#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.

2206: Accentuate the Positive

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I’m feeling utterly shitty at the moment, but it doesn’t do to keep dwelling on things that, at this specific moment in time, I can do nothing about. Best to try and focus on some more positive aspects of life — which I can at least be thankful there are a couple of, albeit not that many right now.

It was Slimming World this evening, and not only did I drop 4.5lb this week — successfully shifting the bit I gained last week and then some — but Andie and I were voted “Couple of the Year” by the group for being an inspiration to others. (Andie wasn’t actually present at the meeting as she’s not well and currently asleep at the time of writing, but the thought was there.)

My weight loss efforts with Slimming World have continued to surprise and, dare I say it, delight me. While the instances of me really, really craving something like a cinnamon bun seem to have increased a little recently — I blame the stress, since I always turned to food as a means of making myself feel better — on the whole I still don’t really feel like I’m particularly missing out on anything. I’ve learned to like sugar-free/diet drinks (although Diet Coke is still shit; Diet Pepsi for life) and not to drink milk by the gallon; I’ve learned to control my bread intake; I’ve learned ways it’s possible to enjoy favourite foods without making them enormously calorific and fatty.

And, over the course of the last year — almost to the day — I’ve lost over 6 stone in weight, which is like, a whole kid’s worth of weight. A stone is actually pretty heavy; our previous group consultant used to bring in various sandbags weighing a pound, half a stone, a stone and so forth so we could physically feel how much weight we were carrying around or losing, and lifting up the “stone” one was rather enlightening; when I think that I’ve lost six of those, I think several things: firstly, I’m not surprised I was feeling exhausted when doing something as simple as walking up stairs, and secondly, wow, that is a lot of weight.

I’m still not quite where I want to be — and I suspect I’m going to have to do some sort of “toning” work when I am at the weight I want to reach to prevent having too many unsightly flappy bits — but I can, at least, point to my weight loss efforts as one single thing in my life that is actually going in the direction I want it to go in. I can only hope that more positivity will eventually radiate out from there. Eventually. Maybe.

2101: Things I Couldn’t Do

I lost another three and a half pounds this week, bringing my total weight loss since the very end of January this year to five stone and six pounds — nearly five and a half stone. I may not be the sort of person who is particularly good at showing genuine-seeming excitement when speaking in person, but believe me, I’m pretty much ecstatic about this — though I have no intention of stopping here, as the initial “target” I set is still a little way off.

Back when I decided to start losing weight with Slimming World at the end of January, I was just under 23 stone. That is, quite obviously, Too Heavy. I’d always been aware I was overweight — particularly when arseholes in the street would make some off-colour fat joke in my direction — but towards the start of the year, I’d started to become somewhat conscious that more than just being roly-poly and jolly, things might actually have started becoming a bit of a problem.

I could tell this in a number of ways. Firstly and most obviously was the fact that I was terrified to know my actual weight. I wouldn’t get on scales, I wouldn’t even contemplate it. I just knew that I was too heavy, and I wouldn’t tell anyone even what I thought I weighed. The most difficult part of attending my first Slimming World meeting was knowing that I’d find out exactly how much I weighed — and, to be perfectly honest, it was actually a little worse than I thought it was, since I’d silently estimated myself around the 20 stone mark for a while.

Secondly, I was extremely uncomfortable all the time. The chairs I sat in at the job I was working at at the time felt like they were too small for me, but I stubbornly refused to order a “special chair” like the one provided for the resident fat bloke in our department — who was considerably larger than me, even — because that felt humiliating. I was terrified of the prospect of going abroad ever again, because I didn’t want to be one of the people who had to ask for a seat belt extension — that felt like it would be humiliating too. And I was still carrying around painful memories of the time Andie took me to Alton Towers for what should have been a really nice weekend — and was, for the most part — but which had at least part of it that felt utterly mortifying.

