"Anything is possible if you put your mind to it!"

Evening all! It's been far too long since my last entry and I'm feeling inspired tonight so I'm sitting wrapped up in my bed with my laptop (in a far less glamourous than Carrie Bradshaw way I might add, there are bedsocks and a bobbly dressing gown involved, I'm freezing!) and seizing the moment.

So it's New Year, and the world seems to have gone a little bit resolution mad.  Every ad break since Boxing Day seems to have featured a plug for the latest celeb diet/fitness programme and the supermarkets have got loads of offers on healthy foods and exercise gear.  Newspapers are giving away free diet plans and exercise booklets and all the gyms have got special offers on.  It really does seem to be the time of year to think about improving health and wellbeing and losing weight too.  So it's got me thinking too; all of the things I've just mentioned are great tools for helping with weight loss but there is one vitally important ingredient missing from this mix, and it's the one thing you can't buy.

Willpower.  Not available in any supermarkets, or given away free in any Sunday paper supplement, this one thing which cannot be bottled is the one thing we need to lose weight that only we can generate ourselves, yet it is the hardest thing on Earth to find most of the time.  When you read articles about people who have lost atonishing amounts of weight, it's glaringly obvious that all of these people have from somewhere found the willpower and self belief to succeed with their weight loss journeys.  And it's not something they've always possessed or they never would have got big in the first place.  So where does it come from and how can we get our hands on it? Those are two questions that are often asked, and if I had a magic formula that I could give you I'd probably be richer than Richard Branson and my assistant (ahem) would be typing this up...

I've mentioned several times before that losing weight is a state of mind and nothing else, and it's from this state of mind that willpower comes.  You've probably heard athletes being interviewed on the telly and talking about being in "the zone".  This is the time when they are at the peak of their concentration, and when they are most likely to achieve maximum performance.  Now, I'm not claiming that I can put you in the zone with world class athletes and give you the body to match, but if you can find your weight loss "zone", then you are far far likelier to achieve any goal that you set for yourself. 

This all sounds very complicated, but using your brain to dig up a little willpower is not as difficult as you might imagine.So, I have little bit of a plan for helping you to increase your willpower:

• Firstly, face up to your body and the bits of it that you are unhappy with.  We have a tendency to hide the bits that we don't like when really by being mindful of them we will be far more likely to succeed with a weight loss goal.  By ignoring them we are pushing them to the back of our minds, along with a little sliver of something that can turn into willpower.
• Believe that you can achieve your weight loss goals.  We often limit ourselves with the idea that we cannot do something.  For example, if you've struggled with your weight for a long time you might tell yourself  "I'm not going to lose weight because I've always been big" and if that is what you tell yourself then you will achieve nothing.  You need to change that into "I've been big for a while now  but I'm not happy to be big any longer.  I'm going to make sure I do something to change my shape" and you will be far likelier to succeed.  Write it on a slip of paper and keep it in your pocket and look at it often to remind yourself that you are doing this and you are in control.
• Use your imagination to create a vision of how you want to look at the end of your weight loss journey.  Your imagination is an incredibly powerful tool for helping to increase and embed your positive thoughts and if you do this you will really boost your willpower.  At times where you feel like you may be about to deviate from your weight loss plan take a few moments to close your eyes.  Slow your breathing and concentrate on relaxing the muscles in your face and neck and imagine looking in a mirror a slimmer version of you.  Think about the sort of clothes you want to be able to wear at the end of your weight loss journey and picture yourself in that outfit as you continue with your slow breathing.  Imagine how wearing those clothes and seeing that reflection will make you feel, and how other people seeing you like that will make you feel too.  This is also a great relaxation technique and I like to practice this to help me nod off to sleep at night-time too.

Sciency bit: Psychologists believe that we are far likelier to achieve our weight loss goals and break bad habits if we believe in an alternative version of ourselves.   By using the three points above and repeating the techniques, you can create a "Healthy You", a virtual picture of how the healthier version of yourself would look and behave, and more importantly what food choices they would make.  By practicing these techniques you can start to challenge yourself at times of weakness, and you will find that you naturally increase your own willpower. I'm not going to tell you that this is an easy thing to do, it's something which requires conscious thought but it's a great way of shifting your perspective to a more positive one and that in the long term is something that will help you get to where you want to be.

So, reading this may make you think I've gone a bit mental and typed up a load of new age mumbo jumbo, or you might think this could work for you.  If you are of the latter opinion then give it a go and let me know how you get on :)

Well, I've changed a few things and now I definitely have something different!

