Lighterlife. Deters Drastic Dieting Diaries

Day 23 of 183. 160 days to go.

Ah at last. It is beginning to sound as though i'm getting somewhere by figures alone (days gone by). It feels great to only have 160 days to go. There is no reason why i can't keep this up throughout at least the first 100 days, and then add some food, too, after that, probably.

Today, though, i opened the fridge to put the cats ham away and i would have liked to have put some food into my mouth. Thanks goodness I don't have any food in the fridge. I cannot imagine what it's like to be living in a family - with all of the food in the fridge and cupboards - or even cooking for the family but not eating any of it.

Yesterday i popped into town to buy my light fittings for the lounge and as i went past an indian restaurant, i felt very much like eating. I felt sad. I considered myself to be deprived. Its the first time that i've felt this. It's the first time that i've been confronted with the smell of freshly cooked delicious smelling foods. i can't imagine what it feels like to resist food when you are bombarded with food smells every day. I think that i've got it easy.

Today the guy came and we emptied the lounge of its contents. It took all day.

The floor looks amazing without the crabby stained old carpet. The floorboards underneath are in absolute pristine condition in the lounge side of the room, and not that bad in the dinng room side of the room.

When they are stained 'ebony' and matt varnished, and a couple of rugs down, it will look wonderful.

The sander was delivered from the hire shop and tomorrow he starts work on the floorboards. First there will be all staples and so on to remove, and the carpet gripper rods to get up. Then after some of the sanding, the gaps (of which there are very, very few) need filling and smoothing.

Its now in-between Big Brother programs one and two of a Friday night. Eviction night. Except this time Aislene is not going to be evicted, she is actually going to dwell next door in a secret Big Brother House with five new house mates!!! How exciting. Its on again in a couple of minutes, I'm going back to it. Speak to you tomorrow. Bye.

day 22 of 183. 161 days to go.

Yesterday i forgot to mention that the reason one woman in our LL group had red eyes was because she had cried with dissapointment at only losing three pounds!

The first week she had lost ten pounds, and the second week she lost eight pounds. And this week she lost three pounds, and she was devastated! She consoled herself with the acknowledgement that she has actually lost one and a half stones in three weeks.

I am stunned.
I mean, what does she want?
Isn't that fast enough?

The other woman that was sitting with the booklet up to her mouth, was in that posture for her reason. Her body language gives it away really. She'd had 'a bad week' where she'd done the LL diet for 3 days, and then had food for 4 days. She hardly spoke about it, explaining to us that she felt so ashamed and at this time did not want to talk about it. It sounds like she had a four day binge.

Additionally there was another woman, with whom i was chatting to in the queue for the scales, that then admitted that she had done the same. While we were in the queue, she had not made any reference to it at all, and so i was taken by surprise to hear her announce this fact.

How odd that three women failed to keep to the regime on the same week.

Also, we heard that another woman, had withdrawn from the group because she felt that she was unable to do the diet at this time. And, yet another one, had done that the week before.

So, how many of us will go to the end, i wonder.

I want all of the women to suceed.
I want to keep our group together.
All on the diet correctly and all losing at least 3 stones and feeling wonderful at the end of the journey.

I'm not a total altruistic soul, you know. I guess i'm thinking of myself. I'm imagining getting down to my desired weight at the end of the program and feeling joy, and pride at the acheivment. I want this to be a nice warm feeling, and for it not be tinged with thorny feelings of guilt because some people didn't make it.

I want us all to make it.

Sucess is good.
Theres enough to go around for everyone.

Today i looked at my lounge and imagined it decorated.
I've seen the rug that i want, and i imagined that in there too, with its freshly painted walls and lovely satin stained floorboards. I think i might stain the floorboards black, and then put the varnish on, rather than try to match the colour of the wood to that of the skirting boards. Antique Pine isn't exactly in vogue, is it? I can't change the colour of the skirting boards though, because the doors are the same, and they are the same throughout the whole house.

The floor won't look funny a different colour will it?
I looked at my garden room. There it is amtico flooring, in a mock slate effect, and the skirting boards are the same colour as those in the lounge. Obviously we didn't ttry to match them up by having the same effect painted onto the skirtings! That WOULD look strange!

So, then i looked up at the lighting. I have high ceilings and in the lounge (which is really the sitting room and drawing room of a victorian house knocked into one room) there are currently two light fittings. One in each half of the room, coming down from the ceiling into the centre of its respective half of the room. They are five-arm chandeliers. Not the crystal type, more a slightly updated, less formal version, in an antiqued gold/brass type of colour.

The one in the part of the room where the sofa sits has three of its arms alight. Two of the connections have somehow stopped working, but i've gotten used to it and have just been putting brighter bulbs in for the last three years or so (that's student life for you, too preoccupied with academia and too poor to pay for repairs or replacements).

Anyway, i looked at them today and i thought, "you know what, they look old, and shabby, and out of style". They are just not my taste anymore (they are about 10 years old). "I'm gonna get some new light fittings".

Gleefully i looked on the net for retailers and this afternoon whizzed into town with my spare 2.5 hours to look at some new ones.

I am delighted to announce that i have made my choice. And i shall purchase them this week while the 10% sale is on that ends Saturday. (then i will check to see whether the sale really finished at that time).

The design is called, "Spider" and they are FABULOUS! I have chosen gun metal colour, rather than chrome or gold which would look ridiculous in my room because of the traditional multiyork sofa which has a contemporary shaped 'body' but traditional wooden legs on castors.

Spider is a ceiling light that hangs down and looks like..well, a bit like a spider? No, not really...well sort of i suppose. Actually it looks more like a lab model of atoms really. Do you know what i mean?

It is a centre ball with other balls out on sticks coming out like scary spice's hair! And some of the balls on the end have 20watt bulbs in them (12 of them) and some are just metal spheres.

Per light fitting - 12 x 20 watts is 140 watts of light (if you measure light output by watts). What i have at the moment is 5 x 60 watts = 300 watts. So its only half the output! (even though there are only 3 working and so i have been used to only 150 watts, it is a bit too dark in there really).

The guy in the shop today calculated that this new light fitting would be double the wattage - but he's got it the wrong way around, hasn't he? It would be half of what i have already. Oh dear! Silly man. I didn't notice because, as you well know reader, my ability to conceptualise anything in numbers and work with it is rather impaired. I'll phone up the shop tomorrow to see whether they do one with more light bulbs in it. I think there is one that is bigger - it has more balls on it. Obviously it will cost more. Hhhhhmmmmm, i did think they were a bargain price!

I noticed, as i walked down to the lighting shop, that my walk has altered a little. My shoulders were further back, i was more upright and my chest was sticking out forwards. In recent years my gait has become that recognisable with someone who is slightly depressed really, or perhaps someone who lacks confidence.

I always used to walk well. I decided to start doing it when i got to about age 19. As a child i had 'the low self esteem walk'. Looking down at the floor as i went along. Probably years of being pushed down and trodden on by mother. But as an adult, you see, i realised what I looked like and did something about it. In the recent years of my failures, frustrations and disappointments, through devastating betrayal followed by set-back after set-back, i think ever-so-slowly my walk has turned from a relaxed esteemed woman into that of a tense slouched woman that wishes she were invisible.

I'm glad that i am changing my walk again.
I'm going to change it more.
I want it back to how it was.

Day 21 of 183. 162 Days to go.

As i stepped on the scales, mid sentance, my counsellor said, "point seven".

I looked at her expectantly as she was writing down my weight, thinking to myself, "well, tell me then!". She reached for the tape measure (they measure after they weigh) and before she had a chance to wrap it around me i said, "what IS my weight?"

"Point seven" she said again, "I've got it down to point seven".

"It means nothing to me. What does it mean?"
"well, a kilo is 2.2 pounds so....here, here is a conversion chart".

As she thrust it onto my mitts i responded with, "Oh great you've done a photocopy for us all, thanks" and scanned my eyes over the tables of figures.

The tape measure went around me three times and it was all written down. I looked down at my tables of figures again.

"Oh, what do i actually weigh?" i said.
She pointed to the number that she had written on the page.
"Oh", i said, and looked more intensely at the tables of figures in the hope that a great mathematical ability would suddenly be endowed upon me.

Since i didn't move, she then went on, "See point seven. Thats about a pound"

Then she paused in a frozen half-crouch over her desk, as if not daring to let her eyes leave mine, and so not go back down to the paper that belonged to the pen in her hand.
I felt as though i was expected to say something, or at least have a reaction.

"Well, i havn't cheated" i said matter-of-factly, "I've read blogs, so i know what to expect". (i was thinking about when people had journaled the odd week of almost non-weight-loss even though they've done the program as usual - and for them there has usually been extra weight loss the following week and so it hasn't bothered people). "If it happens for three weeks on the row i wont be saying that though!" I swiftly added.

I did feel a little stunned as i took my seat in the group.

I noticed that one of the women looked a little different, her eyes were very red. Another woman was sitting very silently, not making eye contact and holding the booklet up to her face and covering her mouth with it.

It was all a little confusing. And i didn't dwell there. I had to write out on our list which packs i wanted for that week. So, taking my diary, with the prepared list of packs already done, i copied my request onto the list, and wrote out my cheque of £66.

We watched the DVD while the counsellor got all of our weeks supply of packs ready. Then we went forward with the counselling.

When it was my turn to speak i said that i had become aware during this session that i am dealing with two opposing forces.

One saying "GO ON! destroy yourself. It will be all right"
and the other one saying quite innocently, "Oh OK then! - and proceeding to go do just that.

Since i've been home i am sitting with this awareness of that. I know that its occupying my mind because i didnt really connect with the TV tonight.

Sleeping on things helps.
I trust my mind to keep working while i'm sleeping, and i will perhaps have more meaning to this, or will feel at ease and comfortable again.

so - blue box for my weight loss this week is coming right up. I am disapointed, but i am ok with it. I am trusting that this program DOES work and that next week the scales will show a loss of 3lb or more. I'll be very happy at that, as it will mean to me that i am still on track for losing good amounts of weight in the time allotted.

this weeks loss = 1lb.
Start Weight: 14 st 9
Weight today: 13 st 9

that is one stone in three weeks.
At this rate i will lose 3 stones in the 100 days of LL (14 weeks).
That is what i want.

20 / 183. 163 days to go.

Its July and the central heating is on. Am i cold, or is it cold? In Mikes blog (see early posts on here for link) he did talk about being really cold. Mind you, he was doing vlcd in October through April - No wonder he was cold. He had to buy 'special attire' if i remember

Today, not so good planning. I had my bar as soon asi woke up and came downstairs (i do love the nut one) then had 2 litres water and some tea and felt satisfied all day and therefore 'forgot' about food and eating. So, Tonight, by 6-30pm i was left with two shakes and a soup mix. I had one shake before my last client and then after i'd finished work at 8-30pm, i checked emails and i contemplated my 'lovely' evening meals ahead of me. I thought, "I'm never going to be able to have a shake and a soup and another two litres of water before i go to bed!!!"

Anyway, i just didn't fancy the shake in the evening. Its lovely to have those fun flavours during the afternoons while its suny and nice outside. But at night its not the same IHMO.

Then i remembered about 'cooking' the packs. I didn't want yet another mousse as i'd had that for a few nights in a row, so i thought about making the soup mix into 'crisps' and having tomorrows lunch soup today with it instead of the shake that i had prepared.

Looking up the recipe for 'cooking' the packs into crisps, etc - which is here...
http://mylighterlife.iblog.com/index.php?op=Default&postCategoryId=1608

I followed the instructions while i watched big brother, and, as i poured the water into the bowl with the mix, i felt that just couldn't wait to taste them. YUM.

But, oh dear, i had made the mixture far too sloppy and runny. Disaster! I decided to add some of the other soup mixture to the mix and that way i would end up with more crisps and less soup.

But disaster again!
In order to make the mix to the consistency shown in Mikes blog pics i had to add the whole of the second packet too. "Oh well, That's ok this time", i thought, "I'll have double quantity of crisps and no soup. C'est la Vie"

Mike states that one pack makes about 30 crisps.
"Mmmmmm", i thought, "I shall have a whole big bowl of them to crunch through while i watch the rest of tonights BB"

Onto the non-stick parchement paper they went and round and round they circled for one minute and twenty five seconds.

As i opened the microwave door i was surprised to see various blobs of mixture sitting there totally un-transformed in their innocent little blobs. Just as they were when they first went in. "Hmmm".

So, another minute - starting to crisp at the edges, "Goody".
Then another minute, the ones around the edge looking 'cooked' "great!"

As i took the plate out my excitement turned to faint horror as i literally scraped them off with a knife. And that was merely the ones around the edge. The others were still like that uncooked cake mixture that mother used to let me lick off the wooden spoon.

So, back inside they went. Round and round. More shenanegens on BB. Then the adverts. Scrape off the bits round the edge so its doesn't burn too much, then round and round again. Repeat.

By 9-30 pm (half an hour after i started) i decided to taste one. eugh. A floppy, semi soggy, but crisp blob of salty, savoury goo!

I persevered.

I never did get to eat 'a bowl of crisps'.
just nibbled on them after a while while the next round of 'cooking' was taking place.

The last few scrapings i did take through to the lounge to accompany me to the large TV which is all the better for seeing Nicky's Bagpuss facial expressions in detail. There was 10 minutes left of the show by then and i saw Aislene and Welsh Imogen making a new alliance together and Tourettes Pete finally telling biggest-breast-implants Lea to leave him alone and stop harrassing him about other women (hurrah, at last he's told her! She sure did have the well-anticipated strop and sulk about it though, in response! Not surprising that it took him to build up courage to confront her is it? In the end she was just feeling hurt, and Pete saw it and responded by taking her into his arms. He's a very loving man - he's been my fave from the start - i'm so glad it turns out that he is actually caring. I feel better about supporting him now that i know for sure, instead of just suspected that he was caring and decent person. Have you ever read a piece in parenthesis for this long before, reader? Just wondered).

I can say with much security that that meal was THE worst thing i have ever eaten in my life.

i must have done something so, so wrong, somewhere.
Or it could be that the microwave is just to ancient for this recipe. (The microwave is fitted in the kitchen and so 'came with' the house when i bought the house. I bought this house 13 and years ago! Who knows how old the Microwave is? But it cooks everything else alright).

I know now that i need to drink more water because i would hav ehad another litre or something in those two packs if i hadn't cooked them. So i am sipping away now.

I actually didn't like the idea of cooking the mixture when i did it. I saw it all crisp up and it worried me. Surely it is ruined (nutritionally speaking) by doing that?

