#oneaday Day 81: Pep Talk

I am failing hard at my weight loss and fitness goals, so I am going to use today’s opportunity to give myself something of a pep talk. Hopefully laying down the things I’ve been feeling — and how I feel about things not going the right way — on “paper” will help me put them into perspective and move forwards.

First of all, I’ll say that “failing” is probably the wrong word. I have suffered a temporary setback. It is a temporary setback that has been going on for probably a couple of months at this point, but if we’re looking at the big picture, I’m still a stone lighter than when I started all this. That is Progress, and I shouldn’t put myself down too hard when I have made Progress.

However, my trouble is that I’ve become complacent. My brain has figured that it knows what I’m “supposed” to do in order to keep the weight loss going, and it has led me to assume that it knows best and is able to do the “right” things instinctively.

Well, brain, you cannot do these things instinctively. You have been making a right hash of things of late. But it’s not too late to sort things out. You need to take a moment to reflect why you’re doing this, then recalibrate yourself to follow the Slimming World programme carefully, methodically and fastidiously. No thinking “oh, a quick Meal Deal won’t hurt”. No thinking “ah, one Greggs won’t hurt”. No thinking outright potentially harmful thoughts like “maybe I just won’t eat for most of tomorrow”.

No, brain, instead, you know you have a clear structure within which to work. And that means making an effort to prioritise the foods that Slimming World defines as “free” — for the unfamiliar, this includes not only the usual sort of fruits and vegetables that you’d expect, including potatoes, but also pasta, rice and some grains.

On top of that “free” stuff, you have two “Healthy Extra A” choices, which are carefully measured things in the dairy area, and one “Healthy Extra B” choice, which is fibre-related, and usually takes the form of something like a carefully measured bowl of Shredded Wheat, two slices of wholemeal bread, stuff like that.

And on top of that, you have your “Syns”, which covers everything else. And these are the things that are probably the most important to count. Because while you can technically have anything on Slimming World, it’s important to ensure you’re 100% aware of what you’re putting in your mouth and how much of it you’re putting in your mouth, too. One or two little treats that are a couple of Syns each are fine; a whole “Sharing” bagful is not.

Since the first time I did Slimming World (and had a lot of success with it first time around), they’ve started to place a greater focus on “trigger foods”, and I think that’s something I really need to be mindful of. Trigger foods are the things that “set you off” onto a path that will harm your overall weight loss. In my case, it’s things like getting a big bag of some sort of “treat”, be it sweet or savoury, and telling myself “I’ll just have a bit at a time”. I inevitably do not have a bit at a time and end up eating the whole bag. This is, as I’m sure you can appreciate, a Problem.

Thing is, I am aware of the behaviours I’m exhibiting, and how they’re symptomatic of someone with an addiction. I have seen them in other people who were addicted to things other than food. Trouble is, an addiction to food, which is clearly what I am having to deal with, is not something which is taken anywhere near as seriously as an addiction to alcohol or drugs, but clearly it can be harmful.

And it’s not as if I don’t want to fix myself. I’m fed up of not being able to sleep well because my whole body hurts. I’m fed up of not physically being able to do things because I’m too big. I’m fed up of it being difficult to find clothes that fit. And I’m fed up of still living with this fucking hernia that randomly flares up into excruciating pain on an unpredictable basis, and being unable to get treatment for it because I’m too fat.

Annoyingly, I’ve tried seeking medical help for this, and all I got was a useless “course” where I spoke to someone on Zoom once every two weeks, got no particularly helpful advice that I didn’t know already, was repeatedly asked if I wanted bariatric surgery (I emphatically do not, for a variety of reasons) and made hardly any progress. So I guess it’s up to me.

So brain, you have two options. Give up, which I know you don’t want to do, or start taking this seriously. Start writing down everything you eat, including when you have “too much”. Start measuring those Healthy Extras and counting those Syns. And be fastidious about it. Don’t be afraid to mess up and acknowledge that you messed up; in writing this post in the first place, I’m admitting to myself that I messed up. And don’t be in denial that there is a problem here which needs to be solved.

This evening, it is time to reflect and consider the situation. From first thing tomorrow morning, it’s a clean “break” from the past, and a new beginning. Let’s get this done.

Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.

#oneaday Day 18: Attempting to Reset

I put half a pound on this week. This is not, in the grand scheme of things, a huge amount of weight, but I am a little disappointed and not at all surprised. I have not been particularly rigorous about taking care to be sensible with what I eat, and that somewhat laissez-faire attitude is being reflected in a lack of positive results.

All you can do in this situation, though, is hold up your hands, admit you made a mistake (or a few) and try to right the ship from hereon. What has already happened can’t be changed; what’s important is what you do next and what you learn from that mistake.

I’ve already started taking positive steps with the exercise. I made it out of the door and to the pool for a decent length swim this morning, after what was a surprisingly good night’s sleep. I woke up a lot of times, but every time it was because I was convinced it was 7am and time to get up, only to get the very pleasant surprise when I looked at my bedside clock and discovered that “time to get up” was still several hours away.

