A message to myself - turn the corner and don't look back

[workatemylife]

I put on a few pounds over the winter, and after a couple of half-hearted attempts to shift them, I got despondent. Not a problem in itself, except that it became an excuse to set off on a downward spiral. An occasional over-indulgence soon became a habit, and once I had eaten one cake / biscuit etc, my head figured that I had messed up the diet for the day so I might as well have more, and more, and more. But scoffing cr*p all day was hardly going to help with anything, was it. [slapping self around the head emoticon needed here I think]

I want yesterday to be the day that I turned the corner. I ate three healthy meals. When the munching habit threatened to kick in, I tried to find a diversion. I went to work along a route that did not take me past the corner shop.

That was day one, and I know that one day is a teeny tiny step along the way to fixing this. That's why I'm sending a message to myself here so that next time I'm MNetting (and the next, and the next) it is there to remind me that this was the day that I turned the corner and I will not look back.

I already feel better. I woke up this morning and although my clothes don't miraculously fit (if only it worked that way), I felt less cross with myself, and haven't given in to temptation. I'm not setting a time limit or a weight limit on this. I am simply going to keep on going until I get the 'old' me back, and try to make this a permanent state of affairs.

Anyone care to join me on a 'this is the moment I took control' journey?

Me too! I had a light bulb moment about 3 weeks ago - that I have to stop being complacent and do something about my weight. I have started weightwatchers and am making more effort to get to the gym. I have lost about 6 lbs so far over the last 3 weeks. But I know that some of this is like "beginners bonus" and the weight loss will tail off pretty soon - been there and done that before! I have about another 1.5 stone to lose and am planning on this taking about a year to get off - so looking at slow and sustained loss.

I had my light bulb on the 30th June, I started a thread but it was in chat so has disappeared.

I've lost a stone as of today. I basically have started eating like a 'normal' person. I was a terrible binge eater, appetite was massive, snacks were all very fatty and I drank full fate coke by the gallon.

I still have treats(I had a slice of choc fudge cake on Wednesday for example and will have cake and custard after my Sunday lunch) but it's just that, a TREAT.

Basically all I ate before was treats!

I must start exercising though!

Brilliant! Nice to meet you. I hope that our light bulb moments continue to shine.

circle well done on the weight loss. That's really impressive for a month's effort, and great that it has happened without a major diet. I think you're right about eating like a 'normal' person. What had become normal for me was downright unhealthy, so hopefully what I need to do is just be sensible rather than leave myself permanently hungry and make that the new normal. I need to up the exercise though.

spam that sounds really good. I wouldn't mind a bit of 'beginners bonus' to give me some momentum but I'm trying to keep focused on gradual changes for the long term.

I feel less alone already

I lost 7lb in the first week, that was my beginners bonus I suppose.

I said once the first stone was off I'd start running more, hopefully that will help shed the pounds

I had my lightbulb moment today... I can't carry on the way I am currently, dieting for a few days then blowing it and binging, I've got 2.5st to lose in total and yet I keep gaining and losing the same 4lbs. Small changes, treats being treats instead of daily snacks / meal substitutes, and a healthy meal plan rather than strict dieting!

Two weeks ago I decided to stop eating in between meals, to stop eating pudding (except on special occasions) and to be vigilant about portion size.

I'm amazed how much better I feel, and how unbothered I am about food. I've lost about 4lbs I think. Clothes are more comfortable.

What has made me want to do this is realising that I could spend the rest of my life getting fatter and fatter by dieting then falling off the wagon, and then dieting again. I need to be able to eat family foods, to not obsess about shopping and planning my diet.

My mental trick is to think about the way people at in the 1950's/60's and 70's, when life wasn't all 'grab bags' of crisps and mars bar icecreams. I want to eat the way my mum did, then maybe I can have a figure like my mum when she was my age.

Hello again! How is everyone?

Rockchick you could be me with the little bit of weight loss, more weight on thing. Here's to a longer term solution for all of us.

