In the Gripper Lunchtime

I've slipped back into bad habits in the last couple of weeks. No, not two-kebabs-a-night-and-a-crate-of-Coke habits, thankfully – but things are beginning to worry me nontheless.

In short: it's lunchtime. How do YOU cope with it? I have breakfast (Special K and toast) at around 8AM, to coincide with taking my heart pills, but by the time 1PM comes (or even worse 2PM) my body is rebelling. Little lights are going off inside my head. And I start behaving like John Mills in “Ice Cold in Alex”. I know some of this can be blamed on my diabetes, but the urge to gorge is overpowering some lunchtimes. So … I have started eating “diet” ready meals again. Three for a fiver, so that's three lunches with tweleve collective minutes cooking time – result!

Of course, there's the worry about the salt content, the fats and the sat fat. We all know supermarkets can parade words like “DIET” in huge letter on a packet that – on investigation – are actually nothing of the sort. But a nice hot microwaveable plastic tray keeps my cravings for sweets and crisps at bay all afternoon. Now, that's got to be a good thing. Hasn't it? Being bullied by your belly at lunchtime is a discomfiting experience - like having Gripper Stebson in your colon.

I really wish I'd kept a food diary back in 2004 (when I was 128kg, 40 kilos less than I am now) to check what I was eating then, particularly at lunchtime. Was it a sandwich and crisps? Soup and pudding? A biscuit and a ten mile hike … I honestly can't remember. But whatever it was, seemed to work – even if only for a short time.

Above is a photo of Deirdre and me at the Glasgow Transport Museum in January 2004, seven years ago. The change in me is quite remarkable in that time: especially when it seems like all my other friends have physically stayed pretty much the same in the last half-decade or so. Maybe a few more grey hairs, but no more pounds or kilos.

I feel a lot of sympathy for Tommy Sheridan at the moment. He too must be looking back at early 2004 and thinking … if only I'd done things different afterwards …

Light relief

First of all, we’re relieved to find that we have not put any weight on over Christmas – I’ve lost two pounds and John has stayed steady – no mean feat considering he’s battling with water retention. He went to the opticians yesterday and apparently even his eyeballs are retaining fluid. But he’s back on the points, and delighted that finally WeightWatchers have released an iPhone app (which is actually very good). I’ve been playing with it too and I’ll post more (with screen grabs) tomorrow!

The Twelve Weighs of Christmas

My weightloss has hit a snag these last few weeks... fluid retention. Despite adhering to the diet, I gained four pounds two weeks ago, lost three and a half pounds last week, and then gained another five when I was weighed at Weightwatchers yesterday. This is yo-yoing of the worst kind, and to have it happen just before Christmas (and after months of reasonably careful eating) seems a bit unfair. But who do I blame? Is there a god of dieting? Is Dionysus still in business, looking down and laughing?


Sadly, the only way to cope with fluid retention is a regime of socially-inconvenient water tablets (which I'm on anyway; I've just increased my dose for 160mg to 200mg) and fluid restriction. This should be 1500ml a day, which is the rough equivalent of 4 cans of cola and a tiny cup of tea. At the moment, I'm aiming for 2000ml, working slowly down to 1500ml as I can - but it isn't easy.

Restricting food and restricting fluid at the same time is particularly tortuous; the last time I managed it successfully, I was in hospital, and it was a tremendous shock to the system. Eventually after around two weeks, I settled down and got used to my restricted fluids - but those initial fourteen days were very, very difficult. Going back to 1500ml now is something that fills me with dread, if I'm honest - which is why I'm trying to cut in down incrementally. But, if at least some of my weight gain is purely fluid, it should be worth it in the long-run: when I left hospital I had lost nearly two stone in two weeks...

What I intend to do over the Christmas holidays is weigh myself with the same scales every day, at the same time, after taking my water tablets at the same time, and see if it fluctuates. I've decided to call this "The Twelve Weighs of Christmas" (if nothing else, because it gives this post a snappy title) and any drastic fluctuations in weight should give me an idea of just how bad my fluid retention is...

Anyway, Christmas...

... come round fast this year, hasn't it?

