Sarahs Weightloss Blog

Hi Everyone!

Exercise makes all the difference – FACT! As this example will demonstrate.  During the week I can get away with a few ‘OK’ days, like the one I outlined in my last blog, as I get to exercise off the unwanted calories by cycling to uni, and walking round campus at least.  However on the weekends it is much harder, particularly when I don’t get to be active at all.

On the day of this ‘bad’ day example, it was a beautiful sunny saturday.  A really good day in every other sense apart from what I ate and how I structured my eating.  I broke a number of golden diet rules – OOPS! and was 981 calories over my recommended daily intake at a whopping 2470 for the day.  And what’s more, I was still really hungry! What a bummer!

It was an open day at my university, where members of the community are free to try out various sciency experiments and equipment provided by the various departments of the university.  I had been really busy during the week and hadn’t had a lot of time to get my demonstration of our eye tracking equipment ready and was quite stressed and rushed.  So I broke the first golden rule of the diet – I MISSED BREAKFAST, and went straight to the uni in a big rush to get my demonstration ready.

The community day was a real success we had a constant stream of loads of people to have a go at our eye tracking equipment and talk about how it worked and what we were using it for.  However this meant I had no time to go anywhere.  So I broke the second golden rule of the diet – I DIDN’T SNACK.  

This meant I was really tired and hungry by the end of the day.  I managed to wolf down a sandwich and a smoothy, but only had this at about 3pm, when I had been up since 8am.  I was starving by the time I left at 5pm.

I was too tired to walk anywhere or do anything, although I had done no exercise (my husband had driven me to and from the uni).  All I knew was that I needed FOOD and I wanted it badly.  So we stopped off at a pub and I had a very large meal – fillet of smoked haddock on a bed of lentil daal – healthy enough.  If I had left it at that it would have been fine.  But I was so hungry I didn’t give it time to settle to see if I WAS REALLY STILL HUNGRY – third violation of my diet rules.  So I dug into a large side of chips, and had ice cream for pudding.  Afterwards I felt really bloated, full, uncomfortable and tired – BOO!

We drove to rent a few DVDs, went home and watched them.  We then polished off a bottle of wine each, which was nice, but had loads of empty calories.  It also made me rather hungry, so I snacked on some crackers with peanut butter and jam.

I woke up the next morning with a big hangover, feeling really ill and bloated and regretting all I had done wrong the previous day.  This was capped off when I realised how far over my calories I had gone.  Thankfully this only happened one day out of the week – usually I follow the rules.  But it still skewed my weekly total such that I only lost 0.1 of a kg that week.  Just goes to show how a really big slip up can harm your diet success.

So the moral of the story? Follow these ‘rules’:

1) EAT BREAKFAST! This will get your metabolism going so you burn calories throughout the whole day.  You will have more energy so you can do more stuff to burn more calories throughout the day.  You’re also less likely to over eat because you are not starving hungry by lunch time.

2) SNACK! This does sound rather counter intuitive.  Surely if you are on a diet, you should hold off on snacking right? I don’t mean never stop eating and have loads of unhealthy snacks on top of meals.  What I mean is have small portions of healthy food which will give you long lasting energy to hand, so you don’t get crazy hungry and eat a massive portion of unhealthy food you don’t need.  Examples of healthy snacks to keep hunger at bay are: a banana, small handful of nuts and dried fruit mix, small (250ml) smoothie, snack size sushi, nut and fruit bar, small portion of cereal with low fat milk etc.  

A common mistake is that people over do the healthy snacks – fruit and nuts are good for you, but they have a lot of calories if you eat loads of them and you can blow your daily allowance if you are not careful.  Aim to have one snack between breakfast and lunch, and one between lunch and dinner.  If you do a lot of exercise, I tend to snack in between exercise classes too, so I have a banana straight after the class so I have enough energy to cycle back home or do the next class.  By doing this I am much less likely to binge when I get back as I am not so hungry.

3) EAT SLOW, WAIT FOR FOOD TO ‘SETTLE’: It takes time for your body to recognise whether you are full or not.  Eat your food slowly, chew, relax.  Wait at least 15 minutes after you have eaten a portion of your meal before ordering another course.  Drink plenty of water.  By doing this, you give yourself time to see whether you do in fact need any more food or if you are just thirsty.  If then you are still hungry, order another small thing.

4) BE TREAT WISE: Treats are fine in moderation.  Plan for them and try to only have one.  E.g. if you want to go out drinking, try to be healthy in all other domains, rather than let everything slide.