Thirdly, and somewhat related to the Alton Towers story, there were things that I felt like I simply couldn’t do any more. I didn’t go along to a significant part of a close friend’s stag weekend because it involved doing stuff at Go Ape and riding Segways, and a bit of research beforehand indicated that I would probably be too heavy for both of those things. So instead I just joined the group for the evening’s activities. I didn’t feel like I could climb a ladder because I was scared it would break; I didn’t feel I could even do basic do-it-yourself around the house that involved using a stepladder because there was a prominent notice on it indicating a maximum recommended weight that was significantly below what I actually weighed; I didn’t feel safe standing on anything that was off the ground, in fact, even if it was quite obviously designed to hold up things considerably heavier than one miserable, overweight thirtysomething.

In short, I was utterly miserable, and I knew it was my own fault for not taking better care of myself. I’d eat crap day in, day out, kidding myself that I wasn’t having much junk, just an occasional treat; I’d deal with emotional episodes by eating because I felt like I “deserved” something nice; sometimes I’d just eat because I was bored, and I felt like eating something sweet might relieve that boredom.

I knew all these things before I started Slimming World. What I wasn’t prepared for was how surprisingly easy it ended up being to change those habits — and what an immediate impact it would have on both my physical and mental wellbeing. I lost eight pounds in my first week on the programme, and have seen fairly consistent losses (albeit somewhat smaller ones!) ever since. I feel happier and more confident in myself; I don’t feel ashamed when I see myself in the mirror any more — sometimes I actually quite like what I see, as narcissistic as that might sound — and while I’m still uneasy to do some things such as climbing ladders, I know that even if I’m still not quite 100% at a stage where I can live life “normally”, I am on the right track and that I will get there eventually, at least so far as my physical wellbeing goes. My mental health is, of course, another matter, but that’s a whole other set of things to deal with that I’m not sure how to even start tackling just yet.

I’ve found myself thinking about the future a bit since seeing my progress. Not in a particularly grand way or anything — just thinking about the things that I wouldn’t have been able to do at the start of this year (such as those mentioned above) that I would be able to now. Andie and I are having a belated “honeymoon” at Center Parcs at the very end of November, for example, and I know that everything about that holiday is going to be much more comfortable and enjoyable for me than the last time we went. (Not that I didn’t enjoy last time, mind you; it was just physically exhausting to lug myself around.)

And I feel like it would be something of a symbolic “victory” for me if, once I reach my target (or perhaps even go beyond it if I feel like I want to go further), I return to Alton Towers and comfortably hop onto all the rides that I simply wasn’t able to physically fit onto the last time I went. I don’t feel I’m quite ready for that just yet, but it won’t be that long now if I carry on at the rate I’m going. And that’s a good feeling; there are many things in life that it’s impossible to “take back”, but thankfully the mistakes I’ve made with my body and my habits don’t appear to be counted in that category.

2080: Five Stones

I’ve finally crossed a significant milestone in my weight loss journey: I’ve now lost over five stone in total, a loss that also coincides with me dropping into a new stone bracket that represents the lowest weight I can remember being for a long time. I still want to — need to? — lose at least a couple more stone from here, but I’ve come a long way and I’m genuinely happy with what I’ve accomplished so far.

For those who have come to my blog more recently, I started Slimming World back in February of this year having decided that enough was enough, and that I really needed to lose some weight. This wasn’t just a vanity thing; my weight had gotten to the point where I was physically uncomfortable. I was having trouble fitting into “normal”-sized chairs; I was encountering situations and pieces of equipment that I was too heavy to use — I had to skip out on part of a friend’s stag night because they were doing some activities that I was significantly overweight for; and many of my clothes didn’t fit any more.

More than anything, I was miserable. I suffer with depression anyway, but my weight problem was making things worse by having a physical effect on me. I was perpetually out of breath; I couldn’t get comfortable in a chair or in bed; it was difficult and embarrassing to wear clothes that I knew once fit me. I felt physically repulsed when I saw my body in the mirror, I felt ashamed when I saw my stomach hanging down out of the bottom of a T-shirt I was wearing, and, to be perfectly frank, I was horrified that I couldn’t see my knob when I looked down.