Well, it's been 16 weeks since I posted my first blog and a good few weeks since I posted the last one. I am very pleased to say that I've found making one small change at a time to be really rewarding.  I'm 28 pounds lighter (which gives me an overall weight loss of 3 stones and 11 pounds, yay) and that means that I'm two dress sizes smaller than I was in June and you cannot begin to imagine the joy that has brought me :) !

During the weeks that I haven't blogged I've been rather busy.  I've been studying for my diploma in Clinical Nutrition and Weight Management and that has given me lots of food for thought (all low cal of course!).  So much so that I have documented my approach to losing weight and I've formulated a plan that I would really like to share with you.  My plan is called Healthy Habits and it's a very sensible approach to losing weight.  It advocates eating a healthy and varied diet and it looks at targetting any bad habits you may have developed and replacing them with something different which will help you in your weight loss journey.  There are two different approaches that you can take with Healthy Habits:

• Plan 1:  This is a structured eating plan which will encourage you to eat three square meals per day plus snacks, without the need for any points counting or similar mechanism.  You also get the option to add in some indulgences each week if you want to and you will learn to balance these options.  This is the plan that I have phased into by changing one small thing at a time and I've averaged a weight loss of 2lbs per week (others who have trialled it for me have seen similar results).  It's not a rapid weight loss plan; those really don't work in the long term.   It's all about a sensible and self aware approach to eating that will help you embed healthier habits in the longer term.  
• Plan 2:  I really struggled with other plans that I tried, mainly because I found the level of commitment needed to fully embrace it difficult to sustain in the long term.  Plan 2 is for anyone who finds it very difficult to stick to a healthy eating plan for more than a few weeks at a time.  Plan 2 helps to phase you in to Plan 1 and gives you one thing at a time to work on.  This worked really well for me, especially as I have a very temperamental tummy and I was gradually able to move from a highly processed diet to one which is far healthier and packed with tasty and filling foods that have clear health benefits. 

Healthy Habits will be taking place at 6:30 each Thursday at the Corby Old Village Community Centre from the 6th October so please come along if you would like to know more.  If you register during October you will not need to pay the usual £4 registration fee, and the weekly fee is £4.50, with 25p from every subs going to the Lakelands Hospice.  If you are already using the services of another weight loss club and it's working for you I would fully recommend that you stick with it.  If something is working well it would seem sensible to stay with it, and I would hate to take people away from any other group.

If anyone would like to know more you can contact me at changeonesmallthing@gmail.com or on 07506 765085.

Faddy diets make you fatter, fact!

I was chatting with a friend earlier this week about slimming and she brought up the subject of meal replacement plans.  She was trying to find a "quick fix", something that will help her lose weight quickly for a holiday and my immediate reaction was to say "Don't do it!!"  I don't doubt that in some very rare cases people will lose some weight and keep it off, but for the vast majority of us they will not work in the long term. 

I've been driven on more than one occasion to try either a meal replacement plan, or the sort of diet that greatly reduces what you can eat.  Anyone tried the Cabbage Soup Diet, Slimfast, Heart Foundation, Lighter Life etc etc?  If so you probably know exactly where I am coming from.  There are probably a lot of you that have found yourself in a similar position.  My own experience with this came from a horrible shopping session where I'd found it really difficult to find something to wear for a night out.  I'd just had my first child and as a result my body shape had changed quite a bit since my last night on the tiles.  I had a clear picture in my head of exactly how I wanted to look, but I was faced when looking in the changing room mirror with the harsh reality that unless I lost a big amount of weight I was never going to look like I wanted to.  Absolutely detesting the somehwhat lumpy creature in the mirror, panic ensued and I bought a shedload of meal replacement milkshakes, determined that I was going to look like the sylph-like creature on the tin in a matter of weeks. 

The harsh reality was that it never happened.  I managed to stick to it for less than a fortnight and yes I did lose twelve pounds, but these were pounds that were very quickly gained back plus another stone more when I started to eat normally again.  This is a cycle that I'm ashamed to admit has been repeated several times over, not always with meal replacements but often with other short term quick weight loss fads that gave me an initial great loss that was never sustained or kept off.  I learned the hard way that this is a damaging process both physically and mentally.  It is very difficult to lose weight in the long term when you are caught in this sort of cycle.

