23 May 2013

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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20 comments:

  1. From what I've learned about diets and losing weight, it is really hard to lose weight without exercise. So while you're still recovering, it's probably normal that you won't lose any weight, plus if you lost weight because you were ill, your body is reclaiming this as a healing process. The other issue is that being overweight is partially caused by genes and partially by changed gene expression due to lifestyle. To reverse this is not at all easy - so for someone who has been overweight for a long time, from childhood (points at self) the problem is that weight loss is one thing but fat stores are still there and fill up quickly so keeping the pounds off is much harder than for the person who's never been overweight. Self loathing makes things worse, because it leads to comfort eating and food as an emotional response. I don't have a solution because I'm much the same, I know why I'm overweight and I want to lose the excess weight but I can't manage to stay off cake and chocolate for long. The only time I managed to be that size 10 was pre kids, training for a marathon and exercising hard for 1-2 hours a day, cycling to work plus an hour's workout. Take away the exercise and add 2 kids (I lost all the baby weight while breastfeeding, and piled the pounds on after) and I'm as heavy as i've ever been. I'm trying hard not to hate myself or loathe my looks because I understand why this has happened, and self loathing would probably translate to eating even more cake...

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    1. @Cartside, thank you for sharing that. It helps to know that some people do understand the how and the why of weight loss - or otherwise. I think I see myself through the eyes of a naturally thin person (who only exists in my head). I went back to Slimming World today. I have a lifetime of healthy eating ahead of me if I want to lose weight and keep it off. There really is no other option.

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  2. I can't think of anything truly useful other than to say please don't think that of yourself - and that I want to give you a hug right now. x

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    1. @Claire, thanks for the hug and I'm sorry for the self-loathing. I'm afraid it slips out every now and then. x

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  3. Sandy.............. I love you

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  4. It's horrible to feel the way you do. I agree with cartside you need to exercise too. Eat healthily, high protein low carbs and even just walk if you can x

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    1. @21st Century Mummy, I agree about the exercise, but I'm not well enough yet. I will get there x

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  5. Hi, I had a serious illness just over two years ago and am yet back to fitness. I too was eating healthy before I fell ill, then lost a lot of weight quickly due to ten days of hospital , n then even walking upstairs left me exhausted. I had the body strength of a 99yo.
    So today, I just walk even if its round the block; I am slowly improving. But the best thing I did was get an App called 'map my walk'
    It's satisfying to see that to the post office and back is actually 0.8miles! It makes me feel better! Good luck sweetheart!

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  6. But it has taken me just shy of two years to tackle myself. I gained back the weight I lost and rapidly. Now I'm sorting it out.
    I just did the post office run at a slow steady pace. Baby steps forwards.
    Be kind to yourself, you've been through a lot x

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  7. @Rachel, thank you so much. 'Map my walk' sounds like a great idea. I can start with the post box and try to do a little more each time I go out.x

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  8. Diets make you fat.

    The end!!

    PS pass me a big purple one

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    Replies
    1. @Mummy Barrow, So true. You can't have a purple one, I ate them all. Soz.

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  9. The following comment was sent to me by a friend:

    Just been reading your blogs and just had to get in touch. I have been at SW since June last year. I have only lost just over a stone in that time, having spent the last 6 months putting on and losing the same 2 lbs!! In just 1 week between Xmas and new year I gained 5 lbs! It does make you feel like shit but you just have to dust yourself down and keep plodding on. Please don't give up...I believe that after many years of suffering your head actually is in the right place to do this - you proved it by going back to a meeting this week. I too have many issues with food which stem from childhood and have yo-yo'd between a size 12 and size 18 during the past 20 years. This time I'm determined to be the person I want to be.

    You went through a major illness and your body has been in survival mode - please do not be disheartened by the fact it felt it needed to hold on to a few pounds while it concentrated on getting you better.

    You are doing this for YOU, who cares how long it takes?

    Thinking of you

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    1. This was my reply:

      Oh bless you. Thank you so much for sharing that. It really helps knowing there's someone else who understands because they're going through it too. Well done for persisting with SW. It may seem that you're standing still, but if you stopped going to meetings then you know what would happen. You looked absolutely stunning in that pink dress.
      I'm sorry to hear that you've also been struggling with your weight for years. I know our mums had the best of intentions, but children really shouldn't be put on diets. Neither of us were that big, especially by today's standards!
      I am getting better thanks, but I'm still not well enough to exercise and I think that will make all the difference. I'm back on track now (melon for breakfast!) and am determined to lose the weight this time. I'm seeing my Cognitive Hypnotherapist friend next week and hopefully she can sort my head out once and for all. You're so right when you say who cares how long it takes.
      We will get there.

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  10. Oh gosh, I really relate to everything you've said. I do the same, going great-guns for a while and doing really well and it's often the plateau that makes me falter as I lose heart so quickly. I made a conscious decision a while ago to be honest with myself about my weight issues and developed a kind of mantra about eating less and moving more, but it ended up being a stick a use to beat myself with, declaring to anyone who'll listen that my problem is that I'm lazy and greedy. I think it's a defense mechanism, a way of protecting myself by saying what I assume everyone is thinking about me before they can say it first, but it helps no-one and generally just makes people uncomfortable.

    You aren't stupid or lazy, you're just a human.

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    1. @Jayne, thank you. I know I'm not stupid or lazy really, I am just getting in there first. It's so difficult to keep going when you stop losing weight, but I'm determined to be patient this time.

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  11. I know that feeling of either being on a diet or thinking about being on a diet. You just always feel deprived. It's so hard. It sounds like you need to give yourself some time to heal from being so sick!

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    1. @Rachel, yes, I know. Patience isn't one of my strong points, but I'm working on it...

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  12. You should never think of a diet, you should just think how to eat healhy for your own good. Stop using the word diet and use "healthy". My advice is to choose a vegan lifestyle , organic foods. Try vegan sweets, they are delicious and healthy.

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