8th July, 2021,
Way back in 2014 when I first started writing my blog, it was to document the great effort it takes to lose a lot of weight.
Now, seven years later, and almost at the end of my second weight loss journey, I know it is not just losing the weight, but also learning to keep it off. There is so much more information out there with the many, many different diet plans you can take part in, but not so much information about what happens next, the “maintenance”. Apart from the individual person themselves, there is not a lot for others to gain from a weight maintenance plan. This may be because a health professional feels you should lose weight, or because an industry that makes so much money needs people to always need to lose weight, not keep it off.
So much has been said, is said, and will be said, about diets failing- and diets can and do fail – but not much is said or learnt about keeping the weight off. Keeping weight off involves far more than what you eat. There are habits and emotions involved before you even get on to the subject of actually loving food and wanting to eat all those things we are told we shouldn't and lots and lots of it. Let's not even start to think about all the calories we drink (I will come back to that later).
I have always loved food, as a lot of us do, but as the years went by, I realised how much I loved good food. There is a difference between food and good food, but it's not always in the way we might think. I trained in catering and housekeeping when I first left school and have worked in industrial kitchens, but I didn't choose to go into this as a long term career. Housekeeping was so much slower and not as pressured, and it tended not to put you off eating as working in a hot and fast kitchen environment can. You still got to eat nice food through your working day, though. Training in food preparation fired my love of different foods and this, alongside my travelling a little bit, kept me interested in all the different kinds of food that are out there. It's only in recent years though, that I have started to appreciate the taste of really lovely food rather than just eating as much as I could as quickly as I could just to satisfy a need.
Since losing weight over these last two years, I have really started to want to get value for the amount of calories I need to limit myself to in order to lose weight in a sensible way. It's a bit like going shopping with a set amount of money in your purse and no bank or credit cards with you. You can only spend what you have, and you want to get the best value and amount for that allowance. You learn, and then remember how many calories are in each food and you also begin to really, really taste and enjoy the smaller amount of food you eat. As they say what really matters is quality not quantity. Those foods that you can't see the calorific content for, can easily now be looked up online, and many packets and tins will have the calorie content displayed on the side. Calorie counting also means, for me, that I can have an occasional “treat” and fit it into my allowance and I have certainly found that this has worked well for me, just before lockdown, during lockdown and up to just recently. Then, of course, I went away! I was away for eight days and I must admit I did wonder how I would be, a little afraid I would mess up with eating, but I think I have done okay. To be fair I was with my family and they all know I am very careful with what I eat. However, I did eat out a couple of times, had tea and cake with my family for my grandson's birthday, had to sort out the food for while I was travelling down South and then back again, and, of course, tried the food choices for my son and future daughter-in-law's wedding. None of it caused me any real problems as to the number of calories I was eating. Now, obviously I knew I had eaten too many calories to achieve any weight loss, but I was able to maintain my weight until I got home. Which just goes to show that it can be done. The food for the wedding was absolutely beautiful. It looked and tasted so lovely, and I was proud to be there with my son, his fiancée and her parents, especially after the past year or so that we have had. It brings the wedding so much closer now, after having had to change the wedding date twice because of lockdown. Exciting times to come!
Do you know, I even went from the sublime of the wedding food to the ridiculous of eating my first McDonalds in this country in six years! :-) I will say no more about that, except that I really didn't have a lot of choice, however I actually did quite enjoy it. :-)
So, I went away and came back and my weight was still round about the same, which I must admit did surprise me a little, but as I said before it shows it can be done.
I came back home to Yorkshire on the Thursday evening, and then on Friday I got the call about going in for my pre hip operation assessment. Part of this will involve me being weighed and having my B.M.I. worked out to see if I am still elegible for the procedure. Of course, I still am, but it brought back all my fears and concerns. Yes, I know it seems daft, but emotions can be incredibly strong, especially when you are already nervous about going into hospital. Oh well. It's happened and I will go in next week, but before that I will have had my birthday weekend. Going out on the Saturday and Sunday with special meals planned for both days. I will still been sensible, I know how to adjust my food intake and I'm sure all will be well. There is still a slight concern about the iron levels in my blood, but hopefully it will not affect things too much.
Before I finish, I did mention calories in drinks. This is so easy to forget as drink goes down so easily. I gave up alcohol when I started to restrict my calories as it was so important to use my allowance on good, nutritious food. I can't exercise easily, so my allowance is less because of this. It is so easy to have any drink and not think about what it contains. When I was out for a meal on my birthday, I happened to look across at the next table and saw the lady sitting there had this wonderful looking drink in front of her with whipped cream on top. The couple had only just arrived and I assumed that it was some kind of cocktail. I took the chance to ask her and it turned out to be a milkshake. It did look quite pretty but, no, it wasn't for me, especially as the meal was an all you can eat. I would have been full before I even started eating, the result of a much smaller stomach now. It was a wonderful meal and so lovely to finally be able to go out and celebrate. Now the celebrations are over I have to concentrate on getting through my assessment, seeing the specialist and then hopefully finally having my first operation at the end of August. I am sure I will be writing about this soon.
Until next time,
Love, Jackie
xxx
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