Turning the corner on the Metabolic Weight Loss programme?

Life is too precious to waste so I plan to embrace my new curves until I reach my goal weight.

Life is too precious to waste so I plan to embrace my new curves until I reach my goal weight.

Date: Saturday 30 September 2017
Current weight: Today I weigh 174 lbs – no change

September has been another stressful and busy month both at work and at home without a shred of work/life balance.  I continue to struggle with balancing everything in order to keep making progress on the programme however by 22 September I began to feel really run down and by the following day I had gone down with a nasty cold.  By the time of my next consultation, I was feeling really bad which added to my sadness and fear that I will never be able to lose weight.

To my surprise and disappointment, my weight went up by 2 lbs when I was down with a cold even though I continued to apply the programme.  I found this shocking.  I had two more social events to attend in September and Nigerian food was on the menu at both events.

I told my friend that I was thinking about going off-piste and feasting.  She urged me to stay on the diet and assured me that she continued to see changes in my figure and that I would see the changes too in time.

I have got to the point where making time for the telephone consultations also feels like very hard work.  My appointments moved from week days to Saturday as it was getting harder and harder to have the telephone appointments while at work.  However on Saturday 30 September, I realised that I had double booked myself meaning that I was going to miss my telephone consultation.  I sent an email to the Weight Loss Centre explaining that I could not make the allotted time.  I wondered whether missing the appointment would derail me completely.  I never looked at my phone again once I sent the email until I returned home in the evening and found out that I had been sent an email from the Weight Loss Centre offering me a later appointment for the same day.  As I had not checked my phone, I missed this. I was surprised by this email.  I had been feeling very disconnected from the programme.  I responded to the email explaining why I had not taken up the offer for a later appointment and received a further response.  This was the clicking moment for me and I decided to recommit myself to the programme including completing the food diary entries and sending these to the clinic every day by email.  In truth in the days up to this Saturday, I was pretty sure that I would be coming off the programme.

At this time I had decided that if I do have metabolic syndrome, a thyroid problem or anything else then it would not hurt to commit to the diet 100%.  If I committed completely and remained unable to lose the weight then I would be in a position to see a specialist doctor and in so doing confirm what could be ruled out.

I have suffered from irritable bowel syndrome for very many years.  Each time my symptoms flare up, I visit my GP and one of the doctors gives me an information sheet to read and take action.  Last year, my symptoms were so bad that I had a colonoscopy to ensure that there was no serious underlying condition and luckily I was fine.  As I have been changing my diet since September 2014 at the start of my weight loss journey, I have been gradually eliminating things from my diet that upset my stomach, for instance, I have almond milk instead of regular milk, I had cut my portion sizes and so on.  Eliminating troublesome foods from my diet and reducing my portions has been very hard for me to do but to a large extent I pressed on until spring of this year when the wheels came off a bit and I regained 18 lbs.  One of the benefits of the current programme is that tummy upsets have become the exception rather than the norm.  My tummy has not felt this settled in over 20 years.

The other thing that I enjoy on this diet is cooking.  As the ingredients are so restrictive for instance I cannot cook with stock cubes and so on, I have had to find creative ways to flavour my food with garlic, ginger, black pepper for instance.  I enjoy the cooking challenge and I no longer resent the planning ahead (as much!) as I get my head around the principles of this diet.  As for exercise, I am gradually easing back into this but I will talk more about that in my next blog.

Until next time it’s

#nototheyoyo!
#yestostableweight!

Typical lunch with 2 ryvita crackers, avocado, cucumer, tomato and tuna

Typical lunch with 2 ryvita crackers, avocado, cucumer, tomato and tuna

Julie

Author Julie

Lawyer (co-founding partner/solicitor of a legal aid practice), blogger, feminist, lover of fashion & beauty. I believe that there are two types of people - the living and the dead. Age has nothing to do with it.

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