Believe it or not, before i caught this star-vation train, i was very particular about eating good healthy food. I always have been. Usually had vegetables with two meals per day - good green ones - steamed. Only olive oil or other good oils - no tans-fats. Grilled or steamed Tuna steaks, or quorn or other fish baked/steamed or something. Don't buy and do not like convenience foods and foods that i call 'family foods' such as cheap frozen pizzas, oven chips, flavoured rice's ready meals, boxed fish-in-sauces, sandwhiches, crisps, salty snacks, or any other number of foods like that. Not even bread. I never eat bread in my usual daily meals.

They are not actually real food are they? They do not even resemble real food, to me. Yet i think that people can just get used to seeing them and forget what actual real food looks and tastes like.

I mean, c'mon, orange!!!! (like those thin horrid cheese and tomato pizzas). What real foods are orange? Except for oranges.

So i like healthy food, i eat healthy foods. Yet, "Houston, we hav ea problem".

The trouble is, you see, i'd go on like that, happily for days or weeks. Then (seemingly out of nowhere) I'd have a food binge.

And when i had a food binge i went for all foods that were the most damaging to my body. Like crisps (lethal, believe me) high fat cheeses, bread, butter (bread is a BIG binge food) horrid manufactured cakes full of colourings and additives, regular supermarket packets of biscuits (not nice home made ones or anything) and of course chocolate!

The chocolate i can understand. And i can forgive.
A lot of people are 'haunted' by chocolate and consciously have to control themselves and limit themselves to eating it in moderation (wheter they admit it or not - some people like to display their 'indifference' to it, in order to make others feel they are stupid or wrong, and some like to show off how they can resist it - i had a 'freind' once who invited me around for easter sunday lunch. After lunch she showed me the easter egg that she still had from the year before!!! It was one of those dream easter eggs, bought by only somebody that absolutely adores and worships you, that is in an enourmous see-through case with a massive yellow ribbon around it. The kind of easter egg that i have never had. We four adults ate the egg that afternoon as our dessert. My friend had another one delivered to her for that Easter day, which was then proudly placed on top of the living room cabinet where the aforementioned digested egg had been occupying its space for one year!)

Yes i believe, chocolate is a common fantasy, not discussed nesesarily, but there nontheless. Is it about gorging on chocolate without consequences? Think about some of the advertisements for chocolate - e.g. cadburys flake, galaxy etc.

But the other stuff that i used to binge on. Well, it distrubs me greatly.
Its not because i love those foods and cannot tolerate the deprivation. No, its really not that at all!
It is simply a matter of self harming.

Destroying my body with toxins and poisons.
Damaging my sense of self esteem (i will feel awful the next day, or when i finally stop the binge, and i know it)
Ruining my chances of sexual success (which hurts me financially because i get rewarded less [see earlier post]), and of emotional fulfillment (withdraw from romantic/sexual contact - end up alone and unloved)

What a mess.

You know, its funny.
Earlier this evening while watching BB i had an idea about what i might write my blog about. It was the ad-break and i got up to do someting. And then i just had a thought pop into my head. I can't recall now, how it got there. I think it was an image or an auditory memory that flashed through my head. And at that moment i 'said' "I'm not going to complain any more".

Well! immediately after that sentance formed, i had another 'thing' happen. Flashes of how i have been living my life went whizzing through at the speed of ... well, light? of sound? I don't know how fast, but very very fast.

And i realised at that moment that for quite a long time (i'm talkng about years) i have been complaining about my lot.

Feeling unhappy, miserable, worried and lonely. And very very annoyed because i am poor - well of course i am not poor compared to real poverty, i know that.

This wasn't meant to happen to me.
I'm not supposed to be this age and be living my life like this.
Its all gone wrong somewhere, you see.

So, are you up to speed yet? Getting where i'm coming from?

So i then immediately flashed up an image of my blog from yesterday, where i wrote about giving my table away. And asking, "What am i letting go of really?"

I think that this new decision to not complain any more, has something to do with that.

Perhaps i've finally accepted my situation.
Understood how i'm here and why.
Learned how to tolerate it.
Painstakingly discovered ways out.
And the final crucial piece, started to put that into practice and, for once....FOR ONCE...it is working.
SOMETHING IS WORKING.
There actually IS some light at the end of the tunnel.
And its shining this way.
Finally, finally.

When people have suffered a lot for a long time, you know, they adapt to that suffering, don't they? And so when pain relief comes, no matter how small, that person is mighty grateful. Immensely grateful for something that many years ago they wouldn't have perhaps even acknowledged as a good thing. Wouldn't have been thankful at all.

But when a person has nothing, anything found or given becomes a lot.

As well as objects and so on, i think that applies to 'hope' as well.

19 / 183. 164 days to go.

I still have 0.75 litre of water to drink for the day of my minimum 4 litres per day, so i can't go to bed yet! I have been out today and so i don't drink water when i'm out because of going to the loo. So i have a lot to catch up to ensure that i have all the water i need. I have checked my ketosis levels and i am still in ketosis, despite having two days of a glassful of water, followed by the other 3.5 litres in the evening and night time.

Last night i rented a movie to watch while i drank the last 2 litres of water. And, of course, the usual amount of loo trips ensued throughout the night.

I have decided to decorate my lounge next month. It has been planned for about a year, but taken me this long to save up. I'm not doing it myself, but rather will employ my local handyman for the job. He helps me with the garden from time to time and the maintainance of the house. Just the big jobs that i can't manage.

I will take up the stained carpet and sand and stain the floorboards (well, he will do that). He did it in the bathroom and actually I love it. It looks great, and is practical. For reasons i wont go into here i couldn't have tiles or anything like that up there without doing a lot of other work in addition to having new flooring.

So, stained floorboards is the way in the lounge, too. I'm lucky to have them, a lot of houses have a hardboard or MDF sheeting. My skirting boards are all stained and waxed, as are the original doors, so it should look nice.

Then on the walls, i am having the dark wallpaper overpainted. It is a flat paper, not embossed in any way. And because it is an old house, if i took this wallpaper off, i would have to line the walls anyway. Painting over the paper is ideal and saves money.

The ceiling is papered also (its a nice flat, smooth ceiling) and the paper on the ceiling is in good condition. A dry wipe down and it will be fine.

Then because i am changing the colour scheme, the curtains will have to go.

I shall keep my sofas and other furniture. So the new decor has to compliment that. The seating is a reasonably neutral colour, so thats good. Its a dark gold colour (sounds vile but it isnt).

Since a couple of days ago, i have noticed that any feelings of lethargy have gone. I am more energetic generally and i seem to be able to do and think more. I do feel that i am getting my life back already

So yesterday after i finished at the hairdressers, and then today as well, i went out looking at rugs and curtain fabric to see what kinds of colours are available and how i could make a colour scheme with them.

I have settled on a scheme of ivory or pale stone colour for the curtains and i will have the walls painted the same colour as those. Then the rug that i have chosen is a funky 'hairy' rug with strands of dark gold, black and off-white all mixed together to make it patterned, but not patterned, if you know what i mean. There is a wallpaper border above the picture rail which is dark gold and black, and i intend to keep that where it is and just paint the paper behind it. (should be tricky, but i'm hoping that low-tac masking tape will help)

My furniture is traditional, but updated traditional. It is very elegant looking, rather than old fashioned (but its still comfy). The room as it stands now is done in a traditional decorative style, but i want to make it modern. That room has been like that for about 10 or 11 years now (except the sofas which are not that old). And i am so fed up with the dark 'victorian' colours.

I'm bringing a piece of modern art from another room and hanging that in the newly decorated lounge. And the art (prints) that is there already is going into the hallway upstairs.

Also, i have decided to get rid of my dining table and four chairs. It is all set up nicely, but it makes the room look cluttered and old fashioned. It is the first piece of furniture that i ever invested in, many many years ago, and it has sentimental value.

However, if i get rid of it, i can push the chair back and rearrange the room (also getting another small cabinet out) so that it looks much more spacious. Additionally i'm thinning out the photographs and vases on display, to give it a much more streamlined look. I think that, as well as updating the look of the whole room, it will be much more relaxing without the clutter (think 'House Doctor'! )

So, back to my dining table and chairs. Well, at the time it was an awful lot of money for a young person to spend on a piece of furniture (I was about 19 or 20 when i purchased it). It still looks nice-ish as its not too stylised. But it is time for it to go. The memories and so on will still be there, and i just don't need the table because i have a dining kitchen with 4-6 chairs, that looks modern-ish and not too kitchen-ish. I always use that table when guests come around anyway!

Letting go of my table is something quite interesting. I wonder what else i am letting go of, symbolically.

Yes, i am letting go of my fat. True.
I'm letting go of my fat-making lifestyle.
I'm letting go of the past?
Is that it?

My relationship break-up happened five years, ago almost to the day. WOW is it that long already?

I was so hurt for at least 3 of those years. The last two years i know that i have found a lot of peace, and joy in my life. I do like being single. So much so that i worry about letting anybody else in to my life-space.

I just cannot imagine being comfortable with adjusting to living with another person again. I droop when i think about how many times i might have to inform the other of my plans and activities. And shudder at the thought of having to justify what i want to do, or even to explain what i have been doing. Especially when it might be "Not much in particular, just thinking, or being with the cats, or reading about life (on the internet)".

I live my life in a way that suits me nicely. I go by the 'seat of my pants' as far as enjoyment goes. Apart from work, which is obviously at specific pre-determined times, if i feel like watching TV, i do it. If i have a sense of restlessness I will go out for a drive, or call a friend. If I'm tired i nap. And if i'm awake i stay up.

And i get to watch WHATEVER i want on TV, WHENEVER i want.

A bit selfish?
Is that okay? To be selfish is OK? Or is it a sin.
I suspect it is the latter, and so for my own good, i know that i do need to find a partner again, sooner or later.

I'm not getting any younger, though. 41 already. Almost 42 by the time i've slimmed down.
And, oh my goodness, that dating thing! Gasp.
I don't want to even think about it.

Mind you, i have been musing about getting some cosmetic dental work done. When i have successfully finished this drastic diet plan, and begun eating again, it will be because i am at the weight that is right for me. So as a big treat to myself, and as a huge reward for achieving the weight loss, i would like to indulge myself. And if work continues to go well, as it is at the moment (crossed fingers) then i can afford to have whitened teeth and whatever else needs doing to give me a perfect smile.

That should help in the romance department!

Day 17 of 183. 166 Days to go.

I realised that i will have finished my 100 days by the first week in September 2006. LL ask you to commit to 100 days. They also say at the beginning, that you need to pay for the last week along with payment for your first week.

Does this mean that if i leave before the last week then i still have to pay for that last week? The LL counsellor and foodpack dealer said that paying for two weeks at the beginning is so that you don't leave after the first week because doing that would make her out of pocket.

She made no mention of whether leaving after the first four weeks, for example, means that you forfiet your extra £66. I know that one of our group did drop out. She attended the group meeting at week 2, however. But i do not know whether she took away another pack of foodpacks with her. She did stay until the end of the meeting, presumably to talk with the counsellor.

It is not clear to me whether the extra £66 i paid in week 1, is actualy payment for the last of the 14 weeks, or whether it is for payment in advance week by week.

There are a lot of things that i don't like about how this LL counsellor operates. Mainly about being selective with truthful information about what happens to us. I mean, aren't we the customer? It actually doesn't feel like that. It feels more like we are some kind of fools for being fat, and that she doesn't have to consider us as human beings equal to herself. I suspect that our counsellor is, in fact, a woman of good character, because she is already a counsellor (but there can be counsellors with attitude-superior too!). I have a hunch that the 'one-up, one-down' attitude probably runs through the corperation, just like the black strip of spine found in a cold cooked tiger prawn. Just perhaps?

I am now in the habit of taking my LL bag of foodpacks away from the group meetings and, once home, separating them out into 7 piles corresponding to the days on which i am going to consume them. Every day a bar, two shakes and a soup - each pile of different combinations of the variety of flavours that i have.

Then i place each pile into a large brown envelope with the day of the week written on top and then stand them back up in the LL bag.

This way i only have to take the envelope out of the bag every morning and place in in my kitchen drawer. And as the day goes on, i dont have to rummage through the weeks supply every time i want a meal.

I like this system. I don't have to worry about whether i've had two or three packs that day already, and then have to count them to be sure of how many i hav eleft to have that day. I don't need to be concerned that for the last 2 days of the week i shall be left with only chocolate shakes and vegetable soup for both days. Instead i am ensuring that i have a nice selection of flavours on each different day. It does give me something to look forward to.

The vegatable soup is about the worst of all of the flavours in my opinion. So, even though i am a vegetarian, i decided this week to risk having one 'Chicken' soup in my weeks supply along with my mushroom, and Thai Chilli soups and the dreaded vegetable. I suspected that the chicken soup didn't actually have any chicken in at all and i was right.

Here are the ingredients of the dry soup powder contained in one 34g pack of chicken soup sachet, that is taken as one meal.

skimmed milk powder
Maltodextrin
Soya Protein Isolate
Soya Flour
Milk protein
Soya Lecithin
Inulin
Flavouring
Hydrolysed wheat & maize protein
Potassium Chloride
Calcium Phosphate
Satiliser (Xanthan Gum)
Magnesium Oxide
Onion Powder
Calcium carbonate
Parsley (wow a real food!!!!)
Ascorbic Acid
Pepper
Ferrous fumarate
Nicotinamide
Copper gluconate
Zinc Oxide
Vitamin E Acetate
Manganese sulphate
Calcium d pantothenate
Pyridoxine
Vitamin A acetate
Sodium molybdate
Chromic chloride
Folic acid
sodium selenite
Potassium iodate
d-biotin
Vitamin K
Vitamin D3
Vitamin B 12

WOW!

Tonight while watching Big Brother i made up a mousse from my chocolate shake mix - it was absolutely wonderful.
Oh my goodness, to have something to actually eat was marvellous.

I had tried it a couple of times before and it had just turned into a sloppy thick milkshake with 'marshmallow' lumps inside. (the gelatin that had not mixed properly.

Now, thoug, i have mastered how to make the perfect mousse. Its all due to Mikes recipe page which you can find by clicking the link in the blue box below.

Perfect Mousse and other recipes - http://mylighterlife.iblog.com/index.php?op=Default&postCategoryId=1608

My mousse came out perfectly because i did it exactly to Mikes instructions. In my freezer it took 30 mins for the water to have icy bits on top. I haven't got a hand blender yet, so i popped it into the regular blender and then poured it back into the cold glass that the water came from. After mixing it up i then only needed to pop it in the freezer for 5 minutes exactly. (If you do this remember not to hav ethe mixture mixed up for more than 10 mins before you start to eat it, because all the vitamins etc go after 15 mins)

Wow - i was in absolute raptures while spooning it into my mouth and having it melt on my tongue. It was sooooooooooooo yummy

In order to be able to make the mousse you need to buy a carton of mix-a-mousse from Cambridge Diet. (LL don't sell them).