For those desiring weight loss, this time of year can seem a bit of a poisoned chalice. What is it actually for if you can't indulge and revel when the nights are at their shortest? The need for a midwinter celebration is common through many cultures and many religions. So how does a dieter cope? How do you avoid putting on another half stone while still joining in the week-long party?

Many people at my Weightwatchers meetings are either (a) just going to take "a week off", or (b) try to use "lighter" alternatives in their Christmas meals (pigs-in-blankets with lean bacon, steamed rather than roasted veg, sparrow rather than turkey, etc.) At first glance, the latter might seem the better option, but only - and it's a big "only" - if you can cope with the extra preparation and the (let's be honest) distinct possibility of culinary disappointment on December 25th.

For me, I intend to be good ... but not that good. I shall weigh myself every day (scout's honour) and try and restrict my fluids to 2 litres. As a diabetic, chocolates and sugary puddings and alcohol are all something I instinctively avoid, so that's an area of indulgence which thankfully is easily shut for me. But other things - genuine indulgences, particularly snacks and eating out - may prove far more resistant. Although whether their pull will be any stronger over the next week than over a dull weekend in February is yet to be seen!

Anyway - a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all our readers from the Quarter-Ton Couple! Have a good one, and we hope to see you all here again in the New Year: with fresh gym kits, blank weight trackers, sharp pencils and even sharper resolutions!

X

The Fat Tax and what I think of it...

A good couple of weeks since we were on Panorama, I thought it was about time I posted how I felt about the whole thing. It's still a 'live' issue - yesterday the Independent led on the news that the UK government are veering away from taxes and price controls on cigarettes, alcohol and fatty foods. Nudges rather than pushes.

I did think it was a bit wierd Panorama devoting a whole programme to something that the Health Secretary had already said would not happen, but there you go, they asked for my opinion and I gave it. And here it is: I'm agin it.

I believe a Fat Tax would disadvantage people on low incomes, who spend proportionately more of their income on food. This year, we're all feeling the pinch. Many people with jobs are finding that their salaries are frozen, people on benefits are facing cuts and unemployment is rising. VAT is going up in January to 20%, and you'd be surprised how many high fat and high sugar food items are subject to VAT. Since the costs of these foods are already going up, why increase them even more, and cause even more hardship?

As for John, well he agrees with a fat tax. He feels that anything that can reduce the amount of crap people eat is going to be a help. He does agree with me that there need to be more healthy options in the shops though. In our local shops in our town, it's very hard to buy fruit and veg. They do have little 'Scottish Government' sponsored stands but often they're empty. I remember one occasion John was in hospital on fluid restrictions. He was not allowed drinks but was allowed fruit. Could I buy any in our town? I'd have had to go to the out of town supermarkets. So I had to go into Glasgow to buy him satsumas, strawberries, grapes and all the juicy fresh fruit he was badly craving. I could have bought any amount of chocolate, bisuits, sweets, salty snacks and crisps. But not anything healthy. I don't think he really wanted a solitary brown banana or some potatoes, which is all the shops seemed to have.

So if they are going to increase the cost of fatty foods there should be a subsidy on healthy foods, and they should make sure that healthy foods are always available in shops. Large areas of cities and towns have no ready access to a supermarket, and many people (like me) don't drive so can't easily get to a supermarket.

I am not even convinced that increasing the price of fatty foods is going to help someone like me buy less of them. When I have a craving for chocolate, I have a craving, and very little is going to get between me and that bar of chocolate.

In fact, I found out during the filming just how much extra I'd be willing to pay, when reporter Shelley Jofri held up a packet of Maltesers and said 'Just how much would these have to cost before you would think twice about buying them? Shamefully, I realised they'd have to cost up to £4 before I'd even think of not buying them. No wonder I'm fourteen stone!

But the filming tought me that my willpower these days is a different beast than it used to be. The Panorama team put us in front of a table covered with food - it was like that bit where Gillian McKeith puts her victims in front of a table groaning with lard and takeaways. There was Burger King (greasy and cold), pizzas, ready meals, crisps, chocolate, and my nemesis - a tub of Ben & Jerry's. It all came flooding back. I held this stupid tub of ice-cream in my hand and found myself describing it as my 'gateway' and telling the nation how I used to tramp for miles to every corner shop within two miles of my house to get my supply. I'd have had to have walked a lot further than that to burn off the calories in a tub of that stuff - no wonder I ended up putting on three stone in a year! Thank god they didn't put that bit in.

