In Shrink Rap Connolly talks to his wife, Pamela Stevenson a clinical psychologist about his life experiences. One thing he said in particular has stuck in my mind since watching this a couple of years ago.

“If people concentrated more on how, and nevermind why, we’d be in such better shape.”

I used to look at my thighs in the bath, led out in front of me as a teenager and think am I really fat? Is this really me? Then, why, why am I being punished? Why me?

At that time I didn’t understand what I was doing wrong as I’d tend to space out during my binges. I was in denial about overeating because it didn’t feel like I had a choice, so I never took responsibility for it. It felt like something was wrong with me that I couldn’t control, punishing myself for being the size I was when I had no reason to be so.

The question why me? Crossed my mind many times and I suppose up until recently it still has. I think it’s natural to feel sorry for yourself, and I did. Doing LighterLife and attending CBT however made me more aware of the victim state I unintentionally put myself into, and since then yeah sure, I have moaned, but I know that the why doesn’t matter, why isn’t going to move me forward. I have an EDNOS and only I can change this.

Connolly is wise. I agree, questioning the why is natural and often relevant, but it’s not going to solve the problem. Acknowledging the bad times and situation that may have helped your problems develop is necessary, but surely how has this happened, and how can I get over this? Are much more useful questions.

Shrink Rap is now available on youtube and so if you want to watch it go for it, but I warn you, he can be a tad offensive.

Do you agree with Billy Connolly, or do you think the why is just as important as the how?

Emma

A few years ago when I read Overcoming Binge-Eating I found that binge-eaters can go through phases of normal, somewhat restrictive eating.

These things have been incredibly influential in my life right now because yesterday I didn’t have chocolate.

Ring the bells, call the party planner, order the cake – we’re going to have a celebration!

…Or not. I know my disorder and this is one of those fantastic quiet periods where I am in control. I feel as if my Disorder has taken a holiday, probably plotting a vicious comeback. But right now, fuck sugar. Who needs sugar? In the past couple of days I’ve upped my fruit intake from non-existent to 2 portions a day – not great, but better.

I’ve tried to keep my chocolate intake to a minimum – having one chocolate bar a day in the triumphant days of CBT enabled me to keep the binges at bay. I have stuck to this, the first day – Saturday I had 2 wispa bars but I didn’t write it off. I had less than I wanted, but more than I aimed for. It wasn’t great, but it was better.

Let me rewind. You may have read my posts on LighterLife and thought how the hell could she have stopped eating actual food with binge-eating and compulsive overeating problems?!

Well, thanks to my all-or-nothing thinking, I just did it. It’s happened before, I cut out all snacks for a couple of months in school and lost 1 ½ stone. I then binged it all back. Lighterlife – I took off 2 ½ stone the first time and 3 stone the next and binged it all back on. The last time I can remember this feeling of serenity, this feeling that I have a normal relationship to food, was in my last year of university when I didn’t have chocolate for 7 days.

It was a good 7 days and I felt like a ninja. I took it day by day and tried to keep my expectations low. In the weeks that followed something changed though, and my Eating Disorder came back from holiday, plonked it’s bags on the floor and screamed “Honey, I’m hooooome! And this time I’m gonna make you vomit.”

So I’m facing the calm before the storm. I’m holding onto hope that I’ll be able to deal with the storm because I’ve made progress in these 13 weeks of therapy that I never dreamed of. I now know a lot more about my problems than I ever did. I am aware of a certain disconnect in regards to knowing how to battle my ED and actually battling it, and I am prepared to tackle deep-rooted issues that I have dodged before.

For now I’m enjoying the break. There are chocolate biscuits in the kitchen and I don’t care about them. It’s like I’m normal!

Emma

The half normal food started yesterday with a large relative increase in range and numbers of portions. I couldn’t eat it all, I was so full by 6pm. I then realised how very very VERY hungry I was in week four. Barely sleeping, losing extra weight I’d have preferred to keep and having to work hard mentally to manage my response to hunger.

Now, I intend to spend the rest of my life eating when genuinely hungry but it was a reassuring excerise in the application of willpower. I’ve never in my entire life attempted to apply willpower to food, either ignoring its importance or treating it on a pleasure principle. The will to maintain my goal will be the central plank of long term management though. Week four has left me feeling confident in my ability to eat and stop, to know hunger, to manage it if I really have to.

Next goal, figuring out the difference between fancying a taste of something when hungry and giving my body what it needs. Do we really get signals like that, or is it all from our heads and the knowledge we have?

I’m still working through a lot of issues, and my counsellor said that it would be best to figure some stuff out before I should throw myself into action. She explained that I seem to be able to do the action stuff – I did Lighterlife, drank 4 shakes a day for meals for 3 months twice – but it’s often maintenance that I struggle with. I didn’t maintain the weight loss, and thinking back I often try to do things to battle my compulsive overeating and bingeing and even when I succeed… I kind of don’t continue.