Perhaps at some point i will attempt the muffin and the crisps, too.

This morning i went out for an hour long walk with my friend, around the lakes nearby. We met at 9-30 am, because i knew that by going out early i could go out without having drunk any water at all that day. The previous day and nights water would hav ecome out during that day and overnight (yes, i am still going to the loo about 10 -15 times per night!!!!) and i wouldn't hav eto worry about the mornings water coming out while we were half way around the lake.

My strategy did work (hurrah!).
There are some public loos half way around one of the lakes and i made it to there quite comfortably, without my friend thinking i was strange for needing to urinate a lot. (She doesn't yet know i am doing this diet - i guess i will have to tell her next time we meet, because she'll guess - sha also knows 'Big Woman').

Apart from being relieved about that, i was also pleased to discover that i managed the walk ok.

For the last couple of days or so i have felt very weak. But actually i can probably start exercising now. I have a selection of work-out videos and DVD's here at home. I shall pick out a couple of easy lightweight ones and have a go.

I don't think it will prevent my skin going baggy though, will it reader? But it may help with toning up the muscles to give a firmer appearance generally.

I have even begun to reserch gyms and health clubs in my area ready for when i am a reasonable size. I used to enjoy weight trainng, and dance classes. Now i can see myself doing that again. Sometime very soon too!

I have felt quite low today.
I enjoyed my walk, and then came home and enjoyed an LL nut bar. ut this afternoon i felt weak and tired and yet restless. Eventually i curled up on the sofa with willing cat for an hour or so, and slept.

It could be tiredness from constantly having disturbed sleep night after night (loo trips).
Or it could be time-of-the-month tiredness.
I don't know.

I do know that i have only been drinking 4 litres of water per day for the last few days. I just can't face having 6 litres. i can't have too much during the day because its better to be with my clients than getting a day-pas to the loo.

so i manage 1.5 or 2 litres throughout the day, and then the remainder has to be taken after 9pm. The thought of having a further 4.5 litres after 9pm is overwhelming. So a further 2 to 2.5 litres goes down after 9pm. Even then, it is 10 - 15 trips to the loo during the night.

Tommorrow I am at the hairdressers for a very long time. I'll be getting my blonde hair re-blonded! Of course it is a morning appointment so that i can go there without first having drunk water.

So this does mean that i can go through meetings and go out to meetings and places without loo-panics. However, last night as i was in bed watching the highlights of the Edinburgh Marathon 2006, i did feel concerned because i did have some mild dehydration symptoms.

So i sipped water as i watched the program. Then the narrator said that during a marathon in hot weather it is absolutely vital that the runners get their water intake just right.

He said, "By the time you feel thirsty - its too late".
I was lying in bed and i was thirsty.
Then i dropped off to sleep.

16 of 183. 167 days to go.

Whats in the news lately?
Well, England are still in the world cup, Angelina Jolie had her baby in Namibia, Nicole Kidman is getting married this weekend.
Also, Paul McCartney has turned 64, and in response to the question, "Will you still love me when i'm 64?" the press seem to be having a sneaky little smirk at the fact that, since he and Heather Mills are divorcing, the answer is probably, "No". Or at least not how he imagined it to be at 64.

Today it is Ladies Day at Ascot. Last year the racing was at York because Ascot was being refurbished. I watched GMTV and Lorraine Kelly this morning, and i think i've seen enough hats for the year, now.

Ladies Day, well, sure its all fun, its all frivolous. Its all about dressing up and feeling glamorous, sexy and stunning. You can't do that when you're obese so theres no point going to events such as that one. I mean, how many women actually go to Ladies Day because they love horse racing? Do they go to the tracks during May, during September? I think not. Its the event isn't it? And to take part you have to look the part.

Still, it wont be long, at this rate, before I am able to glean some enjoyment from going out somewhere dressed up and feeling nice because i think that i look attractive. Nay, i may never be a size 10 again (dont want loose skin), but i look pretty good at a size 12 - or would look ok-ish at a 14.
Not long to go for that.

I had a few hours this afternoon when i needed to get out to the bank, and get a couple of other things done. I decided to get some ham for my cats (they love cooked ham and beef - but not all of the time!). They are fed up with tuna, and i can't see me going to a supermarket for myself any time soon. I love my cats - it was worth a special trip.

Going into a supermarket was bizarre. Its like i realised that the real world still existed. People were pushing their trolleys about and gazing at the food, just like they always do. And inside i was saying to them "I'm not doing it - I'm not doing eating!".

There was something in my internal voice that sounded quite distressed. But i have to silence that part, somehow, or ignore it anyway. I'll soon be back. I shall soon be feeling food in my mouth. And doing normal things. Like eating.

I browsed around the clothing section, as i usually do when i go in to Asda (I always have a look, if not a buy). And it was weird. I found myself looking at the items in a different way.

No longer was i first checking that the item would actually fit me before i decided whether or not i liked it. No longer was i imagining how comfortable it would or wouldn't be to wear. No, I was looking at the items of clothing and appreciating their beauty and thinking, "would i wear this when i'm thin again? No. Oh well then, would i wear this? OOoooooh yeah!" And so on.

I guess its because i really believe - no i actually know - that i will become smaller and fit into nice clothes again in a size 12 or 14.
Fascinating!

I even wandered around a different shop - a small boutique selling jewellery and arty ornaments, etc. And i imagined myself with the jewellery around my neck, feeling my old self again.

I always used to dress nicely before. I think that stopped after i got beyond a size 14. It became more and more difficult to look decently attractive and presentable and then eventually, as i got bigger and into size 16's, then 18's and even once a size 20, attempting to look glamorous, or well groomed, or attractive was a waste of time. So i just got plain, comfortable and respectable clothes, in black or white.

I wish that i hadn't got this big.
I wish that someone would have told me about Lighterlife, and Cambridge diet before i got like this.
I could have done the cambridge diet because it is not exclusively a medical program - unlike LighterLife.

For LighterLife one needs a BMI of 29 or over.
For Cambridge Diet there are various ways of using the packs to make different diet plans. I've seen it all on their website and i feel a little overwhelmed by all of the information. I have read it, understand it (its straight forward) but i cannot remember it.

I did know about the cambridge diet, though.
I had been a selling agent for them in my early 20's.
Why didn't i remember it when i needed it?
Why didnt i just look it up on the internet or something?
WHY DIDNT I DO THAT?

i thought it wasn't still around - because i knew about everything, and had tried everything, but i never heard of or saw cambridge diet anywhere.

I know that i thought 'Slim fast' was the same thing - and it definately isnt.
I always have slim fast in the house.
Everytime a diet failed, whether it be healthy eating and exercise, weight watchers, Rosemary Conley, Atkins diet, Fasting and Detox holidays (three times!), Cabbage Soup diet, etc, etc, i would always binge out after the failure and vow to go on slimfast for weeks on end.

Of course, after a few days, or sometimes only one day, other times not even a whole day - i gave in. I just couldn't hav e3 slimfast shakes per day and nothing else.

Now i know why. They are carbohydrate, Cambridge and LighterLife are low carb.
With CD and LL one goes into Ketosis. The real ketosis - not the stuff that Atkins talks about.

And the fat just literlly burns away.

Why didnt i know this before?
Why did i spend the last 4 years in agony - dieting and failing, dieting and failing.

That did my self esteem no good at all, i can tell you. I just kept thinking that i was rubbish.

In actual fact, even though i hav espent years studying diets, i actually didnt know enough. I thought i did. I thought that i knew eveything about weightloss and diets.

I did not.

What i know now i shall never ever forget about.
I am NEVER going to suffer in the same way again. That agony of failure after failure is just a big black pit.

Now i know about ketosis and how to do it (i never actually got into ketosis with the Atkins diet) Unless 'they' do something such as ban or discontinue the diet formula packs - then i know that I will never suffer like that again because i will take the effective action to lose weight - the only thing that works.

Day 14 of 183 days. 169 days to go.

Went to the LL group today and my weight loss was another 5lbs. Thats nice.
I asked the counsellor whether she would keep a weights convertor next to the scales, because every one of us just goes blank when she says our weight in kilo's.
with me i noticed last week that she was really expecting a gasp of surprise or delight. But the reading was meaningless, because its in a format i am not familiar with.

So, anyway, she produced a conversion chart in table format. Looking down it, i saw that my original weight was actually 14 stone 9lbs, not 14st 7lbs as she had told me.
So i did actually lose 7lbs last week (if you remember i thought it was only 5 after all) as i got down to 14st 1lb.

Today i am 13st 10lbs.

start weight: 14 st 9 lb
after week one of LL diet: 14 st 1lb - loss of 7lbs
after week two of LL diet: 13st 10lb. - loss of 5lbs.

As we turned up for the group meeting there were two new members again. (so much for the closed group, eh readers). Counsellor announced that this is the last week that anyone else will join the group because it is a closed group, and that now we will do some 'work' (i presumed that she meant therapy).

I perked up a bit at this statement.
during the day today i have been thinking of how many weeks i am going to bear it and keep going along before i switch to Cambridge Diet.

Cambridge Diet is cheaper (half of the price at £35-ish)
But wuth LighterLife, i thought that i would be doing therapy to resolve my eating behaviours. If the 'therapy' would have gone on the way that it had been going, i knew that it was a waste of my time and of my money. The groups had been chaotic, disorganised in dynamics and centred around getting everybodys foodpacks sorted out and taking payment. Well, i'd rather pay half price if i am going along just for that - and the cambridge diet counsellor wouldn't keep me there for 2 hours either!

However i am concerned about switching over to Cambridge because i think we can only have three packs per day, instead of 4. And those packs do not include the chocolate bars.

It is only because of having a bar a day that i am able to manage this. The soup meal in the evening helps also, but because it is a nic eevening event to sit and partake of. If the packs were all soup and shakes then soup wouldnt be a treat.

Additionally, someone told me that when you switch to the Cambridge Diet from Lighterlife, you do not lose any weight for that week.

I wonder, then, whether the Cambridge Diet is just a vlcd and you ose weight by starvation, rather than by ones body going into fat-burning mode of ketosis.

And another thing is that on the Cambrbidge Diet, there are loads of different stages of the diet, and most of them include real food. Even the food abstinence plan includes an Add-a-meal week. And i wonder whether i can manage that at this time, and whether i'd stop losing weight.

I do not want to take any risks that may jeapodise my weight loss. I know that this is about much more than losing the weight, but at this early stage, its essential that i do focus on weight loss because of the health risks and psychological damage related to being an obese person.

Even though the counselling group was useful tonight, i have come away from there extremely distressed at a level far beneath the surface.

I know this to be true because as i walked in the house i ate a bar and mixed a shake. And i was furious as i was eating them. And all night through Big Brother programs i hav ebeen hungry and craving and having urges to go and put something into my mouth - anything - just any kind of food. Ive had to really distract myself from that.

At the moment i have a hunch that what is going on is the way that the LighterLife Counsellor relates to me. I have a sense of her despising me sometimes, being scared of me other times, and wishing to harm me or humiliate me most of the time.

I do not believe that this is a crazy fantasy. I see it as this is what is happening between us at a covert level and i am feeling intense feelings about it as though it was on the overt level.

I know it is there but i do not know what it is about (i.e. what significance it has for my issues and the key to resolving them).

I know that therapists do hav elikes and dislikes of clients, and because they are human, they can have strong responses to people who are their clients. But the therapist has a job to do. And part of that job is to NOT act on those feelings.

I don't feel that i can trust her because of this.

I can take care of myself quite well, these days. I've had a lot of therapy and i treat myself well and look after me. And i can handle others too, without things exploding into a conflict situation.

So, the counsellor need not worry that i am going to attempt to hurt her, or to hurt myself (except by going home and eating!). She can relax.

I spent some time subtly putting her at ease covertly during our group meeting. Now as i say that out loud i feel repulsed and nauseaus.

I'm not doing that any more.

Day thirteen of one hundred and eighty three days.
One hundred and seventy days to go.

I have fallen into a semi routine regarding taking the foodpacks.

The bar often gets eaten first or second. I do love something to chew for breakfast or brunch.
I order 4 nut bars and 3 toffe bars per week and i eat them on alternate days. So one day i get crunchy and the other day i get gloopy with choc coating.

Then for dinner (usually while watching Big Brother) I have soup. I make it up with 2.5 times the recommended water - still boiling from the kettle and i have it in a large soup bowl with a soupspoon, both of which are from my dinner service. ( I use my best dinner service for dinner and the usual plates etc for other meals).

That leaves me with two shakes to take throughout the day.
The times that i have those shakes does depend on what my schedule has been that day, because each of the 7 days of my week is a different schedule. So, it depends mostly on when i have had chance to drink water. I tend to separate the drinking of the large mass of water from taking the foodpacks (inc liquid ones). I've always been the same - when i was eating i would never drink at the table or with a meal. Never. I have a drink afterwards or before, but i dont like to eat and drink at the same time, i find it revolting and it puts me off my food.

Sometimes I have a shake for breakfast. I now have a way that i like to take them. I add 1.75 tall glasses of cold water to the blender, along with the packet mix. Then whiz it up in the blender for a bit. Then i add a heaped teaspoon of psyllium and give a very quick whizz again.

Psyillium is a finely ground lightweight substance and it is pure fibre. I am finding it absolutely essential on this regime. I went on a detox vacation or two, or three, and they used it there. Psyllium is fantastic. If you are eating food you can add a couple of spoons to breakfast museli and not notice it one iota.

Psyllium looks a little like sawdust. When added to water it swells fairly quickly to about 5 times its size, and soaks up all of the water but does not go solid. If you manage to drink it quickly it is much better because the more liquid-like the better. Trying to drink it after a while is disgusting. Its like throwing frog-spawn down ones throat.

So i take the shake with psyllium quikly from the blender and pour it evenly between the two long glasses. I drink the first glass and then the psyllium is beginning to swell. So i then pour what is in the other glass into the first glass and back again to mix it up and then drink it fairly quickly.

It is only then that i turn to rinse out the blender and its lid.

In the evening, after my soup, i generally watch Russel Brand and audience commenting on Big Brother contestants while i sip water with the special water flavourings in.

They are actually very sweet. And i like to make a tall glass of water (sometimes sparkling, soemtimes not) and add a teaspoon of the flavouring. At this concentration it is almost like eating sweets.

Apparently it has a laxative effect, which i have noticed a little. But what concerns me more is the aspartame, and other chemical ingredients. LL say we can have as much of the water flavourings as we like, yet i can't see this being useful. They say have 4 litres water per day as minimum, not including the water used to mix the drinks with, or any used to make tea. So why is it ok to count water mixed with all of those chemicals as pure H2O. It can't possibly be.