One great reason not to embark on any regime of this sort is the impact that this can have on your health.  For example, research tells us that around 25% of the weight you will lose in restricting calories drastically or using meal replacments will be muscle mass.  Your body goes into "fight or flight" mode and tries to hang onto the fat for as long as possible, who wants to lose lean tissue over fat??  Also, a person who uses meal replacements (usually less than 800 cals per day for a typical plan) will not lose any more weight than a person who is eating a healthy balanced low fat and sugar diet so why put yourself through any suffering?  And you will suffer, lack of energy, light headedness, headaches, nausea and lots of other horrid things you wouldn't want by choice.  Anyone want to experience that lot when you can follow a healthy meal plan and eat a wide variety of foods that satisfy your hunger?  I think not.

The most sensible way to achieve better health and lose excess weight in the process is to educate yourself on what the sensible choices are, and make conscious decisions on what you are eating.  Don't deny yourself something if you want it but make it a conscious choice and consider what effect it will have on your body or the health goals you have set for yourself.  You can make a big difference by doing exactly that.  I have lost 18 pounds recently in using this approach and am three stones lighter than I was three years ago, and I've dropped seven places on the BMI chart which is a great indication of the positive effect this will have on my overall health.  I'm hoping to take this even further because I still have a bit to lose and I'd really like to be able to help anyone else who has found themselves in the same situation so I'm currently studying Clinical Nutrition and Weight Management, knowledge is power as they say :)

Don't forget to leave me a comment if you've made small changes that have had a big impact.  I get real motivation from hearing how everyone else is doing and I know that some of you that read reguarly are really trying hard xx

Counting versus calculation?

Before making the decision to become more healthy by looking at what and when I eat, I had tried all of the different diets known to man.  I'd restricted carbs in trying the Atkins and South Beach diets, I'd tried the GI plan and I'd attended every diet class going.  I'd also gone through a phase of counting calories, something which for a while I thought was the be all and end all of losing weight but I hadn't considered at that time that it wouldn't necessarily make my body healthier.  I spent an awfully long time scrutinising calorie counting websites and the packets of everything I was eating in order to ensure that I was eating the correct "numbers".  In doing that though I gave no consideration to what was behind those numbers, that being the rest of the nutritional content.

My change this week is to better educate myself on nutritional content.  In researching this I have discovered that in order for a food to be sold as a low fat item, it has to contain no more than 3 grams of fat per 100 grams (5g is still fairly low so I will eat foods that contain up to 5g and will use the 3g rule when I really need to cut back).  For sugar, it should be between 5-15 grams per 100 grams of product to be described as having medium sugar content, and 5 or less to be described as a low sugar product.  So, in order to get my pantry and fridge in order I spent some time hanging out in ASDA checking out labels (I have now stopped this and am using the website as I think they thought I was a stalker :) ).  I was really surprised at what I learned, for example if a food is labelled as any of the following things, it's probably not low in both fat and low sugar in the true sense of the Food Standards Agency descriptions:

• Light
• Lighter
• Leaner
• Lower
• Reduced etc etc etc

The list of phrases that manufacturers have coined in order to convince you that you are eating healthily is endless and unless it specifically states "LOW FAT" or "LOW SUGAR" you can guarantee that it's higher than the FSA advises.  Also, lots of things that are low in fat are an awful lot higher in sugar and vice versa, and you know what happens if you consume more sugar than your body can utilise?  Yes, that's right it turns to fat so it can be stored and used by your body at a later date. 

I came across this article in the Daily Mail this morning which I also found to be interesting reading:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2013267/One-start-diet-month-help-putting-sweet-treats-baskets.html

It reports on the results of a survey carried out by the vitamin and minerals company Seven Seas.  It makes for really interesting reading as it talks about how around one in five of us starts a "diet" each month and that around a third of us also shop for low calorie food without necessarily considering what nutritional benefit we will get from what we eat.  

Dr Emma Derbyshire, a nutritionist from Manchester Metropolitan University who contributed to the report, said: "While magazines and TV schedules are full of celebrity chefs, food and recipes, our diets seem to be losing their balance with potentially-alarming consequences.
'It would seem that we are still struggling to grasp the concept of "good nutrition" and the reason why we eat food in the first place.

'Though it is important to acknowledge calorie intake, this must not come at the expense of eating a balanced and varied diet, low in saturated fat but also rich in vitamins, minerals and essential fatty acids.
'Often, processed, low-calorie food can contain high levels of sugar and additives, and so may not be as healthy as people think."

So there you have it, literally food for thought; think about your food and you will see the benefits.  I'm so much more conscious of what I'm putting in my mouth as a result that I am seeing great results on the scales again this week with another two pounds off so that 16 pounds in total during the last five weeks :) 


I'm going to leave you this week with something that has become an enduring image in my head, one that I am having trouble shifting at the moment but it's something which will definitely help me cut out something which I do that is detrimental to my long term goal.  My gross fact for this week is all about wine.  I do love a nice big glass of icy cold Rose of an evening, but I discovered this weekend that there are more calories (and these are those empty calories with no subtance behind them) in a medium pub sized glass of wine than there is in a tablespoon of lard!  Now every time I think of wine, I'm thinking "Lardy wine" and have a mental image of licking it off the spoon. Yuck!


