Weight Loss My Way

Lily Brett - your body shape will change!

Lily Brett is an Australian author, whose most famous book is probably Too Many Men. But I think her best work is in her collected essays book In Full View. Brett usually deals with heavier subjects like the Holocaust experience of her parents. In Full View her essays related to weight loss and body image are simply brilliant. Ana Skea's book review best describes Brett's experience:

A compulsive eater and dieter all her life, she forged her school bank-book when she was seven to buy biscuits and since then has been on "every diet known to mankind". Now, she has discovered power-walking, weight-lifting and healthy eating and she is as obsessive and preachy about it as any new religious convert.

My favourite of the weight loss essays refers to the nights Lily wakes up, after her significant weight loss, and can not recognise the feel of her own body. Those of you who travel often and are frequently jet lag know the feeling of waking up and not remembering where you are exactly. Well Brett describes the same kind of feeling - but not recognising her own body shape.

Believe me this is a feeling you want. It’s like being in one of those movies where someone has swapped your body for another. It’s exhilarating, a little scary but definitely something to aspire to.

Importantly, Brett links her body transformation and liberation from body image issues very much to the experiences of her own parents suffering in Nazi concentration camps in Poland. It reminded me that there are usually deep psychological issues that we need to grapple with if we struggle with weight loss.

If you can get a hold of In Full View, its an educated, witty, articulate, inspiring read on weight loss, amongst other life issues.

I don't believe in 'sweats'!

This post is simply to a labour a point which has already been made, but can never be repeated enough. Look the part! I do not believe in sweat pants.

Have you ever noticed in movies that people start wearing sweat pants, also known as trackies, or tracksuit pants when they are depressed, unlucky in love or hungover. What does this tell us? Such attire is really only suitable if you want to feel flabby and lack the motivation to live.

So throw out your track pants. Do not let them be an option in your life. Buy something sexy for the gym, no matter what size you are you will feel better wearing something designed to make you feel great, than sweats.

Sweats are the fast track to slothfulness. You see -  even Eva Longoria does not look that fabulous in sweats!Eradicate 
them from your wardrobe NOW.

Sleep, sleep and more sleep

I once watched Suzanne Somers on Larry King Live share the secrets of her agelessness. She said one of them was sleeping until she woke up! I threw out my alarm clock immediately! Not that we all have the luxury to wake up whenever we want, but I figured I do have the luxury to go to bed earlier so that I get sufficent sleep (generally accepted a minimum of 8 hours) to wake up naturally in good time to get to work! Sleep is critical if you want to curb hunger pains.

Around bedtime, I realised that I often get distracted by a tv show, a book I am reading, email or something else  so I don't pay much attention to getting to bed on time. So on my weightloss process I changed two things:

1. I started going to bed earlier - previoulsy 10 or 11 pm. Now around 9.30pm.

2. I instigated some mechanisms to help me sleep deeper - lavender oil sprinkled on the pillows, bath with relaxing oils  before bedtime, novels not documents before sleep, and the relaxing sounds of waves or rain playing as I drifted off.

At my wedding my father spoke about his belief that the secret to a good marriage is plenty of sleep. Too little sleep does nothing for our moods, relationships or working lives. So too little sleep does nothing to help energise and resource us when we are in a process of changing our diets (especially eating less junk food) and more exercise (burning more calroies). There are three CRITICAL  elements to weightloss - Healthy eating, plenty of exercise and quality, plentiful sleep !

I think we tend to take sleep for granted and consider it negotiable. But I really notice the days when I don't get enough sleep are the same days I crave junk food or sweet things, and feel too lazy to work out.

And here is the best thing, the more exercise I started to do, the less sleep I needed, and the better sleep I had. So food, sleep and exercise are critically linked. Like all things they need to be kept in balance. When one is out of kilter everything else is too!

Feed your brain - watch what you read!

From time to time I like to get good old fashioned women's magazine. However during my weight loss process I came to realise that they are either filled with pictures of super skinny, impossible to emulate women wearing latest 'tiny waist' fashions OR recipes for desserts, festive treats or feasts! OK a light exaggeration but in reality when you are trying to lose weight it helps a lot of if you relaxation reading reinforces the change you are making in your life.

I bought a copy of Shape magazine during a long airport stopover. To be perfectly honest it was hard to part with money for a 'health' magazine, but had not previously thought twice about it for other women's magazines. To my surprise Shape was full of helpful ideas, hot tips and stories of people like me and thier struggle with weightloss and how they prevailed!

I had already decided against a personal trainer but reading books like "Impress the World With Your Body In Seven Days" by Dr. David Madow (which can be downloaded for free into iTunes) really gave good ideas and positive re-enforcement. And of course Oprah swears by Dr Oz who wrote 'You'.  But it was not just weightloss books that inspired me, motivation and time management books helps too like 'The Greatness Guide' by Robin Sharma and 'The Four Hour Work Week' by Tim Ferriss.

It so obvious but while you are busy changing your body you MUST keep feeding your mind!

 

Like a pebble in my shoe - the last damn kilo!

When I started out the year my intention was to be 70 kilos. I have already written about the plateaux but honestly the last few weeks have been even worse.

Through the course of this year I have been extremely privileged to hear the very personal struggles of friends, colleagues and family about their own weight loss highs and lows. It is way more challenging for some people than others. I have some friends who can eat anything and never fatten up. Whilst others of us have to struggle and struggle. This journey has required immense determination, self discipline and hard choices. It's actually really hard and many men and women struggle with weight loss their whole lives. We should never be flippant or take lightly those who choose to make this journey. We should cheer them on in any way possible.