I broke every single one of these rules that day, and that is the precise reason it was a ‘bad diet day’.  

Next week I will take you through a ‘good diet day’ and show you how these rules can really help you stay on a really good healthy eating and exercise plan to help you lose weight.

Till next time

Hi Everyone,

Said I would bare ALL in telling you about my ‘diet’ so here goes.  I’ve been dieting for a while, nearly a year now, and couldn’t remember a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ day in particular, so thought I would concentrate on more current examples which were more fresh in my memory, so I could also tell you things about situations I found myself in and my thoughts and feelings at the time which led to eating or abstaining from things I shouldn’t have and ways I coped (or didn’t) in these situations.

So yesterday started out well.  I had been super organised and packed a lunch consisting of a salad (mixed lettuce, cucumber, grated carrot, a couple of tomatoes, a small amount (30 g’s) of full fat feta cheese and 5 large green olives), 2 whole meal pittas with a small (90g) tub of reduced pat houmous, and 40 g’s of mixed dried fruit and nuts.

I had cereal for breakfast (40 g’s of bran flakes with dried fruit and nuts with 130 mls of semi-skimmed milk) and then walked (instead of cycled into uni) for about 1hr, since it was a really sunny day.

So it was starting out a good day – I had healthy food which I would eat since I packed it and would be less likely to get really hungry and go grab a muffin as I had snacks ready to munch on at my desk (the pittas houmous and fruit/nut mix).

However for us girls there are certain times of month when some of us (particularly myself) can get really REALLY HUNGRY.  I try to eat little and often and fill up on large salads to try and combat this, but it only helps a little.  My theory is that my body must be craving specific things it needs.  I try everything else then give in a little, depending on how I feel.  First I craved a coffee – fine, so I had a skinny cap – not problem there.  Then I craved a muffin – a chocolate one.  ’Can’t have that’ I told myself and spaced out my snacks like a good girl and drank plenty of water to fill me.  STILL fantasising about that muffin though.  So I call my husband to meet after work at the coffee shop – OH DEAR! I walk the 40 minutes to the starbucks and order another skinny cap, am really temped by the full fat, icing encrusted banoffee cake, but resist and replace that with a skinny peach and rasperry muffin – an acceptable compromise with my monthly craving I think and I am not too disappointed with myself.  I also manage to only stick my finger into my husbands choc cake twice, maybe three times, just to taste the chocolate a little.

However I am STILL hungry – not usually like me at all.  But I wait for a while and drink more water to be sure.  But yeah I am hungry still and crave a burger of all things – don’t usually like those at all.  I’m starting to feel a bit off colour too – time of month is such a great gift from nature girls isn’t? (sorry guys – don’t mean to give you too much info, avert your ears/eyes) So we go to mac donalds and I make another compromise – I have a kids portion of burger and fries.  I put all the cheater calories into my shapeup app and include the fast food kids meal as ‘dinner’ and the cake as ‘other’ as I already had my alloted snacks.  The overall fat % for the day is higher than I would like – fast food burgers are NOT good, but the overall calories are below my daily intake because I stayed active.  I then feel good enough with a few pain killers to go to aikido and feel great after doing that.

I think we avoid this topic sometimes, but I think its worth discussing if you have the same problem as me with cravings before a period.  Some months are fine and I only crave healthy stuff, other times I HAVE to have chocolate NOW.  I also find that if I abstain too much from stuff I crave if it’s bad – I feel really ill over the next few days as compared to when I did have it.  I also completely lose my appetite due to feeling unwell over the next few days anyway.  My theory is that your body craves in this situation for a reason – it needs stuff, and you should give it what it needs.  It’s different to a craving something because I can’t have it anymore and am used to having it, which you get with cutting out food you previously didn’t really limit yourself.  However we can minimise the damage this may cause by compromising – skinny muffin, dark chocolate (less milk so less fat and sugar), kids portion of fast food take out.

This advice also applies to guys and anyone who has a craving for whatever reason – if you must have it and you’re at breaking point, have it, or something like it but compromise in order to minimse the damage.  This also gives you some control back and makes me feel less guilty, because in that situation you didn’t completely lose control, you made a tactical decision to keep you the straight and narrow of the diet in the long run.

I also only lost 0.2 of a kg due to obvious reasons this week (damn water belly ) but hopefully my weight will take a nose dive next week when its all over (again sorry about the too much info people).  So girls please don’t freak when your weight fluctuates, it probably wasn’t the choc brownies you so badly craved, its the water your body is soaking up and storing for no one knows why (really I looked it up no one seems to know why this happens – mother nature fools the scientists).