I’m itching to change because I’m miserable, but I don’t want to rush into change and then ping back to where I started. I said to my Mum “if I lost weight again and put it all back on again, I don’t know what I’d do. I don’t think I could come through that again.”

There’s a tendency to think that when a person has started changing or has successfully completed the change, that everything is fine. When I was losing weight people openly said they couldn’t have survived on 4 shakes a day and 2 litres of water. I’d get compliments left right and centre about how good I looked, what an improvement, how much more confident I was etc.

And the same happened with therapy, not that I told a lot of people. When my therapy ended the majority of people thought that that was it: I was cured. I got the feeling some people were sick of hearing about how things were going because they were rarely going well, and no one wants to be moaned at for an hour. So I stopped talking about how I couldn’t understand where to go from how far I’d come. I’d got into the routine of allowing myself one – guilt free – chocolate bar a day. The bar I felt ‘safest’ with was a Wispa bar. Having this chocolate bar was meant to curb binges by allowing myself this chocolate bar, so I wasn’t overly restrictive and didn’t put so much pressure on myself. I accomplished this and it was like something clicked in my mind… but then my therapy stopped and I didn’t know how to progress to the next level.

So I was frustrated and continued to battle with a lot of half-dealt with problems. I then resorted back because what was the point? I still didn’t have the level of understanding of why I binged and why I continually sabotaged myself. The best thing about the therapy that I’m in now is that it goes on for as long as I need it to. I don’t have a limited amount of sessions to sort issues that have been suppressed for fourteen years, thankfully.

I'm Thinking of Getting This Hair Style

And it’s person-centred; I can locate the source of ‘crazy’ and eliminate it, sci-fi movie style.

Emma

There were so many things I’d stopped myself from eating over the years, things that I’d binged on when I was in my first year at Uni but after LighterLife it was different. I finally realised just how restrictive I’d been – restrictive in one way, I mean, obviously after restricting I’d binge and overeat. In order to curb my bingeing my therapist suggested I eat what I wanted – within reason. If I ate an extra piece of toast, try to think of it as just that instead of ruining my day/week/month.

I developed a rebellious child attitude; If she’s having that, then why can’t I? It’s always about my weight, why can’t I just put that aside temporarily and have what I crave?

There were a lot of things I allowed myself then because, having the all or nothing attitude, I let go completely.

The main thing that was particularly prominent with me was this fascination with beef burgers. Although I’d have beef burgers before it was always frowned upon – they’re full of rubbish, fat, they’re red meat, we shouldn’t eat them regularly etc.

Now, savoury isn’t my thing – I will always choose sweet over savoury but there was something about beef burgers in particular and eating out at pubs and restaurants that I particularly felt a pull towards.

I don’t know why, but for a good year or so all I would order on the menu was beef burgers. I wanted chips with this beef burger as well and even if there was a sumptuous salad on the side I usually would only touch it so the waiters thought I’d eaten something healthy.

Earlier this week I met up with some friends for lunch and there were beef burgers on the menu. I managed to ease my anxiety by telling myself that I wouldn’t have anything to eat. I’d had some chocolate that morning and I wasn’t really hungry and I thought if I can not eat anything that would be a real accomplishment. I then realised that not eating when everyone else was eating would probably increase my need to binge so I thought salad! A salad was deemed acceptable.

I didn’t feel like I deprived myself and I asked for the sauce to be on the side rather than drizzled over, something that would make me feel horrendously fat and unworthy of eating normally.

Fortunately it didn’t. I just really enjoyed the salad. I couldn’t believe it, I thought I’d be drooling over the desert menu five minutes after finishing. This is a huge step forward for me in terms of eating and understanding the psychology of my attitude to food.

I did have chocolate brownies and cream for desert though. Oh come on, chocolate brownies, I’m not a saint.

Emma

19st 5lb to 10st 13lbs

BMI 44.0 to 24.9

Hips 56.5″ to 40

Waist 46 to 30

Chest 49 to 37.5

Second phase starts next week: bedding in balanced thinking, good activity habits, nutritious food. I’ve got lots set up already, some new crockery, some new plans about how when I eat with my husband, a STACK of new recipes.

We had a lovely session tonight, ending with a bit of a dance for 15 minutes. Was good to try something new. I also had my photo taken for the before/after money shot…will post that once I get it next week.

Here is my reply:

You will justify every reason for why things are the way they are, but this is you deflecting responsibility for yourself and for the ones that look up to you and love you. You will be everything but honest with yourself and the ones that are trying to help you because you have so much to protect, and those friends: guilt, shame, and remorse, (the ones you a have acquired through your addiction) really hate any kind of criticism. (Jessie Pavelka, the trainer from Obese: A Year to Save My Life)

I appreciate your comment, I love having debates and I sincerely enjoyed reading your opinion. Congratulations, you’re part of the 3% that manage to lose weight with a restrictive diet and furious working out and sustain weight loss 4 years later, and I genuinely applaud that.