It did feel a little bit ridiculous looking at food and talking about being addicted to it. I have the most respect for the struggles people have with drugs, alcohol and cigarettes. Food's an odd one because you have to continue having a relationhip with it. You can't give it up altogether. While some people decide that there are some foods they just can't ever have again, others go for the 'harm minimisation' and try and eat in moderation. I'm in that camp myself. Last time I had a tub of Ben & Jerry's in the house, I ate it in 250cal portions, not all at once, and it stayed in the freezer for weeks. That's a fairly good sign of 'recovery'. My daily food is a budget, and I don't want to spend that much of it on ice cream when I could eat something that would leave me feeling more full afterwards.

So I still eat my Ben & Jerry's, I'm just not stupid about it any more.

The walls come tumbling down

Things are getting on top of me. I'm feeling squeezed. I've lost another pound and half.

Apologies from both of us for the lack of blogging this week, but our house-building programme (which is grand way of saying we are getting an extension, rather than creating a New Town from scratch or anything) has been consuming most of our time.

Whether this has stopped us consuming other things, it is difficult to say ... I hope that a combination of exhaustion, physical exercise (packing boxes, mostly) and having something else to think about other than food for a change may mean that I will continue to lose weight during the downward run to Christmas without (a) really noticing it or (b) really trying. I have lost weight in this way before, but usually only because I've been very ill. As I said a couple of months ago, the trick is to lose the weight that death's door brings, without actually being anywhere near it!

... So if you don't hear much for either of us over the next few weeks - have no fear. We will return! We shall get on with building a new bedroom and downstairs loo, and you can get on with preparing for Christmas. Shall we all meet here on the evening of the 24th and do some carol singing, perhaps?

In the mean time, to get you in the mood, here's a picture of a puppy in a Santa hat:

Here's what we've each lost so far, in lard form!

Yes, John's had a small gain this week, but we've still lost ten pounds each, and here's what that looks like. It was bloody heavy as well. I might well find that like John, I've had a small gain too (too chicken to get on the scales till Saturday morning), but at least we can now be very grateful that the above is still in the supermarket and no longer on our backsides. Yay us!

Beyond the Dreams of Licourice

... So: one and a half pounds on.

Bugger!

I'm unsure as to what I did wrong as everything was religiously pointed, but I'm going to wait and give the system another week and see if the weight starts going in the right direction again. Other people at the meeting had lost 3, 4 or 5 (and someone at another meeting in the local area had apparently lost 13) pounds all in one week. Such dramatic weighloss seems beyond the dreams of avarice (or should that be licourice?) at the moment!

I stayed for the meeting again and this week a second "going over"of the basics of Pro-Points seemed to sink in more. It is, as our leader said, a big sea change - not so much for me, but for people who were on the old points system for years and years and thought they could portion and point just by looking at something - and everything still needs to settle down. Even the "Weightwatchers" magazine is still based around the old version of the Points system (apart from copies sold at the meetings, which have both) and the full roll out isn't until January - when the Weightwatchers lines grow long with those who overindulged in front of "Doctor Who" and "It's a Wonderful Life" during the festivities!


Anyway, this is all getting a bit technical. I just wanted to say that Deirdre and I were both very touched and pleased with the messages of support and good wishes that were posted to both this blog and our Facebooks after Monday night's Panorama. And as you can see from some of the various comments posted below some of our previous posts, many people have many different ways of achieving a weighloss goal.

In fact, there seems to be as many ways of losing weight as there are overweight people. And I do wonder if the reason for this is that total abstincence - the ultimate aim in most other addiction battles - is simply not an option with weightloss. "I haven't had a drink in five years" means you are tackling your alcoholism. "I haven't eaten for five years" means you are talking via a ouija board. The impossibility of food cold turkey (but not cold turkey food), means that all kinds measures and restrictions and diets fill the gap.

And talking of filling gaps, I'm off to have my lunch. Properly Propointed, of course!