YOU LOOK WELL!

24^th February, 2021

Three or four times recently I have had someone say to me, “You look well!”, which is nice, and I do know what they mean, but what does it really mean? I presume that what they mean is that you have lost weight and look good, but that is not what they have actually said. Losing weight was never mentioned, and they are not always people that know me well and what is going on in my life. I can't help thinking that really it's a strange thing to say. Are they saying “I have noticed you have lost weight, no I can't say that, so I will say you look well”? Would they say when I was overweight “You look unhealthy”? I am not sure that they would. Yes, it's nice that people give you a compliment, but saying that you look well is a strange use of words.

I was reading somewhere that you shouldn't say to someone “Have you lost weight?” because it could have been lost due to illness or mental health issues, so I suppose you can't win if you do feel you want to give someone a compliment. I myself would say to someone I know “You are looking good”, but perhaps if it's some one you don't really know, and you don't know their story, it might be better just not commenting at all. Then, someone might be upset if no one notices. :-) You just can't win.

Ramble apart, how do you always know how someone's health is? When I lost weight before, people would say I looked good, but I knew I hadn't lost weight the healthiest way I could, and my health may not have really been that good. Nobody knows how you eat but you. Even when a medical professional want you to lose weight, if you do it they have no idea of just how you have done it. The only way is by looking at blood tests, etc. but that doesn't always tell the full story. It can be great, someone has lost a lot of weight, but it doesn't mean they have done it in a healthy way. I suppose that what I am saying is, be genuinely interested in someone and really try to know them and what they are doing.

On a slightly different note, what also suprises me is how the weight loss industry can jump on someone's success and use it for their own benefit. Whether it's writing up a story in a magazine with photographs when really they are not sure, or care, if that person has followed their particular program, or, as has happened to me, a slimming product wanting me to sell their product to others when I myself have never used it at all.

I think what is going through my mind as I write this, is that when you are trying to lose weight and be healthy, it is your journey, and your journey alone. It's lovely when friends and family offer support and compliment you, but that's people that know you or know your story. It can be a very long journey if you have a lot of weight to lose, and people don't notice for quite a long time. So, be strong and remain true to yourself. Know just why you are doing something, and be proud of you yourself and of your achievements. Do your best to achieve the results you want, don't be used by those who want to gain from your achievement and take the compliments that are given to you.

Above all, don't overthink things, unless you have a blog to put your thoughts into :-)

Until next time,

Love, Jackie

xx

NEARLY A YEAR ON

 

21^st February, 2021

Well, we are now nearly at the end of February. This time last year we were not aware of what was about to hit us, and we were about to start living in a completely new and different way. This year I have learnt so much and have really started to live and think in a very different way. I have thought about the new me and have started to put so many new things into play. I have lost up to now 6 stones and 4 pounds (that's 88 pounds) and would like to lose another 2 stone. However...

I am beginning to think that I do need to have a new plan. I have not lost a vast amount of weight since November, just going down and then up a few pounds around Christmas time, and then back down again. Now don't get me wrong, my weight loss has been slow and this is a good thing, but I feel that I now need to look at my health more. As we move into Spring, and later on into Summer, I need to be as healthy as I can within the limits of my physical ability.

It's not always about looks. To feel that you look good is important for your self-esteem, but it's not just the gift-wrap that makes the present. How I look will help motivate me to look after myself more, but I am more and more aware that I have lost weight before and put it back on. This happens to a lot of people, but there are ways to stop it happening. I have to now think about what I am going to do going forward. We have had a couple of mild, sunny days this week and even though it is cold and grey today, warm weather is on it's way. I always feel it's so much easier to feel more motivated when the sky is blue :-). I would really like to weigh around about the 12 stone mark, two stone down from where I am now, but at the moment I think my priority is to maintain what I have achieved so far. I am only now beginning to really realise just what I achieved and I definitely don't want to lose it.

Before, when my weight crept back on it was so slow, maybe 7 pounds a month, and I would like to say I was unaware, but in truth I was in denial. I didn't want to get weighed, because I didn't want to admit what was happening. I really had learnt nothing. I stopped thinking about what I was eating, didn't get weighed and, lo and behold, the pounds crept back on. I justified it to myself by thinking it caused too much stress. I had put myself under the pressure of cutting my food back so much that I always felt like I was starving. Even though I liked the way I looked, and got so many compliments, I always felt hungry and deprived of the food I liked. I could only keep this up for so long. I love food, good food, different foods and to deprive myself of them was not going to end well.By reverting back to over eating the foods I loved without any form of monitoring was just going to take me straight back to square one.