Thanks for the encouragement mini. That's what I'm hoping to do. We have family visiting at the moment and we collectively eat far too much. I want a plan that involves us all eating the same food as a family, not one where I cook for everyone else and then eat a carrot myself

Since my 'lightbulb' moment I've stopped scoffing a packet of biscuits nibbling in between meals, and it is going well so far. I've also thought about where my 'danger points' are. Over the last few days for example:

• I bought petrol but paid at the pump so that I didn't pick up anything to eat in the kiosk. *The weekend shopping was done online according to the list, and only the list (not the special offers on biscuits and crisps that I seem to fall for at the end of the aisles when I am in the shop). *I came into work up the back stairs so that I didn't pass the frothy coffee kiosk and buy latte and cake.

I can almost feel myself physically resisting my bad habits, but hopefully willpower will keep me going until better habits are established.

I refuse to buy new clothes for my current size - I WILL get back into the lovely things that I already own. But I might start putting money in a box as a reward. If I add up how much I would spend on coffees, sweet treats and extras, and put in in a glass jar, it would soon add up and would be a really visible motivation. Then I could use it to buy something nice in a smaller size. Fingers crossed.

I put on 2 lbs this week! So disappointed. I have been "good" and kept to my ww points and even managed 2 trips to the gym and did good weights workout. I took kids to a theme park on Sunday and ended up at Pizza Hut buffet but did a big salad and had 2 small pieces of thin crust pizza. No salad dressing, no pasta. So where did I go wrong this week?!

I have had my period this week - would that really make me put on weight? I haven't indulged in sweets or chocolate.

Water retention - you get this around the time of your period . It'll come off next week.

May I join you ladies? I have had a lightbulb moment this week. Sadly a close family friend passed away at just 59 years of age on Saturday and this has made me realise life is precious and I owe it to my dc to get healthy.

I returned to ww yesterday and I now weigh 12.10 - the heaviest I have ever been except when pregnant

So I am now back on ww and determined to walk everyday. I need to lose 2.5 stones and aim to lose at least one of these before Christmas.

spam that sounds a bit unfair! But the water-retention explanation makes good sense - fingers crossed for a better week this week. Also I find sometimes that there is a delayed reaction to what I've eaten. So the weight loss that you might want in a 'healthy' week can take a few days to show up on the scales. Hang on in there (and well done for resisting all that pizza!)

mercury welcome. So sorry to hear about your friend. I can sympathise with the idea that you owe it to your children to be healthy. A friend of ours had a heart attack earlier in the year and pulled through, but he and his partner have lost a lot of weight since for the same reason. I got rid of the massive amount of weight that I put on while pregnant by walking everywhere with the buggy. I don't know how much weight was eaten up by the actual walking - maybe being out of the house just meant that I couldn't be scoffing on the sofa - but I felt loads better for taking the exercise and that kind of put me off over-eating. That's what I need to do now - get myself into a way of thinking and eating that makes feeling good seem more of a reward than a bar of chocolate IYSWIM.

Keep those lightbulbs shining

Hello ladies, hope the light bulbs are as till shining bright!

I had a bit of a crap weekend, didn't plan well and ended up with pizza on Friday and Saturday!

I've still lost a pound though so 15lb in total, I still have treats but make up for it by simply not having any the next day.

I honestly think my mind set has finally changed.

After my pizza on Saturday I felt awful, bloated and sleepy and desperate for loo.

I used to feel like that every night, I don't want to go back to that.

I've got 3lb to go to be 12 stone something, I can't remember when I weighed that so all progress, however slow is welcome.

Keep going!

workatemylife - I remember you from last year's C25K thread over on Exercise where we formed a lovely little team that got us through the whole programme. Can I join you in this too, please?

So I am a stone and a bit more than I'd like to be - not massively overweight and because I am quite tall I carry my weight reasonably well and so it's easy to forget that, well, I really ought to just knuckle down and shed those pounds once and for all. I've lost the same amount of weight four times previously and each time it has crept back on.

