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
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
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.