I do look forward to my 'sweets' in the evening though, or occasionally on a sunday afternoon. And i cannot imagine the boredom of doing the diet without them. From LL they are not included in the £66 per week program. Each tub costs £9. I used a whole tub this week. The Cambridge Diet sell water flavours for £6. I bought two of those and i have just tried them both. They taste exactly the same.

Tomorrow is weigh in day. I think that i may have lost another 5lbs this week. I havent weighed myself, but i know by my body and clothes. I hope that it isn't less than that.

Remember 'Big Woman' from my early pre-diet-start posts? She has lost 2 stones in six weeks. I can't wait to see her. I can't imagine what she looks like. We're going out together for a healthy salad when all of this is done. That sounds lovely.

Day 12 of 183 days. 172 Days to go.

One hundred and seventy two days sounds a lot, doesn't it reader?

I went out to get more paint and canvas today, and en route i called at my friends house (the health spa couple from an earlier blog entry).

We were discussing losing weight (surprise!) and my friend mentioned about her fear of having loose skin left over after weight-loss at our age.

In february they both (the couple) decided to lose weight. ANd so they stuck to three small meals per day with nothing else at all except for a couple of glasses of wine per week.

Neither of them swayed from this rule and as a result he has lost 2 stones and she has lost about 20 pounds. They just had ordinary young-family-style food, like frozen pizza with salad, spagetti bolognaise, lasagne, etc. But they kept the portions of the fatty stuff reasonably sized (e.g. they'd have a flat 9 inch pizza between them).

I thought that my friend was happy with her weight now, but it seems that she still feels a little overweight and would like to lose the excess. (she wants to get to what she was before they were married, currently she is at the weight that she was when they married due to the sucess of their diet aforementioned).

The weight has just crept on for both of them over time with being at home a lot and becoming less active because of rearing young ones.

Neither of them are binge eaters, or overeaters particularly. They do not buy sweets for themselves or for the children. They are not the kind of people that would feel excited by buying chocolate to watch with a movie, even. They do not enjoy takeaway foods, nor fast foods (except Macdonalds for the little boy). In their everyday eating behaviours, over the years, they do not have desserts and they do not buy cakes or biscuits.

So, my friend has done well on her diet and lost weight and now wants to lose more weight. She has not done so because she fears getting baggy skin.

I think i read somewhere that for each stone of weight you lose, it takes a year for the skin to recover (and shrink?). I can't imagine this to be true, because i thought that skin didn't shrink. Does it? Does it shrink or is it that once you grow the skin it never 'ungrows' itself?
If anyboday knows the answer to this, please let me know.

Given the above assumption, i realise now that i may never be able to recapture my size 8 days. In those days i was 7 stones 8 to 7 stones 10. Sometimes as heavy as 8 stone, depending on the brand of clothing.

Well, currently i am 14 stones (i was 14st 7lbs, but have lost seven remember).
If i lose 6 stones from start weight i will weigh 8 stones 7lbs. And i thought that i'd be doing that in 6 months - or 183 days.

But surely losing six stone in as many months is fast weight loss, and will result in the skin that encased my fat, being emptied of its cargo and left to droop?
My arms, for instance, and belly, and legs (esp inner thighs and around the knees).

I think that i have two choices here.
Either
1) i stop the diet earlier than 6 months.
2) I slow the weight loss down.

At this moment in time i am thinking that i will slow the weight loss down. And i will begin doing this after i lose another 2 stones. At 2 stone lighter i will be 12 stone (2 and a half stone lighter from start weight) and my BMI will be 28.

A BMI (body Mass Index) of 30 is clinically obese (what the doctors classify as obese).
A BMI of 29 is what a person needs to have to meet the criterior for Lighterlife.

My BMI was 33.8 at the start (14 stones 7).

A BMI of 25 is considered to be not overweight. To be BMI 25 ii would have to be 10 stones 10.

At 12 stone i am going to start to feel a lot better.
At 11 stones i know i can get into a size 14.
At 10 stones I will be a large size 12 to a small size 14.

I might stick at this for a few weeks to see what happens.

Its very early days yet.
I do not really know what will happen.
I know only this:
I am not eating food and i am OK with it.
i am losing weight rapidly (i can tell with my work trousers)
There is a danger that i could go on losing weight, relatively painlessly and very easily by theis vlcd method, and that i may go whizzing the pounds off and not realise what my body is starting to look and feel like.

I dont want that to happen.
I want to remain in touch with my body.
I want to assess the results in a length of time that is long enough to appreciate them and to account for the impact.

On the other hand - I did swear that i would not eat. Not break the diet until i had lost all of the weight that i wanted to lose (back to my size 8-10's)

I may have to give up that dream.
I might have to accept that, believing that i can regain the looks that i had during my 30's, may actually be a delusion.

i do not know what my end weight will be.
I do not know how many days i shall be on this diet.

I will keep in touch with my body.
And i will let you know, as i myself begin to know.

Day 11 of 183. 172 days to go.

Sorry i didn't write yesterday, reader. I spent the day doing my new hobby, painting. I bought stretched canvas and acrylic paints and decided to have a go.

Today I have added more to it, and as i look at it now, i am unsure whether to continue painting more onto it or whether to leave it as it is. Sometimes a painting can be overworked, can it not? Being new to the hobby, I don't really know what this means. Overworked. How can one tell whether something is overworked? Does that mean that it was already described by the paint, but overworking means that it has been stressed or emphasised too much in parts to be convincing, or too much to be subtle, or pleasing on the eye, etc.

If so, then i guess my paintings err on the side of being overworked.

I was just musing that concept, and i shall share will you my part-formed thoughts regarding applying it to the fat situation.

Do i not err on the side of too much where food is concerned, too? Would it take a person of great discipline to restrain from loading more paint onto the canvas, as it does with the fork to the mouth?

Might art critics see overworked paintings as vulgar, disgusting and repulsive, just as the twenty-something nightclubber sees obese people?

Why do some paint delicately and in a subdued manner, and others boldly and brightly? Same reason that some of us delicately nibble away politely and in a refined manner, and others gorge and mash and grind?

I've painted a still life today of handbag and shoes. My eyes are tired and i have a funny faint twitch in my leg and foot thats been periodically vibrating away for a couple of days. I think its sitting on a hard chair for hours, and trapping a nerve. I never did that when i was thin.

I'm off to watch Big Brother now. My goodness, yesterday, Grace really did disgrace herself. That girl must have been on her very best tightly controlled behaviour the whole time she had been in the house, because once she knew that her eviction was certain her awful, nasty, viscious behaviour came out in full force.

Day 9 of 183. 174 days to go.

I love that advert with Gordon Ramsey taking a baseball bat to the gateaux, jelly and hot dog, etc. At the moment, I too, feel like giving fattening foods such as those a real physical bashing with all of my might. All of those dreadful substances that i have gorged into my over-stuffed body. They're revolting. I hate them. And i want to beat their brains out. And smash their gaudy, grossly over-sized forms into smithereens.

I seethe with loathing. I am so angry with them for getting inside of me and destroying me. They, those cakes, crisps, breads and cheeses plant themselves in my cells and reprogram my body to turn into a different animal. An animal that becomes weakened and knows that it cannot live without them. Craves them. Has urges day and night to find them and stuff more of them into itself. Until the animals cells become over populated. And then all of the usual problems of overpopulations, such as overcrowding, lack of air, pollution, stress, apathy, rebellion, disobedience and violence are there to be dealt with.

The animal has been invaded.

The population never stops multiplying and instead grows and grows and grows. And the problems increase two-fold, three-fold, ten-fold, then eighty-fold. And so on. Commotions, Disagreements, Riots.

The animal doesn't withdraw, or become suppressed. No, the animal metamorphosises. It becomes like one of them, with the same urge to invade. It recognises its kin on the shelves of the supermarkets, petrol stations, and corner shops.

Their eyes meet and lock. They know that they have to be together. The animal obligingly stuffs them into itself. And each time that it does this, it is changed more and more.

The change goes on and on. Until eventually it is more of the population, than it is of animal. There is no hope. Fuilte attempts at regaining the territory have always resulted in severe screaming & verbal lashings, with back-handers, and other humiliations to the animal. Followed by a force of one-hundred-fold of further forced consumption - even long after everything has well settled down. There is no getting away.

Not only can the battle not be won, but the chance of victory in the war is none. The animal cannot win. There is no way of winning. It is powerless. And learns the art of conceeding. Inevitably, then, the two must learn to live together. Animal must learn to appease them. Must placate them. Must accomodate them. And say goodbye to personal hopes. By the time of the goodbye, those hopes have faded and wilted anyway and they disintigrate easily.

Every so often a foreign ship passes by. It glitters and shines. It always promises to uproot the alien populations and take them away on it's ship. Animal is pleased to see the ship and allows it to dock. In fact, animal gladly starts rounding them up, and even sometimes gets to help load the unwanted cargo onto the vessel of promise.

Time after time, the foreign ships fail. Perhaps they run out of fuel, or the vessel isn't big enough for the size of the cargo, or they are understaffed and can't cope with the brute force of that strong population. Sometimes the ship just becomes disinterested or distracted from the task, and sails off somewhere else, without even flinching over the broken promise and shattered dream.

Animal often sinks at this point. And usually, from a position of hoplessness, lets on board more of its invaders. In celebration of this new influx, the invaders may party all day. Sometimes for several days. There have been times when the parties have gone on for weeks.

Meanwhile, animal is dying.

Animal has used up all of its distress flares. They were sent out long ago, all one-hundred-thousand of them. Wastefully aimed at apathetic recipients who's eyes could no more see than Nelsons at Trafalgar.

Animal just has a weak alarm bell nowerdays, and a pale light that might flash, during invasions. The surrounding eyes and ears see, and hear, but curiously, they do not respond. Animals alarm carries on bleating regardless, like a field full of far-away sheep. And the flashing lights get seen as just a regular part of the animal, to each non-responder.

And another part of animal is dead.

8/183. 175 days to go.

Today was difficult.
I woke up, still angry from yesterday (i still dont really know what about). I was also still extremely tired.

I decided to have my bar early that day. Nothing wrong with that? Well, no, in theory...no. However, i knew something was wrong. I 'heard' myself saying inside my head (and i use the word 'heard' loosly) "I'm gonna have that bar! I'm gonna have that bar!". It was of the same tone that an indignant child might use when they've been told by mother that they can't touch the party food until all of the guests are arrived and they say, "I'm going to poke my finger into the top of that cake (and thereby spoil its appearance)"

Anyway, i had the bar. Usually i love them, and savour my only eating-and-chewing moment of the day. This morning, however, i went through the motions. Previously i have found the toffe bars hard going, they are rather big and a sort of gloopy texture - its hard to get thought them. Yet today i finished it before i knew it.

After i had eaten it, and i mean immediately after the last chewing motion, i thought that i was going to go and get something else to eat. Not food, surprisingly, but another bar. I visualised myself going into my Lighterlife bag and getting another bar and eatng it. I imagined the peanut taste and the crunchy texture. I felt as though i was doing it. Eating it. I knew that i was going to go and do it.

i managed to stop myself. I don't know how. In hindsight i probably told myself, "You're not having it" or some such thing.

I was working at home today, and i had a meeting at 9 oclock. After the meeting i knew that i had another meeting at 11:30. So in-between the meetings i had a gap of 1 hour and 15 minutes. Guess what? Yes i did eat the bar.

Bizarrely i went to the cupboard in a marching fashion, as soon as i let the person out of my house. Taking the bar out of the bag, i felt very smug, very in control "I'll show YOU who's in charge!"

Marching into the front room i peeled off the wrapper as i went and took a bite en route. "There", i thought, "I've done it now!"

I imagined that by the time i got to the sofa that I'd feel guilty eating it. I didn't. I turned on the TV and ate the bar.

Half way through something happened. I can't get a grasp on what it was that happened, but i did want to stop eating the bar. My thought was, "You can't stop" (how strange to think that!) So i carried on eating a couple more nibbles. Half of it had now gone into my mouth and i pulled the wrapper back over it and lay it on the table thinking, "oh dear".

After watching TV for a few minutes I once again reached over and finished off the bar.

When you blow a diet, you have to learn to draw a line under it if you are to survive and continue. I told myself it will just have to be ok and i'll have to have a day with no bar now, in order to make it up. "that's the way it is and that's how its gonna have to be", I thought. And in response, "That's OK, I can do that".

All was still well in the Lighterlife house.

My second meeting came and went. The meeting was not good. On reflection i was too tired, and i did not back down on a point, and i think thats my part in why the meeting failed. I went back to my front room feeling bad about it, but ok.

I had time for a sleep before my afternoon meeting. Before i did that i got up and had an LL chocolate shake and added some fibre flakes to it so that it had some substance and was not just water. At last my stomach was feeling full. Such a nice feeling. Immediately i started to feel much better.

I did nap.
Then had my afternoon meeting.
Then had a cup of tea.

The caffiene did stir me into wakefulness, thankfully. I phoned my brother and we had a lovely chat. Talking about things and feelings and so on. We don't do that too often (talk like that, i mean, but we do talk often). He was very supportive and i was moved. I cried a little.

After our long phone conversation i noticed that i felt well, and optimistic again. I did some cleaning and then worked through the afternoon and evening. All evening i have been hungry. It has been extremely difficult to abstain from food. During that time i have also had a raspberry shake and, later, a vegetable soup. And i still feel hungy. I feel hungry now.

Also i couldn't face as much water, today. I've had 4.5 litres, that's all. Yesterday i bought water flavouring from the LL counsellor and WOW. When i've tasted it tonight it has really lit up my world. I now hav eenough zing to blog this page. I was going straight to bed, I'd had it with blogging today. But the 2 glasses of flavoured water has brought me back to life. It is so sweet and fruity. And it tastes quite similar to actual fruit. Whereas the bars, shakes and soups all have flvours, but the don't really tase like food. They just taste of the chemical foodpacks that they are. They are just packs of nutrition disguised as food. Whereas the water is similar to fruit. Halleluah! I love fruit. Oh, if only they could invent a Chargrilled Tuna fish with salad bar, we'd be laughing.

Read me tomorrow.

Today i feel very tired so this is a short blog. I've been going to the loo in the night ten times per night since i started this diet. I am getting more and more tired.
I'll work it out.

Today was the weigh-in.
i got on the scales and i've lost 7lbs - well, i think so anyway - the counsellor tells me in kilos because that is what type of scales they are.
Actually i've just looked on an internet converter and i have actualy lost only 5lbs. Things are worse than i thought.
5lbs for all of that suffering!

i guess that binge eating for two weeks constantly while waiting to start the diet has now cost me dear.
Not only have i gained 10lbs from doing it, but also i have probably reduced my first couple of weeks weight loss on this diet by 6 lbs for the two weeks.