I don’t know if you read any other posts on this blog, but I have something called EDNOS (Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified) you can call this 1 of the 50 reasons not to sweat for 4 hours in the gym everyday (something I have done) and reduce my calories significantly (again, which I have done) but I call it the real world.

In this blog, I’m as honest as I can possibly be, and in order to do that I have to be honest with myself at all times. I chastised myself for YEARS, bullied myself into a state of not leaving the house because I wasn’t strong enough to stick to a diet and then keep the weight off. Then a couple of years ago I finally found out that I’m not weak, lazy and disgusting: I have overeating and binge-eating issues. I appreciate your opinion, but I’m not a big fan of being told I am fat because I’m ‘deflecting responsibility’ for myself. I certainly don’t ‘hate any kind of criticism’. I invite it – I’m writing this blog, aren’t I?

I don’t pretend that I don’t have any problems - that it’s just my metabolism or that I have the fat gene. I take full responsibility for my weight, and that’s why I hate it, and myself for letting it happen. It has happened, I am fat and I sustain my weight, but I’m trying to change that my way, through therapy to treat my disorder.

I have chosen a path that I think is right for me. I know myself, and I know if I restrict my diet again and over-exercise, It will just be another way of punishing myself for something that I didn’t do. Therapy will help me to control my disordered eating, but I can’t accentuate how out of control I feel, and no one like Jessie Pavelka is going to toughen me up to get that control. And that’s why I have chosen to listen to myself, because I’ve listened to the shit that these programs churn out, and I’m bored of being preached to.

I am sick of programs like this, like The Biggest Loser, I Used to be Fat and any other extreme diet regime where contestants are encouraged to work out until they vomit, which is enough to put them off exercise for life.  It is almost like it’s acceptable to punish them because they’re fat. Programs like these are primarily focused on making money, then entertaining their audiences, and then educating. The Biggest Loser is a brand, it’s not that huge over here in the UK but I can still go on Amazon.co.uk and buy a cook book with The Biggest Loser written all over it, as if the name alone will guarantee long-term success. Contestants of these programs have to do the stupidest things in order to get results fast.

I have nothing against Jessie Pavelka, In fact I believe he really does care about the people on Obese: A Year to Save My Life, and I think  it was his genuine belief that tough love was the right tactic to take in that instant. I admire him, and all the trainers at my previous gym, because they were as understanding as their training permits. But when you come across someone with an eating disorder, that’s a whole other ball game. If I’d have been on that program and he showed me ‘tough love’ my disorder would have gone haywire. Coming off LighterLife (a VLCD) was the worst time in my eating disordered life, and I never want to go back to that place.

I wanted to write this blog post because I hate the fact that these programs and diet ‘solutions’ enourage people to think that anyone who doesn’t succeed just doesn’t have it in them. It’s so black and white. Yeah sure, I know some lazy people who can’t be bothered to deal with their issues; they aren’t taking responsibility for themselves. They are the stereotype, but if people look at me and think “she’s just not working hard enough.” Well then they’ve never been through therapy. It’s hard work confronting issues that have been avoided for many years and forcing yourself to do something outside of your comfort zone. There are a lot of tears, a lot of reflecting and a lot of talking about feelings. Trust me, I wouldn’t do it if I thought I just needed to shake off the depression and EDNOS and ‘man up’.

Telling someone to lose weight isn’t going to make them lose weight. It’s like telling someone with anorexia to ‘just eat’ and telling someone with anxiety to just ‘face your fears’. Depression, Eating Disorders, Bi-Polar Disorder – they’re all serious issues that can’t be solved with a kick up the bum.

So thank you for your comment. I’m pleased that you are kick ass at keeping the weight off, and that there are people like you who will succeed with tough love. Maybe the reason you over-ate was due to poor food choices rather than emotional eating. For me, and the others with issues surrounding food, weight and body image then there has to be someone to accept that ‘just getting on with it’ is not an option. Feeling like you have no strength left is not weakness. It’s something to overcome with time and understanding.

Please feel free to comment on this post, as I would honestly like to read your side of the debate. I hope this didn’t seem like an attack, I in no way intended it to be.

Emma

The Plan: Pretend I need a nap, brush off the people I am with and go to my hotel room, place the food I bought in front of me and eat it all.

The Difficulty With This Plan: I kind of haven’t seen these people in a long time…how the fuck do I shake them off?!

I’m away from my family; I have a hotel room to myself. Prime bingeing time. Everyone is looking at me and realising I’ve put on weight yet again. I wonder if they remember when I lost 3 stone on LighterLife… Man, I loved my collarbone back then.

Even strangers are looking at me. They must know I’ve got issues with food, they must. I mean, come on, you don’t get thighs like these just by looking at food, you get them by eating it. Bloody hell, I’ve got to go out for a night out like this. What if I don’t find anything to wear and I have to wear that dress, or worse, the jeans I’m wearing and a top. Everyone’s going to think I put no effort into how I look because I’m fat so what’s the point?

