The Small Things About a Big Weight Loss

I've lost a lot of weight, seven stone is a lot of weight by anyone's standards.

It has come off gradually, over eighteen or so months.

Losing a lot of weight has made a massive difference to my life. I can buy clothes anywhere on the high street (goodbye forever, Evans) and I have boundless energy, but I've also noticed other changes, smaller changes.

I'm no longer the biggest person in the room.

I can sit on swings at the park without fear they will collapse beneath me.

I can accompany my boys on the dodgems, and join them in the soft play (I didn't say that all changes were for the better...).

I've had to tighten my watch strap by five notches.

I can sit on the rickety chair without worrying that it will break.

I had to buy a cheap ring from Claire's Accessories to keep my wedding and engagement rings on. The ring I bought is size S. It's not tight either.

I'm not embarrassed going into McDonalds. Well, I am, I'm embarrassed that I let my children have Happy Meals as a treat. I'm not embarrassed about going in there as a fat person.

I can park anywhere, confident that I can get in or out of my car.

I no longer have to turn sideways to get through gaps.

My laptop now fits on my lap.

I run up the stairs to my hairdresser and don't have to pause near the top to get my breath back before I open the door and go in.

My skin is clear.

My entire wardrobe is a rainbow of colour, it used to be 95% black.

I hardly ever have a headache.

People who haven't seen me for a while walk straight past me.

I can get into child's pose for the first since I started doing yoga thirteen years ago.

I no longer get indigestion or heartburn.

My children can get their arms round me for a hug.



Actually, on reflection, these are big things.






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The Small Things About a Big Weight Loss

How I Started Running

How do you start running?

Well, you just have to run.

I've always watched the London Marathon and thought that I'd love to be able to run. Being inactive and overweight pretty much my whole life meant that this was not a serious consideration. I'd call runners 'freaks' as I drove past them, one hand on the steering wheel, the other in a family bag of Maltesers.

In 2012 I had Cognitive Hypnotherapy and joined Slimming World. By September 2013 I'd lost around three stone, but was in a yo yo/plateau holding pattern. I was more active, choosing to walk short distances instead of taking the car, but hadn't taken that next big step: to exercise.

I mentioned to a school mum friend that I'd like to see if I could run. She suggested that I walk around the football field near the school and when I got to the short end I could try running - very gently - along that end. That was all, then I could walk back to the car.

I was nervous, in fact I was terrified. I had NEVER run anywhere ever.

I walked along the long edge of the football field. I turned the corner at the end of the field and started a gentle ambling jog. By the time I was half way along, I was out of breath This was hard work. I wondered if I'd make it to the end. I kept going. At three quarters of the way along I was struggling. I felt my whole body wobbling as I panted. The arms of my rain jacket rubbed rhythmically against my sides as my elbows pumped. Still I kept going. Somehow I made it to the next corner before I started walking again. Puffing and walking.

I had 'run' 100 metres.

I walked back to the car, triumphant.

What a buzz.

If I could do it once, I could do it again.

A couple of days later I went out for a walk with another school mum friend. She had a running app on her phone. I was going to try to run for 60 seconds, then walk for a few minutes, then run again. She was my personal trainer that day, encouraging me, cheering me on, keeping time. I managed almost 4 minutes of running that day.

I downloaded this Couch to 5k app onto my phone. This changed my life.

I followed the app religiously. After I dropped the boys at school, three mornings per week, I set off walking around the football field. I kept up with all the running segments. The sense of achievement from ticking off another run was huge. I went out rain or shine. I was hooked.

I sneaked a peak at later weeks on Couch to 5k. I thought I'd never EVER manage to run continuously for 3 minutes, or 5 minutes, or 8 minutes. The thought of running for 20 minutes seemed unattainable, but as the weeks went by I managed all of these. I soon left the football field behind and ran alone, or with a friend, around one of the smaller lakes nearby.

This is how I started running.

In December 2013 I ran my first 5k.

In April 2014 I ran my first 10k.

Maybe one day I'll run the London Marathon after all.



Blah blah never start an exercise programme without checking with your GP first blah blah

How I Started Running

Ten Things I Thought I'd Never Say

1. I just ran 10k
2. I love running
3. I can't wait to run again
4. I can't sit still for long
5. I feel fit and strong
6. I love going to the gym
7. I enjoy getting hot and sweaty
8. I love the buzz I get from being active
9. I am full of energy
10. I tried on those size 12 trousers, and they did up

I hardly recognise myself these days...

Ten Things I Thought I'd Never Say

Run, Fat Girl, Run

I hated cross country running at school. We used to shuffle out of sight of the school, sit in a field, and smoke, until we saw the fit girls heading back to school. We shuffled in after them, tucking our lighters in our knickers.

I'd always looked at runners as if they were from another planet. In my entire adult life I had never run for a bus. I had never run at all.

Then I met Dawn Walton, Cognitive Hypnotherapist.

Dawn has been helping me get my head in the right place, so that I could lose the excess weight I have carried all my life. It's working, I've lost 4 stone.