I heard something this week that is so true. A “diet” is not a straight line with a start and a finish. It's a circle, it's ongoing, it is a way of life. And as a way of life, it has to be something you can happily live with. That's not as easy as it sounds, but it's the only way it can last and be a sustainable way of living.

After a lot of thinking, my plan for moving forward is this. Between now and the end of April I will work on ways of maintaining the weight I have lost, while adjusting my food accordingly, ie. not worrying too much if I lose weight for the moment, but being happy to remain the weight I am. Any weight loss would be a nice bonus, but it is not my main aim. I want to learn more about how to incorporate more things into my eating plan and give myself a more varied diet. I will then move forward into the beginning of May with stage two, and for the next six months hope to lose a little more weight.

To achieve this and not make the same mistakes of the past, there will be monitoring of what I weigh and the foods and calories I eat, but in a more relaxed way. I feel I have to do this to now settle into a new way of living and not let history repeat itself.

Will this work this way? Well, I am not sure, but I think I am learning about myself and the way that I look at food. There is no straight line for me, just hopefully a better kind of circle. I am, and will remain, as positive as I can be as I roll towards better weather and better times than what we have had recently.

That's all for now,

Until next time,

Love, Jackie

xx

HOW A BELGIAN ASTRONOMER FROM THE 1800s HAS AFFECTED MY LIFE

 

17^th February, 2021

B.M.I.

Those three letters B.M.I. What do they really, really, mean? Putting it as simply as I can, the Body Mass Index is a value made from the weight of a person and that person's height. This calculation was worked out by Adolphe Quetelet, a Belgian astronomer, mathematician, statistician and sociologist, between 1830 and 1850. It works out roughly if a person is underweight, a normal weight, overweight or obese, but now in modern times it is questioned for so many reasons. There are so many things this equation doesn't take into account and I know for me that I would never now be able to reach a normal weight by this calculation. By my doctor's ideal weight template I should weigh between 8 stone, 13 lbs and 9 stone 6 lbs. If I ever reached that weight I would question just how healthy I really was, and I would never ever be able to keep myself at that weight. Years and years ago, when I did go to a slimming club, my target weight given to me was worked out from this equation, and until I reached it I would keep on paying my weekly fee. It may be different now, as I say I haven't been to one in many years, but many people still don't realise that different people of a similar height and weight can look different, and for many different reasons.

I myself can find it all very complicated and confusing, but there are some very interesting videos on Youtube about how two people of the same B.M.I. may, for whatever reason, look very different. I only know how the B.M.I. scale has affected me over the years. I can never, ever, remember going to the doctors and being the right B.M.I. I have never, ever, been “normal” :-). I have been told off so many times. From being 21 stone and a UK size 26, right down to 11 stones and a UK size 12, I still didn't fit the equation.

Many years ago I was refused varicose vein surgery because I was two stones overweight and the wrong B.M.I. Five years ago – nearly six now – I was refused joint surgery because my B.M.I was not 25 and we won't talk about how that same specialist said that fat people could not keep themselves clean and smelt, and didn't heal as well as they could because of infections they caused with bad hygiene. I weighed less then than I do now! When I went to see my present orthopaedic specialist, my B.M.I. stood at 43 and he said because of policy my B.M.I. had to be 35 or less. I thought at that stage “fair enough” and I got it down to that point. Now, until they can operate, I have to keep it below 37, but at least it's not 25 as the other so-called “gentleman” said. The B.M.I. equation has caused me personally a lot of stress over the years, but I do feel with many health professionals the area of the correct weight is, at last, softening. Perhaps one reason being that they themselves find it hard to conform to the ideal weight, although it still doesn't seem to stop some :-).

Perhaps one day the old B.M.I. equation will be taken down and filed away in the medical history archives and we will be treated as the individuals that we are. We can but hope, or at least we can be treated with a little more understanding and sensitivity when it puts us into a particular group.

At the moment, my B.M.I. stands at 32.6, down from 47.3. My present weight is 14 stone and my height is 5 feet and 5 inches and my dress size is a UK 14/16. I am still considered to be around 4 stone overweight and still in the obese group.