By the way, although I posted a few pics of my progress previously I never added anything up really so here is the ‘official’ penultimate summary of what I have lost so far.  I post it here to show everyone that you can lose a significant amount of weight, feel good for it and enjoy doing it immensely! NO MORE no joy ‘diets’, come on say it with me . . .

BEFORE – May 1st 2009: 107kgs/16 stone 11.9 lbs/235.4 pounds/BMI 40.7/UK size 22

‘AFTER’ (Today, not quite finished yet but nearly there ) April 19th 2010: 70 kgs/11.02 stone/154 pounds/BMI 26.6/UK size 12

Total loss: 37kgs/5 stone 11.6 lbs/81.4 pounds/5 dress sizes

Now I have lost most of the weight I want to lose (5.2 kg’s to go) I don’t worry too much anymore about ‘OK’ days – now the metabolism is up, I can slip up more without as much of a set back.  Remember Maik said that the more you lose, the more often you are allowed a cheat meal – so, even more reason to lose weight!  I worry more about the ‘bad’ days.  However I don’t really have so much of them anymore, as I can actually stop eating now after a point and feel full, whereas before I would literally keep on and on eating, even when people said I should stop.  I also tend to fill up on more wholesome foods than junk.  For example we had a barbeque at home when the weather turned sunny and I had a small lean sausage, 2 plain chicken breasts, an absolute heap of grilled veg, some cous cous with assorted veg and a little feta cheese and 1 small home made low fat pork burger – it was a lot of food for me and I felt really really full, uncomfortably so, but the calories weren’t that bad and I still lost weight that week.  Before it would have been marinated with mayo, bread, been full fat and much much more plentiful in supply.

What I hope this all shows you is that small changes made over a long period of time make real long lasting changes without you even noticing it, and not requiring a mammoth amount of strength or effort – providing you make reasonable changes set at your own pace for your own reasons.  Take it slow, if you lose 1/2 a pound a week you will get there and it is worth the effort.  It will take me a minimum of 10 weeks to shift this 5.2 kgs, but I don’t think about the time ahead or the length of the hill in front left to climb – I look behind me to see how much I have climbed so far and how much larger that is that what I have left to go.  At the beginning I didn’t look ahead at all, I looked in the now and focused on the successes no matter how small, which took me half a step up the mountain.

Good luck to you all

Till next time

Hi Everyone!

I’ve been reading through my blogs and have realised that I have not written much about my diet.  Lots on exercise and training, but not much on food.  So I thought I would tell you my story.  Please remember I’m not a nutritionist, I don’t know if what I’ve done is right or even recommendable – cross check with Maik and Maria to be sure.  Also Maik and Maria – please correct me and give advice to me, I would appreciate it.

I suppose the reason for lack of telling you about my diet is because, quite simply, I have not been following a ‘diet’.  I researched diets – south beach, weight watchers shakes, Atkins, low fat, low cal, low carb – SO CONFUSING!  I had tried all of these before at some point, and none of them worked, mostly I ended up putting ON weight! At best maintaining weight, for a while at least, but then I would end up putting on more when I got disheartened.

I had also tried cutting my calories severely.  I did this when I was young, about 12 – 16 yrs since I was sick of being bullied for being fat and was really depressed about that.  I got very thin, I was not much shorter than I am now (5 ft 3 inches) and was 8 stone, which was probably quite under weight.  However when I started uni and met my husband, I was much happier and started eating again – A LOT.  And over 6 yrs put on over 8 stone!  So what to do? Diets didn’t work, restricting eating was impractical in the long term and very unhealthy.   

I don’t know what clicked, but there were a few motivators: not being able to buy any clothes that fitted, my GP recommending diet pill, weightloss surgery, having to change a medication so my weight didn’t get higher – I knew I was in trouble and didn’t want to follow the drug or surgery route.  I had to do something.  

I eventually twigged that only controlling food was not the answer, as I had tried this before and never succeeded.  I realised that I had never had a healthy understanding or relationship with eating, either under of over eating, and that needed to change.  I contacted the uni gym and asked an instructor.  He said that with exercise I could achieve my goal in comparatively no time as compared to dieting alone, and although results would be best with a change in diet, if I was exercising, the eating side of things would be a bit more forgiving.  So I launched into exercise, but to ensure the best results I still needed to change my eating.  But I still had no ‘diet’ plan to follow, so just decided to start with counting calories and worry about the specifics later.  My instructor also advised me to eat normally first off and keep a food diary which we would work through together.

