Weight Loss
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Biggest Loser

Since going off the Lite and Easy diet I have put all the weight I lost straight back on and my meralgia paresthetica has returned.  I am so disappointed in how fast the weight came back on although not surprised as I have been eating a LOT of junk food!

I’ve watched a few seasons of The Biggest Loser and what attracts me is the way, at the end of the show, so many of the contestants say they have really changed their attitude to food and exercise.  Some say they have even become addicted to exercise.

I’ve decided to apply to be a contestant on the 2009 Biggest Loser series because I really hope, if I got on the show, I would get addicted to exercise too!

It’s a long shot but, if I got on the show, it would be a chance to make some major life changes.  I’d be dropping myself in the deep end of the getting healthy pool!

As far as I know contestants on the show are not allowed to smoke and they are not supplied with gallons of diet coke which is what I currently drink a week.  They teach you about exercise and diet and you really have to give it everything you’ve got.

The last time I gave up smoking I was 15 years old.  I had been caught on the streets as a runaway and they put me in a remand center for two weeks until a judge could decide whether or not to release me back into the custody of my mother.

It was touch and go as I had been caught stealing so it wasn’t a simple case of taking me back home.  I had been staying with a trainee teacher and her trainee doctor fiancee.  The woman picked me up off the streets and took me home to play out her lesbian fantasies with me.

I agreed to the arrangement because I had never tried sex with a woman so I didn’t know if I would like it and she was offering me free room and board.

Turned out I really couldn’t whip up any enthusiasm for the female body so she brought her fiancee into the mix and we had threesomes.

I told them both I was only 15 and they said they didn’t want to know that and would forget I ever said it.   When she decided her fiancee was getting a little too fond of me she threw me back out on the streets.

I decided to take her pay packet with me as payment for services rendered.  She called the cops and they found me.  I never did dob on them for knowingly having sex with a minor but that was how I ended up in remand.

The thing I remember most is how, as soon as those institutional doors were locked behind me, I knew I couldn’t have a smoke so I didn’t worry about it.  I have the ability to accept the things I can’t change so I know I could quit smoking.  I just need something powerful enough to force me to do it.

I think I would be able to view the Biggest Loser house the same way I viewed that remand center – as a place I can’t leave so I have to accept the situation and make the best of it.

I’ve given up diet coke cold turkey before.  I read a book about the benefits of water and got so enthusiastic I quit drinking coke and drank over 4 litres of water a day instead for a week.

Old habits gradually crept back in but I had no withdrawal symptoms at all for that week despite the massive amounts of caffeine I had been consuming until then.

My body is still strong enough to cope with the gruelling exercise regime I’m sure of that.  I just spent a week moving heavy boxes up and down stairs and my body gradually adjusted to the point where I felt fitter and stronger.  I wasn’t puffing as much or needing to take as many rest breaks by the time it was all done.

For the past 50 years my main goal in life was to die as soon as possible but that has changed now.  I’m finally ready to live and I would like to live well!

This show would give me a chance to get rid of all the things that are cutting my life short.  Any time I was tempted to give up I would have the trainers motivating me, my son asking me not to let him down and the fact the whole world would know I’m a quitter if I didn’t stick it out to spur me on.

I know there’s no chance I would win the money.  I don’t even know how much the prize money is but I do know women don’t usually win as it’s harder for women to lose weight than it is for men.  I am also not as heavy as a lot of previous contestants have been so I would have less weight to lose.  On top of all that, I am over 50 and I think your metabolism slows down with age.

If I got on the show I would just be hoping to last long enough to get the weight off, get past the worst of the withdrawal stage for the nicotine and caffeine, and learn enough from the trainers to be able to keep to the new ways and make the changes permanent.

If I don’t get on the show I won’t be trying to give up the coke or the smokes but I will keep trying to cut down.  It’s just too hard to make myself try and give them up if I don’t actually have to.

As for my weight – I don’t know.  I guess I will have to go back on the Lite and Easy diet somewhere along the line.  I just got tired of the food and having to deny myself all the stuff I like and I’m not sure I have recovered enough to try it again just yet.

I’ll have to do something though.  My thigh is hurting really badly again although it is not yet back to the same level it was before I lost the weight.  It won’t be long but, so far, I don’t have to pop pain killers every day like I was having to do before.

A few days have passed since I wrote the above.  Like I said in a previous entry, I am struggling to maintain enough concentration to write an entry in one sitting because of not being able to smoke in the house.

My son has now lodged his application to be on The Biggest Loser and we had to take pictures of him for his application too.

He browsed their website and checked out the statistics of previous contestants and, all of a sudden, we both see ourselves as a whole lot thinner than we thought.

If we were accepted we would be two of their thinnest competitors and, the more I look at previous contestants, the more certain I am we won’t be accepted.

All previous contestants share other common physical attributes as well as their excessive weights.  They all have good teeth for one thing.  Not a single one has teeth like mine – chipped and stained.

They all have attractive faces too.  Not one of them has sunken eyes and thin lips like me.

Then there is the issue of friends.  The application asks you to list three male and three female friends plus a best friend.

I have friends but none I could put on the form.  I lost contact with all my male friends during my marriage and same with my female friends.  We kept moving and, in the end, it got too hard to stay in touch.  I haven’t really made any new ones, or no close ones, since then.

I’ve made friends with people at work but I don’t socialise with them so how could I give out their phone numbers?  I’m pretty sure a fair few of them would support me if I asked them to but none of them are close enough for me to be able to count on that.

All the previous contestants seem to have a big crowd of friends and family to go home to.  I have my daughter.  I do have family but would they make the effort to travel here to welcome me home when I don’t even make the effort to send them a birthday card?

I don’t think so and I wouldn’t even ask them to.

After realising all that I am now 100 percent certain we will not be chosen to be on the show.  Not only are we too thin – I’m too ugly and friendless as well.

Sigh.  That leaves me with a weight problem I can’t ignore thanks to the meralgia.

I have a five grand debt caused by having to get major work done on my car and the moving expenses.  I have to clear that before I go spending money on a diet programme again.

The situation here is truly dire though.  My daughter has a sweet tooth and she buys a lot of snacks.  I can’t resist them so I am having to buy some too so I will have my own and won’t pinch hers.

Not being able to smoke in the house has turned me into a munching machine too.  I am chewing gum, biscuits, lollies, anything I can get my hands on to help me avoid going out into the cold for a smoke.

The pain in my thigh has reached the nagging, annoying stage, next comes the constantly painful stage so something has to be done.  I just have no idea what.

I guess I will just have to wing it and deal with it when the pain in my thigh forces me to do something like it did last time.

With any luck it won’t get to the excruciating stage until after I have adjusted to not being able to smoke inside and am no longer needing to munch non-stop.

Sigh.

Who am I kidding.  Going back on the Lite and Easy diet, provided I stick to it, will be way cheaper than all the junk food I have been buying so putting it off until I clear my debts is just wishful thinking.

It is starting to look like I am going to have to commit to being on that diet for the rest of my life with, perhaps, short rest breaks now and then.

Sigh.

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