1892: Shrunken

Slimming World meeting tonight, and I’d lost another 2.5lbs this week. That means for the last 9 weeks I’ve consistently been losing weight, and I’ve now lost a little over 2 stone in total.

To say I’m pleased is an understatement. I still have a long way to go, of course, and I intend to keep doing what I’m doing as it seems to be working, but it’s been heartening to see the lifestyle changes I’ve made since joining the programme having a noticeable and positive effect.

There’s a few major changes to what I was doing before that have taken some adjusting to, but which are now fairly comfortably part of my usual routine. Firstly, I’ve cut right back on dairy; I used to drink a lot of milk which, of course, has its own health benefits, but which is also calorific and packed with fat. I’ve never been a mega-fan of cheese — I like it well enough, but I can happily live without it — so that’s been fairly straightforward to cut out, too. Instead, using the Slimming World “Healthy Extra” system, I limit myself to one latte in the morning (with 250ml milk measured) or 30g of cheese in a meal. I can spend some “Syns” to have both in a single day — I did tonight, in fact — but I’m now pretty much in the habit of keeping my dairy intake controlled.

Secondly is keeping an eye on what I drink, as this is probably where a lot of calories have snuck up on me in the past. I like to drink cold drinks, particularly cans, so I’ve switched exclusively to diet or “Zero” drinks instead of the Fat Cokes I used to enjoy. I’m still not a huge fan of Diet Coke, but other diet versions of popular drinks have proven surprisingly palatable. I actually think I prefer Diet Pepsi to regular Pepsi and Pepsi Max now, and Fanta/Sprite/Lilt/Dr Pepper/Irn Bru Zero are all pretty much indistinguishable from the “real thing”, and those are all drinks I like, so the fridge is kept well-stocked with those for when I want a cold drink, and it’s squashes or water at other times.

Thirdly is the aforementioned “syns”, keeping an eye on what other things I’m eating over the course of the day. The nice thing about Slimming World is that a lot of food is “free” (i.e. you can have as much as you like — and this includes stuff like pasta, rice and lean meat) but you also have the flexibility to use these “syns” to slip some extra stuff in there, too. (The “syn” part is from “synergy”, not “sin”; they’re supposed to complement the “free” foods and fill in the gaps for a balanced diet with things like sugar, fat and whatnot — the things that can easily get out of control, but which are still necessary for a decent diet.) Checking syn values of various foods has been eye-opening, and also helps me to make better choices when things are on offer. This doesn’t mean I can’t treat myself — indeed, when I went over to Boston for PAX, I pretty much took a few days completely off from the programme as it simply wasn’t practical to follow when I didn’t have full control over what I’d be eating — but it does mean that I can think more carefully about what I’m eating and drinking.

So it’s going well so far. I’m sure the weight loss will slow down or even stagnate at some point, but it’s encouraging that I’ve managed to lose so much so (relatively) quickly. A few people have commented that they can see the difference, and for once, I think I can, too. I’m still not happy with my body — I have a lot of weight to lose — but I’m happier with it than I was nine weeks ago, and hopefully that pattern will continue. Whether I’ll make it into the realm of the normal-sized people I don’t know — genetically, the odds are stacked somewhat against me — but I can but continue trying.