What if I can’t get drunk tonight? What if my antidepressants cause some kind of alcohol barrier, or I get really depressed and cry. Oh man I can’t cry, some people will know why and no one likes it when a drunk girl cries. Man I hope I don’t cry. And what if I cry uncontrollably like that time in the summer, when I couldn’t stop and it looked like someone had died because I was crying so much. I cannot cry. And what if I get drunk, cry and then tell people about my problems. Oh my god I can’t drink. But then if I stay sober and everyone else is drunk I’ll feel left out and people will know I’m not drinking for a reason. I can’t handle being in a bar sober. What if everyone dances?! I can’t dance sober.

I need some chocolate buttons. Chocolate buttons will solve everything. Remember when I had that Twinkie. Ew. No. Chocolate is the way forward. Chocolate buttons, stick to 1 company, today it’ll be Cadbury.

I need to ditch this wonderful person I’m with. I need to ditch them close to this road because then I can go to this shop and then that one to avoid arousing suspicion. Otherwise people might figure out I’m a pig. Oh wait, my thighs, they’re a giveaway. Alright, make an excuse, go on. Go with you’re tired. Do it.

Me: “I’m really tired; I think I’m going to head back to my hotel room.”

Friend: “Ok, you going to buy lunch?”

Me: “Yeah… I think I’ll go to boots.” I can get some chocolate why I’m in there and save an extra trip to the shops.

Friend: “I’ll come with you.”

Ffs.

Alright, get the meal deal and then something chocolate. Go to self scan so the shop assistant won’t see and hold the extra close to your chest so no one else can see it.

Done, right, make your excuse.

Me: “Yeah I’m going to go now.”

Friend: “Wait, aren’t we going to Sainsbury’s?”

Me: “…We did say we would go didn’t we?”

Friend: “Yeah, then you can have a nap.”

Me: “…Yeah… OK.”

Bloody hell. Alright, go to Sainsbury’s, do it. Remember, don’t let them get suspicious; they can’t know you’re still eating this way even after therapy. Otherwise if you get drunk and cry they might suggest the dreaded “why don’t you just eat 3 meals a day?” remark and that would just be too sad. Because I’d have never have thought of that myself – 3 meals a day, where do they get this stuff?! If it were up to me, I wouldn’t eat. It’s not up to me, I have to eat.

Ok, if they didn’t see you get that extra chocolate thing with the meal deal then it’ll be fine if you get something else in Sainsbury’s. Be a ninja, Emma.

Friend: “You going to have a nap now?”

Me: “Yeah. I’ll text you about later.”

Friend: “Yeah ok, I think I’ll go out this exit as it’s by your hotel.”

Me: “…Yeah it is isn’t it.”

Fuck a duck. Fine. We’ll go out this entrance and then I’ll walk around the corner and wait until you’re out of sight and then I’ll go back to that street. I need to go to this shop because in the other one the Anorexic who I was in body image therapy with still works there. What if she see’s me like this? What if she’s put on weight and is doing phenomenally and I’m bigger than before. My God. Imagine.

OK, you’ve got what you need, let’s go back to the hotel room. Lay it all out on the bed. Check the door is locked.

I am not hungry: I am obsessed.

I need to binge because if I don’t, will I ever feel a sense of calm again? This is the only way I relax, the only way I can escape, how an earth am I going to feel that any other way? I’m not. Accept the inevitable. Do the shameful walk to the shops and hotel, hide the food in your handbag but it doesn’t change the fact that every time you binge you are exacerbating the problem, not making it any better.

30 minutes later.

I did it anyway. Fuck.

Emma

You may think that for a diet these rules were pretty extreme, but for a VLCD it has to be. And the health checks weren’t for nothing. We acknowledged that because of the lower amount of calories, as balanced as the food tried to be we would still miss out on necessary nutrition and so were expected slight hair loss and for our menstrual cycle to be unpredictable. My periods stopped, something I wasn’t really too bothered about to be honest. My mum was concerned and now I can see why, but it was just a side effect if you like, to losing weight.

I will stress that the hair falling out wasn’t noticeable. It was more like when you wash your hair or brush it more strands would come out than usual. It just meant the hair was brittle. This diet may seem completely ridiculous for someone who just wants to lose half a stone and so to go on LighterLife a person must be at least 3 stone overweight. (New rangeschanges to the diet have since come out) It’s designed for obese people who need to lose weight fast because of the health risks of being obese. It’s drastic but it serves a purpose, it just happened to force my disordered eating into overdrive.

At Uni I still fully expected to start LighterLife again after freshers week, in which I got horrendously drunk. I tried to go back on LighterLife with the packs left over from all of the times I’d binged instead of had a meal, but I couldn’t get into the swing of it. I was addicted to chocolate – I really don’t know if that’s possible but that’s what it felt like. I had a shoebox under my bed which I would fill with anything sweet. If I ran out of chocolate I’d panic, anxiety would surge through my veins and I’d go to the shop, whatever time it was, to get some more. I remember once it was about 10pm, dark outside, pouring with rain and no one else was home. I desperately needed to get some more chocolate but it was late and my friend had been mugged a couple of weeks before in the same area. I decided that it was crazy for me to go just to get chocolate. These were in the days when I still didn’t know I had an eating disorder and I didn’t understand why it was such a powerful urge that didn’t rest until I went to the shops first thing in the morning.