I had been aware of my weight problem gradually getting worse over the course of the last few years — probably at least the last ten years or so, if I’m perfectly honest — but every time I had tried to do anything about it previously, I had failed to have a significant impact. I’d tried dieting of various kinds — Atkins left me with a perpetual headache, and Slim-Fast was like eating wood chippings — as well as intensive exercise routines, and nothing had seemed to shift the weight at all. It was demoralising and upsetting; I didn’t know what to do. I considered trying to be one of those people who is happy about being fat — or at least, someone who accepts that they’re fat — but I couldn’t do it. I was too ashamed of myself.

It’s not an exaggeration to say that Slimming World has changed my life for the better. I first came to it because my wife’s sister had had a considerable amount of success with it. Skeptical, I went along to a meeting, found out about their “food optimising” methods — a surprisingly flexible, enjoyable plan that doesn’t really restrict you so much as make you think about making sensible choices — and stuck carefully to it. I lost a big chunk of weight in the first week, and have been losing weight pretty consistently ever since; with only two or three exceptions since February, I’ve lost at least a pound pretty much every week, and I certainly don’t feel like I’m starving myself or anything, just being careful about what I put in my mouth.

Changing the way I think about food isn’t the only way it’s changed my life for the better, though. I’m more positive about myself and feel like I have more self-esteem as a result. I would still describe my sense of self as “somewhat fragile” if pressed, of course, but I no longer repulse myself when I see my reflection, which is progress. Now, when I see my body, I can think “yes, that’s going well, but there’s still a way to go” rather than “ugh, that’s disgusting, who would ever want to look at that?”

Since that February, I’ve had a difficult time. I was ousted from the job I had back when I started under circumstances that, on reflection, actually feel somewhat “traumatic”, for want of a better word — I keep remembering my last day, and how horrible those bastards made me feel; it stops me from sleeping quite often — but my progress with my weight loss has helped keep me sane even as I struggle to scrape together some meaningful work and income to survive into the future. And I don’t think the importance of that should be underestimated; feeling like one thing is going right in your life helps you to believe that other things can eventually go right, too — you just might have to work at it a bit.

Five stone, then. That’s a hell of a lot. Our previous Slimming World consultant used to bring in these little sandbags that weighed a pound, half a stone, a stone and so on; a stone is actually pretty heavy, and I was carrying five more of those around with me all day every day back in February. No wonder I was knackered and uncomfortable all the time. I hope I never get back into that situation — and I don’t think I will, either.

2021: Pondering the Future

I went along to a Slimming World recruitment event today, partly out of curiosity and partly because on reflection I had been feeling that it was a possible career direction for me. I say “career”; I can barely call the procession of jobs I’ve had since leaving university a “career” in good conscience, really, but what I saw today gave me pause, and a feeling that this might actually be something I want to do and that I’m interested in exploring.

Becoming a Slimming World consultant involves going into business for yourself — including forking over a not-insubstantial amount of money as a franchise fee — and having to put in a fair amount of work for promotion and whatnot. The prospect of running a business that is more complicated than I Do Stuff, You Pay Me has always been pretty daunting to me, but looking over the information today and thinking about it made me realise that it’s perhaps not quite as scary as what I’ve been imagining, and that it might well be something that could work well for me.

I make no secret of the fact that I’ve struggled with what I’d refer to as “conventional employment” over the years. Classroom teaching nearly drove me to suicide on several occasions — though thankfully I didn’t come close to even attempting it — while working retail frustrated me at the lack of progression after a certain point if I didn’t want to become a manager. Working an office job, meanwhile, was so tedious I was literally bored to tears on an increasingly frequent basis as my time with the company progressed — and, of course, I was ultimately bullied out of the place by people who don’t understand depression and anxiety as mental health issues. And freelance writing work, the work with which I’ve had the most success over the years, lacks the stability I need to feel truly comfortable that I’m “surviving” as best I can.

