Tea without milk?! Barbarism!

I don’t feel great today. I am in a shitty mood. I am wondering when the hunger passes and the much fabled ketosis kicks in. I woke up in the middle of the night and nearly grabbed some food. When I woke up this morning, I didn’t feel too bad. I hate the soups so am exchanging them tomorrow for more shakes.

I weighed myself, probably shouldn’t have, and I seem to be down to 10st 11lbs from 11st 3lbs. It’s water weight but I do find it rather shocking.

You think I’d be pleased but I’m not stupid, I know that this diet is anorexia in sachets. If you ate one chocolate bar a day and took 100% vitamin supplements, the effects would be exactly the same. All diets exploit desperate people, it’s where they make their money. And most people gain all the weight back so it’s circles of ad nauseum.

Why am I doing it then? The control and having set things to eat helps me. Diets are all the same, and I’d rather do this than Weight Watchers because I can’t be arsed to measure stuff and count calories. And this is only short term; as soon as I reach my goal you can bet that I will be reintroducing food. I like food. Food is nice. As far as I see it, this is taking three months out of my life to try and sort my weight out. It makes me a stinking hypocrite since I have vehemently attacked diets in the past, and I’ve promoted fat acceptance. But, although I think people who want to lose weight may be desperate for solutions, they’re not stupid and I know what I’m doing.

I do worry about diets encouraging disordered eating. The Atkins diet did for me. It demonised carbohydrates in my eyes. On the forums I have been on, I’m aghast at how people talk about themselves. Believe me, I have my share of body image problems and I don’t want to go into them here. But people are openly calling themselves fat and hideous, and they have “safe” foods. Nobody is fat and hideous and weight, in the end, it is a number, and nothing to do with what kind of person you are.

I’m not being wilfully negative, it’s the truth. How will I be different? I hope I will because I don’t really have problems with compulsive/emotional eating. I long ago got myself out of that cycle. I can usually maintain my weight, give or take a few months. The highest I’ve ever weighed was 12st 8lbs, which went up from 10st after taking Olanzapine. 10 stone is still overweight, but that was out of laziness, I didn’t really care at that point. When I stopped taking them I got down to 10 stone again. My weight then hovered around there or half a stone lower for a few years. Then I started taking different medications and I gained weight very quickly. I’ve been to the doctors and all, and they acknowledge that my medication does cause weight gain, but didn’t give me much advice on what I could do to help myself.

Fuck knows how my metabolism is doing after all that.

My aim is just to get down to a normal weight for my height. It might be 8stone 3lbs (I’ve adjusted my goal a little) but it might be a little over that. I hope to get to that weight but I’m aware that bodies have a natural level. I am in no way designed for waifiness and thinness. I may be tiny in height, but I am quite broad in stature. I have wide shoulders, huge hips and big boobs. I just want to feel healthy. And I can’t afford new clothes so fitting into the stuff I have would be nice.

When I lose the weight I don’t intend to gain it back. My habits slipped recently (before embarking on this diet) into eating crap, but I was just feeling lazy. I’d go out for a walk or cycling and think, “I can’t be arsed to cook” so would grab some cheap, crap food. It didn’t affect my weight but it did make me tired.

However, I don’t want to get into self punishing rituals. If I slip up and eat something while doing this, I’ll dust myself off and just get back on. My mental health has been pretty bad. I am trying to crawl out of those holes by managing my illness and adjusting my attitudes. And that involves learning to like myself in some way and allows for some flexibility. In the past, I’ve deeply hated myself for having a bar of chocolate, even if I didn’t eat much else that day. I’m trying to get out of that mindset. So I’m not really reading anything from people who say, “oh no, I am so BAD I ate some FOOD!!!!!11!” because it’s not bad, food is not the enemy.  Food can sometimes be lovely, and pleasurable and pampering.

It has taken a long, long time for me to get myself out of that mindset. I still lapse occasionally and rebuke myself; for, everything really, but I am making the conscious effort not to.