Having said that I am not there yet - there is this last stubborn kilo to shift. I have been wondering if there is something self defeating now about it - do I not want to reach the goal? Or is it that my new lifestyle has shifted all the weight I can lose. Surely not.

I have been increasing my exercise regime, watching what I eat, drinking green tea, following all my own advice AND still that pebble sits in my shoe - the last kilo!

Just a few weeks to go, I am not giving up yet, but just want to acknowledge the painful struggle weight loss can be for so many of us. I say struggle on and never give up.

The Plateaux

I doubt 'plateau' is the correct term either scientifically, medically or geographically; but that's what they are to me. They are days, sometimes weeks, where you seem to make no progress whatsoever. For me it feels like trekking across the Sahara desert, or the Mongolian steppes or Siberia. I call them plateaux because it feels like you have reached a certain level and you will never reach your next goal. More specifically my notion of 'plateau' is when you have changed your lifestyle, you are exercising regularly, you are eating less and/or better foods and while you were making progress on the scales, suddenly nothing changes. You weigh in day after day, at the same weight. My theory is that it's your body asking for some time to come to terms with the adjustments! I doubt that is medical either, but I felt my body needed some time to catch up to where my mind wanted to be next. For this reason I found it critical not to give up. If you don't keep up your new lifestyle and eating habits you will most certainly slip backwards. Equally, if you stick at it, after sometime you will most certainly move forward. 'The plateaux', as I like to call them, can be depressing, de-motivating and enough to make you throw the towel in. Don't. I promise you, if you keep exercising, eat right, eat less, be good to yourself, then the you will reach the edge of the plateau, and your will reach your next goal. If you like, push yourself a bit harder with five more minutes of exercise, or an extra workout, and you will pass over 'the plateaux' just that much quicker. And, if it helps, think of yourself in some sweeping epic movie, trudging your way across some desert, glacier or plateau, and in the end you will be the hero of your own screen play! A hero in your own mind game! A legend in your own weight loss!

Stepping on the scales is empowering!

There is some part of my feminist brain which always told me that owning a set of weighing scales, let alone weighing myself, was some kind of evil sin. For decades I convinced myself that not knowing or caring about my weight was a strike for women everywhere!

So who could have thought that weighing myself every day through my weightloss process could feel so empowering! I have fallen in LOVE with scales. They are my constant companion providing a steady supply of feedback - "yes the 20 minute walking machine workout paid off" OR "maybe today is a good day to get back on the walking machine"!!

The scales also became a way of telling me what was working and what wasn't. For exmpale I started to notice that after a good night's sleep I weigh less! Definitely after a long walk or ride on my bike I weigh less. When I eat fruit and vegetables and smaller meals for a few days, I weigh less. And of course it's the easier way to know if you are reaching your goal! Not really rocket science I know, but as it turns out the scales are my greatest source of encouragement. Not as evil as one might be led to believe! 

Why 16kg?

Well like everyone on New Year's Eve, I resolved to lose weight. But somehow this year I realised it was just like wishing for world peace or that I would win the lottery. Without a lottery ticket its pretty hard to win!

So I decided in 2010 I would make it happen - lose weight. I googled healthy weight for 38 year old women  who are about 168 cm tall! And there was my goal 70 kilos or 154 pounds. At the time I weighed 86 kilos, so 70kilos seemed a long way away.

Also lets face it - I run an organisation, I have a family, I have extended family, I travel alot with work. So who am I kidding - my life is not always my own and I do not always get to be in control of timeframes, food intakes, schedules etc! Thus a nice long timeframe was essential if I was not setting myself up to fail.

So 70 kilos was the goal even if I had to extend the mission into 2011. The approach was to break the 16 kilos I had to lose down into 'biteszes' if you will excuse the term. I made the first 'mini' goal super easy. Lose one kilo! Somehow that first kilo was the hardest and yet most convincing. When I stood on the scales at 85kilos, I knew if I could lose one, I could lose another.

I can say the small goals made all the difference. At 75 kilos I got stuck. It seemed I plateaued and could not get past 75. My next goal was 73 but I just could not make it. I nearly gave up thinking perhaps this was all the weight possible to lose. Yet my thighs, butt, belly etc seemed still so wobbly! So I persisted and slowly, slowly I saw the scale one day tick over and I was on 74...and so I powered on. Reaching the small goals gave me such hope for the big one that I got new motivation not to give up.

So what worked for me - clear goal, small milestones, generous timeframe! 70 kilos here I come!

Sharing How It Worked for Me!

 
I am one of those girls who was lousy in physical education at school, had poor body image, was scared of the gym, love food, never watched what I ate and never, ever stepped on the scales. I thought weighing in was 'politically' incorrect as it was as if I was obsessed with superficial things. Last year I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror, and a whole of personal stuff happened and I began to realise it was time to face these demons!

This blog is about what I learned along the way, because the most important lesson I learned was that I had to find my own way. There are lots of diets, books, training plans and programs out there for losing weight. I a m sure they work for the person who designed them and there are things we can all learn from them, but I found I had to make lifestyle changes which work for me.

So this blog is far from a 
definitive guide to weight loss. Its just a range of tips about diet, exercise and life which worked for me. Hope you find some of them useful, my journey remotely inspiring and that you find your own way which works for you!