31^st December, 2020

We are now here at the end of that very strange year, 2020. So much has been lost, and that must never be forgotten or belittled, but hopefully in the years to come we will look back and see some positivity in all this. Hard, I know, at the moment. I was in a strange frame of mind as Christmas drew near. I do have many positive memories of Christmas in past years, but there have also been so many bad, negative, memories and I have to try so hard to keep a balance. When I was with my ex-husband, he had a habit of doing his best to spoil any special occasion he could, in whatever way he could, and there have been some really horrible times.

We have not been in a relationship for nearly 20 years, but those memories burn into your brain and bubble back up to the surface if you let them. I have found ways to cope with them, but it can still be hard. Having said that, apart from the fact that we couldn't be with our family this year (they are now in tier 4, while we are still – for now at least – still in tier 3), we had a lovely day. Christmas came and went, with a new way of coping and I also realised how different it had become for me in my relationship with food.

I had a lovely Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, with lots of lovely festive food and drink and didn't worry about what I was consuming as I would have done in past years. Just before Christmas there was a slight panic, but not over Christmas itself. My panic may come across to some as silly, but to me it was real. Since I saw the orthopaedic specialist and was approved for my hip surgery, I have not lost much more weight. He was so adamant that I should be that weight, I panicked that I would put weight on, be called for the operation after Christmas and be refused because of my weight. That was not going to happen, in the fact that I am not going to be called in for the operation at the moment, but that did not stop the worry. It's a ludicrous situation, that all this depends on my B.M.I., but that is for another blog. After talking things over with Steve, the panic was put to rest and I was able to enjoy the festive days without a second thought until Boxing Day

That morning I got up, came downstairs and started to think about what I wanted for breakfast and realised I was ready to go back to what I usually ate. It was a very strange feeling. We had had some wonderful food, but I was beginning to feel that I wanted to go back to “normal”. Normal is not a good word to use but I wanted to go back to the way of eating I have established and made my lifestyle change this past year.

Festive food is lovely, rich and sugary, but lovely. However, I had to go back to the foods I liked to eat and the way I need to eat. I want to lose another two stone in the New Year, but at this time I just want to get back to the way I am more comfortable with and this time this feeling was so different to past years when I wanted to diet and felt so guilty if I ate what I shouldn't.

This time I felt that I could eat what I liked without guilt, but now I know when I have had enough. It was a lovely feeling because I felt that this time I was beginning to address the relationship I have with food.

For me, as with many others, it will never be easy but I have learnt so much, and I am able to move forward to the next stage of reaching my ideal weight. This year has gone and the new one is just about here and let us hope it is a much better one for us all. I am so pleased to be back writing my thoughts, So I'll be back again soon.

See you then,

Love, Jackie

xx

WHAT A YEAR 2020 HAS BEEN!

 

15^th December, 2020.

We are now in the middle of December, coming up to Christmas and the end of one of the strangest years of my life. I thought last year was a strange one for me personally, but this year it has hit everyone at different levels. We don't know what can happen in a year. When you think about it, it sounds a long time but when you look back you wonder where the time went. Last year I didn't really think I could achieve what I wanted to do, but I gave it a go and I managed to get there. I was cleared to have my joint replacement operations (still waiting) and I am six and a half stones – that's 91 pounds – lighter. I started taking weight loss more seriously this time last year and once I had seen the orthopaedic specialist in March and I knew what I had to do and I did it.

For a lot of people when the Covid-19 lockdown happened here in the United Kingdom, they found that they ate more sugary foods etc. and gained weight. I could not afford to do that. I found that being stuck at home help me to concentrate on me and I learned so much. Having the time helped me to really think about me and how I wanted to live my life to the best I could. I am now beginning to feel proud of my achievement, even though I know I will never stop learning and developing the way I think. There are so many new developments and things to think about and I think we should always be open to new ideas and not become stale in what we know and think.

