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Eighty-Eight

To live achieving my life goals

So, you may notice that this post is not about exercise, again, but also that I have lost almost a stone in three weeks!

I have found it very difficult to get started with an exercise routine because it needs to be done before work and I always feel too tired.

Therefore, the importance of getting more sleep (i.e. going to bed earlier) is becoming more and more apparent. I have always been bad at going to bed on time and this problem is exacerbated by the fact that Tim, my husband, often gets home from work very late, so in order to have had dinner together and spent some time together, bed time is pushed further and further back.

One way of combatting this will be to make all our dinners for the week in advance, at the weekend. This is a new goal; to do this every week that I am at home for the weekend. This will also force me to plan my meals more carefully, which will allow me to make them even healthier than I have been for the last few weeks and also to think of more alternatives to enable me to not eat a carbohydrate or too much fat. We will see how this plan goes, but I very much enjoy cooking, so it should be a fun way to spend some of either Saturday or Sunday.

This week I have been incredibly busy and stretched at work. The affect of this has been that I have not struggled at all to maintain my diet, which must mean that boredom is a huge part of my overeating. Also, people have started saying to me that they can see a real difference in my size, which is very encouraging and is making me feel more resolute than ever that, this time, I will reach my goal and I will finally succeed in conquering something that has been overpowering me for my whole life so far.

Also, this week, I am have had to come to terms with the fact that I have to sell my boat because she is unusable and costing quite a lot of money each month to berth. I lived aboard Charisma for a year and so, though she is thoroughly broken and cannot be moved or steered, I feel a great connection to her. This is partially because I have spent a lot of time onboard and partially because, since I love sailing, the idea of owning a boat is a dream that I have held for some years and selling her would mean giving this up, without knowing whether or not I will be able to buy another in the future.

So far, in my life, I feel as if many of my dreams have been stolen from me by whatever it is that I have to fight against in myself to even complete the simplest of tasks. Therefore, even though Charisma is possibly the worst yacht imaginable by this time, she still symbolises to me that it is possible to fulfil a dream and so giving this up is painful.

However, it will free up a sum on money each month that go into savings to go towards holidays and adventures that Tim and I can go on and also towards a nicer gym. The gym and swimming pool that I am currently a member of is not a very pleasant experience to visit. It is not clean, the facilities are not that good and there is no steam room, which for me is a real downside, because I am allergic to chlorine, so to keep my skin smooth and comfortable, I need to have a way detoxing.

Anyway, this week I am on holiday in France with Tim and his family, which will be great fun and a good way of kick starting my exercise, finally. Not having to fit it around my usual daily routine, even just for the week, will help me start a habit and then it should be easier to do it before work.

So, my targets for this week are: start an exercise routine (mainly comprising of running) and catch up on sleep!

Day: 23

Lbs to go: 88

Ninety

To live free of shame

My intention this week was to start and regular exercise routine, but I have not been able to do this due to feeling unwell, which has also meant that I have not been quite as careful with what I have been eating. Therefore, my weight loss has not been so great this week though it has still gone in the right direction.

Since I cannot write about the exercise that I am doing, I have decided to write about another aspect that affects my eating habits, which is my state of mind, emotion and stress. For my emotional wellbeing to stay level and healthy, I know that I need some rest from environments that I feel attacked or uncomfortable in, which often means that at the end of a week at work I feel exhausted.

I had this year been committed to participating in the Fastnet, which is a very important race in the sailing calendar and takes place biannually over one week in August. This commitment also meant that I was required to undertake training and preparatory races almost every weekend between mid-March and the race itself.

I love sailing and it is my primary hobby, but I found myself becoming very stressed by not being able to do jobs in our flat that needed doing, and therefore leaving it all to my husband, and also by not having any time to just stop and relax.

Another aspect which led to my stress around my sailing was my weight. I found it very difficult to move efficiently around the boat and the skipper constantly mentioned the fact that I was overweight and joked about it in front of the other crew members (all men, which I prefer under normal circumstances but at moment, not so much).

This always left me feeling incredibly down by the end of a day, which I also found physically challenging, so it was doing much more harm than good in the grand scheme of things. When I have reached my goal, I will be able to go back to sailing, fully participate and fully enjoy it without feeling any embarrassment or shame about my flexibility or size.

Whenever I let myself really think about the state that my body is in, I start to feel incredibly down. I spiral into thinking that I may have permanently ruined my body and that I will never be able to reach my target weight because I have gone too far in the other direction. This thinking is not helpful for me, but I also need to be careful that I am not going into denial, as I have a real tendency to do.

I have found that for the last two weeks, knowing that I need to write this blog has helped me face the reality of the situation and change my mindset towards my weight loss. Before, I have always delayed starting a diet or a new regime by saying that I would start tomorrow or if I don’t do any exercise or eat something I shouldn’t for a couple of days, I will fool myself in to thinking that it is okay, because I can just start next week instead. Now, because I have to document how I am doing, and also what my progress is, I have clearly already started and even I cannot argue with that!

I have forced myself out of the shadows and so, though I feel uncomfortable with it, I am consciously being honest with myself and those around me about the situation and it is making a big difference to my life and mentality!

