Week 44 WI

I managed to lose the weight I put on last week, plus a little bit extra, so I'll happily take that result :)
I'm still not pointing, but seem to have found a good balance and am listening to my hunger signals and making healthy choices. Unthinkable 10 months ago because I had absolutely no sense of proportion or of what it was "normal" to eat in one day, so I have definitely covered some ground since then :)

Still very stressed about the baby business though (see previous post) so I hope I can keep the emotional eating in check.

But, on a brighter note, here are my updated results so far:
Loss this week: -0.7 kg / - 1.5 lbs
Total loss: - 15.8 kg / - 34.8 lbs
BMI: 32.0

Next week I hope to: get into the 80's (kg) - 0.3 kg to go. Which will also mean getting my 5th silver 7 and 15% loss - 0.1 kg to go. All very achievable!

Good luck to everyone else weighing in this week.

I think too much (to have or not to have babies?)

"You over-think" was actually the result of a quiz I took in this month's Psychologies magazine: "What are your secret stresses?". And it's true. I have a constant stream of thoughts going through my mind, the voices in my head are never quiet. And sleep would be a welcome reprieve if I didn't usually have vivid dreams related to whatever I'm worrying about.

Last night I had a restless night and thoughts of babies and the impact they would have on my future going through my mind constantly. I felt unsettled, anxious, unsure if I really wanted to go ahead with trying to conceive (we planned to start next month). I couldn't shake the thought that this decision would impact the next 20 years of our lives (and beyond).

I've always been ambivalent about having kids. I don't have the "urge" I see in some friends or read about on parenting sites. But I also don't imagine NOT having kids at some point.

I have no doubts whatsoever about the relationship I'm in. If there's anyone I want kids with, it's my husband, I know that's not the issue.

So what's the problem?

Well, I just seem to focus on all the negatives: less time for me/for us, sleepless nights, dirty nappies, crying, tantrums, illness, no more lie-ins, too much responsibility, everything structured and planned, routine... I worry about not having any room in my life for this new person who will undoubtedly take up all my time, about being tired, stressed, unhappy...

It's not a career/children issue in the sense that if we do have kids I'd prefer to work part-time, preferably from home, and that wouldn't be a sacrifice in any way, but I do worry about finances and will we be able to make ends meet if I'm only working part-time? As a kid, my parents and - after the divorce - my dad struggled with money and I didn't have a lot - I put myself through university on a grant and felt so liberated when I got my first pay-check. I am terrified at the idea of going back to a place where every penny counts and we can't do what we want - holidays, dinner, clothes, all the things we can treat ourselves to now.

And I suppose more fundamentally, I'm just not sure if I want whatever it is children are supposed to bring you - unconditional love? a sense of purpose in life? fulfilment? I'm just not sure I need those things, and whether they're worth the sacrifice of time and energy involved.

Also, I am shit scared of losing myself, of becoming a "mommy", of being redefined by the children I have as opposed to who I am. It took me a while to find that person, after years of living with an overbearing parent, followed by a fucked-up relationship, and I'm not ready to lose her again.

I'm finally getting to grips with my eating disorder, self-image and self-confidence. I have defined myself as a creative, talented, intelligent woman. I don't want that to all be erased by a "mommy" label. And I'm afraid that if I have babies I'll turn into a different person (well, that's more like a certainty) and I kind of like the person I am now.

Finally, at least for the purposes of this post, there's also the question of how our relationship will change if we have a baby. Will we manage to find time for each other? Will we respect each other as parents? Will we deal with the added stress? Will we agree on parenting issues, from bedtimes to pocket money and the thousands of other little things parents have to decide on?

The thing is, I'm 31 and Bart is 37. I don't want us to be "older" parents. I feel if we want to do this we need to decide now or at least soon. And Bart wants kids, so it's all on me. And I can go through the motions and rationalise myself into it, but these nagging fears just keep popping up. I know the responsible thing to do is to work through these questions before jumping head-first into this pregnancy, so I'll be doing some serious soul-searching over the next few weeks. Although part of me feels I'm over-analysing it and should just let nature take its course. In the meantime, I just feel so confused about the whole thing.

Week 43 WI

And I've been a bad, bad girl.

Well, actually I thought I was pretty good, if I completely blank out the 2 days I spent in London at my friend Anne's.

Saturday was lunch at Carluccio's (hey, I had the tomato soup for starters) and Sunday full roast lunch at Brown's (oops, did I mention the oven roast camembert we shared for starters?). Both meals nicely topped off with sparkling wine (the kind that goes down a little too easily).

I actually thought I had limited the damage as I was too full for dinner both days, but snacking on twiglets and pretzels washed down with white wine obviously didn't fit into that plan.

Anyway, back from temptation and the damage as measured this morning is 0.4 kg / 0.9 lbs on.

