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!

The Weightwatchers new regime is unveiled

... Listen. Do you want to know a secret? Do you promise not to tell?

Let me whisper in your ear: Weighwatchers have changed their points system, seemingly for the first time in fifteen years. No longer is it based around saturated fat, but instead it looks at fibre and takes into account the energy your body uses to consume food. The example our Group Leader used this morning was that of a lamb chop - you "count" or "point" the larger part of the chop, but the small tapering boney bit is what is used by the body to process the rest of it, so you don't count that.

As I looked around the group, I could see this was causing a lot of scratched heads, and the small "counter wheel" at the back of our new Weightwatchers pack for calculating these new "Pro-points" only made things more complicated. For me, having the eSource (which allows you to key things straight into the website, and it calculates the new points automatically) is really coming into its own with this new regime. And not having to faff about with something that looks like Vic Reeves's "Wheel of Justice" but made by Anthea Turner on "Blue Peter" is going to be a bonus!



For more info on the problems of calculating Pro-Points with the new wheel, have a look at the current discussions on both the weightwatchers.co.uk forum and the mighty Mumset (lurkers can browse both without registering).

Now if only we could get UK Weighwatchers smart phone app for the new system, I would be really rather happy this week!

Oh, and finally, some great news on the weightloss front: I lost another 4 pounds! This now means I now weigh 26 stone 3 pounds (or 166.5 kilograms, as we say in the 21st century) and every week the seat belt in our car is getting just that little bit looser. This also means I got my first proper "silver seven" star on my Weightwatchers card (and on the website) this morning.



It's the first time I've got a silver star since 2005 (and before that, 1983 in class 5A) and I'm actually quite excited! My weightloss was so dramatic this week that I actually got a warning message that it was too fast and sudden (the ideal weightloss is 2lb a week) - but I do think that I have the leeway to lose a little faster than most, as long as it's only for a few weeks.

I wonder what next Wednesday will bring ...?

Between Fantasy and Reality

Today was Weightwatchers day! (Opens envelope. Camera sweeps over a lot of anxious-looking different weightloss options) And I lost half a pound! (Half a pound bursts into tears. All the other options, particularly those above three pounds or more, smile through gritted teeth) ...

Half a pound. Well, I suppose it's better than nothing, and it's "in the right direction", but I can't help be given pause for thought. This is what usually happens at Weighwatchers for me - bobbing around the 26-27 stone mark, without any real downward descent to the hideously magical "20 Stone, Just Like I Was in 2004" landmark. I didn't take my water tablets this morning before going, so I'm trying to justify this to myself as being a bit of fluid retention, but I'm not really convincing myself of that argument. I also think, well I was at "TGI Fridays" last week, maybe that added something, even though I was careful with my points ... but again, I'm not sure.

I stayed for the meeting this week, as I did last week. Hearing the other members talk about their experiences is both salient and thought-provoking. I can see myself following their routes and rules to weightloss and making significant in-roads myself. The trouble is, almost immediately my mind wanders to ridiculous images of me being able to run athletically or to stop taking my pills or to even just be one of the fitter members of my own peer group, and I have to reign in the fantasies before I start imagining "The Chariots of Fire" music and the sand and the wind in my hair. The reality of the situation is, there is a lot about my weightloss that I just don't understand. Hearing skelf-like women recount how they previous used to consume 120 points worth of food and drink regularly on a Saturday, or two packets of McCoys in a bun and a Snickers bar for their lunch every work day, it did make me wonder why they aren't a 27-stone man with gout, diabetes and a full beard too. Maybe they didn't spent most nights for four years consuming King Nan kebabs and full-fat Coke, admittedly - but the disparity between what one person eats and another, and the resultant weigh gain, is something which bugs. And the sentence "it's my metabolism" bugs me ever more. So it's a Catch-22!

This afternoon, I have my first diabetic check for three months, with the hot-and-cold nurse that can sometimes be the tersest human being in Scotland (which is against some fair competition, believe me). But that is the reality of the my situation: I need to get thinner, or my ambitions (being a writer, buying a villa in Tuscany, and still being around for the next return of Halley's Comet) will crumble to dust (along with me).

I need to find some way of turning these idle, seemingly-unachievable dreams of being fit and healthy into active, achievable goals.

D'yer wanna be a spaceman?

Backsliding and yo-yoing (by D).

Most blogs don't last three months... in my experience, nor do most diets :-/

OK, lets get back in the saddle and take stock. I stopped blogging, and made a couple of stabs at calorie counting, but so far haven't sustained it. My highest weight actually increased at one point to 15 stone. The moment was captured for posterity on this online diabetes risk assessement tool for Diabetes UK - you should take it! You should be able to spot me - the "short, round" one. I've lost about half a stone since then but I'm still heavier than my last post eighteen months ago.

So, yo-yo dieting - does it exist? Have I slowed my metabolism down by years of dieting? How did this happen? How did I suddenly turn from an average, size 12 pear into a morbidly obese apple? The bulk of my excess weight went on suddenly, in the space of a year, ten years ago. The last stone of it, in dribs and drabs. I scare myself sometimes wondering if there's another reason for it other than overeating, underexercising and getting older, but for now, I'm telling myself that there's no point looking into any other cause till I can stick to the calorie counting for long enough to tell me if that's the problem.

So, yo-yo dieting. Not being able to stick with calorie counting for more than a week. Don't have answers for either of those problems. But I'm going to try, yet again. Wish me luck. I want to stay accountable so I've made my food diary on myfitnesspal.com public, and I will try and post it here daily - here's what I had today.

Is it safe to eat...?

First - a quick update. We both had a bad result at weigh-in on Monday. I put on two pounds. Current weight 14 stone 2 pounds. J was very down before we even went in and almost decided to drive home and come and get me afterwards. But he stuck with it, stayed for the talk and has thrown himself into cooking and meal planning this week. Which brings me to... the freezer is full of frozen vegetables, some of which J regards with some suspicion. Packages of frozen mushrooms in particular. I've been expecting them to turn up at breakfast or in spag bol, but so far, they've stayed in the bottom drawer. So, I found this gem of a site which will hopefully convince him that they're safe:

http://www.stilltasty.com

So our poor mushrooms might not be as tasty as when they were first picked, but they should be pefectly safe. Except... they were wild mushrooms picked from the park outside our house, which also makes him suspicious. Time to get him to read this:



This was a staple in our house since my grandfather used to take us out looking for mushrooms and brambles back in the seventies. It might be an Italian-influenced thing - see this profile of Elish Angiolini (scroll down to see her list of interests!). I can particularly recommend the Collins Gem edition - it's pocket sized for taking on long walks. And you probably know the score - if you buy it from this link we get about 30p towards my Weight Watchers fees...

Wish us luck for Monday.

You're not that overweight are you? (by D)

"You're not that overweight!"

I have heard that from some medical professionals lately. They mean, "you don't look that overweight".

And on paper, fourteen stone isn't that bad. A lot of women would be healthy, if a bit chunky at that weight. But I am that overweight. I'm short and slight, so on me, fourteen stone is almost double what I should be. My BMI is 39 and my body fat percentage is 50%. Quite scary to think that 50% of what I see in the mirror is pure fat. And it's all round my middle, as the practice nurse made a point of telling me as she struggled to find my cervix during my last smear. Apparently all the fat kind of shoved it out of the way a bit. Nice.

So I'd like to lose this much weight (look above left for picture of a twenty five pound tub of lard. Now imagine eight of those). My highest recorded weight so far was 14st 4.5lb, my weight this week is 14 stone, and my goal weight is around eight stone. I reckon it'll take at least a year, maybe two, but I'm in no hurry.