Gaining over one stone of weight (including counting non-losses)because of a two week eating binge. Its terrifying.

Its not really news to me, though. I have known for a long-long time that if left to it, i would eat and eat and eat and just destroy myself.
I've never destroyed myself actually (I'm still here ) But i have had a jolly good go at it. And this time, during the last 7 years, i have almost suceeded.

It doesn't make sense.
Addictions never do. They defy logic.
(I'm using the addiction model to frame this because its helping me at the moment).
I came home from the group tonight feeling bad. I'm tired and someone in the group is quite demanding (look at me...look at me and i really just want to listen to the counsellor).
I still had 2 food packs to consume.
I was looking forward, very much, to eating a bar. So i settled in at home and ate the bar. I didn't find it enjoyable as i was eating it (i've just realised that NOW, at the time of eating i thought that i was enjoying it...hmmmm).
Anyway after i had finished it i had that familiar sensation that i guess all compulsive eaters must get...that urge to go get something else and carry on eating.

Now if that is not an addiction to the actual process of eating, i don't know what is!

Was i just hungry (for i am hungry now - very hungry). I havent been hungry for two days - why now?
If i'd gone to get something else i would have then got somethig else after that...and then something else....and something else.....etc. Thats what I call an impulsive binge (the other type is planned and i know that i am going to do it and the food is nice, not just anything i can get to hand in the moment).

I stopped myself from eating, however. I drank 2 litres of water.
I was still hungry.
I had a soup pack.
then drunk another litree of water. (I've had about 5 litres or maybe 6 altogether today).

I'm still hungry.
My stomach is rumbling.

I'm going to bed now. Good night.

The news is dominated by reports of events that trail back to the incidents of 9/11
Here in the UK, Blair is still getting blasted for the 'intelligence' not being that intelligent. And the satirists take the slant that his 'reign' is over.

I feel the same way about my fat. It's reign over me is over. Hah, the vlcd is like 'Domestos'. "See ya, fat. You're a Gonner" (waves goodbye).

I was thinking today about how i said to you yesterday, reader, that i was using this time on the vlcd to, not only lose weight fast and successfully, but to also change my eating-habit-behaviours.

I imagined the time when i reach the end of my weight loss phase, i.e when I get as thin as i want to be (for i am not stopping this journey until then) and i thought, hmm, yeah there i am, some time in the not-too-far-future and look at me. [i was seeing this in my minds eye]. Seing her (the future me) i can see that I'm looking how i want to be. I have my life back. I almost, have my identity back (hmm i will think on this point further and blog it another time).

Yet have i sorted everything out?
Does that 'future me' know some things that i don't know? Some things that will keep her at the weight that she currently stands at?
These are the questions i asked, reader.
And i was dismayed to realise that, while she has learned some things , some very good things, she hasn't 'cracked it'. She isn't standing there calm and relaxed and confident, in the absolute certain knowledge that she won't do this to herself again. And that the issues hav ebeen resolved.

She does know how to get weight off efficiently, now though, so that knowledge was keeping her 'safe'. As i realised that about her, very quickly some things flashed before my eyes - being 12-20lbs overweight (over the ideal) and buying the vlcd on ebay and spending a month or six weeks on the diet getting it off. I even visualised another future me at the keyboard buying the stuff.

I recoiled in horror. NO! No, that's not what its about. It's not what its about, at all.

All of my life i have been concerned with fat and weight and getting it off. All of my life. I have never ever been big, though, like i am big now. Its only the last seven years of extreme diffculty, in majorly challenging circumstances, coupled with living alone and (for reasons that i wont go into here just now,) having no social support, that i have put weight on and become one of those fatties that you see in the street (size 18 and average height).

Good grief, its what i always abhorred. I have known that i have a problem with food, since age 15. (it started earlier but i wasn't aware of it at the time). Over the years since i was 15, which is 27 years, i have suffered a great deal because of this problem.

I have successfully kept at a size 10, for most of those years, with a few short spells of being a size 12 and two spells of being a size 8. I was happiest when i was a size 10 or 8. I was relaxed, confident, outgoing, sociable - all of the normal things that a person is. Once i got to a size 12 i had too much on my frame and i always looked and felt overweight. Then i would feel ashamed and lose confidence. In my wish to hide and dissapear i would withdraw socially and occupation-ally. I did feel uncomfortable in my body. I felt loathing and I was distressed until the weight came off again, which was sometimes months or sometimes a couple of years later.

Like i say most of my life I maintained a size 10 and that was a relief to be that size, but, oh how i suffered. Every diet, every exercise regimen, every detox approach, every starvation regimen, every diet product, everything. I have done them. Yes, some do work they work. And some do not. I can spot instantly the cons - remember Bai Lin tea, for instance that Sam Fox used to sell? And what about those daft sweating suits that you wear while running? i never did succumbbb to that level of stupidity - but cellulite creams, and other ridiculous stuff i used to fall for it all. And then there are the proper weight loss diets. They do work. So i did them all. And when i did the diet, the weight came off. Until the next time.

I told people. I told doctors, and other people thatthis was a problem. Nobody took the problem seriously because they were thinking, "what are you complaining about? You don't have a weight problem because you are not much overweight".

And other people. Friends and so on over the years in response to my reports of distress at my size 12 condition, "You don't need to lose weight, what's got into you?"

I felt like screaming, "yes, i am a normal size, but if you look at my body you will see that there is far more substance on it than is right and that is because i have a small frame!!!!!". But they never would look. Or those that did, said, "just eat less". Or some other such comments would be thrown around carelessly.

What is it with people, why do they do this? Nobody has the right to hear my distress and tell me what is right for my body and what isn't. They are not the ones who have the power to judge and decide what i weigh. How dare they. I wouldn't do that to anyone.

What about somebody getting drunk on alcohol two times per week, and telling you that they wanted to cut down, but couldn't. And adding on that they were very distressed by this. Would you turn around and say, "Just drink less" or how about, "What , you've got nothing to worry about, two nights per week of drunkenness is not a big enough problem to worry about". Would you think its ok to decide how many nights per week they should get drunk and feel ok about it? Is it ok? I think not. Surely it is up to each individual. If a person feels distressed at getting drunk twice per week and wants to change and they also feel distressed at their inability to make lasting changes about it because it comes back around when they still end up in the same place, getting drunk twice per week. Then they are distressed. What if that person feared that they were going to become an aloholic? What if they knew secretly that they had just that potential? If you knew that they were at risk of becoming an aloholic would your response be different? If you could project yourself further on in time and see that person actually living their life as an alcoholic in their 40's would you wish you could turn back the clock to respond differently, then? Or would you say to yourself, "Well, i can see now that the guy obviously had problems, but, pah, they're not mine so it doesn't matter". Would you say that if the person was your friend, or lover, or work colleague?

I do not feel better for ranting just now in the last few paragraphs. I actually feel worse. In the end, it actually isn't anybody else's problem. Its mine and i have to sort it out. No good focusing on 'them'. I have to focus on me. And right now, i need to feel nice. And i want to return to the positive focus that i have because i want a good life.

So, where were we? Oh yeah, imaginging my future self in my minds eye. I didn't get to tell you that once i realised that she didnt have the issues resolved, i had a response to that outcome. And I've decided that i want the outcome to be different. I want to be at the end of this weight-loss journey and have the issues resolved.

I wonder whether I will have enough time? I have 6 months - 183 days. As therapy goes, thats not that long to sort out a long-term and enduring problem. And for a problem that baffles me, and baffles even the profesionals, is there hope at all of resolving it?

Wel i do have 6 months. I do have 183 days on this weight loss diet. That is all of those days put aside to focus on this, my most important problem (albeit not always the most urgent). Thats quite a lot of days, isn't it reader? I mean, I'm not doing bad so far am I? On day 6 of 183 and I have mused through all of this lot. I have been thinking about doing a psychological summary periodically. I'm not sure yet. Would it be a good idea? I wish i could get you to vote on this blog. That would be interseting, wouldn't it?

Should Deter do a psychological summary or not?
YOU DECIDE.

As you can see, in my blog titles I'm keeping track of the days done and the days yet to do on my vlcd.

Goodness as i was thinking about which day it was today and how many days to go, i just couldn't work it out!!!!! I guess this cognitive impairment is still around, then! Listing all of the days in this way i feel more comfortable, as i feel a little woozy when i lose track of time. (notice in a prev post, reader, that i got it wrong once - confusion is definately a side effect of this vlcd, for me)

I was counting out my foodpacks today, to see how many of each soups and shakes i had left, so that i could choose what to consume in order to not be left over with all of one type or flavour of foodpack for the last day.

As i planned out each day, i noticed that i seem to have two soups left over. I know that one day i only had three packs, and not four (i think it was yesterday) but i must have done that twice without realising.
I know that i bought home the right amount of packs because i listed what i was putting in my bag in my diary as the counsellor was giving them to me. (I've decided to stop calling the counsellor by the name of Venus on this blog, because i know that one day i shall refer to her by that name in person and i don't want to do that).

Its easy to remember about the bars, we are told to just have one per day.
My routine these days is to get up and have 2 litres of water, then perhaps a cup of tea, another bit of water and then a bar.

I do so much look forward to having the bar during the morning, or lunchtime. Some people, i know, save them and have them during the evening while watching TV.

I don't want to do this because, to me, it sniffs too much of saving treats and scoffing them gleefully in front of the TV - behaviour that got me to this obese state in the first place.

I intend to break eating habits while i am doing this vlcd. Rather than just lose weight rapidly and then have all of my issues and habits still there to contend with and control.

I have also heard of someone saving up all four of the packs and then at night cooking them in the microwave and oven and having a 'feast' of soup and crisps, followed by something like a muffin and something else, all in the eveing while watching TV.

I know that i am going to get dreadfully bored of this food on the vlcd's and i do expect to succomb to 'cooking' the foodpacks in this way, to add variety, but i sincerely hope that i don't resort to doing what i have just described.

I think cooking the packs is a great idea for one or two packs, but having all four at once is simply starving and bingeing again isn't it, reader?

We must stop doing that.
I must stop doing that.
After my weight returns to normal I can't live without food, but i can and should - in fact, no i must - live without food binges.

I know i am sounding 'high-horsey' here. I do apologise. Please bear with me, its just my opinions here, not anything that i would actually say offensively to anybody doing this kind of thing.

Moreover, its not what she did, so much, but the way that she proudly told us about her feast 'trick' that is a problem. It made me feel mightily uncomfortable that she was boasting about what she had done, and sharing it with us, 'devilishly' while grinning. Fair enough, if you know a binge is coming on, then, during the weight loss phase, to binge on vlcd packs is better than gorging on real foods containing massive amounts of carbs, fats and sugars, because of the risk of 'blowing it' and abandoning the weight-loss plan. But we seriously have to stop that binge-eating behaviour.

Maybe it can't be done. I've seen loads of evidence to show that the vlcd-with-counselling method has enabled big people to lose a lot of weight, fairly fast.
I am seriously happy for those people. Seeing and reading about how they have now got their lives back is very moving. But, so far, i haven't read accounts of people describing their eating-habit-changing-process-and-outcomes in detail.

"Does this change-of-eating-habits-exist?", i wonder.

Perhaps i have not been looking in the right places? In that case it is far easier to find the success stories than those stories of the issues. Perhaps people do change their ways but don't particularly blog about it (a handy pun, there). Perhaps people are ashamed? or they want privacy?
Yet, people seem not to want privacy when they are showing off their 'before' and 'after' photo's.

This, to me, highlights a problem, thus:
People calling attention to their acheivements and success (i.e. thinness) can inspire many others, true.
Yet no mention of the pain and confusion of the issues being discovered and resolved, and the hard work that went into resolving those issues.

Isn't it a paralell of the whole capitalist system?

Have you heard of the 'American Dream' ideology? Yes, of course you have. As i see it, its about striving in a competitive manner, to become healthy, beautiful, rich and popular. The goal being to become more so than 'all of those others'.
That is the capitalist measure of 'succes'.
Isn't that system saying, "Provided you do all of those things you'll have a perfect family, a perfect career, a perfect body, a perfect everything. And if you've done it better than most others, then you are considered to have really made-it". You are successful. you are to be admired, respected, financially rewarded and, even the extreme, you can be one who is worshipped (Hollywood stars, for example).

Is eveyone seeking a moment of worship?
Those people grabbing opportunities for fame, for example, the contestents on Big Brother. Are they seeking to be worshipped, even if only for the proverbail fifteen minutes? They certainly do get that when they come out of the 'house' - and they get rewarded financially and socailly.
most do it for the money, or the chance to improve (or change) careers or they do it even in the hope that they will meet a partner in a different socio-economic group to that which they were matched with before they appeard on the program.
Do they blatently go on the show there to market themselves?
And are the immediate results of the marketing spree resulting in temporary worship followed by reward? I think so.

Are the people in the 'before and after photos' in the same process? Are they 'advertising' their success in order to procure admiration and even worship?

Or what about people who drive around in flashy sports cars? Are they not simply advertising their 'success'?
And those people that wear designer labels? Them too?
Or those that wear diamonds or a rolex?
What about any brand of watch? They all have a 'heirarchy' do they not?

Hmmm, its starting to become all of us now, isn't it?
I think that we are all in the system.
Isn't our adaptation to the system and to be 'in the system' surely by default?
Don't we have to consciously 'opt out'by taking each aspect of the system at a time, analyse it and decide not to partake? (rather than herd along on autopilot?)
It seems that we select our 'opt out' areas quite uniquely. I wonder whether we opt out in varying degrees too?

As for me, yes well, i am blogging here in cognito. I do not particularly want to be identified. In this way i feel that I can be more honest. And, in being unidentified, I hope to avoid the shame of people knowing about my behaviours.
The shame of people knowing about my failure.
In my opinion being obese fares quite lowly on the American Dream scale that is used to measure success.

So why would anybody want to be obese when they sit in a particular socio-economic group, say, being midlle class, for example? It just doesn't make sense.

Being obese throws a spanner in that particular works, since people measure you, comparitively, quite differently if you are middle class and obese to if you are middle class and thin and beautiful. Some previous criterion for success have now been effected by the data input of your 'failure'.

Is it merely stupidity, neglegence, recklessness? Or is it a mixture of these things and more besides?

At the moment I don't know.
I do intend to find out.
Read this blog further if you'd like to share in my discoveries.
And please do leave comments on my blogs so that i 'know' who all of my readers are.

Day 4 of 183. Only 179 days to go.