The problem has always been that we eat healthily - to a point. Lots of fruit and veg, no processed meals, home-cooked dinners every night, takeaway about twice a year, that kind of thing. But - and it is a huge but - I am just too fond of food, struggle with portion control if I really like something, absolutely adore buying lovely (fattening) things to try at home, have a ridiculously sweet tooth, love baking, can't think of anything nicer than going to a lovely café for a giant cappuccino and a huge wodge of cake, oh and I work from home. So my downfall has been having a ton of lovely cakes/biscuits/chocolatey things in the house at all times and then basically hoovering them up from dawn to dusk. To the point where I realise I have a pretty serious sugar addiction and have to tackle it now.

I have been thinking about how "thin people" eat - not ridiculously thin people, just people I know who stay in shape and always look like they are in control. I want to eat like that. So if they go out for cake, they will eat cake. If pizza is on the menu they will have pizza. What they don't do is eat a healthy breakfast and then half a packet of biscuits before 10.30. Or have nourishing home-made veg soup for lunch, and then follow it up with a giant slab of rocky road and a slice of lemon drizzle. Or have a lovely home-made dinner and then have pudding every single night, with possibly also a box of chocolates or a whole tub of Ben & Jerry's on the go too. Which is what I have been doing.

I'm now four weeks in and have lost 5lbs. I've had a few pieces of cake in those four weeks but am using My Fitness Pal to calorie count and what an eye-opener that has been ... I think I might easily have been eating an extra 1000 calories every day in sweet stuff. It's all about changing the mindset and just making a conscious effort to adopt better eating habits until the point when they have become a way of life and not a short-term effort.

Gosh, what a long rant. The upshot of all that is, yes do count me in too!

Hi circle. That all sounds great. Healthy eating is only sustainable in the longterm if it is not too strict (for me at least) so there's nothing wrong with a bit of pizza I'm sure. But it seems that you body is now telling you that it prefers the 'new you' which must be brilliant. Not good that you felt rubbish at the weekend, but a good sign that you've made a difference. I want to follow your lead!

HHEEEELLLLLOOOOOOOO lurkingfromhome. Lovely to see you again. You can tell that I have a tendency to decide to fix life in the summer - last year C25k, this year, less ice-cream! What happened with you and the C25k in the end? I never did Park Run (shame on me) but I have kept up with the running on and off, although without the discipline that I had last year. Maybe I need to get back to it.

I'm with you on the cakes and baking. I love cooking with the kids but we tend to make bread and cakes rather than fruit salad. And then I eat more than my fair share . I cooked a really nice cake for the family yesterday but the recipe was one from a website, and it showed the calories per slice. Ouch! My tendency to have two or three was nipped in the bud, but I did have a thin piece, and actually that was fine.

I probably share your sugar addiction because my food intake for the day sounds a lot like yours. To the outside observer at mealtimes it would look healthy, but there I probably eat as many calories again in between! And I find it really hard to go to a cafe for just a drink. I managed it at the weekend, but need to keep an eye on that one as well.

Let's keep at it - I feel like my eyes have been opened in the last few days, both to the horrors of my dietary habits, and to the fact that I'm not alone in needing a kick up the rear

Lurking, I think I'm really similar to you. If I didn't do regular exercise I'd put a lot of weight on very quickly. At the moment I'm trying to just eat meals and stop snacking in-between. After dinner tends to be the worst time and I have been known to eat 2,000+ calories in just post-dinner snacking!!

For the last couple of days I've been trying a rather drastic technique of pinging a rubber band on my wrist whenever I think of eating when I'm not hungry! Mental (and painful), but it just might work

Otherwise, a few things that I've had limited success with are:

• logging every morsel eaten on myfitnesspal
• brushing teeth straight after dinner
• planning meals in advance so there's not the temptation to grab the nearest snack available
• only eating when sitting down!!
• not restricting any particular food groups (low carb actually works well for me, but after a little while I fall off the wagon, and I fall hard!)

But please update us on how you get on, always interested to hear how I can eat more like a 'normal' person, if such a thing exists...

How are we all this week? Welcome newrowsees. I can be a bit of an after dinner muncher too - you know the end sequence of those Nigella cookery programmes where she opens up the fridge in her PJs and puts together a plate of leftovers.....? It is me!!