I've been back on track since Monday, but still not actually tracking. I'm just really tired with the whole counting points and I think it actually has a negative effect on me: I eat healthily all day and listen to my hunger signals, but when I point everything I've eaten and I'm under points, I suddenly start wondering what else I could eat. If I don't add up the points, I don't actually think about having that extra snack.

Anyway, I've decided to give pointing a rest for a while longer and see how it goes. Fingers crossed.

Week 42 WI

I am completely gobsmacked at this week's result. As I explained in yesterday's post, I didn't track my points last week, but I did try to eat sensibly and didn't snack. Neverthesless, I was fully expecting to stay the same or even put on a few grams. So I am absolutely elated to report I lost 0.8 kg / 1.8 lbs this week!

This is my biggest loss since the end of July, and although I don't understand how it happened I am really happy with it.

Also... drum rolls... I have just squeezed under the 200 lbs mark. I am now 199.6 lbs. And I need to lose another half kilo to reach the 90 kg mark. Some great milestones :-)

Here are my updates results:
Loss this week: - 0.8 kg / - 1.8 lbs
Total loss: - 15.5 kg / - 34.2 lbs
BMI: 32.1

I'm not sure I'm going to just "carry on doing what I did", cause I still think I need to track to have a realistic view on what I'm eating, and also the mojitos and crisps on Friday night and red wine and chocolate cake on Saturday just don't feel like an acceptable part of a diet. But I am going to enjoy this loss :-)

Hope everyone else has a great week. I look forward to reading all your results.

Food obsession

I didn't point all week. Which doesn't mean I went completely over the top, I was actually quite reasonable all week - until yesterday night when the red wine and chocolate cake got the better of me.
But I tried to stick to 3 reasonable meals a day and no snacking, and really didn't do too bad.

Which made me think back to 9 months ago and remember how I would fantasise about food all day long.
I remember going to bed at night dreaming about the next day's breakfast, or finishing lunch and already fantasising about everything in the cupboards, doing a mental inventory of the fridge and obsessing about any chocolate bar or biscuit I knew was sitting in the kitchen waiting for me. The worst moment of the day was after dinner, when the food sirens would call to me and I would make regular trips from the couch to the kitchen to nible at anything and everything, hoping my husband didn't notice. Total obsession. I would estimate I spent about 6 hours a day just thinking about food, feeling taunted by it, anticipating eating it, battling with myself about whether or not to eat it, eating it, feeling guilty about eating it...

I realised at the time that I was completely obsessed and knew it wasn't normal or healthy, but I couldn't imagine it ever changing, I thought that was just the way I was kinked and would have to battle my food thoughts for the rest of my life.

9 months on and I hardly ever think about food (I'm not kidding, I really rarely think about it anymore), I can go 6 or 7 hours without eating and suddenly realise it's dinner time because I feel hungry (yes, HUNGRY!). I think "so this is how normal people feel about food?" and have a hard time imagining I was so obsessed about it in the first place.

Of course, I still have issues or I'd already be a size 10. Stress sees me making unhealthier choices (not eating more, just less healthy) and social situations are triggers for going off track (alcohol and snacks, my two worst enemies).

Last night I sat at a dinner table with 2 friends. One naturally skinny and one a constant dieter - she's at a healthy weight now but often yoyos up and down by 10 kilos or so. On the table, a bottle of red wine and a chocolate cake. This was after a relatively healthy and filling dinner of chicken and vegetable curry.
It struck me that whereas naturally skinny friend could leave a half-eaten slice of cake on her plate and half a glass of red wine in front of her for half an hour without touching it, dieter friend and me were constantly sipping and nibbling, cutting away small bits of cake and topping up our glasses of wine regularly. I'd estimate that by the end of the evening we'd had about 3 times more cake than skinny friend and double the amount of wine.

So, still some issues to deal with before I am 100% freed from the food demons, but I do think I can get there eventually.

My dream is to become a naturally healthy person, able to stay at a steady weight for long periods of time without much effort, auto-regulating any excesses without even thinking about it, with an inate sense of balance. I wonder if that's possible or if the overeater in me will always be lurking in the shadows, ready to send me soaring back into obesity?

Week 41 WI

I had a week off last week. Well, not on purpose, but that's the way it turned out.

I had just a little bit too much to eat every day and couldn't be bothered enough to point it. 3 days in a row eating out, plus mad hours at work meant I wasn't as strict with myself as I am most of the time - at least in a good week.

Having said that, I made decent choices and indulged in a controlled way, so I was quite pleased to see a 0.1 kg / 0.2 lbs loss on the scale today. Not much, but not a gain after a week of potentially explosive situations. Yay me!

Back on track this week and no alcohol for a week - still amazing how tired I am the next day even after just 2 glasses of wine...