Last night I couldn’t get to sleep for ages. My legs were twitching occasionally and I felt like a live-wire, wide-awake person!
I had drank 8 litres of water in total throughout the day, and had no caffeine since about 11 or 11-30 am.
It must be the diet. Someone on the discovery board suggested it was excitement – which I do agree with because I have been very excited at my life returning to ‘normal’ – i.e. being able to look nice and glamorous, instead of like a 41 year old in nerdy clothing (and not the trendy type of nerdy either – even if it was, it doesn’t look cool on fat people, only skinny ones).

So, how am I doing?
Well this morning was uncomfortable. I felt lethargic and decided not to have tea, but to drink 2 litres of water and then have a bar. I was hoping to go back to sleep, but I felt restless. This gave way to misery ( at being fat and having a life of not going out enjoying myself) and later, depression started to knock on the door (at the length of time that I have to be like this). I managed to keep the depression at bay, though.

After more 2 litres of water and a soup I decided to walk up to the shops and by some England football team and World Cup memorabilia for my friends husband who bought us the health hydro day last weekend. For those reading this blog further on in time than I wrote it, the World cup 2006 started yesterday, and England was playing Paraguay today. I don’t follow football, but I thought I’d drop this into my log as its probably a good way of measuring time for you, reader.

I remember reading someone’s vlcd blog and the author referred to the Celebrity Big Brother house - with George Galloway and Pete, Barrymore and Chantelle. And I felt shocked when I read that, because it was only January this year, and I realised that while I had been watching that program and stuffing myself as a run-over from Christmas, here was this blogger weighing in large and losing weight at an incredibly fast rate because she was doing a vlcd. As I continued to read the blog I got up to the present day and felt gutted because the blogger was several stones lighter and I was actually about 10 pounds heavier! Sigh! It did feel depressing at first, but now I have it all stored in my inspiration bank and pull it out when needed. In a way I want this to happen to you, too, reader. Its likely that you are also on a vlcd, or possibly considering that option. If anything that I do helps push you into action, and change your life for the better, I shall be glad that these ramblings have turned out to be mutually beneficial.

After my walk to the shops I drove over to my friends house and gave the football memorabilia to her husband and son. They were really pleased to receive it and that did help no end with my mood. After chatting with my friend for a few hours about nothing in particular I came home and had 2 litres of water. I felt fairly cheerful and optimistic. Settling down to watch Big Brothers Golden Ticket winner settle into the house, I had a vlcd soup. I’m feeling better now, but I am still unwell, really. My head is muzzy, my eyes feel dry (I’ve now had 8 litres of water) I still feel weak, and I have knocked a glass of water over. Also I’m finding it hard to type.

Hopefully it will be out of the woods for me in a few days. I can hang on and tolerate this for some time longer yet.
New mantra: Nothing feels as bad as going outside on a very hot day when you weigh over 14 stones.

I'm doing my blog early because i am starving and restless and craving food. I think this will distract me.

Today i read another inspiring blog - Eira's blog. She's amazing. SHe was about 18 stones i think, and now she's just bought size 10 shorts and is wearing them!!!!!

I can't imagine the joy. It all seems so far away.

Today started out good. I had my bar at lunchtime, and then a shake at 3 oclock. But since then i have been very hungry. I've had 6 litres of water (the last two were carbonated) and i still feel hungry.

I am not going to eat.
I will not have another bar (even though i am very tempted). If i fail now, there's no hope.
No No No.
No cheating.
No swaying from the rules.
No adapting the diet.
The reason that it is designed as it is designed is so that i lose as much weight as is possible. And that is why i am doing the diet.
It only works if I do it.
If i change it then i will not get the results that the diet is designed to produce and results that are mine for the taking.

There, i think i've talked myself back into sticking to it.

This afternoon i contacted two of our LL group members. The first one hasn't been doing it. I was absolutely astonished.
She said that she tried to get them down but kept retching and so decided that she could not do the diet.

I told her that i thought it was the lumps (she had been shaking it up in the shaker that LL provide - but its rubbish - its all lumpy) and i explained how i have been using the blender and that way they are ok.

she said she'd have another go because she was inspired by me (that wasn't my intention - if she wants to quit its up to her!) But actually i am so glad that she has decided to hop on the LL wagon again. Of all the group members, she is the one that i most liked and i could choose someone like that as a friend.

The other member that i contacted has done it before. Apparently she did it almost 2 years ago and lost 2-3 stones which she hasnt put back on. I think she said that she had something to eat and that was the end of the weightloss. (remember - do not stop even if your weight loss is going great - do not stop until the end). Anyway, she's obviously an old hand at this game and wasn't suffering at all. In response to my bemoaning the hunger and cravings she said for me to drink more water. She said that since it was hot to add on another 2 litres (So that will be 8 litres altogehter).

So i have had anoter two litres and i still have two more litres to drink. Additionally i have two packs left.

Its almost 7 pm now and i have managed to get into the evening, thank goodness. It will soon be 8-30pm and time for an eviction out of the BB house. I hope that Nicky stays, shes great fun. So that means i want Sam out. Sam is doing my head in, i can't stand that grinning, and the moany tone to his voice, and those wide eyes! They are so spooky.

I have decided to postpone cooking any of the packs even though i have found the recepies on the internet.
Venus hasn't told us how to do them - so i guess you're not supposed to do them yet (for best weight loss results).
My idea is that i will have the plain packs for the first two weeks - i am going to be on this diet for a long time and i will need ways of making variety of tastes and textures once time goes on and i get utterly sick of no proper food.
I can imagine that i will be delighted to experiment with things by then, it will be such a boost - so i dont want to spoil that.

I wonder how many people stop doing the diet.

What will happen if they start dropping out? Will Venus wind the group up? Will we have to go into a different group? I do hope they all keep doing it - but obviously people do drop out.

I guess that two of them will drop out, at least. Maybe three (the one i spoke about earlier). Of the other two potential drop-outs one seems scared and nervous and unconvinced that it will work, and the other one is very bolshy and she is almost laughing about it and i wonder whether she is treating it as a game.

Surely that attitude is doomed?
This is, after all, serious stuff, is it not?
If we don't lose weight we might die.
And certainly we put ourselves more at risk of dying, and getting medical conditions by being this weight.
And of course, we are not really living, socially speaking.
Well i know i'm not. I can't speak for them.

Suddenly the urge to eat has gone.

Ok, so day two has been done.
Only 181 days to go!

I hopped on my scales today - only so that i could guestimate how in synch they are with the scales in Venus' office. I suppose its a bit obsessive, and I'm sure that any of you VLCD pro's are tut-tutting at weighing between sessions.
I know its bad, but surely this time it did no harm?
Anyway, i don't know what i weighed on my scales when i started a couple of days ago - so i'm not checking for weight loss - just taking a starting weight, i guess.

Last night, as you know, i drank about 4 litres of water late on in the evening, and then went to bed on it.
During the night i went to the loo in my sleep about 10 times. Could have been more.
Even though i have an ensuite, it was still exhausting. I woke up tired, because of having disturbed sleep. And i realise that this can't go on. I don't know how i am going to manage the water intake and outtake. It does concern me.

Anyway, the second day has been managed succesfully.
I had a small mug of tea early, and then saw two patients. My loo breaks were ok to be had at the times scheduled in and i felt relief at not having to be excused mid-session.

So, when i finished sessions at 11-30 am i thought that i would nip out to the bank and then come back and guzzle a 2 litre bottle of water. This way i could pee it out by the time i start the evening round of patients at 5-30pm.

But something cropped up and i couldn't get out for a further hour. Because i had a headache I decided to eat the bar instead of hav ewater, because i was scared of being in the bank and needing the loo). It was fruit flavour bar with, yet again, a white chocolate covering. It was ok, but i think yesterdays toffee was better.

Anyway, i did go to the bank, i walked up, which i always do unless its absolutely blowing a gail or stormy outside. I made a mental note that throughout the program I will do as much activity and exercise as I can manage. I hope that i'm not too weak or dizzy throughout the program. I think activity and exercise will help lose just that extra bit per week, and obviously that is good. Also, it will help tone. When i'm lighter i can do proper exercise, but at the moment i'm a bit big for anything more than brisk walking. Just one stone lighter and i'll manage the 'Keli Roberts Ultimate Step workout' video again. Last summer i was doing the whole video every day from end of January to end of May, sometimes twice per day, and eating sensibly and healthily and i still only went down one half of a dress size!! (but i did hav eeating binges as well, sigh).

Anyway, i digress, reader. I went up to the bank - and, as you know, it was very hot and sunny today. I did feel a little peculiar - but its to be expected. I was just a little spacey, but not overly so - and my eyes felt different - i guess my vision was affected. In the bank i didn't add up the paying-in-slip correctly, which was a tad embarrasing, but not as embarrasing as walking around the high street with a pair of black trousers on and a long-sleeved nylon shirt (moulds-but-doesn't-cling, remember) on a beautiful summer day. An embarrasment that i have learned to even not care about anymore. Anyhow, people just don't see you - you are just invisible when you're obese.

As i was walking I remembered reading in Mikes blog that he wrote that he tested his urine for ketosis, and that was good. (because Ketsosis is the method of fat burning). So, since Venus didn't give us a stick, i popped into the pharmacy and bought a pack of 'Ketostix' for under a fiver.

When i got back i drank the first 2 litres of water of the day -and took some phone calls and then took my ketosis test. The colour of the stick was the lightest pink. I was dissapointed because i wanted it to be further up the scale (i.e. my pee to contain more ketones). Looking at the instructions that came with the product didnt help, because they only explain about how to do the test and the rest is for diabetes - no mention of what to look for to see what is the right amount of saturation of ketosis for weight loss.

I had a headache and so i lay down and had a nap for an hour. On waking up to someone on the telephone trying to sell me useless advertising space, i went into the office and had a look at my emails. Then i remembered the discovery forum for weight loss - there are loads of people doing VLCD's on there and they are good people.

here's the forum - its the 'weight loss' one.
http://www.discoveryhealth.co.uk/forum3/

I found the answer to my question. Yes, the lightest pink is ketosis. Hurrah!!! and it seems that dark purple is not the way to weight-loss-heaven - it just means you're dyhydrated and will not necessarily lose weight.

I'm following Induction strictly; why won't my strips turn purple?

Ketones will spill into the urine ONLY when there is more in the blood than is being used as fuel by the body at that particular moment.

You may have exercised or worked a few hours previously, so your muscles would have used up the ketones as fuel, thus there will be no excess. You may have had a lot of liquids to drink, so the urine is more diluted. Perhaps the strips are not fresh, or the lid was not on tight and some moisture from the atmosphere got in.

Some low carbers NEVER show above trace or negative even ... yet they burn fat and lose weight just fine. If you're losing weight, and your clothes are getting looser, you're feeling well and not hungry all the time .. then you are successfully in ketosis. Don't get hung up on the strips; they're just a guide, nothing more.

Will I lose weight faster if the strips show dark purple all the time?

No. Testing in the darkest purple range all the time is usually a sign of dehydration -- the urine is too concentrated. You need to drink more water to dilute it, and keep the kidneys flushed.

The liver will make ketones from body fat, the fat you EAT, and from alcohol --- the ketone strips have no way of distinguishing the source of the ketones. So, if you test every day after dinner, and dinner usually contains a lot of fat, then you may very well test for large amounts of ketones all the time. However this does not indicate that any BODY fat was burned.

The strips only indicate what's happening in the urine. Ketosis happens in the blood and body tissues. If you're showing even a small amount, then you are in ketosis, and fat-burning is taking place. Don't get hung up on the ketone sticks.

So, i felt ecstatic after that - thought - "Yeah, i'm doing it, i'm doing it".

However i do feel unconvinced that after two weeks the diet is easy. some people say that it gets easy after the first few days when the hunger dissapears. I can't imagine it ever being 'easy'. I'd be much more satisfied eating food - but i shall be much happier in the long run by getting this weight off in the VLCD way. But the process of VLCD, no its not nice. And i still have 181 days. Oh, how am i going to do it? I just don't know. But i know that i can't NOT do it. I will not stop doing the diet. I will continue until i lose my seven stones (it was six, but after being weighed i realise its seven i need to lose).

I've had moments of serious regret today.
This is a significant manefestation.
You see, reader, all along the last seven years that i have been putting this seven stones on, i have regretted eating the food, usually not long after i've done it - or the next morning (food-binge-hangover) but this feeling today is different.
Its a different kind of regret. Regret proper?
Perhaps.
The other regret i think is more like shame, mixed with sadness and maybe a bit of scare.
But this new type of regret is definately sorrow.

I only got glimpses of the feeling for a few occasions today. And those glimpses took me by surprise.
In those moments i felt regret for doing those bizarre eating behaviours (binges, etc) and the regret was for doing that eating behaviour (which has damaged my body, my relationships, my prospects and my social life). Why did i do that to myself?
I can't provde an answer that makes any sense. It defies logic.

I wonder why i have felt regret only today?
Seven years on from initially feeling desperate, helpless, abandoned, trapped and lost and terrified and miserable.
Seven years of overeating and binge eating.
And seven stones heavier.
Good grief.

i have no answer.

I wonder whether the destructive alcoholic who has reached 'rock-bottom' gets those glimpses of real regret as they sober up while in the first days of rehab?

If so, then are we talking of the same dynamic as alcohol addiction?
How gross.
How pathetic.
How wasteful.

Today is a busy day, workwise. I was wondering how i'd cope, but it's really been OK.

I decided not to drink too much water throughout the day, because of going to the loo during my appointments. So in the morning i had a small cup of tea and got on with seeing patients.

By mid-morning my head was screaming out in pain, but i had expected this anyway. I had an hour and a half free, so i had a mini-sleep. Then, during lunchtime i had another sleep for an hour and decided to have the bar for lunch, instead of a liquid shake. It was a toffe flavoured thing, very unappealing looking, with supposed a white chocolate coating. The consistency was, well, it was just goo really. And i found it quite sickly after about two thirds of it. But, i did feel loads better afterward, and to my surprise my headache went away for the rest of the day.

I didnt get any more breaks until 9pm (except quick 10 minute tea-breaks) and so i used one of those breaks to have a shake. It was caramel flavour, and it was a bit odd. If you've ever had any of the diet shakes, for example, slim-fast, atkins shakes, cambridge diet, they all taste quite wierd. But that's to be expected, isn't it reader? I mean, after all they are only simulating real food. They can hardly make one that replicates Moules Marinere in taste and texture can they? Any how, LighterLife provided me with a little plastic beaker thingy which i am supposed to use to shake up the powder mix with water. It was rubbish. Lumpy. I didn't want to faff with it though, because i didn't have time, - the mix once mixed only lasts 15 minutes. After that, the vitamins and minerals etc, are no good.