I've not had the best week, but I managed to be sensible. We were with friends for a BBQ, but whereas normally I would have been up and down to the buffet, I had one burger, and piled up the plate with salad, and that was that. I know a burger is not a healthy meal, but one burger is definitely healthier than three! We were out for lunch on Sunday and again, not exactly a diet meal, but I didn't finish the main course (stopped when I was feeling full) and didn't order dessert. DH asked if I was feeling okay (!!) but once the moment had passed, I didn't feel as if I had missed out on anything, and it was nice not to feel full to bursting in the afternoon.

The only negative thing is that I seem to be drinking a lot of tea and coffee. If I get the munchies at home, I'm reaching for the kettle as a distraction. I'm not sure that the caffeine is a good thing for me, and although one cup of tea with milk isn't especially calorific, eight would seemingly add up to about 200 calories. I've bought some herbal teas and some decaff Early Grey for this week.

That sounds amazing, well done! I don't think I've ever not cleaned my plate in a restaurant, even I was stuffed - I think I'd feel it was a waste!

If tea and coffee are your worst vices then you're doing very well indeed. I've been pretty good since last week, when I ate everything in sight. Maybe my rubber band is working; it's early days though (touches wood). I've put a target of 1850 calories into myfitnesspal so leaving a buffer for going slightly over on the odd day.

How's the running going? I'm going to get back into regular parkrun in a few weeks, I did really enjoy it when I was going regularly.

Hi ladies. I lost 3 pounds this week and despite one evening when I ate loads and lunch at pizza hut, which just shows how much I must have been overeating

I have started walking but have not managed as much as I would have liked so that is my focus for this week. I would love to get into running but really do not feel fit enough yet. It is good to read that everybody is remaining focussed.

3 pounds in a week is very good progress indeed - keep it up! The odd cheat meal is fine, I reckon - especially if it helps you keep your sanity!

I need to get back on the healthy wagon. Have lost 4st since DC2 was born but its creeping back on and I'm on a beach holiday in October. Bikini body it is not!

WI day tomorrow morning and no sugar is my intention.

Good luck petal

And here's the start of another week. I would almost say that the healthy eating is becoming part of my routine now. I had a bit of a slip over the weekend - friends who had visited left us some chocolates, and once the box was open it was hard to resist. And I did some baking with DD as well. But I figure that occasional treats are fine, just not treats that last all day every day.

How is the rubber band newrowsees? Did you start running again? I've been out 3 times in the last 10 days, so not bad but not great. Did about 2.7 miles each time I think, but had a couple of sneaky walks along the way. It is annoying how quickly I lose fitness. It isn't that long since I could trot around 3.5 miles without expiring
mercury that sounds like a great start. I hope petal had good news from the WI day too. I don't think I'll ever have a bikini body!

I'm getting a bit despondent . I think I may have underestimated the scale of the task ahead, and how long it would take to get to where I want to be. I had half convinced myself that after a couple of weeks of healthy eatingI would be able to see the difference, but that isn't the case. I have a lovely skirt in my wardrobe that wouldn't do up at the start of the month and it still won't do up today. But I'm resisting the urge to console myself with biscuits. Two weeks is not that long really. Maybe I'll wait another month before trying it on again, or longer. Patience needed. This is meant to be a way of life, not a quick fix.

Can I join ?

I think I'm around 11st...been a few weeks since I weighed myself and have been a bit up and down eating wise since then so it could be a few pounds either way. This is the heaviest I've been apart from when I was pregnant with the 2 dcs. I followed 5:2 from about May of last year for 5 or 6 months and got down to 9 1/2 st. I felt really comfortable and full of energy at this weight...but don't really know what happened. Even though the advocates of 5:2 go on about how easy it is, only 2 days "dieting" out of 7 after all, I think I have a really rebellious side to me which doesn't respond well to any kind of rules or conditions being applied to what I can eat, when I can eat it or how much I can eat of it. I ultimately end up thinking "aww feck it, pass the Mars Bars.."

