1843: Laugh, and Grow Less Fat

Third week of Slimming World this week, and my second weigh-in since I started the programme. Not quite as drastic a loss this week, but still a loss of 3.5lbs; if I can keep it up at this pace, I’ll be quite satisfied since, as I’ve said before, the nice thing about the Slimming World “food optimising” programme is that it’s sustainable rather than a crash diet: it’s a means of getting yourself to think a little more carefully about what you’re eating.

This evening was an interesting meeting. I’m still at that phase in a new group activity where I don’t really know anyone and don’t want to talk to anyone — social anxiety sucks like that, but at least the group is a supportive environment; if you can’t feel supported and at least vaguely safe at a weight loss therapy group, there are perhaps bigger issues at play — but this evening had a nice activity to get us up and doing something. Doing something that fat people do best: eating.

The twist, of course, was that the impressive spread everyone contributed to on the group’s central table was made up of “free” foods; recipes concocted using those foods that, under Slimming World’s programme, you can eat as much of as you like. (There were a couple of dishes that had a few “Syns” in them, also, but in all these cases, the Syn value was incredibly low compared to a “proper” version of the food in question; a chocolate brownie made using butternut squash — yes, really — had only 2.5 Syns, for example, whereas a “real” brownie would likely be double figures.) There were some really delicious dishes on the table, many of which are things I’d like to have again at some point, which was sort of the key to the whole exercise, really: any time you diet, even on a programme as flexible as Slimming World, you’ll sometimes find yourself stuck in a rut, eating the same things all the time, so it’s good to see what other people have and enjoy and perhaps pick up some ideas from it.

And there were plenty of ideas. I came away from the session feeling something that I was surprised to realise that I haven’t really felt for a while: I felt excited about food. Not guilty, not resigned, not despairing, but excited. The tasty, flavourful dishes I enjoyed tonight are all things that can be made at home relatively easily, and I look forward to trying them out a bit more often. Slimming World’s website, likewise, has plenty of great recipes that all look eminently manageable and don’t require outlandish crazy diet ingredients; they’re solid, satisfying food intended to plug the hole in your hunger and keep you feeling full, while at the same time having a good balance of the things you need from a healthy diet.

I paid up for six weeks of the programme in advance tonight. There may well be slow, demoralising weeks ahead, but a strong first couple of weeks has given me, for the first time, a little bit of faith that perhaps I can do this, and perhaps I’m not doomed to be a disgusting fat failure for my whole life.