. Then if I did eat what I craved; like chocolate, I just thought 'I've blown it now and ate loads'. Eventually I found if I just had a bit, allowed myself to enjoy it and wrote it down, that stopped the craving.

One of my biggest problems was guilt about eating. If I ate a couple of jaffa cakes, I'd feel guilty about it so I'd finish the box. Allowing myself to enjoy the 2 I ate in the first place (they were allowed, 50 cals each and written down from my extras) stopped the guilt and so I didn't have that awful feeling of, 'well that's it, blown it'.

Writing down how I felt on the back at first did help a lot. I'm not doing it now but I write things down before I eat them and ask myself a couple of things first.

1. Am I hungry? If I am, and it's not a meal time I have free veg soup or a veg mixture with chilli in. Basicly something with no calorie count to fill me up till the next meal. I won't let myself eat chocolate if I'm hungry.

2. Is what I want to eat worth the calories? A bit like if you are shopping you think, 'is it worth the money?' If I think it is I have it.

3. Am I eating it to please someone else? Other people can try to persuade you to have more food, eg. If you're at someones house and they say 'have another potato, there's only one left'. I did try at first to answer this with, 'no thankyou because of my diet' but they then tried to pressurise me, 'One potato won't make any difference'. It will and does. I started to say instead, 'no thanks I'm full, couldn't eat another thing,' that gets you out of the situation.

I know it all sounds very long winded and boring but the sheet does work.

Tracey
 
Tracey,

I am going to try this, i have never liked the idea of it, maybe because in the past I wasn't ready to stop eating because I did not know what the eating represented, all I knew was that stopping would be too painful and too chaotic. But in truth it required me slowing down enough to write.

Belle
 
Hi Belle,

It does seem difficult at first but you do get used to it. It makes you think about what you are eating like nothing else I have tried. I used to be quite happy to take a big bag of minstrels and jelly babies to bed with me and eat the lot - the empty bags were hidden so I could move them when hubby or the kids couldn't see.

There's something about knowing you've got to write that down coz you have eaten it that makes you stop.

I hope it works for you.

Tracey
 
Well, it was weigh-in day this morning and I'd lost a pound. I sometimes feel as if everyone else gets better weight losses than me but it's because I don't want to have so few calories that I won't keep to it.

Then I tell myself that it's 2 packets of butter and that's an awful lot of fat to lose in one week. I am now resisting the temptation to treat myself with food for losing the weight.

The best thing that can happen tonight is for my cat to get on my knee so I can't get up to get something to eat, but since he's already flat out on his blanket it'll be down to willpower.

It's 9.20pm and I have 200 cals left today, and it's not long since I finished my tea so I'm not hungry either. I'll either use them for something later or maybe try to save some for when I'm desperate later in the week.

Tracey
 
I fell asleep watching a film last night, so I managed to save the whole 200 cals! I'm gona save them for a rainy day. Think menu for today will be

1.5oz choc bran flakes
2oz boiled ham, 7oz jacket and salad
3oz lamb, 5oz pots, carrots, brocoli, cauli, sprouts
1 greek yogourt
tinned strawberries
300 extras (tba)

Hoping to hit the halfstone next week if all goes well.

Tracey
 
Last night I ate 200 cals worth of sweets, I was so annoyed with myself - still today is another day and another calorie allowance.

I've been very good this afternoon and made 6 diet fish pies. 1 for tonight and the rest for the freezer so I've got a easy supply of meals. No excuse now if I can't be bothered to cook anything.

Tracey
 
OMG, What a last couple of days!

First computer went dodgy, it's been going worse for a while, going slower, curser freezing, and wouldn't switch off. Managed to save all my photos onto disc then had to wipe it completely, so now I'm in the process of reloading everything onto it.

I managed to get back onto internet but with no security. After about the 6th phone call to hubby asking where discs, leads etc are and how he set it up in the first place he got annoyed (can't really blame him, coz he's in a place where he has very little food, only occasional electricity and was being bitten to death by mossies), trouble is he's the only one I can ask coz he set it up.

Anyway, after he got annoyed, so I got annoyed and mucked about with the thing myself till I did it. What a job it was, balancing up a ladder laptop in hand because the lead they give you is about a foot long!

Foodwise I managed to be very good even though I felt like eating my way through the entire contents of the fridge. I must've drunk about 20 cups of coffee - I know it's not good for me but it was binge on food or coffee.

I have had a couple of weeks where nothing had broken so I suppose it was too much to ask for that to carry on.

Tracey
 
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