Week 40 WI

40 weeks in, wow. I'm not sure I ever believed I'd keep at it for this long when I started. Pretty proud of that actually.

Last week was another one of those "well, I stuck to points but nothing happened" weeks, with a minuscule loss of 0.2 kg / 0.4 lbs (and to be completely honest the scales were hesitating between 0.1 and 0.2 kg, but I decided to be optimistic about it and take the greater loss).

Still not going quite as quick and steady as I'd like, but what a turn-around I've made in my eating habits. I feel so much healthier, so much more in control, so much less dependent on food. So I guess fast or slow doesn't matter, what matters is I've made a change for life and I'll get there eventually.

Results to date:
Loss this week: - 0.2 kg / - 0.4 lbs
Total loss: - 14.6 kg / - 32.2 lbs
BMI: 32.4

Also, I went down another size in clothes this past month and can now fit into quite a few old pairs of trousers, so it feels like I have a new wardrobe, lol!

Exercise was virtually non-existent last week, except for an hour and a half of yoga, which I LOVE and will be doing every Tuesday from now on. But work was intense, I was busy till 8 or 9 most evenings, so not much time for anything else. I'm hoping to get back to badminton this weekend though. On top of the exercise, it's a nice activity with my man and a good way to spend time together.

Hope everyone else is feeling good and progressing. Good vibes to all my WW blogger buddies :-)

My mother-in-law

... is a real sweetheart. I mean, she's rather loud and very much set in her ways, not very adventurous or worldly, and we don't always understand each other - her language being my third language and she speaks it with a heavy accent - but as far as supporting me during my diet goes, she's gold.

We go to see them once every 3 weeks on a Sunday - in itself a very reasonable amount of in-law time ;-) - and have dinner with them. She is also quite heavy-set and has followed WW herself in the past, so knows what I can and can't eat and actually prepares special dishes for me when she makes anything that's not 100% good for me. So while evryone else was eating cheese croquettes for starters and fries with the main course, I got parma ham and melon, and boiled potatoes. Probably saving me about 12 points! What an angel :-)

On a more freaky note, she was telling me today how much she noticed I'd already lossed (bless her!), then told me not to lose too much or I wouldn't have any breasts left, adding "don't take my son's toys away!". Eeeeuw! Okay, so he's an only son and she is obviously extremely attached to him, but that was just one step too far for me.

But, moving swiftly on... today she made "paling in't groen", a traditional Belgian dish of eel in a green sauce made with spinach, celery, parsley, onions, etc. I was a bit squirmish at the idea of eating eel, but really it tastes just like any other fish, isn't slimy at all like I thought it would be and it went down really well :-)

Baby talk

Well, I went to my ob-gyn yesterday to get the results of my blood test and everything is looking good: no risk of trisomy, good blood sugar levels and my kidneys and liver are "working perfectly" (not sure that would have been the case 9 months ago, so thank goodness for my new diet). So we got the go ahead to make babies :)

The only negative is that I'm not protected agains CMV or toxoplasmosis, so will have to take some precautions when pregnant, but I can live with that.

We also discussed weight issues and the doctor is supportive of me trying to not put any on weight during pregnancy. He says it's all up to me and as long as I'm eating a healthy, balanced diet he doesn't see why I couldn't keep the weight I have now (meaning I'm actually losing weight as the baby grows). I'm going to look into it some more as I read somewhere that the toxins released when you burn fat weren't good for the baby (?), but for now that's the plan.

And then because of our trip to NZ at the end of the year we won't be trying till November so we're back here on time for the (apparently) all-important 13 week scan. So for now we're still doing practice rounds ;-)

In the meantime I'm going to try and lose a couple more kg to get into the 80's. I am still unsure about starting a pregnancy at this weight, but at the same time I think if my body can't handle it, chances are it just won't happen.

So, I'm off to find some more pregnancy blogs and forums to read and get as much information as I can to prepare for the whole experience (yes, I'm a control freak). How exciting!!

Week 39 WI

And the weirdest thing happened: despite my pizza pig out on Saturday, I lost 0.6 kg / 1.3 lbs.
Well, Saturday night, after posting about my disgusting meal of pizza, garlic bread and red wine, I actually had indigestion all night, so perhaps nothing got absorbed. And yesterday I only had 13 out of my 23 points, both in an attempt to limit the damage and, well, because I couldn't actually stomach much.
So, amazingly, the results this week are:

Loss this week: - 0.6 kg / - 1.3 lbs
Total loss so far: - 14.4 kg / - 31.8 lbs

My BMI is now 32.5. Just over 7 kg to go to get me below 30. My goal is to be there before xmas, with an average loss of 0.5 kg a week. Slower than I'd hoped, but I have to be realistic, and it would mean I've managed to lose 21 kg in a year, which I'll be pretty chuffed about.

Good luck to all with your weigh ins this week!