WHAT A DIFFERENCE A SCARF MAKES!

 27^th March, 2021

As I start to write this, I realise that it is a year since I restarted my blog. Writing it has helped get me through this last year and given me a way of expressing what was going on in my head. It's been a strange time, with much sadness, but hopefully better things are on the way. I don't think any of us will forget what has happened in the last twelve months and memories and the lessons learnt will stay with us for many, many years to come. In my last blog I mentioned that I was trying to conquer my fear of the scales and putting weight back on. There is no reason really why I should feel so anxious, I have now established a pattern of daily eating, but still the fear is all too real.

I did manage to go the ten days without weighing myself, and when I did I was just under the fourteen stone mark, so no damage done! I decided then to wait another two weeks before my next weigh-in, which will be Good Friday, so just before Easter. You never know, I might eat one of my Cadbury Creme Eggs that have sat in the fridge since Valentine's Day! :-)

I last stopped writing my blog the first time, just about the one year mark, so I am certainly concious I need to carry on and be accountable to myself to carry on all my good work and not slip back into bad habits. As much as you read that it takes so many days to change habits, it doesn't always work that way, but you can but try. (Cheese alert here!) You have nothing to lose except weight! :-)

Back now to the title of this blog entry. I've added to my writing this week two photographs of me wearing a scarf. These photos couldn't be more different in oh, so many ways. I have loved scarves for many years. There were times when I couldn't have a great choice of clothes, but I could always add a scarf. The vibrant colours would always cheer me up. In my first marriage I often wore traditional Punjabi clothes while I was in India and also when visiting the Gurdwara (Sikh Temple) here in England. Part of this dress was a chuni or dupatta, a long scarf used for covering the head whilst inside the temple. They were in beautiful colours and always felt so good to wear. It became a habit for me to wear a scarf. There were many times in that marriage that times were hard, you clung on to those things that made you happy, feel special and almost safe.

Now, here's the thing... When I look at that first photo, which was taken when I weighed about twenty stone plus, I notice that I am pulling the scarf across myself. I am trying to hide behind it, not show my body and the true extent of my size. I do remember thinking that at the time, which seems so silly now. There I am in a beautiful blue blouse, trying to hide behind a colourful scarf. What on Earth was I thinking? In my mind I suppose I was using my scarf as a kind of comfort blanket.

Moving onto the second photo, taken recently on a day out in the sunshine. As you can see, I still have a scarf, but now nearly seven stone lighter I'm wearing it for a completely different reason. I still feel complete wearing one, but now it has become an accessory to add colour to an outfit. I am at last now beginning to enjoy putting my outfits together and my love of clothes and colour continues to grow. I am loving experimenting and wearing new combinations each and every day. The two photographs are so similar and yet so different at the same time. Still the love for colour, but now no reason to feel awkward or hide. No reason to feel ashamed, but to feel proud of what I am achieving and looking forward to enjoying every minute of the adventure. I look at the photos and know that I am not ever going back to how I lived before and the way I felt then. I look forward to the Summer and all the fun I will have finding new ways to dress. I have a lot of catching up to do!

Until next time,

Love, Jackie,

xx

I AM NOT A COOKIE CUTTER

 

17^th March, 2021

Someone once said to me, “You are not a cookie cutter”. I had never heard the term before, but I looked it up and basically it means not having the same configuration or look as many others, or being identical. I suppose I have always been different and like different kinds of people, cultures and other things. I have never wanted to be the same. I like the unusual and interesting, and with “normal” things look for a way to change them. It applies to many things – interior design, food, what I like to wear and jewellery. I love the unusual, and I like to be me. It's not always an easy way to be, but I am what I am.

Now, when it comes to weight loss, and keeping weight off, I am beginning to realise it is the same. As I have said before, everyone is different. The way they think, their lifestyle, their physical make up, the foods they like – all are different. How much weight they have to lose, why they have put weight on and their ability to exercise all affect the plan that they need. This is why the “cookie cutter” approach will not, and does not work. You hear the phrase “diets don't work”. You lose weight and you put it on. You yo-yo diet over time, and diets don't work.

What really doesn't work is the cookie cutter plan that is given to everyone. That diet that you see in the magazine, or on the TV or internet, or given to you by the slimming club that everyone goes to. They are out there for so many people to see and do. If you only have a few pounds to lose, that can be bad enough, but if you have a lot of weight to lose, you want to get it right. Many years of losing weight and putting it back on is not good for your physical or mental health.

Years ago I used to teach Indian Cookery. Each week I would hand out the recipe of the dish we were going to cook. The basic idea, the guide lines and the method. The difference then between a recipes you would see in a book and what I was doing, was that I knew my student's preferences, how hot or spicy they like their food. I was able to teach them to take the basic recipe and change it to the way it suited them. When you buy a recipe book, it's the same for everyone, but it can't tell you how to change it to suit the individual. It's the same with weight loss. 

With my other attempts to lose weight I just did what I thought I was supposed to do. Eat a lot less, cut right back on the calories and exercise. It's as easy as that!