I didn’t often run out of chocolate, even though I’d fill my shoebox with goodies 1 night and the next it would be almost empty. I hid the food and lied constantly about what I was eating. I knew I was gaining weight but I still thought maybe I could go back on LighterLife.

The summer holidays brought me back down to earth. I had gained back all I’d lost in less than a year. I wouldn’t leave the house because I hated people seeing me so I stayed indoors and only ventured out when I thought it was starting to look odd. Even then I’d go to the cinema or somewhere less crowded. I hated myself for gaining weight and I hated my body for not doing what I wanted for once and staying half-way slim. I tried an array of diets but couldn’t stick to them; I’m very all or nothing, and nothing compared to LigherLife.

My mum and dad had no idea what to do and so after seeing me depressed, staying in and exacerbating the problem they decided I could go on LighterLife again. The price had risen and my parents really couldn’t afford it but in their eyes it had worked in making me happy before, couldn’t it work again?

20th Birthday, Before I Started Counselling

It did; I lost 3 stone in as many months and I was almost as happy as before… but it was different this time. I knew something wasn’t right with my eating. Despite sticking to the diet for 3 months straight, accomplishing my goals, feeling healthier, happier, sexier, I still binged. I went to the Uni counsellor who knew right away my eating wasn’t normal and she referred me to an eating disorder place where they diagnosed me with EDNOS.

I know that you will read this and probably think of LighterLife as the worst diet in the world, and it is for someone in my position, but it also gave me a break from my ED. When I was on LighterLife I did think about food, but it didn’t control me. I was free from it and I was happy losing weight. In the times that I was slim I lived and before that I just drifted along. I described it as finally breaking the surface after being under water for so long.

I still crave to go back to it but I know I can’t. It’s not the perfect diet I like to think it was. Everyone I know who went on it has put the weight back on, my mum got a gall stone from the rapid weight loss (that’s what we think, anyway) and seriously messed up my ED. It wasn’t until around 7 months after finishing LighterLife for the 2^nd time that I felt maybe I could resist some types of food. Before I’d felt starved of everything and so I wanted to eat everything.

LighterLife is not as bad as some people think, especially not when you think of it’s target participants. It’s for obese people to lose weight fast to improve health… it’s just in terms of bingeing it’s probably the worst diet you could go on. Despite all the negatives I’ve written about in these posts, I don’t regret it at all. What I regret is that there is so little awareness of overeating disorders! I had no idea I had anything wrong with me for years, it was only until I approached the Uni counsellor did I finally find out why I’m so obsessed with my body and food. If I’d have found out when I was 16 then I could have done something about it much sooner and saved all the financial and emotional strain of going on a VLCD such as LighterLife. It’s not LighterLife’s fault that I had an ED. It just sort of sucks that I have EDNOS in the first place… and EDNOS did win in the end. What a bastard.

Emma

4 liquid meals a day.

4 litres of water.

No exercise necessary.

Lose a stone a month.

Seem drastic to you? It didn’t to me.

I was 17 when I decided that having an overactive bladder and going on an all liquid diet was going to be difficult, but it would be worth it. I was at college, desperate to lose weight and I realise now I was pretty depressed. Going out the house was a struggle. I hated my appearance so much that I’d regularly miss college just because I was couldn’t be bothered to do it all again.

My beautiful and wonderful Nan left me and my brother some money before she died, and I spent mine on LighterLife. My parents wanted it to be an investment in our future and my brother put his towards paying for his car. I thought I was investing in my health, so I went for it.

…No that’s a lie. Health didn’t come into it. It was my lifelong ambition to be thin.

Going on LighterLife didn’t seem at all like a big deal until I had my first soup. It was disgusting and I quickly learnt that I didn’t like any of the soups, I only liked the shakes. After several months of them my taste buds turned against me and I only ever had vanilla and chocolate mixed together. There it is, chocolate cropping up again. I swear I’m addicted.

2008 was the best year of my life by far. I lost 2 ½ stone after being on the diet for around 3 months. It was the first time I’d been in town to bars and clubs and I loved it; guys were interested, I went on dates, I was more confident, I wore clothes I would never have worn before and the best outcome of all was going to Uni. I’d previously thought I couldn’t go to Uni until I was slim and therefore confident.

So, there I was, having the same meal 4 times a day (bars were available once a day but I didn’t like them) drinking 2 litres of water a day (it’s all my bladder could handle) and losing weight. Despite all the trips to the toilet I was in heaven. I’d never felt so much control over my weight and food! I never had to worry about it: it was all there for me! I didn’t have to exercise but I did walk most of the way home which was knackering and embarrassing – I was out in public. I was losing weight and nothing else mattered.