The prospect of running my own Slimming World business, then, although scary, is appealing. And the main reason for that is that it gets around one of my key problems with full-time positions I’ve held in the past: the fact that they monopolise all of your time, and that even when companies have explicit policies in place to supposedly maintain a “work-life balance”, you still find yourself doing little more in the week than going out at some ungodly hour in the morning, going somewhere you hate to work with people you despise, then coming home in the evening to do little more than the bare minimum required to keep yourself awake and vaguely entertained until the sun sets and it’s an acceptable time to go to bed, at which point the whole hideous cycle repeats itself over and over again.

Err, where was I? Oh, yes, the reason running my own business is an appealing prospect. Yes, with all the above in mind, the fact that running a Slimming World business, once you’re established and you get your metaphorical “machine” up, running and well-oiled, only takes up a relatively small proportion of the week means that I can pursue all the other things that I might want to do. I can support my income from Slimming World with the irregular freelance work I’ve been doing. I can continue teaching piano lessons. I can work on the magazine I’m working on with Matt at Digitally Downloaded. In short, I can balance my life, do a variety of things and hopefully not drive myself into the pit of despair that the aforementioned “conventional employment” has ground me down into more than once in my life.

I don’t know if I’m the right person for the Slimming World job in the eyes of the recruitment team. I don’t know if they’ll even interview me, so I haven’t got my hopes up or anything. But if the opportunity presents itself, I’m going to give it very serious consideration indeed. It’s a job that I think I’d be good at; it’s a job I think I’d enjoy; it’s a job that I actually feel strongly about and believe in; it’s a job that actually uses the skills I’ve built up and been trained in over the years.

There’s just the prospect of that initial start-up fee that’s a bit scary. You have to spend money to make money, or so they say, and every new business is faced with start-up costs. I’ve never had to confront them myself, though, and it’s this part that’s making me hesitate more than anything else; everything else, I feel, is something that I can handle — perhaps with some training in some areas — but all that means nothing if I can’t clear the initial hurdle.

I have thinking to do, and a decision to reach relatively quickly. Perhaps, anyway; it may be that I’m rejected outright, which will suck, of course, but at least it will let me know that I need to pursue other avenues instead. We shall see; I feel I’m on the boundary of something important here, but it remains to be seen if I’m able to make it through onto the other side or not.

1995: Diet-Friendly Snacky Things

Since starting Slimming World, I’ve had to make a number of adjustments to my lifestyle to ensure that I continue to lose weight. And it’s been a lot easier to do than I thought it would be; while there are days when I still miss cake or really, really want a whole bag of Wine Gums, for the most part I’m pretty much okay. And the reason for this is that I’ve found a number of acceptable “substitutes” for those times when I just want to eat something as a snack — not a full meal, but just something to munch on for whatever reason.

I have a couple of weaknesses that contributed to my weight gain in the first place: firstly, I very much have a weakness for sweet things (such as the aforementioned cake and wine gums) and secondly, I have a tendency to eat when I’m depressed (which is quite often) or when I’m bored (which often leads to depression). These habits are fundamental parts of my character that I can’t eliminate entirely, but which I can act upon in a more… responsible manner.

As such, here are some of the diet-friendly snacky things that I tend to make sure I have in the cupboard or fridge at all times, so that any time I’m feeling peckish for whatever reason, I can grab them and enjoy them without guilt that I’m ruining the hard work I’ve been doing.

Laughing Cow Little Cravings

These things were a revelation. I wouldn’t call myself a particular cheese addict — in stark contrast to my wife, who loves a bit of cheese, despite technically being lactose intolerant — but I do like cheesy things now and then. What Little Cravings are is small, bite-size cubes of Laughing Cow cheese spread, optionally flavoured to taste a bit like “real” cheese — in the case of the pack shown on the right, cheddar, smoked processed cheese and blue cheese.

