Crunch Time


When I stepped on the scales last week, it only confirmed that I had reached a tipping point, and things needed to change. After ignoring numerous concerned comments from family and close friends that they were worried about my weight gain, looking at the figure of 99.8 kg on the scales was downright scary. Not only was I not looking good, I wasn't feeling good either, and with a family history of diabetes, heart disease and cancer, poor food choices and lack of exercise were combining to set me up for disaster. While I was making sure my children ate healthy real foods (as did I at dinner time), the rest of the time I was not making sure that I was doing the same.

So, to try and keep me accountable, for the foreseeable Sundays (why is it so quick to put on weight, but so slow to lose it??!!), I will be posting how I did in the preceding week. Follow along, give me ideas, hints and tips, maybe even find some inspiration if you are facing the same struggles.

So what has happened in the last week? I weighed myself on Sunday, just about died of a heart attack just seeing that number, and promptly rang my doctor first thing Monday morning to be squeezed in for an appointment. Her advice was to start a regimen of diet shakes for the first 10kgs - while her advice is usually to lose weight slowly through lifestyle changes etc, she felt that it was more important to get my weight down at a more moderate rate to start with, and then look at weaning in healthy lifestyle options.

So for the next few months, I am following a program of a breakfast diet shake blended with 1/2 cup of frozen berries, a morning snack of veggie sticks with a tablespoon nut butter, a lunch shake, and afternoon snack of a leafy green salad or a small fruit salad, then a normal dinner made up of mostly veggies, with a small portion of protein and a small portion of whole grains. If I am still hungry in the evening, I can have 1/2 cup non fat greek yoghurt with some berries.

Results: I am not going to lie - it has been tough!! The shakes are very convenient, since they come both in powdered sachets and ready-to-drink tetra paks, and that has made life easy, but it is pretty monotonous, and I often feel like I want to eat - of course, the trick is trying to relearn my true hunger signals, and not eat from boredom or because it is there. Similarly, I have started exercising, and I can honestly say that I don't get that runner's high; I was waiting and waiting, and you know what, it just never came!! But, as hard as it has been, I did have positive results the first week, so now I just have to stick with it long term.

Week ending 25/8/13

Starting weight: 99.8 kg
Today's weight: 98.3 kg
Weight Loss to date: 1.5 kg

Exercise: 4 days x 30 mins on elliptical





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