(no subject)

[tinyjo]

Right. I weighed myself this morning and I am 15 stone. This is way significantly too much. The last 3 stone of that has been put on in the last 4 months pretty much (although I haven't been formally tracking so I could be remembering that wrong). I need to do something about this. I'm going to make an appointment with my GP at the beginning of next year and see if she's got anything to say or any suggestions but for now I'm looking for suggestions from you lot. This is my experience so far:

• Slimming clubs per se don't help motivate me. If they've got a good program and my willpower is good then I'm happy to pay for them but the being weighed by someone else bit isn't a motivator for me and I generally find that most of the people at the meetings have completly different lifestyles to me so I don't get much from the discussion. That being said, if you know a good one with a good system, feel free to recommend it.
• Previous experience shows that unless I actively enjoy an exercise I don't stick to it and also that there are very few exercises that I actively enjoy. I quite liked swimming but found that if you do that every day you end up smelling of chlorine all the time, which I really didn't like. I like riding horses but that requires a regular timing and somewhere to do it (none of the Oxfordshire stables I've tried have ever answered their phones or called me back!). Now that I've finally recovered from my cold I'm cycling to work again but any other suggestions for exercising are welcome
• I've had a huge increase in my desire to snack during the second half of this year. I notice it particularly when I'm watching TV - if I'm settling in for an evening of Veronica Mars, I'll usually do it with a couple of glasses of wine and half a pack of (low fat) cream crackers. Any good tactics for distracting myself from my desire to snack? (n.b. I can't knit while watching TV :) ) Previously I haven't had much of a problem with this - I've snacked before but it's been much more under my control.

So, any ideas?

Comments

[cleanskies.livejournal.com]

I'm still on the haemmorrhaging out my life-blood diet, so may be in no position to comment, however these are my dietary tips -- some are mine, some belong to friends:

1. Take a walk outside, in the cold, at lunch time. Eat on the move if you can. It's a bit bleak up where you work as I understand it, but you could turn it into a daily task, e.g. walk to x and back again.

2. Switch to using the toilets furthest from your desk. Extra credit if they're on a different floor. Drink black tea, no sugar. Go to the farthest away kitchen to make it.

3. Get out of the house in the evening. Films and plays are gigs are good, keep you distracted, but make sure the booze is white wine or neat vodka (no mixers, sorry!).

4. One big meal a day. Big lunch, small supper, and vice versa.

5. Keep a fairly empty kitchen -- Adrian's personal tip was "nothing in the fridge except pickle and milk", but you don't have to be that extreme to get results.

6. Shag like a mink. Especially when you're feeling hungry.

7. Make those cats work! Grab one and stoke it while you're watching telly.

8. Develop a food sensitivity. The process: exclude foods you eat a lot of for a week, to see if going without any one particular one makes you feel more energetic and healthy. It's win-win, because either way you end up eating less.

9. Supplements, nutrients. Wanting to eat all the time can be a result of missing key things in your diet. Take a vitamin and mineral supplement and research a bit to see if you're avoiding anything crucial.

10. Junk the diet and low-fat foods. They're full of additives designed to make them harder to digest, which makes you want to eat more.

[tinyjo.livejournal.com]

Is white wine better than red then? I didn't know that.

5 is something I'm bad at because I like to go for fewest trips to the shops possible these days. I used to be quite good when I was living in Union street and could just pop to Tesco if I needed something but now I have it delivered I try to get it mostly in one fell swoop.

I might have a play around with 8 and 9 see if I can come up with any good combos though.

yep!

[cleanskies.livejournal.com]

Typically red wine has both more sugar and alcohol, although a fat sweet strong chardonnay won't be much better. Bone dry pale whites with a low alcohol content are ideal -- the house dry white is usually a good bet. I find I drink white slower, too -- also a bonus.

If you want to calorie cout your booze intake, there's a cute Bridget Jones type widget here

http://www.drinksdiary.co.uk/

(You have to register, but they're not doing anything with the data as far as I can see.)