They’re surprisingly tasty and satisfy a craving when one comes long. Plus at half a Syn each (you can have 5-15 Syns per day) on Slimming World, they really are pretty much guilt-free, which is exactly what I want from a snack.

Metcalfe’s Skinny Popcorn

I love popcorn. My favourite is toffee popcorn, which obviously (probably — I haven’t checked) isn’t at all diet-friendly, but Metcalfe’s range of “skinny popcorn” (sometimes found branded as “skinny topcorn” for some reason) is really tasty, comes in a variety of different flavours (I’m a particular fan of the sweet and salty variety pictured here, along with the cinnamon and honey flavoured ones) and is very low on the Syns, at 2.5 Syns per small bag or serving (a little under 20g, which in popcorn terms is actually a reasonably generous portion).

While it’s not quite the same as a bag of crisps, a bag of popcorn, I find, satisfies that similar urge for something crunchy and/or salty (or, sometimes, sweet, depending on the flavour) so I’m going to make sure I have plenty of this on hand when I can.

Muller Light

I was never a big yogurt-eater while I was growing up. I had that childish thing where I didn’t like “bits” in my yogurt, and while I don’t mind it now, I still generally prefer a smooth dessert of some description.

Enter Muller Light, then, which is not only Syn-free for most flavours (there are a couple of exceptions) but which has a range of very tasty smooth flavours, some of which even have sprinkles of dark chocolate on them, helping to satisfy chocolate cravings. It’s not a lot of chocolate, admittedly, but it’s better than nothing — and it’s completely guilt-free, which is just wonderful. I particularly recommend the vanilla with chocolate, orange with chocolate, coconut with chocolate and skinny cappuccino flavours, the latter of which I am disappointed that I haven’t been able to find recently.

Fish

I eat a lot more fish than I used to. A quick and easy lunch for me these days is a bowl of rice with some smoked mackerel in some kind of sauce stirred into it. Most of these are Syn-free, too (there are exceptions, but none of them are particularly high — you’re safe with the tomato and spicy tomato varieties, which are both Syn-free) and between them and the rice (which is Syn-free if you cook it properly, one Syn if you’re lazy and use the Uncle Ben’s pouches thanks to the oil in them) they satisfy hunger for a good long period, making them ideal for either lunch or just a snack if you’re feeling particularly hungry. You will smell of fish, though, so be prepared to explain that.

1982: Below the Threshold

Slimming World tonight, and this week I lost a pleasing 3.5lb. I’m particularly pleased about this because of the impending celebrations at the weekend, which will doubtless involve eating lots of things I “shouldn’t”.

But I’m not going to worry about it. I’m going to enjoy the weekend to the fullest, then make sure I get back on plan once the weekend is over, and going by past experience, that should minimise the damage.

Tonight’s result was pleasing for another reason, though: not only did it mark my crossing the “4 stone lost” threshold, I now find myself in a stone bracket that I can’t remember the last time I was in. In other words, I’m the lightest I’ve been for quite some time. I still have a long way to go, but things are still going nicely in the right direction, which is very motivating.

I find myself wondering if my weight loss is going to continue, since there are some people in the group who really seem to struggle from week to week. At the moment, though, I’m not having too much difficulty keeping to the plan, and I’m seeing fairly consistent results. So in theory, if I just keep doing what I’m doing, things should continue the way they have been — at least until I eventually reach my target.

I don’t know when that will be but after several years of despairing about my weight gain, I do now feel like I’ll be able to reach it. It might take months or even years, but I have faith I’ll get there.

1968: Another Week, Another Pound

Weigh-in night tonight, as it is every Wednesday, and I’m pleased to report that I’ve shed another pound this week. This is less than I’ve lost in some weeks, but I’m just pleased that it’s continuing to go in a downwards direction almost every week. In the however-many-weeks it is since I joined Slimming World, I think I’ve only had one week where I put on weight, and in that instance it was only a pound. (And an entirely justified pound, given the amount of meat I consumed during my birthday celebrations.)