After i finshed work i started on the water. I had 2.5 litres of sparkling water while i was watching Big Brother.

Tonight, at 10-00 pm I had a soup - the mushroom one. I had read in Mikes blog that it was the best tasting one. So, sitting down to watch "Big Brothers Big Mouth" I had my soup. I was amazed at how nice it tasted. I'm very impressed. Whether i will still be saying this in four months is another thing. The soup i whizzed up in the blender and it made all of the difference to the experience. Also, it was good to sit down with a bowl and spoon, rather than just gulp it down standing up as i had done with the shake.

I still needed to drink more water - as i had only had about one litre or so throughout my working day, and 2.5 litres in the evening. So i filled the 2 litre bottle with tap water and i have been steadily drinking that too. Guess what i will be doing all night!

I don't feel as bad as i expected to. I did not feel hungrey today.
I was thinking that what may have helped was that I must've started ketosis by the time i went to bed last night because i had consumed nothing with carbs since 4-30 pm (a diet cherry coke - my last one) and then i attended the group and came home and had a bar for my meal that night and i drank loads of water before bed.

Venus says that going into ketosis takes only hours. Ah, that reminds me, she said that she would give us a ketosis stick, so that we can test whether we are indeed in ketosis, but she forgot and didnt hand them out afterall. Also, she said that we would get wateer flavourings as part of the pack, but we didn't. Anyway, i like water as it is so this week it will not bother me. But after this week i would like the flavourings so that i can add variety occasionally.

So, one day down, and only 182 days left to go!!!!!

Well, I've been, I've met them all (the other Lighterlifers in my group) and I've got the foodpacks to last a week.
We all meet up again the same time and place exactly a week later - Tuesday evening. (All of us, with hopefully minus about 50 pounds of weight between the seven of us)

So, are you itching to know what its like and what i've made of it so far?
If so, read on.

Well, as we all started coming into the group room, Venus was already weighing and measuring the ladies (the groups are single sex groups). We were told to introduce ourselve to the person next to us.

When it was my turn, i was given my weight in kilos, and when i asked for the weight in stones, Venus said that she would tell me later when she had a chance to look at her converter. She never did, and it was only after i got home that i realised, and had to look it up on the internet convertor.

So, you want to know my weight then? Its a bit personal isnt it? But, well, I suppose that's why you're reading this blog, to get all of the grizzly details, and the reason that i'm making the blog is to record all of the grizzly details. So here goes...
N.B I've decided to put my weight into one of these boxes and i shall do this every time so that you can easily see the weights and the weight loss each week.

June 6th 2006
Starting weight
Weight = 93.1 kilos, 14 stone 7.

I am quite glad that i didn't know what the weight was in stones, because i am devastated. And i would rather be devastated in private. It was only three weeks ago that i was weighed at weightwatchers before i packed it in, and i weighed 13 stone 11, so thats a gain of 10 pounds in three weeks! I am horified. Are you?

Mind you, in a way, I have been trying my heardest to gain weight. With the way that i have been behaving, i.e stuffing food down me, the most calorie, sugared and fat laden food available, and as much of it as possible.
Its been like a competition to see how much of the worst food i can tolerate before i ....well, before i what? Before i ....die, before i pop - what?... i don't know.
The reason is beyond me.
It doesn't make sense does it?
It really is crazy behaviour.
I feel upset and scared, i am alarmed, and i wonder whether this crazy stuff will be sorted out, or whether it will just be my weight that gets sorted out (i.e. down to a healthy and attractive level).
Will i end up (YET AGAIN) just thin, but with the food and eating problem naddressed and silently sitting dormant, threatening to pounce up again at any time and ruin my life?
I hope not. I really hope not.

I have gone to LL full of hope.
I am trusting the company, that they have trained their counsellors sufficiently to make the counselling worthwhile for me, and for other people too.
There is one woman in our group that i am concerned about. She is seriously disturbed regarding food. And i do wonder how Venus will cope.
I wonder what back-up and support and supervision LL provide to their counsellors. As it happens Venus is already a counsellor and has also partially trained as a psychotherapist. So, there may be a depth of clinical experience, with Venus, that exceeds the LL training (thats my hope, anyway).

Something that has already challened the holding of this hope is that after the meeting, Venus told us that she was going to take our photograph.
I said, "OH NO!" and asked who owned the photograph.
I only realised after i got home that Venus evaded answering that question. She said that LL did not own the photo, but did not specify who did.
Its obvious isn't it? If its taken on the camera that Venus owns, then Venus owns the photo.
I jokingly asked, "when we get rich and famous, you're not going to sell this photo are you?"
I cannot remember her answer, but i think that it was, "No".
i said, "What if they offer you twenty thousand pounds?"
She said, "I'll share it with you".
Then the first one stood by the wall and before i knew it, they all had there photo taken one after the other. I followed suit and it was very uncomfortable. But i didn't stop it. It all happened so quick.

When i got into the house, i felt sick and angry. I wished that i'd refused to have the photo taken.
I thought about how this had happened to me, and realised the following things.
1) It was a surprise. I was not told until the moment that she had her camera in her hand that there would be a photograph of me taken.
2) Venus said, "Now then, You're going to have your photo taken." (to which i cried out in a complemetary jestful manner, "OH NO" - i bitterly regret not making my resistence a serious statement)
3) Everyone just stood up and got on with it. I was last to be photographed. I think that i was herded along with the crowd, and under peer pressure to conform and perform along with the expected norm.

I feel angry about this, I consider that i was...well, something that i can't seem to put my finger on... sort of tricked, coerced, and i felt deep humiliation as i stood there being photographed from the front and then from the side, with everyone watching on and looking at my oversized form with disapproval (quite possibly they were getting a good look at me because they were judging how overweight i am - fat people do that - its a desire to compare oneself against another fattie, or even just to look at them and scorn or laugh covertly). I even joked that i felt like a convict (like the snapshots you see of criminals after their jail sentance).

I do consider that i have been violated, and humiliated.
Venus was banging on about the start and end time of the group being important because people with weight/eating issues also hav eissues around boundaries (time, being a bounday) - yet, what about thinking about people with weight/eating issues also having issues around control/lack of control, humiliation, violation, etc etc.

It seems the sensitivity has already been found lacking.
I am bitterly disapointed.
I now have decided that i cannot trust the therapist to be sensitive to me, not trust the therapist to be protective of me, and not trust the therapist to understand, care or value my vulnerable self.

It now appears to be the case that i might get hurt in this counselling process, and that i am going to be in the worrying position of having to really take care of myself, myself. And in the position of really looking out for me, myself (can't trust therapist to do it).
So I am already resolving to myself that i will have to do it all myself in order to get what i want (to complete the diet for 6 months and lose 6 stones).
I feel scared and worried - i do feel anxious.
I dont know how i am going to manage this if the therapist is abusive - the thought that i have to be so vigilant to stop it, worries me greatly - what a responsibility - what if i don't do it adequately?

All this has taken many words to even begin to expain whats going on in me, yet it all happened so quick.
It took only minutes of processing the whole thing once i was home, and then i called the therapist and left a message that i was unhappy about the photo and i wanted it erased.

I feel really churned up about it. I wish that it had never happened. I wish that we had been told about the photograph in the intial interview. I feel that she purposly decieved us, and it doesn't feel nice. I think that she wanted to just get on with doing the photos as quick as possbile, so she rode rough-shod over us. I wonder what her personal feelings are about people having their photograph taken in these circumstances. I wonder what she declared to her LL people when she realised that she'd be having to do that to people.

I'm now going to watch Big brother for a little while and then go to bed.

Good grief!
Anyone would think that i was going to the moon for five years the way that i've been manically scoffing over the last fourteen days (since i have known i was beginning the Lighterlife starvation program on 6th June).

I've had just about every imaginable food that i have imagined that i will miss in my food abstinent half year....WHICH STARTS TOMORROW!!!!!...YIKES.

I really don't know why i am spooking myself like this. I mean, its been eight weeks to the day since i passed my Masters Degree examinations. Had i been doing Lighterlife for those eight weeks then by now i would have lost anything from 30 to 40 pounds (about two - three stones). And the last eight weeks feels like, well, it just feels like days going by and time moving on - but not much of it. Eight weeks - pah! Surely, i can easily do that - it's just a case of putting one foot in front of the other,. just one day at a time, as 'they' say.

I start the LighterLife program tomorrow. In preparation i have been to the supermarket. I've bought 10 large bottles of carbonated water (to add variety to the 6 litres of water i need to drink per day) and i have also bought tons of bottles of mouthwash - ready for that lovely Ketosis aroma that i want to mask.

Tomorrow morning i am out of the house at 8-30 am and then straight from work i go to the LighterLife Counsellors office for the first LighterLife meeting. (from now on LL = LighterLife)

Venus, my LL counsellor, phoned me the other day asking whether my doc approved me starting the group, and asking when i would be posting the form back to her, and to inform me that I need to bring double the fee for the first week. "This", she waffled on, "is because the set-up fees are included in the first session as is the cost of the foodpacks and the counselling and some people may come to the first meeting and not come back and i will be out of pocket".

Venus wants me to pay weekly thereafter, so in actual fact i will be paying £66 weekly and i will have a week in hand (week 14 i do not pay for).

SO tomorrow, i shall eat something in the morning, probably something for lunch, and then NO MORE FOOD FOR 6 MONTHS - i will go to the LL group straight from work and have an LL foodpack for dinner that evening.

I am scared, but i have to keep myself calm. I consider this scared feeling to be ridiculous. I mean, the basic diet is 100 days - 14 weeks. That's like starting end of feb, and finishing now (and i'd be anything from 3 - 5 stone lighter by now!!!!!) and 14 weeks is really not very long is it? Although i have said that i am going to do it for 6 months and finish on 6th december (thats because i'm realistically expecting my weight loss to be a steady 1 stone per month - but it could be more - if so i may need to be on the diet for less months).

I know thin-ness is my destiny. Once again i am going to do things that thin people do, go places that thin people go, wear clothes that thin people wear and meet people-who-love-thin-people-and-want-to-be-with-them.

Take tonight, for instance, as i was eating my pilau rice and authentic indian curry sauce, i had a quick image of being in an Indian restuarant with people and enjoying an indian meal as a treat. (this i would occasionally do when i was last a thin person). It was quite an exciting moment - i actually re-experienced myself in an indian restuarant that i knew and had been to before. It was a real deja vu moment (similar to the one i had last saturday - see blog). And i felt a flurry of excitement as i accepted this indian restaurant experience back into my reality.
Hmm, the thought of eating normally again, in a structured and civilised way, is quite a relief (instead of lazily and slobbily eating food alone in front of the TV) and it is also quite anxiety producing, if i'm honest.

I have to give up the 'slob me' don't I? Say "Goodbye", wave, "Au revouir" and chant under my breath, "Don't come back" . 'Slob Me' will be gone for 6 months and then will not be coming back afterward. Today and tonight has been the final time that 'Slob Me' has been around. I feel sad that 'Slob Me' is going. We did have some good times and 'Slob Me' will be missed. However, i thank 'Slob Me' for keeping me company throughout my 'Phase of Recent Misery'. And now that 'Phase of Recent Misery' is no more, then 'Slob Me' is no longer needed.

Thanks for the memories, bud :-)
I shall remember you in my will. You were a good friend.

Now, thin-ness and happiness beckons. Its time to be more vital and alive and move into a new phase of life. This new phase, temporarily (for 6 months) will be the LL program , and that phase we shall call the 'Laboratory Phase'. Completing this phase succesfully propels me into the 'Touchdown Phase', this phase may last a short while (3-8 months) and iteslf has the potential to lead into the 'Stars Aligned Phase'. 'Stars Aligned phase' is hoped to last a long time - if possible to the end of the lifespan.

Anyway, back to mundanesville. This week i have a particularly busy week. I had thought it was going to be easy, but it seems that just thursday is a little less busy than normal. Apart from a couple of meetings I will be working at home on thursday, friday and saturday, however. I am expecting a healing crisis.

A healing crisis is when you are detoxing and your body is screaming out in pain from the caffiene, sugar, fats and chemicals withdrawal that are found in regular foods and have now ceased from entering your body, cold turkey style. It is a mega-shock, readers, as you can imagine, and you get things like, headaches, tiredness, nausea, fuzzy headedness, blurry eyes, lack of concentration, eyelid closing, irritable mood, crying, sleepiness, restlessness, a sense of unreality, tingling, itches, shivers, general weakness, twitching, shakiness, soreness, aches, and pains.

I do not know when my healing crisis will kick in (the withdrawal symptoms, if you like). I hope that it starts on Friday morning, as that would be the most convenient - and ends on monday morning. As i can have fri, sat, sun off work or without any functioning whatsoever if necessary. I doubt it will end on monday though, but the worst could be over by then. From what i remember reading of Mikes posts on his LL blog, the symptoms last at least the first 10 weeks, really. Anyway - i'm still willing - i'l find ways to cope and adapt and minimise the symptoms.

So, here goes then, - wish me luck - next time i blog i shall be already officially on the LL program.

More tomorrow :-)

Sunday mornings, to me, can feel pretty much the same as other mornings. That's what it's like when you live on your own and you work from home most days. I mean take today, for instance, its no different from Friday was. And thursday, for that matter.

Yesterday I was up early though. We had to be at the health Farm by 9 am.

I packed track suit bottoms, light sweatshirt and thin hoodie to wear, just in case the robes were a litle tight. Tip for fatties: when its boiling hot, as it was yesterday, wear your usual long sleeved tops in layers, but choose very thin cotton fabric, with a soft drape, in white, while still keeping your bottoms in black. This way, you still look summery, and no one notices that your little podgy body is all swathed in fabric, while everyone else has skimpy little sun-tops on.

As we got out of the car, i saw other day-guest women heading inside who were all different sizes. I was releived that some were big-bums, like me. Anyway, the robe fitted, and even though i looked ridiculously like a bale of towels on legs trying to be a Michelin man lookalikey, there were actually plenty of others of simliar form. I expected a health check, or to be weighed, at least. But, phew, no. To my surprise, about 50% were big fatties, 30% decent sized women, 18% slim ones and only 2% were fit and healthy, with that glowing skin and media looking body (and they both had their boyfriend/husband with them, whereas everyone else was with a girlfriend or two or three). Little note to men: Health farms are for girly getaways, you men look silly attached to your girlfriend-who-dragged-you-along-and-you-daren't-let-her-out-of-your-sight-because-she-so-beautiful complex.

