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.

1862: Eat Well

So, how is this whole Slimming World thing going?

Pretty well, actually. I've lost over a stone since I started, and while I do occasionally feel like I'm "missing out" on some things that I previously would have grabbed and enjoyed without question — I'm talking about obviously awful-for-you-but-delicious things like cakes, anything involving pastry, McDonald's breakfasts and all manner of other dreadfulness — on the whole I don't feel like I'm starving myself, because there's usually something around that I can eat and enjoy without feeling hungry.

And I think that's the key part of this. Often I'd eat something just because I was feeling hungry, and there was also a certain degree of using it as a "coping" strategy, too; I'd reward myself with something tasty if I felt I "deserved" it, and it was never particularly difficult to think of a reason that I "deserved" it, whether it had been a good day or a bad one.

The nice thing about the Slimming World programme is that I can actually still do this if I want to — I just have to reward myself with something that isn't a cake or a sausage roll or something. Fortunately, there are plenty of things that I do like that are "free" on the programme, so that's not too much of an issue.

There's also the fact that there's quite a few pleasant surprises in terms of recipes and things that count as "free". You can have as much meat as you like, for example, so long as it's lean, and stuff like pasta and rice is also free. (Microwave rice is not completely free, mind you, as there's a bit of oil in there; it's still only 1 "syn", though, so it's not super-terrible, as you're supposed to have between 5 and 15 "syns" per day.) I like meat, so it's good to be able to just snack on some nice chicken pieces or something; better for me than crisps, for sure, and maybe possibly nicer? I'm not sure.

Andie also looked up a recipe for a Slimming World-friendly dessert the other night. The website has an impressive collection of these (along with various main courses), so we chose the Apple Betty. It came out really nicely, and tastes great. It's not syn-free, but it's fairly low on the guilt scale, with just 2 syns per slice. Best of all, it "feels" like a "proper" dessert. I love desserts; they're probably my biggest weakness. So to be able to still enjoy them and stick to the programme is great.

I've also been really impressed with the Slimming World ready meals that recently launched, exclusive to Iceland. They're good quality food and substantial portions; I've certainly never finished one and felt like I could eat another one, which is a criticism which can be levelled at other "healthy" ready meals, particularly the rather stingy portions from Weight Watchers. I've also been impressed to discover that it is indeed possible to produce a "syn-free" sausage, and they taste pretty good, too. I have no idea what they've done to them to make them syn-free, but they make for a great and guilt-free sausage sandwich, which is something to be celebrated.

Anyway. I'm glad I've been able to stick with it even with all the unpleasantness that's occurred recently. It would have been so easy to just give up and slip back into my old ways, but knowing that weekly weigh-in is coming every Wednesday helps jar me back to "reality" and make me think that I don't really need to eat something awful for me just because I feel a bit crap; I can eat, by all means, I just need to be more mindful of what it is that I am actually eating.

Success so far, then, but I still have a long way to go before I get to where I want to be. Hopefully this journey will continue in the right direction.

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.