What I need to do is focus on some of the things that Slimming World talks about in the sessions, rather than just nodding along. Probably the key thing I need to focus on is “triggers” — in the slimming sense, these are the things that aren’t the greatest for you which you eat then immediately want more of. They are one of the biggest barriers to weight loss, because they are the things that are most likely to send you catastrophically “off plan”.

In many respects it’s like an addiction. I have some experience of dealing with people who have struggled through addiction to substances more harmful than food — thankfully, those addictions appear to be in the past for the people concerned — but I recognise some of the same behaviours in myself when I “lapse”. A desire to make myself “feel better” through the thing that is the source of a lot of my troubles; an inability to stop once I’ve started that “self-medication” process; the mental association between feeling like I “deserve” something that is bad for me for [insert justification here].

Part of my trouble is not having what I think of as “safety nets” in place — and the fact I’m somewhat inclined to think negatively of those safety nets. My immediate reaction to seemingly obvious advice like “don’t eat a bag of sweets, have a piece of fruit instead” is that this is an absolutely laughable statement, even though I know fruit can be perfectly satisfying and even delicious. I need to get out of that mindset — and to have those pieces of fruit readily to hand so I can start making positive associations with them.

There are countless other examples, but there are days when it just all feels like work. And it is work; work with tangible benefits over the long term. It’s those long-term benefits I need to keep my focus on, because it’s short-term factors — i.e. the way I’m feeling right now — that is causing me difficulties.

I don’t need advice or anything. I know what I need to do, and putting it down on “paper” will likely go at least a little way towards fixing some of those things a bit further forward in my mind. I know I can do this — I’ve done it once before — so I just have to knuckle down and actually do it.

For now, though, bed. Without biscuits.

2129: Devil Drink: A Call for Help

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Real Talk today. Serious business. And I’m probably going to regret writing this and making it so public, but I’m at my absolute wits’ end, don’t know what to do and could do with some support, be it from friends or strangers.

No names or anything will be given in this post, but some of you may be able to work certain things out from it. If you do, please do me a favour and don’t point anything like that out in the comments or say things to the people involved, because that’s just not going to help anything at all.

Anyway.

I don’t drink any more. I used to drink quite a lot when I was at university and the few years afterwards; I was somewhat legendary among a number of my friends for spectacular drunk text messages, with the mangled garbage that T9 predictive text would come out with being far more entertaining than the stuff AutoCorrect spews out from the iPhones and Androids of today. It was fun, though I never enjoyed the hangover the next day.

I stopped drinking for two real reasons: firstly, I’d got to the stage where I simply wasn’t enjoying it any more — alcohol tended to give me heartburn, and I came to the conclusion that being a bit wobbly and lary wasn’t enjoyable enough to justify feeling a bit sick after just a sip or two — and secondly, more importantly, it became apparent that someone in my life had a capital-P Problem with drink.

This wasn’t the first time I’d encountered someone with such an issue; a friend of mine at university suffered a similar affliction to quite a serious degree, though at the time, young and stupid as we were, it felt like something that should be laughed at rather than something that was a serious problem. More than ten years after that, though, I understand what a horrible, devastating thing alcoholism is, and how horrible it is to be in a position where you’re absolutely helpless to give any sort of aid to the person who is suffering so much they feel the need to take the pain away with excess amounts of drink.

The person in question had a problem for quite some time before seemingly resolving it. I tried several ways of dealing with it — with humour, with sadness, with anger, with disappointment, with honesty, with support, with attempts to engage and understand — but nothing seemed to be particularly effective. What actually happened is that over time, the person in question simply seemingly got over it, stopped drinking altogether and we said nothing more about it, though I always took care to steer clear of conversations that involved alcohol or being drunk or anything like that.

Recently, though, this person has suffered a bit of a relapse. It’s not to the same degree as it was before by any degree of magnitude, but it is happening again. And, once again, I feel completely helpless to do anything about it — perhaps because, if my past experience is anything to go by, there really isn’t anything I can do about it, and the person simply has to resolve it themselves.

This is upsetting and deeply, deeply distressing, though. It may sound selfish to make this about me, but I feel it’s important to note the impact of alcoholism on the people around the afflicted person as well as the afflicted person themselves. Because that impact can be devastating. It can have a huge impact on their mental wellbeing, and on the way they see the afflicted person. It can have a huge impact on the way they interact with the afflicted person, and the things they feel comfortable doing and talking about with the afflicted person. And it can impact on their life at large, preventing them from doing some things and forcing them to do others.

Ultimately it can build a great deal of resentment, frustration, anger and sadness — some of which is perhaps justified, but the rest of which is simply an impotent expression of fury at a sensation of powerlessness. I recognise this, and I would like to clarify that I certainly don’t hate the person involved for this by any means, particularly as I’m familiar with the extenuating circumstances that have brought this relapse on. Rather, I just want to feel like I can support them and help them through it once again, but I don’t know if I have the strength to handle it for a second time.

So that’s pretty much where I am right now. I don’t know what to do. I need help. Although I don’t know how anyone might be able to help, and I feel guilty writing this, given that I predict a significant proportion of you reading this will put two and two together quite quickly. As I say, though, if you do, please, just, shush. That part isn’t important.

Right now, I am sad, upset and angry, and I need help. Please help.