Don't forget to comment if you have committed to a change, I'd love to hear how you are doing.



 

It's all in your head...

Well that's week four done and over with, and with it it's brought me a stone off in total so far.  I won't lie and tell you that it was easy to do, it's something which has required a lot of conscious thought and effort in thinking, but it's working so I'm sticking to it.  My new target is to lose another stone and I'm not setting a deadline on this.  I know that eating in the pattern that I've established is not a quick weight loss miracle, it's a way of establishing new long term healthy eating habits and the weight loss is bound to slow down soon.  I'll be happy as long as I can see it moving in the right direction each week, be it half a pound or two each week.  

So, I've lost a stone, I'm feeling confident and happy with the results, and this is the point at which my willpower usually starts to wane.  My mindset changes into one that says "I've been really good, I deserve a reward" and then I start introducing treats then willpower and all my good intentions disappear into the ether.  But forewarned is forearmed as they say, and as I know that this is my usual pattern of behaviour (it's happened at least 20 times in the last 15 years) I can prepare in advance for this not to happen.  In trawling the internet again in the last week I found various articles that talk about using the subconscious mind to help with breaking negative behaviour patterns (bad habits to you and I) and this is something I find hugely interesting.  Anyone who knows me will know what a huge Paul McKenna fan I am and this is one small thing he advocates using to help with weight loss.  Sciencey bit coming up right here:

• Frequently, your mind is more motivated by pictures and visualization than it is with words and written exercises. The right side of your brain is where your creativity comes from, and it thrives on pictures. Many times the right side of your brain takes precedence over the left side, which thrives on words. In the past, you may have just written words down to reach your goals. Add this new dimension to your process.

• Draw, cut out pictures, or take photographs of what you want in life. Put pictures up on your refrigerator, your bathroom mirror, or any place that will remind your subconscious mind of your desires to reinforce your goal.  Every thought you have uses electrical energy to imprint a new picture in your subconscious mind. The efforts of your subconscious mind are to match the pictures in your mind with reality.The more you deliberately plant pictures of what you want, the faster you will attract it into your life. It's very important that you allow yourself to fantasize about what you want in your life - let your imagination run wild!

• To achieve what it is you want in life, you must think about it. There are no limits except those we put on ourselves. This is your life and you will be cheating yourself if you don't go for what you want! You must feel your success before you can manifest it in reality.  (Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/132242)

I'm definitely going to have a go at putting this into practice so, if anyone sees me staring into space this next week with a dreamy look on my face, I'm picturing the thinner thighs and tauter tummy I will have at the end of all of this.  Of course it helps to have a realistic target to help with all of this, so I'm aiming for thighs that are more Beyonce than Beckham because I know that my body shape is prone to having heavy legs.  That said I do have a really small waist in comparison so I'm definitely aiming for curves and not wispy waifiness :)

Thanks to everyone who has read this.  As well as the visualization thing I think it definitely helps to write down goals and writing the blog is really helping with my motivation.  Please forward the link to anyone you think might be interested.  Same time next week xx

Habit busting - why do we do what we do?

Well it's four weeks in now and I'm up to a grand total of 11 pounds off; it's started to slow down now but I'm not going to let this get me down.  Things are definitely moving in the right direction and I'm feeling a lot healthier and less tired than I was before I started this.  I think that an expectation of losing 1-2 pounds per week from here on in is both healthy and realistic so that I what I am going to aim for.

So, last week in addition to drinking more water and eating something healthy whenever I got a craving for something that was less healthy, I said that I would move around more so that's exactly what I did.  Two walks in a country park with the kids, a session at the gym and a tap dancing class were the sum total of my exercise and I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed it.  As I mentioned previously it's difficult for me to slot exercise into my day to day routine so walking with the kids worked well because it gave me the opportunity to spend some lovely quality time with them doing something we don't do nearly often enough.  The bikes that I mentioned in last weeks blog have arrived at work now so as well as keeping up the walking I'm going to make sure that I add a couple of lunchtime bike rides in there too.  For a lazy person like me cycling is the ultimate exercise because you still get to sit down :)

So, lets get back to the subject of those pesky habits, the ones which make us do things which we really would rather we didn't do.  I've buried my head in behavioural science this last week and have been doing lots of swotting up on what habits are and why we have them.  Here's another sciencey bit :

 Habits are strong connections in the brain that are formed by repetitive behaviours and they are incredibly difficult to change once they become established.  To demonstrate this point I would like you to do the following test:

1. Fold your arms and note the position of your hands and which arm is on the outside.
2. Now unfold them and fold them again but this time the opposite way. Note your reaction to how this feels.