So I've been reading Paul McKenna (for the second time !) and whilst I'm not a great fan of him as a person, so much of what he's saying makes sense. Today I've been trying to eat only when I'm hungry. Got up at 6am, had a cuppa and didn't get the slight grumbly tummy feeling until around 11.30 when I was going to collect DD from nursery. Can home and fixed her lunch and I had a wholemeal pitta with salad and 2 sliced boiled eggs. Filled me up nicely, not feeling over stuffed, just satisfied. Dinner will be some home made lentil and tomato soup and a banana. Maybe some bread with it if I'm still hungry. No idea what I'm eating tomorrow, will need to see what I feel like !

Intend to post on here regularly though. I was 40 last month and whilst I've never been massively overweight, I cannot think of a single time in the last 20yrs when I've not been obsessing over what I ate and how much I weighed. That's pretty pathetic when I see it written down. Will weigh myself tomorrow morning and then once a week.

Can I join too please... I started a new thread before I saw this one, but this one is exactly what I'm looking for.

Was never really overweight pre kids. Put on a HUGE amount of weight in PGs 12 and 10 years ago (8st with DC1, 5st with DCs). Was hideous and I'm sure I had pre-natal depression. Was sick every day of the pgs to about 8 months. Only way to quell the nausea was to eat carbs. Couldn't brush teeth without throwing up.

Anyway, over the last 9 years I've lost about 10st I reckon. I got down to 11st at one point. But 5 years ago I had a hysterectomy. Two years ago I went into menopause. I have since gained a couple of stones.

I absolutely REFUSE to accept that this is how I am going to be now (there's a mindset about - it's menopause, you can't ever expect to be fit and in shape ever again). But since being menopausal I have found it so much harder to shift the weight. I exercise hard and am fitter than I've ever been, and stronger, thanks to training with weights.

But I am so miserable. Insanely miserable. I am not a believer in trying this diet or that diet. I know exactly what I need to do. I had a bit of a lightbulb moment too watching a You Tube video by Jade Teta (author of The Metabolic Effect). I follow his wife on FB - Jillfit (Jill Coleman). She is amazing. I watched Dr. Jade explain about how menopausal women do need to eat differently. It really resonated with me.

So, I am aiming to just eat properly. (Have a history of binge/starve/go off track/think sod it, I've ruined it for today/make the most of it/start again tomorrow).

High protein. High fat. Good carbs. 80% of the time. Smaller portions. Five times a day. The odd guilt free, well considered treat).

I am also a fan of juicing. Juicing gets a bad rap, especially with all the stuff about sugar lately. My juices are 80% veg, 20% fruit, ala Jason Vale/Joe The Juicer.

I don't drink alcohol so that's not a problem. I do naturally drink a lot of water. My vice is sweet tooth, and diet coke (I don't drink tea of coffee and water does get boring after a while).

So that's the nutrition down pat.

I know what I'm doing exercise wise. And I'm married to someone who has been a serious weight trainer for 25 years so a great source of knowledge with diet and fitness).

For me it's the mental/emotional fight and it's defo made worse by the hormones at the moment. A couple years ago I read Judith Beck's Beck Diet Solution. It was life changing and I still use the tools today. In fact I think I will go back to it and review.

Gawd this has got long. Sorry.

Anyway, I feel I have all the tools and knowledge. I feel I can't live like this anymore. I'm sick of waking up feeling 80. Feeling shite. On the inside I'm still 30, not 44. I have 2 suitcases with lovely clothes in size 12. Then I have my fat uniform of 3 or 4 tops and bottoms in a size 16 because I refuse to accept I'm destined to be like this and buy more.

I am not going to get hung up on actual scale weight because I get that that is only one (small) aspect of measuring progress, but for the record my current weight is 13st 7lbs. I am 5'7" but I am big boned. A cliche I know, but I have size 10 feet and big hands. I am never going to weigh 8st and be a size 8. I am aiming for 11st which for me is a size 12. But I'm not focussing too much on that yet. I will know as I get nearer.