I got an iphone and browsed their app store for a calorie counting app and found shapeup club – it looked like just what I needed to track what I ate at meals and balance this against my exercise.  I found that as I counted calories on the shapeup app, I grew an understanding of healthy and unhealthy foods and what food I could eat more of which would satisfy me and be low in calories.  Crisps, cake, soda, burgers, sausages, beef mince, butter, sauces, fries and chocolate had loads of calories but didn’t fill me, so they were out – I wasn’t going to blow calories on those foods which previously formed my diet.  Rice cakes, lean fish, chicken, salads, veg, soup with a little cheese, nuts and fruit were really low calories, filling and yummy – so lots of those were in.  My instructor also gave me advice, but it wasn’t really anything I wasn’t learning for myself – pick healthy stuff, eat little and often, don’t have too many calories.

I started to learn what a portion was, the importance of eating regularly and having gaps between eating – since I had to fill in different meals and snacks into the shapeup app.  Everything started to change – no more starving myself till evening and then stuffing myself till full to bursting with unhealthy foods.

Surprisingly I hardly ever felt hungry, until the evening – it was really hard to break out of the starving during the day, bingeing at night cycle, but I started to manage to abstaine more and more and just go to bed.  In the beginning snacking on bran cereal or fruit before bed helped, but now I don’t need to do this anymore.  I started to look forward to breakfast, and so actually started to eat it – something I didn’t do before.  Now I can’t get through the day without a good breaky My favourite is 40 g’s of bran flakes with dried fruit and nuts with 125 mls of skimmed milk.  

Even more surprising I started to have MORE energy and feel LESS hungry! – but surely I shouldn’t feel more satisfied and more full of energy on less food than when I was stuffing my face with anything and everything and never feeling full or having any energy whatsoever?  But I did.

Its been a slow and difficult transition over the past 11 months.  Although it feels more natural than before to make healthy choices, I’m still counting calories as I still can’t really trust myself to under or over eat.  My diet has also become more inclusive.  At the beginning I cut out fruit juice and nuts as well as junk as these were danger foods to me – I always blew my daily calorie allowance on just having these ’snacks’.  But now I have more self control and so have put these back into my diet as a snack, but keep a tab on how much of them I eat with the shapeup app.

However I still haven’t got round to the ‘diet’ bit, I just try to be sensible and eat lots of different foods in moderation.  I also allow myself treats – I like a rack of ribs with fries and onion rings, or a burger, just not very often (like once a month, maybe less).  Also I have a cheat meal once a week, which is usually a big roast on a Friday night with my husband – lots of protein from the turkey, lots of cooked veg and naughty roast potatoes, yorkshire pudding and stuffing

However with the diet change and exercise I have lost 5 stone so far over 11 months and gone from a UK size 22 to a size 12.  

If I were to advise anyone on anything to do with losing weight I would say:

1) Take it slow – if you try and do it all at once unless your a super hero you probably won’t manage it.  Set goals for each week and month and slowly exclude bad food and replace with healthy ones.  When you’re comfortable with the first change, then add another.  Its really hard at first but then gets easier, and after some effort becomes seconds nature

2) Be realistic and sensible with your goals, how you eat and exercise.  Allow yourself treats, don’t beat yourself up.

3) Don’t just change your diet and don’t exercise or just exercise with no improvement in diet – try to do both.  I have Maik’s advice as a sort of mantra in my head – ‘you can’t exercise out a bad diet’ (Maik has mentioned this many times in his blog – read it and see).  

4) Stick with it – it is harder for some than others.  Please don’t think that because I have managed to lose most of what I need to lose that I find it easy and you would never be able to do it – The first few weeks and months were really hard for me and I have had set backs along the way (like my weightloss plateau).  But I managed to stick with it and break through.

Hope you find my story useful.  Post a question if you want more details, or make your own comments – what has worked for you? Do you think you will try a similar thing?

Over the next few weeks I’ll post some examples of my diet and exercise, including both good days and bad days, so you have more of an idea of how I eat and exercise.  

Till next time

Hi Everyone!

I know technically its been spring for a while, but the weather has only recently started to improve here in cold rainy UK.  With the change in weather I am even more dedicated to tone up – particularly in the middle area, so I can sport some skimpy summer clothes  However I have been having trouble finding time and feeling well enough to exercise.  So I thought I would follow some of my own advice and set some new goals for this season and beyond to help me focus my training and take my fitness, body and health to new levels.