I will stay where I feel is right for me and not give that old equation a second thought.

That's all for now, until next time,

Love, Jackie

xx

WHY DO YOU REALLY SAY "DIET'S DON'T WORK?"

 

14^th February, 2021

I hear the words “Diets don't work!” so many times and those three small words can mean so many different things. If you would have asked me up until very recently “do diets work?”, I would have probably said not really. Diets, or to use the modern term “Weight Loss Programmes”, do work short term to help people lose weight, but the majority of people, mostly sooner rather than later, put it back on. It can be so much harder to maintain your weight loss than it is to lose the weight in the first place. Now this is where a lot of the confusion starts. “Diets” in themselves are only made to aid weight loss for a fix, a quick fix mainly, to lose weight. Most people want to lose weight quickly for whatever reason. It may be a few pounds for a special occasion or a holiday, followed by probably eating a lot on that occasion and then the pounds come straight back on.

Same really for when you lose weight for health reasons. It's the number on the scales that matters, not really, honestly, how you are getting there, and you don't really get any advice on how to keep it off. Most of the time the medical profession only what to know that magic number on the scales or your B.M.I. which is no real indicator of your true health.

The weight loss industry want you to shed those pounds over and over again, and even if they do offer you some kind of maintenance plan, it's not in their financial interest for slimmers to lose weight and keep it off long term. The majority of slimming clubs will have their short term members who want to lose weight for a holiday, etc. There will also be the ones who keep coming back because they have put weight back on and want to lose it again, and then there are the ones who keep coming back week after week, year after year, because they want to maintain their loss.

There is nothing wrong with this, if people are “happy” with it, if going to a club is for them, but I disliked going to slimming clubs. I hated the whole idea of being publically weighed, and following a diet that I quite often found complicated and restricting and didn't fit into my lifestyle. Even when I went to the N.H.S. group, it told me how to lose weight, but not how to really keep it off, or why i put it on so easily. I can't have been the only one that felt this way. For all the people that are in the magazines having lost weight, there are ones that feel like they have failed.There are those people who have lost weight, found the diet really easy and look great in photographs, and YOU have failed. Well, you haven't failed – the system has failed you. Diets don't work because, for many reasons, they are not complete, well monitored, or are simply not meant to work. The weight loss industry would not have survived over sixty years if their “diets” worked. They may have seemed to have changed things over the years, but their goal is still the same – to make money. Until recently the N.H.S. have put so much emphasis on a number on a scale and not so much on how and why you have really got there. What is becoming a worry is that when you realise that there is so much emphasis put on the number on the scales, but not on how the person is achieving the weight loss. Just what are they doing to achieve the loss? Knowingly or unknowingly so many want to get to a weight without really knowing what they are doing to their bodies. I know that I have done that in the past. Just wanting the weight to go down, without thinking about my health and wellbeing. You lose weight as quickly as you can, you look good, people comment on how good you look and then you go back to your old way of eating and, lo and behold, the weight comes back on.

To really lose weight the best way you can, you need to be prepared to lose it slowly, so slowly that no-one notices for a very long time, and be satisfied with that. You also need to look at what eating plan works for you and do your research to find out what is a sustainable way of living for you, you alone, and do it in the healthiest way that you can.

It can be so slow, so soul-destroying sometimes, with no quick fix, but when you begin to see the benefits they will be with you probably for a great deal longer, because it took a long time getting there. After all, if it takes a year or two, when you look back it's really no time at all if the results stay with you.

So, yes, I agree that “diets don't work”, but think about what you really want, no excuses, be honest with yourself, really look at yourself and work out just what is right for you. Do it for you, just you, and see where it takes you.

That's all for now,

Until next time,

Love

Jackie

xx

SOMETIMES YOU NEED A "PREVIOUSLY" ON THE EPISODES OF LIFE

 

5^th February, 2021

Well, that's January gone. How quickly time can pass, especially when you look back, even though at the time it seems to go soooooo slooooowly!

It's now two years since the doctor said that they were not happy with my weight of 20 stone and 4 pounds and how that weight was affecting my health, both physically and mentally. Some people say they are quite happy being overweight, for whatever reason, but I really wasn't. As I said in the past I did not like to have my picture taken, and didn't like to look in the mirror, or even look at our wedding photographs.

