Weight Loss

At the beginning of this summer I was horrified to find that I had put a lot of weight on over the winter. I tried on my size 14 bathers, and they didn’t even come close to fitting, so I bought a new pair, size 18. Looking back I realise the size 14s weren’t a good fit last summer, but I know how I gained that weight, too much chocolate and all day snacking. So I realised that there needed to be a few changes to my lifestyle.

Mum is currently doing Jenny Craig, she is really happy with the weight loss, and suggested that I should do it too, she even offered to pay. I was tempted for a moment, but having seen Mum’s weight yoyo over the years as she went from one diet to another, I knew that I had to do something different. So I sat down and thought about what had caused my weight gain, and it a simple formula, too many calories in, and not enough out. So simply too much food, not enough exercise. I read the information that came with Mum’s food, and she suggested calorie controlled eating, but you know calorie counting just seems too hard, and not likely to succeed. So I developed a really simple program of eating less and doing more.

My basic plan is very simple:

1. 3 meals and 3 snacks each day – so no more snacking whenever I am awake, once I have had my 3 snacks that’s it.

2. Smaller serving sizes – less food on the plate, stop eating before I get full

3. Start exercise again – I found my yoga book and started yoga again. I love yoga it makes my whole body feel good. Once the temperature drops to something reasonable I’ll start using the trampoline and build up to about 20 minutes a day.

4. Go dairy free – although I don’t really know if this has helped with weight loss. However, I feel a lot better without it, I used to feel bloated and be very gassy, not any longer, so looks like I’m dairy free for good.

5. Get used to the slight feeling of hunger. I used to snack all day, so I never felt hungry, now when I feel hungry I know it means I’m ready for some more food, and that I’ve been a good girl and not snacked all day. So (a little bit of) hunger is now my friend.

Simple and so far successful, in January I managed to lose 3 kg, although I’m not aiming to do that well every month. My real aim is a new lifestyle so that I can be healthy and once I reach my natural weight I hope that I’ll stay there. However, this has dropped my BMI to 29.7, so instead of being obese I am now simply overweight, the website I looked at seems to think I need to lose another 15kg to get to my healthy weight. Time will tell.