And then I started having the odd piece of bread. And the odd bowl of cereals. And the odd cherry coke. I’d go all day without eating and then I’d come home and binge on biscuits, or leftovers from people’s plates.

I was pretending like I was sticking to the diet and I still continued to lose weight somehow, but not like I used to. I started making excuses not to be weighed.

Another thing about LighterLife is that it puts the body into a state of ketosis. This is a biological term that I never really took any interest in at the time, but I know that it basically means the body uses fat as energy because it isn’t getting enough nutrients from food. The body is living off of 500 calories a day but you don’t get hungry. I’d often skip my last meal because I didn’t want it. It was brilliant but it also meant that the counsellor often checked whether you were in ketosis by you peeing on a stick and seeing whether the little pink patch would turn red. If you’d eaten anything outside of the diet within the last 3-5 days then it would show on the pee stick. I was smart about the pee sticks. I’d cheat the night after the last session and continue to cheat up until 3 days before my next weigh in. When I knew it would turn red I’d proudly show anyone who wanted to see a pee stick (not many people) ((in the session, I might add, not to random people on the street)) but when I hadn’t shown as much self-control in my binges (a difficult feat I now realise) then I’d say I wasn’t well or I couldn’t stay long.

2 1/2 Stone Down

I ate more and more outside of my diet and because of the expense (£66 per week at the time) my parents were complaining that I wasn’t sticking to the diet, so why didn’t I come off of it? I’d spent the money my Nan had given me and was now paying with the money from my job. However, I was also buying all the other food I was bingeing on which didn’t leave me with much.

I still refused to come off the diet but complained incessantly. I’d hide food and binge like crazy and after a while began putting the weight back on, and I finally gave up. I hated myself for that, but I was also slimmer. I wasn’t happy, but I was happier. I went to Uni feeling that by Christmas I’d be my goal weight… yeah that didn’t happen.

This post is {Insert spooky voice} to be continued…

Emma

I thought if I was going to review books on Eating Disorders I should start with the first one I read, but upon re-reading it, it wasn’t as fantastic as I first thought. It does the job – it explains Anorexia and Bulimia well, and explains the common problem of bingeing, which I hadn’t been aware of before. Sapsted also highlights the problems with dieting, something I had never considered before. She states that the dieting industry is worth over £1 billion, and it is purely based on women in particular feeling fat:

According to a survey by the Consumers’ Association in 1993 most of the thirteen brands of shakes, soups, biscuits and bars they tested were found to be expensive, high in fat and sugar, and could provide no evidence that they worked to help people sustain weight loss.

It gives interesting statistics of the dieting industry and media influence in our culture, and yet it downplays overeating disorders. The fact that it is written in 1995 lets it down – I mean, it wouldn’t have 10 years ago, but its 2011, ALMOST 2012 and things have changed. It’s very informative for victims of Anorexia and Bulimia, and relatives or friends, it’s also good for people who aren’t quite sure if they have a poor relationship with body image and food because they are not categorically Anorexic or Bulimic.

It also gives examples of real people’s relationship with food; how their problems started and how they came to the conclusion that they needed to do something about it. But re-reading it now, it doesn’t really give me anything to go on, but then I suppose I’m not a beginner. I also don’t agree that mere statistics will enable someone to overcome their Eating Disoder, and I don’t think reading this books will help that much either. It’s important to know about the disorder you have, but Eating Disorders go a hell of a lot deeper than that, and I don’t like that the second part of the title How To Overcome Eating Disoders conveys Sapsted knows a lot more psychology than she actually does. It’s well researched, but it’s not a solution. It wasn’t for me, anyway.

There was a quote that stood out to me though. Having just survived Christmas I thought it would be helpful to know that although we think we’re overacting, there’s always someone who goes one step further. Joanna Greenside, a 25 year old fitness instructor went missing days before Christmas and caused a major search for her…

Some 36 hours later, Joanna turned up outside the centre in Hertfordshire and claimed that she had been kidnapped and raped. She was in a dishevelled state, with mud on her clothes, and she appeared to be suffering from shock. 4 days after that, she finally broke down and confessed to police that she suffered from an eating disorder, couldn’t face the Christmas festivities, and had taken a train to Heathrow Airport where she wandered around the terminals, desperate to lose weight before the holiday eating and drinking began.

And I thought I overreacted by refusing to go to a meal out with some old college friends because the last time they saw me (3 years ago) I was a hell of a lot slimmer.

This is the great thing about the book, it goes where few books at the time would have gone, giving you personal accounts and real situations. This book is helpful for anyone seeking information about Eating Disorders and why the majority of women in particular aspire to lose weight and look better rather than be healthy. Although because it was written in 1995… it can’t be avoided – it’s out of date. I’m sure you could find a book just as informative but with modern statistics.

I give this book… 5/10 celery sticks.

It is well written and easy to read, so if you aren’t too fussed about up-to-date information then this would be good as a beginners guide to Eating Disorders. Just not overeating.