It's not always been an easy journey, but it's definitely been a different one this time compared to the times I have lost weight before.

Some times when something has taken a long time, you begin to forget how things were before and you become so bogged down in your life and your mind, that you need to remind yourself. It needs to be written down and documented. That's what I do, so I can see it in black and white. So here we have Jackie's “previously on my weight loss journey 100 from one”!

As I mentioned earlier, back in January 2019 my weight was 20 stone and 4 pounds. The heaviest I have ever been is 21 stone, but what was beginning to happen now was my health had started to deteriorate very quickly. I was in a lot of pain from the arthritis. I was depressed and unhappy because of the pain, my blood sugars were very high and because of how I was being treated. I felt very lost.

My G.P. put in a referral to the N.H.S. weight management team to see if they could help me. I didn't actually get to see them until October 2019 and I weighed in then at 19 stone, 5 pounds. So, in those months I had lost 13 pounds mainly, I think, by not eating as much because I was depressed. I started attending every four weeks and in the five months from October 2019 to March 2020 I lost 1 stone and 11 pounds, bringing my weight down to 17 stone 11 pounds. Then, of course, the Covid-19 lockdown happened and I was left on my own. I have covered in my earlier blogs what I did then, but by the time I saw the orthopaedic specialist in August I was now around 14 stone 12 pounds, so I had lost three stone all by myself with no input from a professional body. I did have some contact from the weight management team in November and they then rang me every four weeks to see how I was, but I have to remember that the achievement was all mine. They discharged me this Wednesday, 3^rd February 2021 and my weight was recorded at 14 stone according to mt scales at home. So, that's a weight loss of 5 stone, 5 pounds since starting N.H.S. weight management, and a total weight loss of 6 stone 4 lbs since January 2019.

Apart from the little bit of advice I had from weight management in the first 5 monthly appointments, I have done this. I have to remind myself of just what I have achieved. I am 88 pounds smaller than I was, and this time I have learnt so much and my lifestyle has changed. The way I eat has become sustainable. It is not, and never has been this time, a “diet”. It is said so much that diets fail, but that is because they are so restricted and can not be kept to. Change your lifestyle and you stand a chance of keeping at the weight that is right for you. This is where you are now, Jackie. 6 stone, 4 pounds lighter and don't you ever forget what you have done and how things are so different. Yes, you are in so much pain and there are things you can't do, BUT there are things you CAN do, and you can once again look at yourself in the mirror without feeling bad :-)

On this beautiful February day, snow outside, but with a lovely blue sky overhead, I think “where do I go from here?” I am still waiting for surgery and I am not sure when it will happen, but it WILL happen, hopefully sooner rather than later.

I would like to lose another stone and a half from my weight and hopefully settle at 12 stone 7 pounds. It's not a weight that the N.H.S. would suggest – that's about 10 stone – but it's somewhere that I feel at the moment that would be comfortable for me. We will see, but I am so proud of myself, and that is not an easy thing to say. Whenever I start to feel down and forget what I have done, and it will happen now and then, I will read this blog and remind myself what an awesome person I am :-), not because of my size, but because I realised that I needed to be as healthy as I could and I did my best – my very best – to get there. The journey carries on...

Until next time,

Love to all,

Jackie

xx

MY NEED FOR BIL

 

2^nd February, 2021

There is someone I know, I call them BIL. Sometimes they are here with me all the time and the times that we are together I feel so strong that I could take on the world. Then just when I have it all under control, good old BIL disappears. Who knows where BIL goes? I have no idea. If I knew, I would bring BIL back as quick as I could. It can be so hard to cope when BIL is not here. If you have something to do and BIL goes away, things can get so hard to do. Why have they gone away?

I don't always want to depend on BIL, surely there must be an easier way?

I have decided I am not going to beat myself up and depend on BIL always being here. I have got this! I can do it! I can achieve what I want to do if it becomes a habit, a part of my life and not so strict a regime that I have to depend on BIL being here.

I have got so far, and learnt so much and I can finish what I set out to achieve. My lifestyle has become sustainable. So if you see that BIL (A.K.A. Will) Power, tell them that as far as my weight loss journey is concerned, I don't need them as much as I did. So there!!

Thank you.

Love, Jackie

xx