Lighterlife. Deters Drastic Dieting Diaries

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.