Diet Update

I’m going interstate for my youngest brothers wedding in two weeks and that means I will have to go off my diet for the week whilst I am away.  I can’t decide if I am glad about that or not.

I haven’t been hungry on the diet but I have wanted to eat!  When I am bored, frustrated, tired or any other emotion I tend to look for something to eat.

This diet supplies all my food so I have not had anything in the house to turn to when I feel that way.  It hasn’t stopped me from cheating on the diet but it does hold me back as I have to make a special trip to get something or order something in.

Twice so far I have ordered pizza and both times it did not sit well with my digestive system afterwards so I haven’t wanted to do that again.

The thought of the grease in other fast foods is putting me off wanting them these days too.

It’s as if my body now recognises what it is supposed to be getting fed and it isn’t liking the thought of going back to old habits.

This might sound odd but I am 50 years old and I have never eaten a healthy diet for more than a couple of weeks!  I went on the Jenny Craig diet many years ago but I only stuck it out for a couple of weeks.

This time I have stuck to the diet, more or less but mostly more, for 15 weeks.  Long enough for my body to adjust to the new foods and it has changed my appetite.

My cravings now are for ice cream or a subway salad roll not for Chinese food or pizza.  My body knows what a healthy serving is too so I no longer crave a foot long subway – just a 6 inch and even that seems like pigging out.

Will it last?  That is the 64 thousand dollar question.  During the week I am away will my old appetite and eating habits return or will I be able to eat healthy foods and healthy amounts of food?

You hear nutritionists and doctors say a healthy diet is important all your life but I didn’t know just how important it really is.  It is possible I would not have a weight problem if my mother had fed me 3 small meals and 2 snacks per day when I was growing up.

I developed a kind of feast/famine ritual with food instead based on the one meal a day routine I grew up with.  I would eat far too much for one meal then nothing at all for the others so I’d fill up in the evening then skip breakfast the next day.  Sometimes I would skip lunch too and eat even more that evening.  I would eat a huge meal then keep on snacking for the rest of the evening.

This diet has forced me to change that.  They don’t feed me enough in one meal to last very long!  By the time breakfast is almost due I am well and truly ready for it.  By the time my morning snack is due I’m hanging out for that too and so on.

I’m not due to weigh myself until tomorrow but the diet seems to be working.

The trousers I usually wear to my one day shift a fortnight are too big.  They are almost falling off me.  The outfit I bought years ago and have never worn fits perfectly now.  I will be able to wear it to my brothers wedding provided I haven’t lost much more weight by then.

woo hoo!

It’s now the day after I wrote the above and I have weighed in.

I’ve made it under the 100 kg mark!  I’ve now lost a total of about 14 kilos without doing any exercise at all.  I would have killed them on the biggest loser hehehe.

What is upsetting me, however, is the problem with my outer thigh is getting worse again!  The whole point of this diet is to get rid of my meralgia paresthetica and it seemed to be working.  By the time I lost 10 kilos the symptoms were all but gone and I expected them to disappear completely once I got back down to post surgery weight of 95 kilos.

I am now only 4 kilos away from that goal and that’s lighter than I was when the symptoms first began but sometimes I am waking up with strong symptoms again now.

The pain has gone completely which is a relief but the numbness and irritated feeling has been appearing after sleeping.  I suspect it is because I am, once again, able to sleep on my back and that is the position most likely to bring on the symptoms.

I will wait and see what happens when I get back to post surgery weight of 95 kilos but I may need to go for another injection.  I had an injection of some kind of steroid once and that cured it completely but only for a few weeks.  The symptoms returned and, I presume, that was due to the fact the injection could not cure the cause of the problem – excess weight pressing on the nerve.

When I had the surgery I was 100 kilos and expected to stay at that weight forever.

The surgery removed 5 kilos of excess skin.  I didn’t have any fat removed – just the excess skin on my breasts and tummy and that added up to 5 kilos!  After the surgery I swiftly put that 5 kilos back on so I am now a kilo lighter than I have been since a few months after the surgery 10 years ago.

I guess the nerve has been compressed for so long it may remain irritated even after I lose all the weight.  Another injection may settle it down and, without the weight to compress and irritate it again, it should be cured.

That’s the theory anyway.

Tomorrow I move on to the next step in the diet.  I have gone from the diet companies full breakfast, lunch and dinner menu to just lunch and dinners.  For this coming week I will have to provide my own breakfast and morning snacks.

I have bought two of the cereals the company has been feeding me for breakfast.  I now know how big my servings are supposed to be so the plan is to eat diet sized servings of those two cereals each day in preparation for my week away.

I’m a bit apprehensive because this will be my first attempt to take control of my diet and try to feed myself properly!

I’m already sabotaging myself because I did not buy any morning snacks.  I’m thinking if I skip those I will lose weight faster.

Sigh (Smacks self)

Dumb move!  Dumb, DUMB move!

I KNOW diet sized portions of food don’t last!  I already KNOW I will be hungry mid-morning and desperate for those snacks!  If they are not there I will be excessively hungry come lunch time and at risk of pigging out.  The whole feast/famine routine will kick back in if I do that!

Sigh.

If you will excuse me I have to go to the store and buy a weeks worth of small diet yoghurt servings and fruit!  Those are the snacks I like best from the diet hehehe.  It’s funny actually because I hated yoghurt when I began this diet but I really like the yoghurt they gave me and I have seen it on the supermarket shelves so I know I can get it.

Wish me luck.  I will do anything to get rid of this problem with my thigh and, if that means taking control of my diet, it will be worth it to stay pain free!