I’m still feeling positive about the whole thing, and I’m glad; one of the things that put me off any sort of dieting before was the fact that I’d get so utterly bored of it by a few days in, start “treating” myself to something because it couldn’t hurt, and then end up right back where I started again. Or, in some instances, the diet would prove to be detrimental to my health; I recall I experimented with Atkins on one occasion and promptly spent most of that week suffering from some of the worst headaches I’ve ever had in my life. I didn’t try that again.

But Slimming World allows me the flexibility to enjoy food — and food I like too. I’d probably get faster weight loss if I had a few more salads and few less bacon sandwiches of a morning, but I like bacon sandwiches and salads are rubbish, so since I’m still losing weight even when I have bacon sandwiches in the morning, I think I will stick with the bacon sandwiches, thank you very much.

I think the key to the whole thing, which is what I didn’t seem to work out and/or stick with on any previous occasion where I’ve tried dieting, is to find “acceptable” substitutes for the things I like. My biggest weakness was always sweet things — sweets, chocolate, fizzy drinks, cakes, pastries, that sort of thing. The most significant change I’ve made to my eating and drinking since I started Slimming World is swapping out highly calorific sweet things for things that still satisfy that craving for something sweet but which don’t cause me to pile weight on.

Muller Light yoghurt, for example, is “free” on Slimming World, meaning that you can have as much of it as you like in a day. I’ve found a bunch of flavours that I like very much (Vanilla with chocolate sprinkles, orange with chocolate sprinkles, coconut with chocolate sprinkles, cherry and the cappuccino one they don’t seem to make any more) and will now reach for one of those rather than a chocolate bar.

Of course, the “syns” system on Slimming World means that I do have the flexibility to have a biscuit or a piece of chocolate now and again, so long as I don’t go completely out of control with it. I can even enjoy an Indian takeaway within my allowance — turns out my favourite curry (dansak) is the lowest-syn curry there is, so I call that a win and a half. (Other favourites Chinese and pizza, however, are pretty much out of the window, sadly, though I’m surprised how little I’ve missed them.)

I have set myself a “target” weight that is still a fair distance away, and depending on how long it takes to get there and how I look and feel when I get there, I may consider attempting to lose even more on top of that. But I no longer feel as I once did — that the weight I had put on was never coming off, ever — and I feel hopeful and confident that, even if it takes months or years, I’ll eventually be able to get to where I want to be. Seeing one member of the group tonight picking up his award for having lost a total of six stone since he joined was inspiring; I’m already over halfway to where he is after a relatively short period of time, so I’m looking forward to what the future holds, particularly as I’m already starting to feel better about myself when I see myself in a mirror or look down at my still-flabby-but-not-quite-as-much-as-before gut.

The journey will be long, then, but I’m still very much on the right road. I’m glad I took that difficult first step.

1940: An Open Letter to Paul Glass, Slimming World Consultant, Upper Shirley

Hi Paul,

I was saddened to hear this evening of your impending departure from the Upper Shirley Slimming World groups, but completely understand your reasoning behind it and would like to thank you for your openness and honesty with the group. I’m sure everyone you’ve helped to date is very happy to support your decision, and will keep you in our hearts even after you start your new life supporting your new family.

I’m writing this as an open letter online for a few reasons. Firstly, and most selfishly, for vanity purposes: it’s a means of me celebrating my own achievements with Slimming World — something that would not have been possible without you, which I’ll talk more about in a moment. Secondly, I hope it might potentially provide inspiration to anyone who happens to be reading who has struggled with similar issues to me. Thirdly, it provides the opportunity for others to be able to chime in and voice their support and gratitude for what you have done for each and every one of us. Fourthly and finally, I’m not that good with saying this sort of thing out loud due to a certain degree of social anxiety; I am, however, and not to sound like I’m blowing my own trumpet too much, somewhat more skilled with the written word, so this seemed like the most appropriate medium through which to deliver this important message.

