Fat.ie - It's all about getting healthy

Over the last few months I'd pretty much given up making any concerted effort to lose weight.

Why?

Apathy.

When recently I met up with a few people I hadn't seen for quite some time they mentioned they were concerned about my weight, so I guess guilt may be working.

So what to do?

A friend who I only meet once or twice a year claims to have lost over 30 kgs quite easily by simply tracking his calorie intake and doing a bit of exercise.

Since I've now got an iPhone I've decided I'll try out a few of the apps that are available for tracking weight and calories. Why? I always have my iPhone with me, so all I should need to do is enter the data as I take in the calories

Will it work?

Who knows?

Even if I don't actively change my diet tracking how many calories I'm consuming should be a useful exercise.

While this may be only a US concept at the moment, there's no reason why it couldn't be done in just about any country in the world...

Fatpacking organise 2 week treks in various parts of the US that are meant to be a combination of fun and exercise.

It's not particularly expensive either, though obviously you have to get there

OK, we've established that losing weight isn't easy for many reasons.  What can we do to make it a bit easier -- to give ourselves a head start?  Making one change in your life won't get you to lose weight (unless you are very lucky), but one right thing may just get you moving in the right direction.  So what's one thing that you can do that may make a difference in your life.

Here's a list of things I have read or thought of myself.  Please let us know your ideas.

• Get up early and go for a walk in the morning.
• Turn off the TV and put on an exercise video/go for a walk.
• Take the stairs instead of the lift.
• Don't eat after 7pm.
• Cut out chocolate (or chips, ice cream - whatever your 'addiction' is)
• Walk/cycle to work - or park on the other side of town and walk across.
• Buy smaller plates.
• Take up a sport that you've been wanting to try for awhile.
• Keep a bit bottle of water next to you at all times and drink, drink, drink.
• Develop a taste for dark chocolate.
• Go out dancing one night a week.
• Change your regular route to avoid passing McDonalds (or whatever is your weakness)
• Go to bed earlier, before you get a chance to snack (or at least brush your teeth straight after dinner)
• Make a new friend that will support your new lifestyle (or at least avoid the people that make you feel bad about yourself)
• Meditate/prayer/sit and think quietly at least once a day to reflect on how you are doing and where you are going.
• Stop eating food that's left on your children's plates.
• Keep a food diary and note: 1) when your bad eating times are and do something else interesting then and 2) what foods (or food combinations) make you feel heavy and bloated that perhaps you should avoid or eat only limited amounts of (for me it's carbs) or 3) what foods really make your body feel good (in a healthy way) and eat more of that.
  
• Take part in the kids sports and games whenever possible. (I get a good workout helping with the Under10s soccer training)
• Get a hypnosis tape.  I find it helpful when I listen to the CD that came with Paul McKenna's I Can Make You Thin.

I'm sure I've heard a lot more and will add more as I think of them.  In the meantime I look forward to hearing your suggestions!

I've had a weight problem since I was about 10 years old.  I had put it down to bad eating habits, genetics, not exercising enough; pretty all down to everything that was my fault.  I wasn't strong enough, I wasn't dedicated enough and I would never be thin enough.  This hit hardest a year ago.  I had been on Neris & India's Idiot Proof Diet for 8 months and had great success.  I had lost nearly three stone, felt fantastic and was getting compliments from everyone about how I looked. I was afraid to think it, but I had finally conquered the weight problem I had lived with for over 30 years. 

Then we went on holiday visiting my family in the US.  It was so nice to show my family the new me.  So I relaxed on the diet, which was nearly carb free.  We had pizza, pasta, sandwiches -- you name it. Didn't bloat up straight away, but when I got back from holiday, I just couldn't get back into the diet, so quicker than the weight came off it piled on again.  I've tried a couple of times to get back onto that plan, but haven't even kept on for a week.

Last September, returning from another indulgent holiday eating and drinking up the delights of Provence, I decided to hire a personal trainer. For nearly three months I worked out in the gym three times a week, in addition to 2 tae kwon do training sessions; and had my weight and body fat checked weekly.  This time I was losing weight more slowly but steadily.  Just before Christmas I got very sick, perhaps from pushing myself too hard for tkd competitions, and stopped the training -- and haven't got back to it yet!

I'd say that nearly all of us know what it takes to lose weight: take in less calories and burn more calories. We've read up on various diets and exercise routines, yet after years and years and various attempts, here we are still looking for some secret that will make it all click for us.

The truth is that inside each one of us, buried deeply, we have some need, some empty spot that needs feeding. There may be a diet that suits your lifestyle more and will help with eating right. You may find a buddy to exercise with and that will help keep you going and burning the fat. In the end, unless you deal with the issues that are causing the weight problem, it will come back again and again.