I live really close to the peak district which is full of mountain trails to walk, run or cycle.  Now the weather’s better I will definitely be taking advantage of this beautiful place and get some more activity into the weekends.

In the short term I am also going to go in for another triathlon event, which is a similar distance to the one I did recently, but mostly takes place outdoors, which should be interesting Hopfeully I can beat my PB’s from last time.

For a longer term goal I also want to take part in the Robin Hood half marathon this September, which takes place really close by and even goes through my University (see above – that’s the trent courtyard).  This is my last chance really to do this, as I finish my course next September and so will be too busy moving on to really train and go in for the race.  

These are some pretty heavy goals and to meet them I will have to train really hard.  I know I don’t really have the discipline to meet all the goals (particularly the half-marathon) alone and so will be enlisting the help of a trainer at the gym who specialises in running, to give me some mini goals to reach and help keep me motivated and focused.  In the long-long term I would ideally like to go in for a full marathon, but I think that’s a way off yet.  

I’m also really really nearly there with getting to where I want to be.  When I was this big . . . 

I dreamed of being a UK size 12, where I was convinced I would be happy.  However now I am that size, I kind want to be a size 10, maybe an 8, although that may be too skinny, we’ll see.  I look quite a bit different now a year on and so thought you would like to see . . . 

Me and my husband, who can never smile properly in photos *groan*

If I can do it, you can do it too Lets wave good bye to the fat guys

Till next time

Hi Everyone!

Hope everyone had a great easter!

On the plus side I took some time off from work – YAY! on the minus side I spent this time off away from the gym and mostly eating stuff I shouldn’t, namely chocolate of course (but also ’cause chocolate is nice).

I get a little crazy around chocolate and so avoid it at all costs - most of the time anyway

However we did stay active and walked at least an hour everyday – we sort of have to since we live a 30 minute walk from the city centre, (too short for a car journey and the annoying city traffic/parking queues) so if we want to shop or go out we mostly walk there and back.  It’s annoying when all you want is a pint of milk, but it keeps you moving so has its benefits.

Nevertheless I was really convinced I was putting on A LOT of weight – I still feel SOOOO guilty when I eat stuff I don’t plan or shouldn’t really eat.  I know I don’t have to deny myself EVERYTHING I like, but I still feel that after the ‘bad food’ touches my lips that I’m bigger.  Sounds stupid I know, but I think I am just morbidly terrified of putting all my weight back on, when I have worked so hard for nearly a year to work it off. I know I have difficulty controlling the amount of food and what I eat, couple that with a talent for making excuses (’I'm not that big’, ‘I’m just curvy and sexy’, ‘I carry it well’) plus being really gullible and believing people close to you that you look like kate moss, when really they just don’t like to tell you that you’re putting on a few . . . hundred – till it’s really too too late.  I know how easy it is to put yourself in a dangerous place and I’m really scared I’ll do it again – without even noticing, like before.

A big over-reaction I know, but this is how I feel sometimes when I know I've cheated

However I sucked up the crazy thoughts, as the complaining about my waist line after a choc bar was driving my husband up the wall, and implemented Airy’s mindfulness techniques (thank you Airy ) so I said to myself: ‘OK, so I shouldn’t strictly speaking have eaten that, but one easter weekend WILL NOT hurt my weight loss, and I WILL be back at the gym and Aikido in a few days – so stop being silly and enjoy the damn chocolate missy!’.

I then waited until yesterday (a week after my last weigh in and a few days after the easter choc fest was over) to weigh myself.  Like a good girl.  The week previous I lost 1kg, because I had been super, super good with my eating and exercise, eating all the right things little and often and exercising hard.  This week with my easter choc fest, I managed to lose 1/2 a kg, I’m now 70.4kgs PHEW!  

How I feel when the scales go down by however much

I don’t want to be the poster girl for bad eating habits, but I should tell you all not to freak out (like I tend to do – very bad example) when you go off the wagon a bit.  Chances are, if you stay ACTIVE (I mean, not hit the gym, but go for a long walk or a bike ride to get to the shops instead of drive there) rather than staying within the sofa area with vast amounts of chocolate, you COULD (possibly) minimise the damage of cheating.  

Of course the ideal thing to do would be NOT to binge out on said chocolate in the first place, but hey we’re all human right? We cannot deny ourselves EVERYTHING FOREVER! At least I most certainly can’t

By the way I am eyeing up another novice triathlon (outside this time) and a 10km run (outside also) – the weather is AMAZING here (for the UK anyway) and I really feel like running someplace nice in the outdoors

If only I lived near a beach . . .

Till next time folks