I was finally contacted by the N.H.S. weight management team, the first time since March, and I was able to tell them about my weight loss. After we had discussed how I had managed without their input for eight months we talked about where I wanted to go from here. Even though I went through so many emotions about the situation I was left in at the beginning of lockdown, they agreed that the achievement of weight loss was all mine, which was nice, and we were able to discuss ideas of weight management. It was good to talk about this with someone else, I must admit, and have some expert input. They are now going to ring me in January.

As we are now in the last month of this very strange year many of us just want to put it all in a box and move forward to 2021 to see what it brings. This is what I want to do too. We are coming up to the time of eating far more than usual and the possibility of putting on a few pounds :-). This is fine, there is nothing wrong with this and when we have done this and got to the end of the year we should not feel guilty, but many of will.

January is that time of year that many of us think, “Oh my goodness! We have put weight on and now we must panic! Start a diet! Join a gym and lose it!”

By the end of January, if we get that far, all good intentions have faded. When you are feeling guilty and being bombarded by the weight loss industry to put it right, give yourself a moment to think about how you got to your situation. Really think about what is right for you to achieve, not only in weight loss but to make it the best way for you. I will do my best to enjoy myself throughout the festive season, watching what I eat but also enjoying good food and treats without guilt. Once December has gone I will assess where I am and move on from there.

I will draw my blog to a close now until the New Year, but I will be back. It's not been a good year, but let us hope as we move into 2021 that there is a light at the end of the tunnel . Enjoy your festive times the best way you can and I will see you on the other side.

Love Jackie

xx

PS. Before I finish for the year, here's a little whimiscal thought for you.

WHAT WOULD THE CAVE PERSON DO?

Can you imagine weight loss in prehistoric times? Cave people lined up to get weighed by the Cave Person Weight Loss Leader. You can hear the excuses now.

“Well, we caught our first animal in weeks, and we had to eat it all, because we are in the middle of the weather being hot and we had nowhere to store it, so we ate it and now I've put 2 lbs on!”

“I haven't managed to get a lightweight fur yet and this fur is drenched because it rained and all the extra weight is water!”

“I haven't had to run away from as many wild animals this week, so I haven't had as much exercise as I need!”

They didn't have to make excuses, and neither should we. In the greater picture, it doesn't matter.

IF YOU WANT TO DO IT, NO EXCUSES, TRY TO DO IT

 

2^nd December, 2020

Many years ago now, seems like a lifetime ago, I was in an abusive relationship. I was young and a little more naïve than I am now (still a work in progress) and did not have any family support whatsoever. My father had never been there, I was disowned by my mother shortly after marrying my first husband and my grandma, who I looked after, had Alzheimer's. My husband's family really didn't understand what was going on. Any friends I had made, especially after I had my children, my husband got rid of one way or another, except for one who I still know today, even though we now live 250 miles away from each other.

I was near enough completely on my own, coping with an abusive husband, looking after two small children and an elderly relative with Alzheimer's. I did my best. That is what I felt I had to do, I struggled on , but slowly I found it harder and harder. I had very little money and no way out. Now, this is not a “feel sorry for Jackie” story, I promise. I resorted to going to see my doctor, who was very old school, near retirement and middle class, as I didn't know what to do. His advice was either do something about it or put up with it. At the time I thought “thank you very much – NOT!”, but now, looking back years later, I can sort of see what he meant.

Resources these days are limited, but back then there was very little help at all. At one point I was offered a place in a refuge, but at that time I weighed up the pros and cons and didn't think it was for us. We weren't in physical danger, at least not at that time., and rightly or wrongly I progressed through the years. I did have a plan. I retrained, got qualifications, which helped for a while, got different jobs and eventually managed to split from my first husband. I still made sure he was okay, I may add, he had alcohol and mental health problems, I am just that kind of person, but you can't help being the person you are. Anyway, in the end, we had survived and life went on.

You might be thinking at this stage what has this got to do with weight loss? Going back to the days when that doctor said that to me it was not easy to take, but if you are in a situation you have to make that decision. Do you do something about it, or do you accept it? It's not easy and everybody's situation is different but if you really want to something you have to try to do something about it, no matter how long it takes. I started thinking about this because I hear so many reasons and excuses as to why some people can't lose weight. On the internet there are so many groups where they say weight loss is not possible.

