Dieting - it just 'clicked'

Well done on your weight loss, and I hope it is still going well. I just wondered whether Weight Watchers provide you with any guidance to understand the nutritional value of foods and help you to manage your eating habits when you are no longer attending their classes. Do you feel confident that you can continue to lose weight or maintain your ideal weight on your own?

I took the weight loss journey alone by cutting out sugar and eating less pastries and fatty food, but I know it is a hard thing to do. My life has been transformed, but it takes a lot of willpower to refuse delicious treats. You have a great incentive, having lost so much weight, but I know it is easy to slip back into old habits. I was just interested to know whether slimming clubs provide the means for members to succeed on their own.

Congrats again on your weight loss. I bet you feel so much better and determined to keep going.

Other side of the coin......dieting and calorie counting doesn't work long term which is why most of the 'weight loss' diet companies stay in business, it's what they rely on....known in the business as restarts. It's not hugely difficult to lose 8-10 lbs, reason being is that physiologically, the body will look for a readily available energy store as soon as it detects that there is a reduction in calories consumed. That store happens to be glycogen which is stored in the liver, as the glycogen is being converted into energy to fuel the calorie depleted body one of its byproducts of metabolism is water and......surprise, surprise as you pee out the water you lose weight. It is self evident that this weight loss is not fat, but there is some muscle loss as well initially. So.........as I said it's no biggie losing that weight, problem is........it's then very difficult to get into fat burning. It's very easy for a diet company to trumpet the weight loss and ascribe it to their particular 'magic eating pattern, proprietary foods, pills, lotions, potions, plant extracts, detoxes etc etc......are you beginning to get the picture? Yes there are a few people who end up as Slimmer of the Year, but how many of them sustain the huge weight loss and remain Slimmer of the Second year? Very few, if any......dieting doesn't work.....healthy eating works, a change of mindset works, eating for life not living to eat, works. I believe in the science and physiology of weight loss not the anecdotal rubbish spewed out by various companies in the pursuit of money not your health and well being. My qualifications for this rant??........doctor of medicine for 38 years, giving scientific nutritional support for 38 years, specialising in the nutrition field(pro bono) for the past 10 years, having worked at the Harley Street Diet Clinic and others in the seventies and learning the tricks of their trade.....that is all. Find my FB Group DocMikeLiveLife, no hard sell, no merchandising, no links to any diet clinics or financial conflicts of interest.....just huge concern at what we are doing to our kid's/grandkid's futures by feeding them the fast, processed, sugar laden, cynically advertised rubbish that passes for food. It's my passion, look around at all the obesity and Type 2 Diabetes around us. You can bet your bottom dollar that most have 'dieted', succeeded in the short term and failed miserably in the long term. Let's change this slide to ill health into an informed choice not a cynically advertised, money making exercise!

So Jan 1st re -started my diet. I was 90 kilos.
Just weighed myself today 78.4 kilos
No biggy, just slow and simple.
By the way. Had pasty yesterday for lunch.
Plus nearly a whole packet of Liquorice Allsorts throughout the week.
What a TREAT and no one was looking. haha

Diets aren't they great.
Everyone shows us how to eat as little as possible.
Result. I've lost weight.
In reality your starving. You can hear your tummy rumbling.
As for that chocolate bar you've been keeping as a TREAT.
Now's the time to WOOF it down.
Lets go back 5 years ago.
I read a book. Amazing (only time I read a book is on holiday) Rosemary Conley.
She talked about YOU CAN EAT AS MUCH FOOD AS YOU WANT.
I couldn't believe it. Eat all I want and still lose weight. GREAT where do I start.
Simply cut out the fat in your diet. Hello I thought, here comes the salad (uck).
So off I plods, trying to think of food that doesn't contain fat.
Well me not being very bright, couldn't think of anything without fat that wouldn't be
nice and tasty. Let's face it. The amount of cheese I've consumed over the years.
When I pass this mortal earth, I'm coming back as a mouse. I'd be in heaven.
So I started my diet, minus cheese. Minus sausage, in fact MINUS everything I liked.
But sure enough, weight was dripping off me. I should let you know, my occupation
allows me to avoid physical exercise.
After 2-3 weeks I was missing my beloved fatty content.
So cheating as I'm good at, I re-introduced my FAVOURITE foods. A little at a time.
I soon realised, VOLUME was really the problem.
I digress at this stage. I need to ask YOU a question.
How often do YOU weigh yourself.
At what time of day, do YOU weigh yourself.
Do YOU opt for stone and lbs or metric and go for kilos.,
So YOU know the answers. I don't.
What I did was to weigh myself daily. Stupid I can hear someone say, standing at the back.
Suggestion. Change the scales from stones and lbs to kilos.
YOU will see instantly, changes up or down to your weight.
YOU will see, did that chocolate bar, packet of crisps, bottle of pop I consumed while nobody
was looking, really increase my weight by .1 kilo. It's that dramatic.
And time of day is important. Same time every day. ,YOU will get a true reading over a weekly
period. Positive or Negative. When YOU know that, YOU can decide, have I cheated or not.
2 more suggestions. Salad. Bland, horrible, disgusting. RABBITS FOOD.
Go to the supermarket. Yes Please someone shouted. Lovely, FOOD. Wrong.
Pep up your salad. Obviously Salad Cream, Blue Cheese Dressing but what about Sweet Chilli Sauce. Not gallons of it. Just sprinkle a few drops over the salad and instead of that empty stomach feeling, having just eaten, YOU will feel full. That's the feeling your looking for.
My last suggestion is breakfast/lunch.
Think of it as a car. No fuel, no go.
YOU may think by skipping a meal, that'll work. Well it doesn't.
Too keep going we all need fuel. Whether it's cereal, porridge, toast, it's all fuel.
Lunch. Apple, Orange or Banana. Something light. All 3 if YOU like. I do.
Don't like the above. 2 reasons that YOU don't.
1) YOU don't want to change your way of life.
2) Your content with your bulging waist line.
My 3rd and final suggestion to weight loss.
Change your plate size.
No book has ever said this.
A heaped plate full to over flowing is not good news. Obesity is just round the corner.

So for me, Food is good. It's not the Food that's bad, it's eating more healthy type foods, but not consuming the volume.
.
YOU want too feel FULFILLED.
Try it, you never know, it may just work for you.

Well done . I also have dieted on & off most of my adult life I lose the weight & am so pleased I vow I will never put it back on again but after months of going without sweet things something just seems to snap & off I go back on the cakes & biscuits I then get so down that I have blown it. I have blamed many things for letting myself down. I have people say you just have no will power but why was I able to diet for months & not crave sweet things I needed will power then. I do envy people that have been successful & keep the weight off. So be proud of yourself.

I have had a very similar experience this year. In February I gave up drinking alcohol, then in April bought a Fitbit and started walking 10 to 12 miles every day. Then I started logging foods on Myfitnesspal.com and trying to lost weight. Everything just 'clicked,' as you say, and I hope to reach the magic 8 stone goal at the end of next week. After 50 years of being over weight I feel I have finally cracked it 🙂 I am delighted to read of another success story and wish you luck on your continued journey.

Well done to you, i wish it would just click for me too,i have been on and off diets for the last ten years(did'nt need to before then) but cant seem to get my head round it.
Good luck with your weight loss and carry on the good work.