One entirely unexpected benefit of her Weight Loss Coaching is that I am far more active that ever before. I choose to walk over taking the car. I walk faster than ever before. I now run things up the stairs, instead of waiting until there's a huge pile of stuff to go up. I'm not scared of stairs. I no longer get out of breath running up them. I used to have to sit down to recover after any burst of activity.

Six weeks ago I thought I'd have a crack at the Couch to 5k training programme. I never expected to get past the first week, but I did. Every time I looked ahead on the app, to see what future weeks held, I thought I'd soon reach a point where I couldn't keep up.

Today I completed Week 5, Run 3.

Week 5, Run 3 is as follows:
Walk 5 mins
Run 20 mins
Walk 5 mins

Guess what? I did it. I ran for 20 minutes.

Unbelievable.

I think 20 minutes, non-stop, makes me a runner.

I get it now. I get why people love to run. There's something primal about it. It's just you and the path. I love the fresh air and I love the feeling of all those endorphins rushing around my body.

Three words I never thought I would write:

I love running.



Disclosure
Dawn let me try the Weight Loss Coaching programme for free, in exchange for a review on this blog. If I need Dawn now, I pay her. Just so we're clear.

Run, Fat Girl, Run

How's the weight loss going, Sandy?

Very well, thank you for asking.

That there is a Slimming World 4 stone award. I'm a whopping 4 stone lighter than I was last year.

My 5 year old son weighs slightly less than that and I can't carry him very far at all, but I used to carry that weight around all the time. No wonder stairs were a struggle. Not any more. I have spent the summer holidays this year chasing the boys around farms, zoos and theme parks.

As well as going to Slimming World I am also having Weight Loss Coaching with Dawn Walton. I'm 10 weeks into the 12 week programme and it's not an understatement to say that working with Dawn has changed my life.

This is my post from the start of the Weight Loss Coaching.
This is my post from 6 weeks into the Weight Loss Coaching.

I will update you in full at the end of the 12 weeks as I have so much to tell you.


Disclosure: Dawn is providing me with her Weight Loss Coaching services free of charge, in exchange for my honest feedback via Baby Baby.



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How's the weight loss going, Sandy?

Weight Loss Coaching - Six Weeks In

Six weeks ago I started a twelve week Weight Loss Coaching programme with Dawn Walton from Think It Change It Cognitive Hypnotherapy and Think Change Become Life Coaching. This is a review. I am not paying for the course, but I am taking as seriously as if I had parted with some cash.

So, how is it going?

My answer will depend on which day you ask me. Some days I would say it's going really well and I feel completely in control. Other days, not so well. Even on a bad day, where my eating seems out of control, I'm still able to write down three positive changes that I've noticed that day.

I have lost eleven pounds since I've been listening daily to my ten minute MP3.

I'm still not cured. I'm still worried I'll always go back to my fall-back position of emotional binge eating.

BUT

The changes I have noticed in my eating habits, in my relationship with food and in my feelings towards exercise are enormous.

I eat loads of fruit and vegetables. I enjoy eating. I no longer feel guilty if I eat a 'bad' food. I am putting less on my plate. When I eat I listen to my body and stop eating as soon as I feel full. Most of the time I save my dinner leftovers for my lunch the next day (I was bought up as a member of the Clean Plate Club and I hate to waste food).

I now walk everywhere. I run up stairs. I don't leave things at the bottom of the stairs to take up later, I run up with them there and then. I can run after my children. I've even shown them how to skip.

I feel great in my clothes. I'm buying smaller sizes, confident that I'll get in them. I'm feeling good about myself, taking care of my skin, painting my nails. I go out and don't worry that people are looking at me, feeling disgusted by my size. I've had my hair cut short because I no longer have a double chin to try to disguise.

I am still struggling with eating mindfully. Some days I can do it, other days I can't. I'm not beating myself up over it. I accept that it is hard and I'm pleased that I manage it some of the time. Eating mindfully is all about connecting your mind and body. You listen to your body, to what it needs. You can eat what you want when you want it, so long as you stop when you have had enough.

When I started eating mindfully I got terribly upset. After years of being told what not to eat, what to eat, when to eat it, you are free to eat anything and I found it unbelievably stressful. I wasn't sure I could do it. I didn't know which way was up for a while. My conscious mind could not cope with this freedom. When Dawn asked me to eat what I wanted for a week, I freaked out, but I tried it and managed it for two days.

I'm still not fully eating mindfully. I'm still going to Slimming World and pretty much following their eating plan. This is causing a conflict, but I don't yet feel confident enough to walk away from regular weigh-ins. I'm worried if I stop going I'll put back on all the weight I have lost, even though I know there is another way.

I expect to talk about this with Dawn the next time we Skype. In between these sessions Dawn is always available via email and she has been incredibly supportive.

Sorry I couldn't be clearer about how it's going. In summary I would say that the Weight Loss Coaching is going brilliantly well, but I don't feel cured yet.


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Weight Loss Coaching - Six Weeks In

How to Gain Eleven Pounds in Seven Days

Want to know how to gain eleven pounds in seven days? The answer is to go on a diet.

There are not many things I really and truly hate, but I detest diets. I've either been on a diet or thinking I should be on a diet since I was nine years old. That's thirty four years of misery and guilt. Thirty four years of yo-yo dieting. Thirty four years of disappointment and self-loathing.