I have lost nearly three and a half stone since joining the group about four months ago. Those four months have flown by; in the meantime, I lost my job under fairly personally traumatic circumstances, have had to secure new work for myself, begin to establish myself as a local music teacher and figure out what on earth to do with my life — something that, at thirty-four years of age, I still don’t have a definitive answer for. Alongside that, I’m dealing with wedding preparation, other personal commitments, a friend who attempted suicide once and has threatened to do it again, and supporting my bride-to-be through a period of ill health. It has, in short, been a stressful, depressing and anxiety-inducing time.

In the past, my main means of coping with such a situation would have been to “treat myself” to something delicious, “because I deserved it” for dealing with difficult times. Unfortunately, as someone who suffers with depression and anxiety — conditions that I have recently started undergoing treatment for — I found myself relying on this means of emotional support more and more, which meant I piled the weight on and on, got bigger and bigger and heavier and heavier.

It had got to the point where I was embarrassed to look at older pictures of myself, because although I’ve been a fairly big fella for much of my adult life, I was conscious that I was far bigger than I’d ever been. It was starting to be physically uncomfortable. It was starting to affect my life, in that I was becoming increasingly conscious of silly little things like the fact that I was over the maximum recommended weight for a stepladder we have, that I was too fat to ride some of the rides at Alton Towers — one of the most humiliating experiences of my life — and that I was unable to participate in part of a friend’s stag weekend activities because I was too heavy for Segways and treetop “Go Ape” activities. I was disgusted to look at myself in the mirror, and I worried that my appearance disgusted others, too — though the only people who ever commented on it were random strangers who occasionally made hurtful comments as I passed by them in public, and thankfully this was a rare occurrence, perhaps largely due to the fact that I generally prefer to stay indoors!

I was starting to despair over it. I felt that, whatever I did, I couldn’t turn back this weight gain. I felt that I was doomed to continue gaining weight forever, and it’s not an exaggeration to say that I thought — knew? — it would eventually be the premature death of me. I tried various things. I tried fad diets on several occasions. I tried exercising on several occasions. I tried eating “better”, as I saw it. But nothing seemed to work; still the weight piled on, because still I had my weakness: my means of coping with difficult situations, and a life that seemed to attract said difficult situations.

I turned to Slimming World as a last resort. This was to be my last final push, my last attempt to do something about my weight, and if it didn’t work, I was going to do my very best to try and at least accept myself the way I was if I couldn’t change it. I chose Slimming World because my fiancee’s sister has had some noticeable success with it since she joined, and because the programme, as described online, sounded like it was both appealing and practical to fit in to my life as it is today. So I bit the bullet, took that step and showed up to the 7:30 Upper Shirley group for the first time. And, while there are many things in my life that I regret, taking that step over the threshold and joining the group for the first time will never be one of them.

Why? Because you helped me achieve something that I had started to believe was impossible for me. You inspired me to try my best, but to take my journey at my own pace without pressure. You even helped me to enjoy food again; food had become something that “just happened”, and it was pretty rare I found myself genuinely enjoying something, because it was often followed by guilt over whether I should have picked something “better” for me, or just passed altogether.

The wonderful support of the 7:30 Upper Shirley group counts for something, too, of course, as I’m sure you’d be the first to say. But your contribution to how much better I feel — both physically and emotionally — cannot be understated, and I will be forever grateful for you starting me on this path, as I’m sure I will be grateful for P’s support as she helps us all continue on our journeys towards becoming the people we want to be.

My journey may have been proceeding faster than I ever dreamed possible, but I still have a long way to go. Rather than this being a scary, demoralising concept, however, you have helped me rise to the challenge and feel confident that, with time, dedication, effort and the support of everyone around me, that I really can achieve anything.

Thank you, Paul, from the bottom of my heart, and I wish you the very best of luck in your future endeavours. The Upper Shirley groups will miss you greatly.

Pete Davison