There are many reasons why weight loss may not be easy. Hormones, medication, not being able to exercise or other health reasons, but it is possible. I have proved it. You really must want it and put the work in. Seeing a purpose to what you want to do, knowing the reason and finding the way. It may take a lot of time and you may have to do it by yourself but you can do it. That feeling when you have looked at what you want to achieve and found a way to do it, and then finally done it is amazing. You may struggle along the way and it may take a long time but you can do it.

In these present times knowledge is so much more easily accessible, and understanding of situations has moved on greatly with so much more support available, but it still comes down to you yourself no one can do it for you. Know what it is you want to achieve, do your research and go for it and at least you can say you've tried.

My weight loss has come to a standstill at the moment. I can't do much exercise because of my health and mobility problems and I don't feel I can cut down too much more on my calorie intake (I'm not doing 1000 calories per day like I did last time) but I will not give up. My goal was to get to the weight and BMI I needed to be at for my hip operation, which I did, but I still have a little more I'd like to lose in the New Year for our son and future daughter-in-law's wedding next November.

So, Jackie, look at what you have achieved and move on. And move on I will because it may not always be easy, but I will not give in that easily. I want to do something about it and I will.

Until next time,

Love Jackie

xx

WHO ARE YOU LOSING WEIGHT FOR?

29^th November, 2020

When I started my blog the first time in 2014, it was for me to write down the thoughts that came into my head and my experiences on my weight loss journey. That was it, and that was great because it was about weight loss. I stopped writing it when I lost most of the weight I needed to. Everything was great. Life was great. All my problems went away once I had lost weight and become “thin” - NOT!!

That is not what happens. Life remains the same. You have lost weight, you know how to lose weight, but not many people tell you how to keep it off. The emphasis is not on that, is it? The heatlth profession tell yo that if you are overweight/obese, they have a chart, but they don't tell you what you have to do to keep it off. G.P.s have a lot to deal with, so many illnesses and diseases to help patients cope with, but their training on nutrition is limited.

I don't know how correct this is, but I read somewhere that while a G.P. is doing their four years at medical school the total amount of time spent on nutrition is about 10 to 20 hours. They have so much else to learn so it's understandable, but then when they tell us to lose weight the knowledge they can pass on to us is limited, and, quite often, can not be up to date. Even then we are not really told how to maintain weight, so if we take their advice and lose weight then what happens next? More than likely we will go back to old habits and put the weight back on until the next time we need to lose it.

We may turn to some part of the slimming industry to help us. Again the emphasis is put on losing the weight because in the beginning that's what we need to do. Now I have not been to a slimming club for many years so things may have changed and you may get the help you need to keep it off once you reach your target, but the majority of people coming through the door paying their money want to lose weight. You don't pay when you get to your target, so surely there is no profit for them in getting clients to their target weight and keeping them there. You put weight on, and then you pay again to lose it.

The cost of this on you financially can be great. It can also be a great cost to your health, both physically and mentally, if you yo-yo weight loss, especially if you have a lot of weight to repeatedly lose and put on. It can be a great strain on your organs and make you feel very down if you feel as though you are always failing. We are not failing. For whatever reasons there is no reason to train us to lose weight and keep it off. In my research, I am now hearing of some methods that say they help you to retrain your thinking, but they come at a financial cost, and I would not be able to find out if they work without spending money. For me, now at the stage I am with my weight loss and retraining (D.I.Y. style) I don't want to take that route but they may be worth trying if you have tried everything else and have the finances.

This time, for me, I knew I had to do it differently. Down the free route there is very little information to pass on to patients about weight loss and conquering your weight gain beast, while down the paid route most that I have experienced gain financially by you losing weight once you have put it back on again, etc. etc.

As we go into the season of eat, drink and be merry – even if it is in a more limited way this year – our thoughts will soon turn to “oh dear, I have put some weight on, I better do something about it!”