In my 20's I read a book that helped give me a little insight into what it was inside me that kept me from losing weight: Fat is a Feminist Issue by Susie Orbach. At the time I started to feel that the weight was giving me some power I wouldn't have as a petite young woman; and also protected me from men that would see me only as a sexual object.  Unfortunately that weight was also keeping me from a lot of good things, mainly feeling good about myself! 

This thinking went a bit further about ten years later.  I was watching an episode of Oprah, yet another about weight loss, and the guests had all lost serious amounts of  weight.  One woman told about how her problems went back to childhood when she had been sexually abused by a relative.  Once she realised that and started to deal with it, she started to lose weight.  It hit me then that my weight gain started when I was 10 and at that time I had a terrifying encounter with a pedaphile. Though I escaped from actual physical abuse, the experience frightened me so much that I never told another person until I had grown up. I had pushed that experience so far back in my consciousness that it was a dim memory. It then made sense to me that the extra weight was a kind of protection and the eating was also feeding the child inside that was still afraid of whatever preditors were out there in the World.

So after 35 years of using food as a comfort and shield, I have to learn a new relationship with food and it's a real struggle. All of my food decisions are emotionally charged and I have a great fear of passing this on to my children, especially my daughter. It's hard to work on it without giving it too much power and let it keep hold over your life.

I'm working on building some inner strength and serenity and have found some help in the works of Eckhart Tolle and Byron Katie. I don't fancy going into psychotherapy, so am hoping that writing about the experiences I am having will be a good therapy in itself. Networking with others who share the problem should be very helpful as well.

Do you have any of this kind of deep issues about weight? What have you tried to do to deal with it, and how has it worked? Please share your experiences with us.

I've been thinking about joining a gym or health club for a very long time.

I don't have any real excuses, but I've been putting it off for at least two years.

If I joined a gym would I actually make use of my membership? Anyone I know who has joined seems to go for a few weeks and then lets it slip.

Most gyms seem to work on the basis of annual membership. This is probably how they make their money, as people have a tendency of signing up for a year and then not actually attending.

But how do you go about choosing a gym?

What kind of things should you be looking out for?

Why is gym A better than gym B?

Is cost alone the main factor or are the other ones that you need to take into account?

What are the monthly costs?

Are there discounts available? I've heard anecdotal evidence of deals being offered via certain banks for example, but mine doesn't seem to be involved.

I'm still sitting on the fence...

I knew Christmas was going to have a negative impact.

I just wasn't too sure how much of an impact it would turn out to be.

So, after weighing myself just now, Christmas indulgence has led to an increase in my weight of just over 1 kilo (or two pounds)

It could have been a lot worse, so I should be thankful for that.

Tomorrow is a "normal" day, so it's back to eating salads and avoiding "goodies" again.

I'm fairly confident that I'll be able to get rid of the excess weight quite quickly, as a kilo isn't exactly a HUGE amount of weight to gain or lose.

Christmas is proving to be an absolute nightmare for multiple reasons.

To start with there is an abundance of tasty treats readily available - Christmas cake, Christmas pudding, chocolates etc., etc.

The other problem is that there is very little else to do over the few days of Christmas except eat and drink. Sure, you could go to visit friends, but if you do, they're only going to offer you more food and drink!

So I guess my diet has taken a bit of a nose dive for the week.

Hopefully I'll be able to make up the losses when things get back to normal in the New Year ...

The last week hasn't been exactly stellar.

Apart from anything else I was hit with a touch of 'flu which "knocked me for six" in more ways than one.

As a result of the 'flu I ended up spending several days feeling pretty dire and eating quite badly.

I may not have put on much weight, but I definitely didn't make any progress in losing weight as a result.

Lack of progress is bad. You end up in a "catch 22". Your lack of progress means you feel quite negative. The negative feeling makes you feel more negative, so you don't have any motivation. Without motivation it becomes really hard.

Hopefully when I've fully recovered I'll be able to get my "mojo" back!

I generally weight myself on Sunday morning shortly after getting out of bed and before I've had any breakfast.

I'm tracking my progress with FitDay.com, but I have to convert the weights back from Imperial to Metric, which is quite annoying!

Progress has been slow.

I gained back some of the weight I'd initially lost and then lost it again!

Of course I should have really expected something like that to happen - consistent weight loss would have been too much to ask for!

I've lost close to 4kg since I started tracking my weight at the end of November. I'm averaging a weight loss of about 1kg a week, which probably isn't that bad. However I'm a lot more interested in seeing my waistline reducing than I am in simple "weight loss".

My biggest problem is my "gut". As I'm quite tall and broad it may not be as apparent to other people, but I am incredibly conscious of it.

So I may need to step things up a little bit and start doing exercises for my stomach muscles, though I've never been a fan of situps!

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