I was hoping to be able to write a ta daaaa! post, with before and after photographs, showing how much weight I had lost. But my latest attempt to become fitter, healthier - and smaller - has crashed and burned.

I'd spent a good few years saying that diets didn't work (if they did work, I'd be a size 10) and I was never going to diet again, but I was getting fatter and fatter. I had to do something. I'd tried Thinking Slimmer. Some of my behaviours surrounding food and exercise had changed, but I didn't lose any weight. I'd been seeing a Cognitive Hypnotherapist and she did help me to break through some of the mental barriers that I'd put up, the ones that I'd built up over the years, the ones that prevented me from losing weight. So then I was ready to lose weight. I joined Slimming World last October .

The first four months at Slimming World were great. I found that the eating plan suited me, as did the group support. As well as losing three stones, I lost the headaches and the heartburn of the binge eater.

Then I got ill with pneumonia, pleurisy and sepsis. After a few days of illness, a week in hospital, and a scary first few days at home, I'd lost another stone.

It was important to me to get back to Slimming World as quickly as I could, but more important to eat well after my health scare. I followed the plan, but my weight loss had stopped. I had reached the dreaded dieter's plateau. Despite eating healthily I stayed at the same weight for two months. I haven't been able to exercise at all, my recovery from serious illness is slow and I have to rest most of the time. Even so, I would have expected some small weight losses.

A few weeks ago I went for my weekly weigh-in to find that I had gained a pound and a half. I had followed the diet plan to the letter that week. The disappointment I felt prompted a week off the plan. Six months is a long time to stick to an eating plan, even one as simple as Slimming World. I didn't go crazy - we eat healthy, balanced meals as a family - although I did eat white toast with butter, chocolate and biscuits. I ate all the things I fancied, but hadn't really had for a while. Mmm, pizza.

I gained a whopping eleven pounds in that week off the plan.

I didn't think it was possible to gain that amount of weight in a week. I went straight back on the plan for five days but only lost a measly two pounds. Since then, for a week or so, I've been binge eating. Out of control. Eating everything in sight. I can't stop. I have continuous headaches and heartburn. I'm bloated. I haven't weighed myself. I daren't weigh myself. I hate myself.

Where do I go from here?

If I go back to Slimming World, I'll feel a big fat failure every week as I can't seem to control my eating right now.

If I stop dieting I'll end up bigger than I was before. I hate being the biggest mum at the school gates. I hate being an unhealthy, out of breath, lumbering, unfanciable lump. Fat cow. Lazy fat cow. Stupid fat cow.



As this was a rant of epic proportions, I've linked up with Mummy Barrow's Ranty Friday:




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How to Gain Eleven Pounds in Seven Days

Morphine for Breakfast

Pain is a strange thing. Once it's gone you can't remember it, although you know it was unbearable at the time. If I'm in pain now, I always compare it with the pain of being in labour. Is it worse than being in labour? It can't be. Surely labour pain set the bar at an all time high? The pain of pneumonia and pleurisy was pretty awful. Added to this I was holding so much tension in my shoulders that I had muscle spasms. I certainly couldn't sleep because of the pain.

In hospital I was given morphine in A&E, but once on the ward I must have been marked down as only give pain relief if required. With hindsight this was a mistake. Pretty soon I needed all the pain killers, one after another, until I was left sitting in bed just blinking. The pain was still there, but I was so out of it I had drifted away and been replaced by Zombie Sandy. I'd stopped screaming and crying anyway.

I saw doctors and an amazing physio. The physio reminded me to how to breathe using my diaphragm - not my shoulders. I was given regular pain killers and the option of morphine at night, when the pain was unmanageable. I took it. The early hours of the morning were worst.

After five days in hospital my blood test results showed an improvement in the sepsis and pneumonia. During the day I was fairly mobile, once I'd come round. The doctors dangled the carrot of going home, but only if I could manage without morphine. I was desperate to see my children. Then I remembered a pain management technique I had been taught. Mind over matter was worth a try.

This was the point I contacted Dawn from Think It Change It. I was her guinea pig when she was training to become a Cognitive Hypnotherapist last year. I asked for a reminder of the technique that she had taught me to help with my slipped disc. She dropped what she was doing and rang me. I spent the rest of the day practising. I repeated this mantra and used it throughout the night:
My muscles are completely relaxed. My back and my shoulder are as comfortably numb as my leg.
Mumbo jumbo you may say, but it got me through the night. It wasn't easy, but I managed the pain without morphine. I slept for three hours too. In the morning I was able to text Andy "Fruit & Fibre for breakfast" and he knew I would be coming home that day.

I can't thank Dawn, or recommend her services, highly enough. She has also helped me to remove the mental barriers that were preventing me from losing weight. At some point I'll do a ta daa post, as I am a fair bit smaller than I was last year. Dawn works from her therapy room in Dundee, but also offers downloads and online support. Check out her website to see if she can help you with phobias, pain, weight, smoking and more. She has also written a book about her personal transformation, again details are on her website. I'm proud to call her my friend.

Morphine for Breakfast