Think about how you do this, look seriously at what is best for you and go for it. There is so much to learn if you go out to look for it, but beware, finding the right information is not always easy. If you stick to the basics of nutrition and health that is a good start but always take into consideration who is telling you the information, how do they know this, and for whose benefit it's for. Yours... or theirs?

Food for thought.

Until next time,

Jackie

xx

LEARNING ABOUT ME

 

22^nd November, 2020

After writing my last blog, I realised how much better I was feeling. I was inspired by a Facebook comment from Louisa at Louisa Farret Styling, which mentioned being grateful to your body and knew that really, in so many ways, I had not thought about being grateful to something that has kept me going through so many difficult and different times.

I have been trying so hard to lose weight while this time also doing my best to retrain my brain to think differently. It had become an obsession, I had to be able to keep going and lose those 88 pounds. I do tend to obsess about things, that is part of my nature. There is nothing wrong with that if you can achieve your goal and you know when to stop. That is the key, to know what to do once you approach where you want to be and reach the target you need to be. The longer this takes it should get easier, and in lots of ways it does, but in other ways it gets harder. At some point the longer it takes the pressure starts to grow. You know how to lose weight. You have learnt how it is possible, in theory at least, to keep that weight off, but that is still theory until you actually put it into practice. When you get near to the transition period it is scary to think about moving onto unknown ground.

As I said in the past, I am not one to think about my achievements and really be proud of myself. I will be the first to tell my family and friends I am proud of them for their achievements, but until now I have not treated myself the in the same way. A lot of us do that, we do not treat ourselves the way we treat others, and we really should. We have the right to look after ourselves and be the best we can. I have never really had the time, energy or circumstances in my past to think about me. How I live my life, how I think and what I look like. It may sound a little selfish but when you have given so much it's not wrong to give to yourself now and then.

I am so grateful that I have overcome so many obstacles in the past and I am still here. I am a firm believer that you learn from all of life's experiences, both good and bad. They make you stronger. Nearly everything can be turned into a positive or at least help us to be grateful for what we have. I have a lot to be grateful for, and I owe it to myself with the years I have left to make the most of my life.

To move forward into unknown times is scary but it is also exciting. What I can do is slightly limited by my health issues and mobility problems, but I am not going to let that stop me. I am going to spend the free time that I am now blessed with learning as much as I can about looking after me and being the best I can. I am going to spend time looking at what I can wear, looking after my skin and body and improving the way I look. Not because I am selfish, but because I want to feel good about myself and have more confidence.

Surely the time I give myself will make me a stronger person and be able to give so much more to those I love without feeling worn out and drained.

In these present times we should all do our best to be grateful for what we have. We have, at many different levels, more than a lot of others have and it would be wrong to waste what we have or have achieved.

I will always do my best to be grateful for what I have and will try to stop thinking about what I don't have and move on to a new stage of my life trying to be as positive as I can be.

Until next time,

Love Jackie.

xx

CONFUSING THOUGHTS

 

19^th November 2020

These are confusing times for so many different reasons. Some things are beyond our control, and some things are controllable if we can get our heads around them. Although a small thing in the greater scheme of things, my weight loss is still causing me a lot of food for thought (if you'll excuse the pun). Up to now I have lost 6 stone and 4 pounds (that's 88 lbs). My orthopaedic specialist wanted me to get my BMI down to 35 to 37, which is around 15 stone, which I did and since then I have lost another stone (14 lbs). Now, at the middle of November I find my weight loss is slowing down and now I have stayed at the same weight for the last two weeks. Not a big deal, really, however I feel for me it is a really dangerous time where I must not lose motivation and slip back into old habits. I don't really thnk I will, but the fear is there, sitting in part of my brain and comes to the front of my thinking now and again, especially in moments when things around me are quiet. I have not been well this week, with balance and vertigo problems, and I have had a lot of time on my hands to think about it more than usual.

Where my confusion arises is if my weight loss has stopped, then what do I do next? When I have looked at why people lose weight there seems to be three groups of “slimmers”. A group who are usually within a normal weight range that want to lose weight for a special occasion; a group who have more to lose, who want to to do it to look better or for health reasons and often join a group or club for weight loss and are given a target weight; and a group that are seriously obese who are 25 stones or more and often need medical intervention to help them do this, and are still given a healthy weight target to get to.

