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Falling off the wagon.

Thursday 30 June 2011



As you may have seen in our Sunday Summaries, my original amazing weight-loss results have slipped somewhat. After about two months where I was losing every week, I hit a period where first I plateaued, and then my weight started to creep up again. That’s why I’ve been a bit quiet here lately, because I’m a bit ashamed of how my eating habits have become corrupted.

I know that Charlene has already posted about this, but I wanted to add my piece too, as it's one of the most devastating parts about weight loss. It's so much easier to put it on than lose it. Also, we talk a lot here about what to do when it's working, but I find that when I fall off the wagon, all my good habits go out of the window and I find it really hard to get back into the mindset. Which is exactly where I am now.

Over the last few weeks I’ve had: a wedding, a hen do, a baby shower, several parties, a holiday to Italy and two music festivals. The sudden introduction of serious food-shaped temptation – and so much of it – meant that my willpower didn’t even put up a fight. Let’s face it, I knew I was never going to go to Italy and eat salad for every meal.

So how do you deal with stuff like this? My approach is to wait for the bad things to end – I've promised myself that, now that Glastonbury is over, I’m going cold turkey for a while. I’m sure a better way would have been to go straight back to the diet after Italy, be as good as possible at Glastonbury, and then slide back into saintliness once that was over. But I find that all or nothing works best for me. If I have a chip, I want a plate of chips, you know?

I haven't been back to Rosemary Conley since before my holiday, so I have no idea what I weigh, but I suspect I'm about back at square one. So now, it's just about getting motivated again and getting back into all the good habits I was in before. And trying to forget how amazing high-fat foods taste (so not fair).

What about you? Is anyone else going through difficult temptation periods at the moment? Is it just the curse of summer? How are you dealing with it? And why on earth can’t it be as easy to lose weight as it is to gain it?

I'll keep you guys posted as to my progress - I'm determined to get back to it. I don't want to let you all down!

7 comments:

  1. as soon as i moved back from uni i found it instantly more difficult because instead of eating what i wanted, when i wanted, my dad would make meals for both of us meaning i had less choice in the matter!
    i hope you get motivated again soon :)
    Rosie xo

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  2. I've gone straight back to square one because of my exams - I was doing so much revision that I didn't even have time for exercise and frankly I needed the feel-good food to make me feel less stressed! However now that they are over and I have nothing to do I'm finding it so hard to start over and get back in the mindset of losing, which is a shame as I have a few things coming up that I wanted to look nice for. But hey ho. I can only be grateful that I dieted and lost weight before my exams otherwise I'd be worse off than before! Hope you manage to get back into it Sarah, any tips would be greatly appreciated ;) xx

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  3. Heyy x

    I know what you mean, I did level 1 of the 30 day shred and in that time lost 0.25lbs. A quarter of a pound - rage was not the word.

    My motivation really needed a kick and I found that going onto weheartit and typing in thinspiration in the search box got up a lot of images that I thought were quite inspiring and I saved them to my phone to look at for when I'm out and about and feeling like a mcdonalds. Or a chinese. Or a chippy... you get the idea.

    The other thing I found sort of helped was making me feel like I was worth making an effort over again. Having gained so much weight I had virtually given up on myself - I used to have a waxing pattern, mani and pedi pattern, hairdressers every 3 weeks sort of thing and I had just fallen out of it because I felt as though I was so fat I didn't deserve to get my hair done or that there wasn't any point getting my legs waxed because I wasn't wearing a dress anyway because my legs were so ugly. I'm not going straight back into that pattern but I went for a wax and a mani pedi the other week and got my hair done today because last Wednesday was just so depressing so I phoned up and booked myself in for it. I'm not saying use it all the time but it kind of reminds me that I can look good when I make an effort and that if I loose weight and make an effort to keep it off I will look even better. I also kind of use these things as treats and rewards as well - like when I loose my first half stone I'm booking myself in for a facial or a massage and stuff.

    Anyway sorry for the essay I'm leaving under your comments but hope it helps xx

    Oh PS - don't mean to sound smug or whatever here but i was ready to throw everything away last wednesday and I didn't even though every inch of me wanted to and when I weighed myself this week I'd lost 2.25lbs, so sometimes a week of hard slog can pay off and the weight loss itself gives you the motivation to keep it up especially after a week when you've been really low xx

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  4. My way of getting through those really difficult periods of binge eating is two raw food days where during the first day I allow myself to eat as much as I want and whatever raw food I want (so anything that is not prepared in any way; fresh salads, nuts, berries, fruit, raw fish etc.).
    It is quite easy to eat too much on a raw food day as 100g of Cashews is already more than a quarter of my daily calorie need. Then the second raw food day I only allow myself to eat 1200 kcal worth - which can be quite a lot if I stick to salads and good fruit. After those two days cravings for sweet food are gone and for some reason the only thing I crave for after two days of raw food is a boiled egg.

    Anyway, good luck on getting back on track. Once you get your mind to it it is a lot easier than you'd think. It's just the first week or so that will be a pain.

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  5. Yep you're not the only one! I also had a hen do, wedding, music festival and general uni stress so for the last couple of months my weight has been going nowhere - went back to SW last night though and after the last 4 weeks had only put on one pound *phew* I've been really good this week though and made lunches for work and taken plenty of fruit and yogurts and what not to eat at work - but this time last week I couldn't have cared less! It's all about where your head is at I think, if you're feeling stressed about anything else then eating sensibly is the first thing to go out the window! :(

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  6. *sigh* sometimes my life seems to be a permanent state of 'fallen off the wagon'. Desperatley wanting to get fit and lean and confident but being way too scared to step out of my comfort zone and push myself.

    Someday I hope to get there.

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  7. I do so well for a couple of days and then something will happen, bad day or a night out, sigh! Great post x

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