Emma

I refused to let this picture surface because I thought I was absolutely HUGE. Now I think I’d chop off my right arm to be that slim again. In fact, if I chopped off my arm, I probably still wouldn’t be 3 stone lighter than I am now… Ah well. Also, me and my brother built a snowman called Herbert. He has a leaf for a mouth. Don’t mock him.

2009, Back When I Was Slim...ish

Thank you to all who have subscribed to this blog and twitter, and I hope to write many, many post after Christmas and next year! Sorry in advance …

Emma

I think the group ran slightly differently to usual because one of the lovely ladies bought in some goodies that she makes for us all to give feedback on; but still it was nice to just be around people like me. 

After getting weighed and ordering my foodpacks (all similar to another meal replacement weight plan I have tried before) we then got our workbooks out and started to look at our ‘Miracle day’ – what if you went to sleep & whilst you were sleeping you didn’t lose weight but all the issues which cause you to overeat and put on the excess fat were gone when you awoke. 

Something interesting to get your head around hey!  For me, if this happened I would wake up freed of this constant feeling that people don’t like me much or judge me every minute of the day.  I wouldn’t feel this anxiety that recently I seem to have every day and usually on a medium to high level, almost similar to what I imagine an autistic person experiences.  I’d feel happier, have a more positive outlook, smile more, look younger, sleep better, laugh, be easier to get on with, less self-aware and have far more confidence and self-esteem than I currently do.

Yet my weight wouldn’t be any different (currently 16 stone); I can’t even begin to understand how deep down inside this would feel.  To be happy in my own skin, the way I look right now, being 2 stone less than my original weight yet still overweight for my height and age.  I guess when you have lived in a certain skin for so long, like with other things in life you adapt and make the best of what you’ve got.  Unfortunately, even just putting a stone on I don’t feel my best, I can’t make the most of it because I feel frumpy and ugly, experiencing a lull in any new found confidence I had at the beginning of September…

So with a renewed promise to myself that I will try and finally do this; learn to experience my emotions, go to the counselling sessions and get what I can out of them to then be able to complete each day food free I am going to do LighterLife.  I promise myself that this time I will put 100% into my efforts!  

I’ve been missing in action recently due to commitments to choir and the older boy’s school, but everything continues to go well with weight loss. We’ve just started the TA transitions module, which is refreshing and exciting. I’m looking towards February when I think I’ll start ‘route to management’ and I think about it every day. Positively!

I’m going to Christmas without food and booze I’ve decided. Hopefully I’ll have more normal ones in future. This year my Christmas spirit is going to be imbibed nasally – I’ve ordered some lovely scented candles for each room for my treat. I have also managed to buy a great red dress for the various festivities and hopefully work interviews coming up, given it goes from boardroom to party with a change of belt and shoes.

To paraphrase the original Mrs M., ‘ At least the [weight loss program] obliges people to learn new skills…which bring a freshness and rejuvenation normally alien to most adults.’

So this is essentially going to be the 3^rd time that I’ve gone for it. I don’t count September as that was really a non starter. There was a month stint earlier this year (in which I lost 2 stone) and now this time. When I read back on this blog it really puts into perspective how much I’ve struggled to maintain my weight in the last 2 years. It’s incredibly difficult. At least, it is for me. Looking back at all my stats the other day though I was offered a small glimmer of hope. There was a time there (towards mid 2009) that I genuinely maintained at a healthy weight for a good couple of months. I know in the grand scheme of things that isn’t particularly long but it proves a point that it can be done. I shall be examining that food diary etc in much more details over the coming weeks that’s for sure.

Target this time are not set in stone. I’ll be eating at a function on the 9^th of December so it’s not quite 8 weeks but very close. It that time I’d love to shift 3 stone. Past performance tells me it’s doable but will be tight. A 3 stone loss will see me comfortably back into the 14s which is ideally where I’d like to stay. 15 stone 7lbs as a maximum.

So what else is there to say at this point? Not much I guess. I’m giving myself another chance (again) but, what’s the alternative? Spiral out of control? Put even more weight back on? I have half a wardrobe full of clothes to get back into and I know it can be done. Having another go is right thing to do. I’m convinced of that. I’ve done it before. I can do it again.

This is like my own little trilogy. I think it was George Lucas who said all trilogies follow the same pattern. In the first act, you introduce the characters and everything ends well. In the second act you put them the in worst situation so it seems they’re never going to get out. In the third Act, they get out!

G

Last night was my second weigh in and the scales said…. -5lbs! Taking me to a total of -13lbs in 2 weeks! And I dropped a BMI point too

This week I have been very up and down and had many moments of ‘am I doing the right thing?’ (of course I am) … ‘ I wish I could eat that…’ or thinking of ways to talk myself out of it! I guess failing would be the easy way out! But I’m determined not to even let that be an option.

As of this morning I weigh 1 stone less! And it’s starting to show and the fact that I’m getting lovely supportive messages from my friends is keeping me going with a positive attitude!

