Trying to decide whether to delete this blog or not. It’s boring as hell, but might be some tiny value in it, of reminding me of what happened.

Approach has changed somewhat, I’ve lost 24lbs since new year, I’m really doing it this time. The trick has been to keep going when I fuck up. I think that, and my attitude, is what had to change so that I could succeed this time. I do fuck up frequently, it’s a struggle, but I keep going, still going after nearly four months so that’s good. I’ve got a long way to go but I’m going to get there.

Think I’ll leave this here for a bit, it’s not doing any harm. Nobody reads it. Not sure why I’m posting this really!

Bye

I had some thoughts recently about why I always fail when I try to lose weight.

The whole diet thing, I think the very fact that I always know that I am “being bad” when I eat crap just makes me worse. Feeling like you are wrong and bad all the time does nothing for you, I think. It just makes you feel lower, so you eat to feel better, then you feel worse ultimately and it all just repeats. I sometimes eat bad foods not because I am craving them, but out of this strange sense of defeat. “I am always going to fail, so why try”.
I think the only way I am going to get out of this is to accept myself. I always read about this self-acceptance thing being an important part of dieting and just wrote it off as positive-thinking bollocks. But it’s the foundation of improvement. How can you help yourself if you hate yourself? Sure, losing weight will stop you hating yourself so much but it’s almost a paradox, you can’t escape from a state by doing something that makes that state worse.
The very act of dieting is ultimately detrimental to self-esteem. It’s saying that you’re not good enough, you need to change. How can anyone do anything positive with that idea in their mind the whole time?

Anyway, the conclusion to this is that I am going to stop trying to “be good”. I will try to believe in myself a bit more, I will do stuff to feel better about myself.  I just decided I would see what happened, wouldn’t buy crap by default but then wouldn’t buy diety stuff either. So I had a normal sandwich, then a normal dinner. And I didn’t feel the urge to buy crap. There was never the sense I was denying myself, as I still had a reasonable lunch. Also when I used to do “special” things, make a fuss of what I was having for lunch, that would tip me over the dark side as well! I realise that now. So I just have whatever will fill me up and is nice. I wasn’t spending the morning thinking of nothing but lunch either.
It’s not a revolutionary idea this; all I am doing is being normal. Eating like other people do. I will try to go for the less lardy options on a day to day basis, then have treats like pub lunches at the end of the week. But no punishment type denials, and no extremes. No binges. I’m not even ruling binges out though, because normal people do that. But they don’t just do it by default. They might do it before their period or something, or on a Friday night. That’s normal. But I was doing it every day.
Anyway, that’s the idea. Accepting myself as not inherently “wrong” and throwing out the concepts of being bad or good. That’s all it is. It seems to work so far. I don’t even have the “hold your breath” feeling of a new attempt at losing weight, like I usually do. It’s just not nearly as stressful. Will see what happens but if I am not beating myself up all the time it’s got to improve things. Even if I don’t lose weight, ultimately learning to stop hating myself has got to be a positive thing, if it makes me feel better on a day to day basis.

In the few days since I decided all this I have felt like a truce has been made. I’m not at war with myself anymore. I have reconciled with myself. I feel really positive about it and actually hopeful instead of fearful about the future.

Shame it took me until my 30th birthday to realise all this…

Hello

Well I’m trying again now, but I’m not going to do the food diary for a bit. Just going to try easing myself back into eating properly. Will post though, weigh ins and other bits.

Today was ok-ish.

Ok it’s going to take a while to get back into this, obviously.

Yesterday I had some sherbet and chocolate buttons which were laying around. Dinner was spaghetti bolognese. I had some toast with cheese spread later in the evening because I was hungry.

Also some cranberry juice.

So far today I have had a cup of tea.

Beans on toast with grated cheese.

Two slices of toast with sunflower spread and two light cheese spreads. I did contemplate muesli etc but couldn’t face it. The sunflower spread is quite nice though. It’s quite solid, unlike those flora ones that are basically water. So it goes quite well on toast.

Cup of tea. Some apple juice.

Hello

Well since my last weigh in I’ve gained 5lbs, but considering how much shite I’ve been eating, that’s not very much at all. I’ve been quite lucky really. Decided to start making an effort again today because I am ill at the moment with a cold type thing and I know if I ate properly I would be less susceptible to these things. Also I’ve had the distinct feeling of dying, all the butter I kept having on toast and all the crisps and bread and arghghgh I could just feel myself dying slowly. But I don’t really want to die at the moment, I’m too busy.

So here we go again. If the weather stays this nice it should be easier to eat light. Cold weather makes me crave stodge. I have to stop using being stressed as an excuse to eat what I like. It doesn’t really help, in the long run.

Things are a bit silly at the moment, busy-ness wise. So I haven’t been being very good at all. Will get back to it soon.

Muesli, yoghurt, banana, tea.

Lardy