Now each of these groups can reach their targets, but when you are read that 19 out of 20 weight loss diets fail, you realise it's not losing weight that is the only problem, it's also keeping that weight off.

I knew this without reading it, for I have gained and lost weight many times and that is how the slimming industry has continually made money over the years since the late 1950s.

I have tried to prepare myself, if that's at all possible, for the moment this time when I had to start to maintain my weight. I have never got to this stage in the forty-six years I have had issues with my weight. I have either been losing weight aiming for a target, or putting weight back on.

I find myself now aware that my weight has plateaued and the fear of it coming back on is so real in my mind. I have dreams of waking up and finding myself a size 24 again. Stupid, I know, but that's the mind for you and as much as you know ther are bigger problems in the world the fear, the silly fear, the unjustified fear is still sitting there in my mind.

I have to spend sometime with myself and give myself a good shake to get myself through this. I have come through such hard things in my life that I will not let this get me down.

I eat a healthy diet. I do have times when my calorific intake is slightly higher than it should be, but this is a normal way of eating. I refuse to cut my calories down to a silly unrealistic amount as I have done in the past. That is not the way I want to live my life. I can't really up my exercise levels greatly because of my health problems. So I was not really sure where I stood and it was really bothering me.

After a lot of thought I have decided for the time being that I am going to accept myself at the stage I am at. I reached the level I need to be at for my operation, and more besides, and I am beginning to like the way I look. Perhaps it's time now (earlier than I originally thought) to learn how to maintain the weight I am. It's all a new experience for me, but I know I can do it, and it will take a lot of the pressure from me of feelings of learnt behaviour that have been with me for many years. When I have done this through Christmas and the New Year I will then assess where I want to go from there. So watch this space, and we will see what happens next.

All for now,

Love Jackie

xx

BEING DIFFERENT

 

14^th November, 2020

Being different can mean so many different things to so many different people.

When I was young I felt different. Not in the beginning because I was fat, that came in the years to follow, but because my parents were divorced and my mother was only 17 years older than me. That might seem strange now, but back in the 1960s and 70s it was not so common. I have mentioned before a memory of one of my first parent/teacher days and my mother coming into school wearing a blue mini dress with red spots, quite low cut with a ruff around the neck line and a brown fur coat, flaming red hair and immaculate make-up. I remember the looks she got as her high heels tapped down the school corridor. She must have been about 29 years old then, but she looked so young compared to all the other children's mothers. She was different, so I was different, because of the way I was treated and because of the way she lived her life.

I had no control over that and quite often we have no choice in not being the same. I married my first husband, who is a Punjabi Sikh, because I loved him. He was not the same as other people I had met and I loved that, and even today after a 22 year abusive marriage and being divorced for 18 years I am still grateful for the travelling I did, the people I met, the different cultural experiences I have had and the two beautiful children that we had together. I was aware when my children were born they would be perceived as “different” and I have done my best to bring them up to be aware and proud of who they are. They, like many, can not change who they are. They are who they are even though it is not always understood by those around them. A story for someone else to write, but there are so many others who for so many reasons who are also treated differently because they are not the same as the ones who judge them for who they are. With me it has been being fat all my life, often bigger than the norm. Not only have I been criticised for being big I have been made to feel second best and lazy and unworthy for not making myself thin. Not only by the medical profession, but in the past by people who claimed to love me. I am with my second husband now, who has always loved me for who I am, not what I look like. But the damage of the past is still not easy to heal.

To not feel when you are with other women that you are not attractive enough because they smaller than you or not getting the medical treatment you need because the medical practitioner thinks you are overweight, are hard things to come to terms with and evoke so many feelings. There are so many people we come across in our lives who are different, whether it is visible the minute you see them or as you get to know them. Whichever way it is that person deserves the same respect as you would expect others to give to you.

Differences should be celebrated but I fear we have a long way to go still.

Until next time, love to you all,

Jackie

xx