Be Happy, Be Inspired: 2012

Hi,

So… been a while hasn't it?
To be fair, I am back at uni now for three days of the week as well as working the other four days so I'm pushed for time really.

Because I'm lame I'm just going to do a Dukan update, original right? I'm pretty sure no one cares anymore, it's more for me to look back on I guess..

So I'm approximately half way though my 8th week of being on the Dukan diet. So far so good, no slip ups, I've not really have any cravings or the desire to just eat something I'm not allowed. I know its still relatively early days but I would have thought I would have caved by now. I'm still finding it easy and its just become part of my routine. Its just what I eat now.

My whole way of eating has changed, and my perceptions of food, and what i actually need to get through a day. The biggest thing I have learnt is exactly how much food you need to survive on a daily basis, and really its not a lot at all.

I don't feel deprived in anyway and I think that has to do with the fact that I don't feel hungry, or certainly not in the same way I felt hungry before. What I eat now sustains me for longer periods of time so I don't feel the need to snack in-between meals.

So far I have lost 32 lbs, which is 2stone 4 lbs. Which I'm really proud of. It's a lot for such a short space of time, and I know some people might think its unhealthy to loose weight quickly but to be honest I'm not of that opinion. When you consider just how much I have to loose (I'm not telling you yet!)

My first goal was to loose 3 stone by christmas, when I started this two months ago, it meant loosing just over 2 lbs a week to maintain it. During my attack phase I lost 9 lbs in one week, and I decided that I wasn't going to include that weight loss in the '3 stone goal' meaning that I'm about half way to my three stone goal and actually a few weeks ahead of schedule! We'll see. Theres still about 11 weeks until christmas, so I'm just taking each day as it comes.

I'm aware that the weight loss will slow down soon and I'll need to 'up my game' I have started to workout a little bit too, I'm aiming to work out twice a week for now as I don't want to overdo it, at the minute I'm loosing between 3-5lbs a week and I'm concerned that if I try and exercise too much I'll jeopardise that in some way. So for now I'm just going to stick with what I'm doing because it seems to be working just fine.

Anyway, Thats about it really…
Thank you for reading xoxo

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Hi,

Do let me know if you're really not bothered about the dukan stuff... but it is part of my 'life' now so I'm going to talk about it anyway.

I'm actually doing pretty well so far, no cravings, no slip-ups... and 18 pounds down by the end of week three, which is absurd. I can actually feel a difference too; when you have a lot to loose like I do it can feel like a long time before you really start to feel that you've lost weight rather than just seeing it on the scales. I think because it has been such a short space of time and quite a big weightloss so far it is more noticeable. Which is fine by me. I know pretty soon it is going to start slowing down, which worries me a little but I'm trying to just take each day as it comes. It's going to be a long journey.

As far as the actually diet goes, its pretty easy to follow, there have been times when I have been faced with deciding between chicken... or chicken! And its felt a little boring to say the least but I seem to be doing ok now, and the introduction of vegetables again has been very welcome, you actually gain a greater appreciation for certain types of food when you restrict yourself so much, the attach phase felt like a very long week.

Another thing I have liked about the diet is that it takes so much worry out of trying to decide what to eat, what you 'should' have etc... Without the choice there it's so much easier to make food less of a priority during the day, and I don't mean that in a bad way. I was one of those people that used to think about food a lot, I would be thinking about my next meal whilst eating my current one so to not have that way of thinking anymore is good, I'm learning to use food as fuel, and its actually purpose rather than as a comfort, or something to do when I'm bored. I've learnt that my body needs a lot less to function than I thought and that I can get away with eating much smaller portions, I find myself getting full a lot sooner which is good, and because it's a protein rich diet you actually feel fuller and satisfied for a much longer time period. Before I would have eaten breakfast and been hungry again about two hours later, now I can eat breakfast and 7/8am and not feel the need to eat anything for at least 5-6 hours and similarly when it comes to dinnertime. I very rarely feel the need to snack between meals because I'm just not hungry. This is a big thing for me and a great way for me t keep motivated because I think, if I was feeling hungry a lot of the time I'd feel deprived, and I'd be craving all the wrong kinds of foods, but because I don't have that problem I'm not even thinking about what I'm not 'allowed' to eat... I'm just seeing the weight loss and focusing my energy on the results, I'm that fed up of being over weight I'll do just about anything to get back to my slimmest and stay there! Another thing is that this weight loss so far is purely diet; I haven't had to exercise as well. I'd never and thought that possible, when I lost 5 stone a few years ago I really had to work hard and exercise religiously, and I think that's why it was quite difficult to maintain in the end because I just didn't keep up that level of fitness once I'd reached my goal weight, and pretty quickly all those months of hard work and gone to waste, I think that's why it has taken me s long to really get bad on the wagon and try and lose the weight because I was so ashamed and disappointed at having put it back on! It's actually really demoralizing for me. Being overweight has really effected me this time round, on some levels I think I'm able to deal with it a lot more emotionally now than when I was in my teens, back then I wasn't able to separate disliking my body and disliking myself as a person, and so I was under the illusion that I was a bad person and no body could possibly like me because I was 'big' now I've come to realize that actually hating the way I look and hating myself as a person are two different entities, I don't hate myself, I just don't like the way I look, being fat doesn’t make me a bad person, it doesn’t mean people will automatically hate me based on that, and if they do then that's really their problem not mine. I'm never going to like the way I look being over weight, I know I'm not meant to be a bigger person, for a while I was trying to accept myself for who I was, if I'm going to be big, then I'd have to learn to love myself, but deep down I just knew I would never be able to do that, I'm not a 'big' girl inside. Being over weight doesn't make you disgusting, or second-class, every one is beautiful whatever shape, size, color! I look at other big women and think, yeah she's beautiful, but I'll just never see myself that way, on me I find it disgusting, I hate my shape, I hate the way fat looks on me.

ANYWAY. I think I'll leave that subject there for now; I'll update you in a few weeks to let you know how I'm doing.

What else have I been doing? In all honesty, working, working, working and that's about it. I've managed to get home a few times over the summer but other than that all I've bee doing is working, which is good actually. I've really welcomed the change of scenery, and actually interacting with people on a daily basis other than my other half. I've never really settled into the London life, I don't have my friends here or much of a social life to be honest. I know. Woe is I. To be honest I could be proactive, I could go out there and make friends, join groups, go out and socialize but I'm really not that kind of person, or maybe I am? I don't really know anymore. I'm happy in my little bubble, just Fred, and me but sometimes I think I would just like to go out with friends or something you know?

I'm also mentally preparing myself to go back to uni, I'm not really an academic person and I have a lot of self doubt about whether I can actually do the work etc, but you know what? I get by, I do all right, I'm never going to be there person getting all firsts but I do ok. I'm aiming for a 2:1, and I managed to get that as my over all mark for year two so I'm just hoping I can carry it through to year three. I'm not exactly attending the most organized institutions so I'm also a bit worried that I'm supposed to have been working of stuff over the holiday break, out unit has a habit of not telling you things, and expecting you to know what your are supposed to be doing without being prompted that that might be the case. OH WELL. We’ll see.

I feel like there is far too much text in this post so I'll add this picture of the sky just to lighten it up a little :)