No, that didn't work. Yes, I got results. Fast results. But the weight came back on again and again. I really hadn't learned anything.

This time around, I knew it had to be very different. I had to make my own plan on what works for me as an individual. I had to adapt the way I ate and, because I can't exercise in the traditional way, find out what I could do instead.

Now I have lost nearly all the weight I want to lose, I am moving on to the next stage of keeping it off. That's the bit that not many diet plans talk about. They don't oftain don't talk about mind set or how you don't put the weight back on, which is the scary bit. It scares me a lot, but I am beginning to deal with it in my own particular way.

I am trying something called “reverse dieting”. From what I understand, this means slowly increasing what you eat whilst monitoring what happens. The end result should enable me to be able to know just at what level I can eat food and stay within a given weight.

I still want to be able to lose a little more weight, but I must also be able to know how to stabilise it. It is a work in progress. At the moment I am not getting weighed every day. The plan is to eat within reason and then weigh myself after ten days and see what happens. I am quite anxious about all this, but it's the only way I can see what happens to me. It's all part of the plan (she says confidently). I need to find out just what is right for me. By doing it this way I will continue to learn how this all will become sustainable. That is, I believe, the key to it all. A weight loss plan that is individually tailored to a person's needs. That will hopefully suit the non-cookie cutter part of my nature. It is beginning to work for so many other people and hopefully it will work for me. I am going to get weighed tomorrow, my ten days are finished and we will see what happens.

My story continues...

All for now, until next time.

Love, Jackie

xxx

MY BLOG

 2^nd March, 2021

The sun has been shining, which is always a bonus, and my husband Steve has had a week off work. It would have been the date of the second attempt for my son and his beautiful fiancé to get married, but once again Covid has intervened, and the lockdown is still on. Fortunately, another date has been arranged, and we are all hoping that this time it will go ahead and we will, finally, all be together. We have not seen my son and his fiancé for a year now, and my daughter, son-in-law and two grandchildren since last August, so it will be lovely to get the whole family together again soon.

2014 was when I last lost weight, and it was the birth of our Grandson that inspired me to do it. Back then I just slipped back into my “dieting” habits of eating less and less to get to a good weight loss each week, and worried purely on my looks rather than my health. I know now it was bound to fail, as many attempts had failed before, but back then I didn't know any different. I knew what I needed to do to lose weight in a healthy way, but that didn't mean I was going to do it. I wanted results, and I wanted them quickly. I was waiting every week for the group leader to see my results and tell me how well I had done. That was all that really mattered, and of course my family telling me too.

Now, don't get me wrong, encouragement is good, but if you have not got the right mindset all the work is for nothing. So many “diets” fail, because they are not fitting into your lifestyle and giving you a sustainable way of living. That is why it has been so different this time around. I was doing it for myself, the only person that saw the scales – when I finally got some – was me, and I didn't have to worry about going to group meetings every week and worrying if I had, or hadn't lost weight. During lockdown I had plenty of time to look at just why I wanted to do this and look at the best way to do it for me. I will now finally get to the reason why I am writing this post and the title I have chosen :-)

When I started to lose weight back in 2014 I also started to write this blog. I can't now remember exactly why I decided to put my thoughts down this way. Back then I think I just wanted to document what I was doing for my grandson to read and the internet seemed the best way to do it as opposed to writing a diary. That is how it started. A way of putting down my thoughts on what I had been doing. I discovered that I really liked writing, but then after a while it all stopped. I had started to put weight back on and my new found love of writing was put on hold because deep down inside I felt that I had failed and didn't want to talk about it.

Fast forward to 2020, and for many reasons, which I have mentioned before, I started to write it again. How different it all seems to have been this time. I think when  I started to write before, I didn't really realise just what it meant to me. I was just writing it to tell others what I was doing. I think that is still there, but this time it was also there to help me clear my mind. To be able to talk to myself when no one was around and truly express my feelings. Now I do know that other people do read it, and that is great, but I don't know who they are, and makes it so much easier to say what it is that I want to say. If I helped just one person that has read my posts, well that would be marvellous. If one person thinks that they are not alone, that others have the same struggles and have beat them and now think that they could do the same, it really helps me to continue putting pen to paper.

I do love to write, and being able to clear my mind as the words go down on paper is such a benefit to my now different way of life.

When I first started my blog, I really didn't know about many people who were doing the same for their weight loss. There must have been some, but I didn't really look that much. These days so many have Youtube channels and I really do love to watch them and seeing other peoples experiences and advice. Youtube is not for me, but my writing will carry on. My blog has meant so much to me in so many ways. It's something I love to do, and it helps keep me focused. It makes me accountable to myself, and in the future my grandchildren may read it and hopefully understand more about their Nan Nan. Goodness knows what they will think, I may never know, the same way as I don't often know what other people who read it think. What I do know is that it is an honest account of me, my journey, my highs and my lows. And that, after all, it all that really matters.

That's all for now, until next time.

Love, Jackie

xx