I know, however, that I will need to think of plan of what to do when, or if, this initial excitement wears off and the same issues start nagging me again, making the easiest option to just give up. I have not yet been able to think of anything, but, since I am forcing myself to be very aware of my thought processes and how I am feeling about everything in order to avoid going into denial as best I can, I am hoping that this will allow me to see the normal problems coming and preempting them instead of just failing yet again.

Next up: exercise – for real, this time!

Day: 16

Lbs to go: 90

Ninety-Three

To live without addiction

I think everyone probably has a bit of an addiction to food and I have come to realise, over years of struggling with weight loss, that it is never going to happen without a bit of a detox from sugar. To this end, this week I have made a few drastic changes to my eating habits. For two weeks I am giving up the following:

• Sugar (except lactose, because I can’t do all this and also be denied a comforting cup of tea)
• Starchy and refined carbohydrates

I am hoping that this will help with food cravings, which are never because I am hungry but just because I want food. Perhaps I am bored or unhappy about something, but neither of these reasons are good enough to eat a sugary or salty snack. They say that weight loss in 80% diet (annoyingly), so I made this my primary priority.

I have always been perfectly happy to go without breakfast, so my first step has been to properly decide what to have for lunch whilst I am at work. This week I decided to make two soups that I have been alternating between. I made a Red Lentil, Chickpea and Chilli Soup (without the chilli) from BBC Good Food, which I have found to be a very reliable source of most of my favourite recipes. It is very quick to make (it only takes 35 minutes) and is very flavoursome (and with lots of cumin, which I love). I have also made Madhur Jaffrey’s Green Soup (from her book, ‘Indian Cooking’), which is a curried pea soup (more cumin) and a new but very delicious addition to my collection of recipes.

My thinking is that both of these recipes are both very filling and neither will get too boring, so I won’t be tempted to supplement my lunch with other, less healthy options. I have also bought some little pots of 0% fat plain yogurt, which I have found help to curb hunger and therefore works well as a mid-morning or afternoon snack.

I have read that while it only takes two weeks to form a habit, it takes forty days to break one, so I know that I am going to have to be very intentionally careful for at least one and a half months, which will give me lots of time to build up a good repertoire of different soups and other ideas for healthy lunches. My aim will be to not get tired of what I am having for lunch and that will require weekly change. Alongside this I have also been consciously drinking at least two of my water bottles per day and in order to incentivize myself I have been rationing my tea, which definitely works because I love tea!

Then comes dinner. Since I have given up starchy and refined carbohydrates, I have been having a normal meal, but without the accompanying rice, pasta or potatoes and have been trying to replace them with green vegetables (in fact, I have finally discovered what my favourite vegetable is: samphire! I have had it in restaurants many times, but never known what it was called, so it is exciting to be able to have it at home now).

I have also been very careful with my portion sizes as there is no point trying to eat healthy food and then eating too much of it. I have been taking a travel mug sized portion of soup to work each day for lunch and portions in the evening have been vastly helped by the lack of accompanying carbs – it has certainly been a good way of very easily eliminating some calories.

Next up: exercise!

Day: 10

Lbs to go: 93

One Hundred and One

Back to Basics: To live within my core values

My name is Elinor and I am starting this blog to document my 101lb weight loss journey. I have always felt uncomfortable in my skin because I know that I am not in the state that I was made to be in. I am embarrassed by my size and have never felt able to indulge my ‘girly’ side because I am unhappy with how I look.

When I started my first year of university I wrote down my core values. Among these was one that stated, ‘I resolve to get help if I consistently fail on one of my core values’. Predictably (which is probably one of the reasons that it happens so much), I have consistently failed on all of them and that one in particular!

So, four and a half years later, I am starting again and properly this time. I am going to make manageable and sustainable changes to my lifestyle in order to finally achieve the weight, size and peace of mind that I have been longing for all of my life.

I have always struggled with self-discipline. This might sound like something anyone could say of themselves but for me it goes a step further as it isn’t just about getting on with things that I don’t want to do or might be unpleasant. I also find it very difficult to motivate myself to do things that I do want to do. It takes up so much of my effort and concentration to do ordinary daily tasks, such as get out of bed, wash and go to work (let alone actually being productive at work), that my health, sleep, fitness and eating habits have always been tossed by the wayside.

This means that I constantly feel like I am living my life trapped in a cage, never able to complete or achieve anything no matter how much I want to (I have always had a reputation for starting things and not following through). It is time for this to stop and for my life to take a new path to success and fulfilment of my destiny and purpose!

I know that it is important, during this challenge, for me to remain accountable to other people. I have tried various strategies in the past, but they have all failed as even that could not provide the required level of external motivation. For this reason, I am turning to what I think is an extreme version of accountability and am going to share my trials, tribulations and successes with anyone who might want to read this and then I cannot escape!

I have always been very good at hiding under the radar and so now I am (rather scarily) coming out of the shadows and into the light!

I need to lose 101lb to reach my ideal weight and so I am going to post once a week on a Saturday with new reason to lose weight (so the quicker I lose weight, the fewer reasons I will need to think of). This blog is going to document my journey to true freedom of mind and body.

Day: 1

Lb to go: 101