Well, moving on - my friend and I, we lounged around for a bit, then went into the lovely pool and then the massage-jets pool, and the jacuzzi. It was all very nice. Most of the time my body was under the water, but on the quick trips betweeen pools, well, i just thought, "Oh come on, no one knows you here anyway - walk like you've no cellulite". Fortunately my swim suit fitted me - its one i ordered from ebay. Thank goodness for ebay, hurrah!. Thats anonymous shopping at its best.

Ive known my friend since we were eleven, and while we were lazily loping around the pool i said to her, "Remember the Cambridge Diet?" and she said "Yes" (I used to be a Cambridge Diet seller about 19 years ago, i'll tell you more another time, reader). And i said, "well i'm going on it for 6 months - well, not that but something similar. No food, just the shakes". She rolled her eyes. We swam off.

Over lunch, my amazing friend told me something that amazed me. On realising that the starvation diet comes with group counselling, these days, she suddenly remarked that my mother was a woman that always talked about food. Further, my friend recalled a time when we were twelve years old when my mum came home from the supermarket and was putting away all of the family's food into the kitchen cupboards, while talking to my friend.

The conversation between my friend and my mum was basically my mother going on about how she had 'discovered' the shops own-label-brand and that "It's all so wonderful and now we are having only this label food". My friend, being a polite girl, was nodding and smiling, but inside she was gasping, for what she saw was an obsessed woman taking item after item after item (and there were loads of food items) of own-brand-yellow-label products out of shopping bags. My friend told me, while i was slowly eating my coconut salmon salad with egg and new potatos, that she didn't see one other 'real' brand item. Not one. No Kellogs, no lurpak, no heinz, no McVities, no birdseye, no nothing. No highly advertised brands at all. None of the usual thigns that were in our house. Just own-brand-label after own-brand-label of items for the whole family to eat that week. And as i popped a black olive into my mouth, my friend detailed how my Mum was singing the praises of the availability of the own-brand goods for their cheapness, and speculated that my mother was feeling truimphant that she had 'saved' so much money.

By the time the vanilla mouse with raspberrie coulis came to the table, i was in no doubt that my friend thought that this incident with my mother was almost Martian-like. I, though, couldn't remember it, no matter how much she emphasised all of the details of the scene. I had to take a glass of water in order to clear my head. Surely that would help me to recall the memory? No it didn't. So, i just have this bizarre second-hand snapshot to digest, along with my health farm three-course lunch.

We wandered into the garden to take tea and read the papers. There my friend stunned me into silence by offering more of her childhood observations of my own childhood, while we casually sipped our caffiene loaders around the duckpond.

She shot me with sentences like,
"I always knew you were odd around food".
"You used to talk about food and no other kid did".
"You would talk about your body, saying how fat it was and how you had to go on a diet". (note to reader: i, your blogger, was a moderately plump child, but then a thin teenager and have always been a slim-ish, albeit weight-swinging-up-and-down adult).

Round two: "And even though i was a skinny kid", my friend reported, "you encouraged me to go on a starvation regime with you. My mother was hoffied, but my dad told mother to just leave me to it, knowing i would work it out".
"We would go down to the marketplace and you would go appreciating the cheeses and critiquing them like they were Monets, Renoirs and Picassos. And then you'd come away with a purchased portion of what you deemed to be the finest that day, and we'd go somewhere and eat it".
"We talked about food when we went into town, instead of having a laugh with the boys".

As I watched the mother-duck wadlling along with her seven little chicklets in tow, leap into the pond and then climb up the mini-waterfall and out of sight, I continued to sip, smile and make encouraging noises in responce to these revelations. Inside I was screaming, "What! an twelve year old girl, doing things like this.....".
At the time i felt nothing, but now as i write, i think that i feel sadness.

Even as my friend failed to inspire me to remember, I knew that it was truth. Those scenes that she described just all felt right. They were the kind of things that would have been in my world. Yes, those scenes surely did belong in my history. Good Grief! I did those things. I thought those things. Good Grief again. And I had a mother that totally controlled the family around food (which i knew) but a person that went to a supermarket and made a decision on behalf of all of us that we would all accept these items of food in their foreign packets and, for all she knew, their inedible ingredients.

Mind you, knowing my dad, I bet we all had fun opening the packets, tins, etc, and discovering what was inside. Not the usual, predictable taste, texture and smell, but something exotic, odd or nasty! No doubt we laughed.

The day at the health farm wore on, and my friend and I were separated for the rest of the day, while various twenty year old girls, in fake tans and blonde pony-tials, applied creams and oils to our bodies in a variety of polite and well thought-out ways.

It was all very delightful. Wonderful dreamy music, soft lighting, even twinkling ceilings, gorgeous smells, sleep-seductive rhythms, and tingly, hot-and-cold sensations. Oh, my eyelids droop down in submission even now at the thought of it.

As i semi-slumbered my way through it all, I noticed that mini-movies were playing in my head. For instance, I 'saw' myself in my minds eye in a carefree manner, wearing nice gently tailored clothing (in the colour mauve) and in slow motion I was moving, almost a skip and a twirl at the same time, with a smile on my face, gladness in my heart, and confidence in my eyes. I was thin in that scene and it was a scene that has never happened, but one that is going to happen in the near future.

"How very interesting", i thought. That certainly wasn't planned, it just popped into my head. Musing over this incident prompted me to recall something that one of my weightwatchers buddies had said to me after i re-joined for the third time and i had finished telling her that i had just passed my exams and so it was time to come back to weightwatchers.

She said, knowingly, "Oh do you feel as though you're on a mission now?"
I smiled back knowingly in an auto-pilot way, and responded with "Yes".
However, my eyes did avert hers, and i did not get any sense of conguity in my body.
Ah hah! So now i know it wasn't true, i did not at that time believe that I had gone back to weightwatchers with the mission of losing weight.
Now, hoever, i DO NOWfeel that i am on a mission to lose weight. I know that soon, not very long at all really, I will be thin again. And i know that this VLCD, very low calorie diet method is the means by which i am going to acheive that thinness. I see it in my mind, and i am very much looking forward to it.

How nice for me :-)

Its Friday and i start Lighterlife-six-months-starvation on tuesday night.

Today, to heck with paperwork, I've spent the morning reading Mikes blog. This amazing guy was 23 stones and using the VLCD method he has got down to under 14 stones. (VLCD = very low calorie diet - the official medical term for food packs of very low calories, taken with no other real foods). And anyway, in the first 100 days this guy Mike, he didnt eat and lost over 7 stones!!!!!

here's his blog address, you'll haveto cut and paste because i havent yet worked out how to do the clickable links

http://mylighterlife.iblog.com/post/247/25293

You can follow his journey from the very first week of hell, through the elation of losing over one pound of weight per day for 100 days, through to his full circle ending of a holiday in florida where he is thin. (he had gone the previous year and was fat and almost died from embarrassment, not to say heart attack).

I'm glad that i read his blog.
I have been involved in many minute details of his journey as well as an observer of the big picture.
Its helped me get a couple of things straight.
What i mean is that through his blog, its all become very real. And i've faced up to some stuff.

Here's the reality folks.
YOU GO INTO THE DIET KNOWING THAT YOU ARE GOING TO FINISH IT.
YOU DO THE DIET AND YOU DO NOT EAT ANY REAL FOOD.
YOU USE THE OFFICIAL PACKS AND YOU DO NOT ADD ANYTHING EXTRA IN - YOU DO NOT CHEAT.
YOU DRINK 6 LITRES OF WATER EVERY DAY
YOU GO INTO KETOSIS AND YOU PEE A LOT. (YOU TEST YOUR PEE TO SEE KETOSIS LEVELS)
YOU HAVE THE FIRST TWO WEEKS OF PAIN, AFTER THAT ITS LOW ON PAIN BUT HIGH ON BOREDOM.
YOU DO NOT STOP AFTER YOU'VE LOST A GOOD AMOUNT OF WEIGHT - YOU MUST GO ON TO THE END.
EXPECT OTHERS TO BE CURIOUS, CONCERNED, ALARMED, JEALOUS (EVEN SABOTTAGING).

i think that's about it really.
It really is a case of putting six months of my life aside in order to change my life.

My main concern lately - over the last week or so - is that i'm actually not going to make it. I don't mean i won't be able to hack the diet, no i mean, i might die of a heart attack before i get healthy.
I am crossing my fingers and wishing, hoping and praying, that my heart keeps pumping sufficiently for me to survive just a little longer.
I am having heart pains, and i feel ill and a strange sort of tired. I feel funny tinglings in my arms and i am short of breath. I know i am seriously at risk. I feel so stupid.
"Keep me alive, God, please keep me alive".

Tomorrow i am off to a health farm, of all places. My friends husband bought it for her as a birthday gift and she has to take a friend. That friend is me. Four weeks ago when we booked, i was happy and looking forward to it because i'd been doing weight watchers no count with lots of fruit and water. And, although big and fat, at least i could move around. As soon as i decided to do Lighterlife i have blown weightwatchers (well i blew it just before then, but i mean i have really blown out like a greedy pig). Now with all the junk in my body and veins I am stiff and can't bend or flex and i must've put on 6-7 pounds in two weeks of stuffing. Its really disgusting. Its exceedingly stupid. Anyway, because of this i really dont want to go to the health farm, but i can't let my friend down.

The shame of it, when the poor young girls see me they are going to be horrified at having to massage me. And i will be ok at wearing a robe all day (providing it does fit, which it should cos im only a size 18) but what about getting into the pool without being seen? And the jacuzzi, and the sauna (gasp). Oh no! I dont think i can manage the sauna - the heat - and i remember from when my friend and i used to go weight training together, she loves the sauna!!!!

The other thing is this. I've always had beautiful feet.
But since ive been a size 16 and over, my feet have changed shape (to accomodate the extra weight and redistribute you see).
Added to that, but a most curious thing has happened. My hard skin places are really now totally hard skin. No matter what i do, i can even cut it off and file it down, it grows back really quick, in days!!!!!
Ive never had it this thick before.
But our bodies are remarkable things and the extra skin must be growing because of all of the extra weight i'm carrying on my feet!

So here's the countdown to the new regime that will last half a year of my life:
TODAY - mess about on the internet (like now!) then do something productive. Take my health seriously, make decision to do the whole of the diet and not stop (done that). Do some work. Watch big brother eviction. (I want Sezer out)
TOMORROW: go to the health farm with my friend. Come home and eat dinner, watch big brother. Blog. Calm pre-diet nerves.
SUNDAY: look at what is left in the freezer. Do some work, eat some food. Mentally preare myself. Blog. Enjoy the last weekend day of relaxation and going the the toilet a normal amount of times.
MONDAY: go to work. Come home, eat, and then go to another work meeting. Eat. watch big brother. Empty the freezer of food, and any other packs of food in cupboards (into the bin, or oto compst heap, or out for the foxes, not empty into my stomach). Blog. Pray for help. Go to bed.
TUESDAY: at. Go to work, eat at lunchtime. Go straight from work to the Lighterlife counselling session number 1. Get weighed and hopefully get foodpacks. take one foodpack. Go to bed.
WEDNESDAY: Take foodpacks, work, drink water. blog.

on THURSDAY: i have planned an easy day, i start work at 9 am and then finish work at 11-30 am and dont start again till 6-30 pm - 9 pm. But, when shall i drink water? i dont know how i shall manage the toilet thing. I can't just keep excusing myself. I am constantly in meetings with people for 50 minutes at a time. I am a healthcare practitioner and i can't just abandon people while i keep nippin gout to the loo.

i may have to go easy on water throuhgout the day and then drink throught the late evening and pee all night. I've done that before when detoxing and its absolutely exhausting, because you arent sleeping properly - its like having a new born baby and waking up for that all of the time.

I'm just dreading the toilet thing.

HELP!

Here's some celebrity gossip to cheer us up...

Janet Jackson, you may already know, was ordered by Virgin bosses to shed weight. An ultimatum, apparently, and if she did not lose it, then they would not release her new album.

This is no ordinary story of media pressure exerted onto already slim women in order to lose three millimetere of paadding, no Janet, well, she did get really fat. She got to about a size 16 i should say. Take a look for yourself...

Here's the story and some fat photos of janet jackson

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/13022006/364/janet-jackson-ordered-lose-weight.html

http://tmz.aol.com/article2/_a/stunning-new-janet-photos/20060203122109990001

Her friends have said that she is a yo-yo dieter. And that she was eating while under pressure from the recent Michael Jackson goings-on.

anyway, she did lose the weight and now Janet is telling the world how she got thin.

see here...

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/category?blogid=7/&cat=276

http://www.janet-style.com/temp/us1.jpg

http://www.usmagazine.com/blog/2006/05/24/us-exclusive-how-janet-jackson-lost-60-pounds-in-four-months

apparently she lost 60 pounds in four months. Thats 15 pounds per month - or 3-4 pounds per week. There is no way that you do that on a 'normal' diet, in my opinion. I wonder whether she did a VLCD program?

Just a thought.

Did you miss me? I'm back.
I have been away on a pre-planned short break.

It was very uncomfortable, actually. I stayed in a guest house doing a painting course, and the whole thing was centred around food. We all had to have a three-course evening meal together and a full breakfast together and a two course home-cooked lunch.
I did feel bound. I hated sitting around a table making polite and charming conversation whehn what i really wanted to do was go to my room and eat in peace.

I have been bingeing. It started quite reasonably by me telling myself that i'm not going to eat any food for 6 months, therefore i can eat all the food that i like one last time.

BIG MISTAKE.

I've eaten, chocolate bars, choc biscuits by the packet, cookie shop cookies, crisps, sandwhiches, cakes, cheesecake, chips, fattening salad dressings, breads, cheeses, sweets, and i even went to macdonalds and had a veggie burger thingy. I NEVER eat macdonalds - i think that the last time was about 7 years ago or more.

I have been going stir-crazy.
Stopping at every opportunity to eat.
On my short painting break i, not only, ate all of the meals, but also i took chocolate bars and packs of biscuits with me and ate them in bed.

Its all been extremely stressful. I have been panicking about getting the food down me as fast as possible, and not stopping until it was all eaten.

I now feel unwell. Not surprisingly. My body aches and hurts and feels stretched to its limit. I feel bloated betond anything ive ever felt before. and to top it all, i am so tired. And i really couldn't care less about anything.

Thats all I've got to say really.

I went to my GP today to get my pulse and blood pressure taken. additionally the GP had to ensure that i wasn't disqualified from beginning this diet. He checked my medical records for things such as previous useage of psychotropic meds, history of thrombosis, and other stuff.

I passed the test.
I go on the diet on tuesday.
I have now only 4 more days to wait.
It will be such a relief to get away from food - even though i'm not stopping myself, i am so sick of eating now. So sick of stuffing things in my mouth. So sick of just hoovering up whatever i can.

I'm sick of myself.