(no subject)

[tinyjo]

So, back on the weight loss trail again now that I am feeling well enough to cook and Glastonbury is out of the way. I'm trying to decide how systematic to be about it this time around. I've had sucess and failures both ways before so I could go either way.

In principle I like having a counter or target to use. I like online food planners and trackers but I also find them frustrating. Because I cook for myself so much I have to enter all the ingredients and some of the sites I've tried are not so good on generics either - looking for chicken breast can get you a lot of Breaded Chicken Breast meals but not always the straight forward ingredient. If the site has a recipies feature then that's pretty good because I do have a core of tried and trusteds that cut down on this problem but it's still not nearly as easy as it would be if I just ate ready meals.

Also, close though it may be, I'm not actually on the computer all the time. Ideally I'd like to be able to update the tracker thing through my mobile phone but surprisingly few places I've looked at offer this. I did trial one but it had the problem with not having many generics in it's food list (although it did have a lookup by barcode for products, which I thought was pretty neat). At the very least, it would be nice if the website was light weight enough to use on the go - that was where Weightwatchers online fell down for me - it was a pretty poorly designed site, which was unfortunate because otherwise it was offering a good service. The other problem with most of the tracker sites I've tried is that they tend to have quite inflexible targets. Again, the weightwatchers one was good here but most of the others I tried wouldn't even let you carry over between days.

Then there's the clubs. Now this is fine in principle. I can quite agree that weightloss is easier if you've got someone to do it with - you can support each other, share good ideas, even police each other if that's what works for you. In practice however, I have never managed to meet anyone even remotely like me at a slimming club. I used to go to a lunchtime weight watchers meeting and it was full of old women and young mums with young babies. All nice enough but facing completely different weight loss challenges to me. As a support group it just didn't really work for me, although I did get some good ideas from the hand outs. Still, I am drawn to the idea of a support group. Anyone know any good ones? Want to form one perhaps even?

Overall, having written this, I think I like the idea of having a structure, but I don't know where to get one that'll work long term for me. Any recommendations? I only actually tried out a couple of online systems before getting discouraged and moving on so there's probably loads out there I haven't seen.

Comments

[white_hart]

Yes, the trick is to find something that helps you make a permanent change. Which does mean learning about nutrition, and finding a healthy balance point of food and exercise. And it does mean learning to eat less, permanently, and probably also drink less (halfway through my time doing WLR, during which I lost three stone, I switched from drinking pints to drinking halves, and I haven't gone back), and to try to break the links between eating and emotions.

I've mostly kept the weight off, although I've put about half a stone on in the last six months or so because I got out of the habit of exercising. I'm now walking 3.5 miles home several days a week and making a conscious effort not to scarf cheese when I get there, which I hope will be enough to help me lose that over the next couple of months...

[tinyjo.livejournal.com]

Yes, the trick is to find something that helps you make a permanent change.

This is what I've always found difficult. I can do fine for a certain amount of time but then I start to miss the cheese board and resent the exercise (the fact that I can never find an exercise I like has been a big stumbling block for me).

The other problem is that when I get lazy or sick we tend to switch over to takeout - this is where the fact that Alex is not a cook is a bit of a shame. That and the fact that when I go to parties or roleplaying and there's pringles and pizza right there and everyone's having them I find it very difficult to resist. I guess I'll just have to try my best at Jennis BBQ tomorrow and see how it goes.

[white_hart]

I don't think it's about not eating cheese, or not having takeaways. I think doing that is where a lot of people go wrong, because denying yourself things you like just makes you resent what you're doing and eventually you'll get fed up and go back to what you were doing before. It has to be a *permanent* change, and if you aren't happy with the idea of spending the rest of your life without cheese (and who would be?) then you need to make cheese part of your eating plan, and you need to allow for the occasional takeaway or party or meal out where you don't get to control what you have.

[tinyjo.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's definitely something I need to work on. I can do moderate for most of the time but then I still tend to splurge out every now and then. I'm still not really sure what triggers it, unfortunately - it doesn't seem to be comfort eating (which I do also do sometimes but that's got a different pattern) but there must be something which causes me to decide that I really want a cheese lunch, buy 5 cheeses and a baguette and eat a reasonable chunk of each of them in one sitting.

[white_hart]

That sounds like something which would be worth tracking against hormonal cycles, and also against your previous patterns of eating. Does it happen after you've been avoiding cheese for a while, or when you've had a lot of alcohol over the previous days? Do you eat other dairy products regularly? I would suspect a shortage of calcium might be to blame.

(I find I have far fewer food cravings, and much less need to snack, when I take multivitamins every day. I suspect that this may be because my IBS stops me absorbing nutrients properly so I end up having to eat more to make up for it.)