How did it feel when you folded your arms the opposite way?  Did it feel uncomfortable?  The way you first folded your arms is your habitual way of doing it and I bet you didn’t have to think about it before you did it.  The second way is more difficult and would have required a degree of thought before you could do it properly because you don’t have a habit pattern or the connections in your brain which would make it a subconscious action in the way that the first way was.  I love this exercise as it demonstrates perfectly what a habit it and why it is so difficult to change one.  Since I first tried this I have to admit that I've probably tried to fold and unfold my arms about fifty times.  Surprisingly, as the week has gone on its started to get an awful lot easier (I've had some really strange looks though and it's not anything which is likely to help me get on in life lol).  Understanding this has really helped me, especially with using the water thing to help stop snacking.  It's something which is now a lot easier than it was initially and it's something which is getting easier the longer I do it.  If you understand why you are doing what you are doing you stand a far greater chance of changing it in the long term. 

Did you know that it takes around 30 days of repeated self aware behaviour to successfully establish a new habit? That's quite a long time.  If you were one of the people that changed something when you first started reading this blog and you've stuck to it then you're well on the way to making it a long term change.  Well done!  I'm not going to introduce another change this week because I want to make sure that the changes I've already made "stick" so I'm concentrating on getting to the point where my changes require less thought.  Please don't forget to leave a comment at the bottom of the page if you have decided to make a change, or if you have any general feedback for me.  Have a great week and thanks for reading.

This weeks it's all about the balancing act....

So, here I am two weeks in, and I am over the moon to report that I have lost ten pounds.  This is largely due to the fact that I have almost stopped snacking completely because when I feel a tummy rumble coming on between meals, I have a glass of water, simple but very effective.  Like I said last week, I want to continue with it for as long as it takes for this to become habitual behaviour and I think it's starting to work :)

In addition to the extra fluids, I also said that I wouldn't deny myself anything that I fancied, but would make an extra big effort to eat something healthy before indulging.  That's exactly what I did last week and the biggest benefit I found was that it made me really super conscious of what I was eating. I've always been what I would call an "unconscious grazer".  I can think of tens of occasions where I've eaten something without thinking (because I fancy it not because I am hungry) and as soon as I've swallowed it I've thought "Bugger, I'm meant to be on a diet" and it's been a slippery slope that's hard to get off of.  In eating something healthy first I've found the either of the following usually happens:

• I eat the healthy thing and no longer want the item I originally craved in the first place
• I eat the healthy thing and then what I originally wanted but I don't feel guilty about it because I've also eaten a healthy thing too which is good for my body and that sort of redresses the balance.  Now before you all think I'm a total fruit loop I know that eating an apple before a Mars Bar really doesn't cancel out the Mars Bar, but by enforcing that little rule I've eaten an extra piece of fruit, where in the past I would probably have had two Mars Bars instead :) (incidentally I still have the three Snickers bars in my handbag that were there when I started this little project and chocolate has never ever had that long a life span in my posession before!).

I know that none of the above is an exact science and all I'm actually doing is forcing myself to be a lot more self aware and responsible than I was before.  It's working...

So, new for this week is another change that I want to make.  To put it simply, I want to move around more.  I do like to exercise however two small children, a full time job and a husband that works a varied shift pattern makes regular exercise difficult.  At least, that's the excuse I've been telling myself for some time now.  So I'm going to stop trying to justify my laziness to myself and make time to be more active.  I'm lucky enough to live near some fantastic parks and open spaces so I am going to make the effort to go out and do more with the kids.  We had a fantastic stomp around the local country park tonight at a time when we would usually be vegging out in front of the tellybox.  Also, is it really sad to be excited about your workplace getting "pool" bikes that can be hired out for a lunchtime bike ride?  Well, we have some on order, baggsy first go!  I'm planning on getting out at least twice a week at lunchtime when the weather is good, that fits in perfectly with the rest of my routine and is not affected by the kids/hubby/work issue. If I carry on with my first two changes and can enforce this third one I reckon I'm on for a stone in total off by the end of the next fortnight....

If you've made any commitment to changing your habits in order to achieve a health goal leave me a comment, tell me all about it at the bottom of the page, thanks for reading xx