One thing that was/is worrying me still is Christmas and how much food is heavily available and all the tid bits you get.. One one hand il be missing all the yummy bits that only Christmas brings.. But if I stay strong then come January I won’t be panicking about the extra weight I put on over winter and il also look better at family gatherings… I must stay strong! Think of the bigger picture.. I could be wearing a sleeveless top of shorts next summer without looking like a bakery shelf on legs.. As long as I don’t fail.

My back has of flared up, I fear the beginning of winter is already here for me and this is my worst season with all my joints locking up. It had better be not so bad these next few weeks as I have plans for Halloween!

So yeah, that’s my week in a nutshell. Thanks for your confined support, you really can’t realise just how much you are keeping me on track!

…. But it’s worth it!

A few of you might already know that I have made the big decision to dramatically lose my weight as I had recently been turned down for the second time for bariatric surgery. I haven’t really made a big deal about Lighter Life other than to close family and friends as I know it is a controversial subject, but it is a choice I have made and if you support me then great but if not then please don’t be writing negative comments as this journey is up to me.

I started the food packs last Tuesday (well, attended group, the packs started on Wednesday) and since then I. Have had NOTHING other than the 4 powder packs a day along with black coffee and 2-3 litres of water.

I have struggled with the packs this week, having been used to high sugar and fatty foods so long then to have to. Have these packs is torture for me lol and I can taste the vitamins in them too – but. Despite that I have done it, it’s only 2 days until my weigh in and I am really positive!

I’m no longer hungry and fitting in the 4 soups is a struggle! I’m looking forward to getting the bars on Tuesday (one a day).

For those that don’t know much about Lighter life, it is perfectly safe and medically run ( I had to have a medical and get doctors permission to join the program and also everyone on the program has to have doctors checks every 4 weeks) I know some people believe it is a bad diet but really it’s just getting healthy quicker.

To say this week has been miserable is an understatement though, I am on antibiotics for a UTI and I have. The first period in 2 months! Ha but my scales still say I’ve lost 6lbs.

I’ve found a need to smell normal foods, it’s strange but everything Aaron eats I have to sniff haha and I’m. Now addicted to my Yankee candle tarts, the most recent favourites being the creamy caramel and the midnight Jasmine!

Oh and when. Is this heatwave meant to leave?!?!

Seriously though, thank you so much to the ladies that have been giving me moral support. On the diet, it means so much to me and you guys have kept me going through this rough week.

I just need to decide if I’m going to post a picture a week or a picture a month?!?! Ideas?

Night before diet shake onslaught, I’ve just eaten a WHOLE Tesco Strawberry Trifle, Gads!

*pics have been taken tonight, will take pics again on the 12th October when we will be in Vegas, did I mention it will be hard as f**k to diet then?

My VLCD journey (still hate that word) began just over 3 years ago and the very tail end of August 2008. A full 20 weeks on total abstinence with the Lightlife plan saw my weight plummet from almost 22 stone to just over 13. I felt great. Did the management plan and had some very real confidence about the future. I’m still almost 5 stone lighter than when I started but there have been lots of ups and downs along the way. My last Exante stint after Christmas 2010 was a real down. I was totally disgusted with myself in all honesty. I really viewed going back on the packs as a failure. So much so that I’d probably go as far as saying I should have done it much earlier. This time I have decided but put the debate about whether or not it’s the right thing to do to one side and focus on the facts. This king of yo yo dieting isn’t doing me any good. No one needs to tell me that. What frightens me is if I do go over that line. If I do go into the 18s, I can really see it going all the way back up to where it was before. I know most don’t agree with my approach but it seems my all or nothing nature likes this kind of diet. Do I like punishing myself? Maybe. Why? I have no idea.

For whatever reason I choose to push the limits with my eating and particularly drinking. I wouldn’t say it was necessarily compulsive or addictive behaviour, more a blinkered approach. Not quite “it’ll never happen to me”, I know better. It’s more of a taking your eye off the ball issue. Thinking of the now rather the long term. It’s so easy though isn’t it? It snowballs. It seems like you’re fine and the next thing you know, you’re back to where you started. This is all rather dramatic as the reality is that between 15 stone 7 and 16 stone 7 I felt fine. I just need to find a way to stay there.  Eat less, move more, drink less, portion control, yadda, yadda, yadda….. I’ve been there, done that and literally got the T shirt (which doesn’t fit anymore ironically).

The net result in all this is that I’m giving it another go and do you know what? Why not?! Surely that has to be a positive? All of the fight hasn’t gone from me just yet. So how long will I stay abstinent this time? Well, at least 3 weeks (I’m on day 4). After that I have a work conference at which I shall be eating. I’m not at the sort of 20 stone level any more. Back then taking a few days off the packs was my worst nightmare. After that and in to October I haven’t decided. I like to think that a 3 week boost is what I need to give me a bit of a lift and get back on track, restart my food diary and finally begin to move on from this part of my life. With that said, I haven’t ruled out another month either.

So I’ll be posting when I can let you all know how I’m doing……

G