Today, we're going to talk about a word so dirty, even I hate it.
The thought of it makes me shudder, sparks fear into the heart of most and even comes to the point of offending me (which is a tall order).
That word is: DIET.
It is a filthy word. And it should be banned (N.B. Please ignore the fact that it's in part of my tag line for my blog, but "diet" takes fewer characters than "change your relationship and thinking with food kfanx", so shhhh).
A word that's supposed to encompass change shouldn't contain the word "DIE" in it! It's just ominous.
The term diet denotes restriction, denial, starving and in all honesty, misery. WHY CHOOSE A LIFESTYLE THAT WILL MAKE YOU MISERABLE FROM THE GET GO?
Rather than diet, we need to think of it as changing the way we relate to, think about and use food in our lives. I do not believe that restricting what you eat, cutting out foods and denying yourself is good for losing weight. Thusly, I have changed it to the Re-examination Of Om Noms Perception (or ROONP for short).
Preparation for ROONP is key. Think about the following (Btw, everything I talk about in this lonnnnnnnnnnnng post, I will do individual posts for and be more elaborate and focussed, this is just what I believe you need before you get started):
1.) Why do you want to do this?
If you're doing it for a partner, to be more popular, to fit in, to look like your favourite celebrity or anything like this, THIS IS NOT RIGHT FOR YOU. ROONP is not for other people, it is for you. You are the person that has to live your life, and you should not feel you are compromising for the benefit of other people. You need to get it into your head that being skinny does not make you pretty, beauty is in all different shapes and sizes. Self esteem won't come from losing weight, losing weight can bring a whole other load of insecurities (don't even get me started on excess skin).
I believe that as human beings, we are doomed to have insecurities and be jealous of other people, it's in our nature to compete. Do not feel that losing weight, have plastic surgery, getting designer clothes or changing your image will make you any less jealous of other people, any less catty, or change how much you like or dislike yourself. YOU ARE YOU AND YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL.
I know many fuller figure ladies who are more desired than their slender counter parts, because they are confident. Confidence is key.
I think everyone should have role models, whether they be regular people you know or celebrities (celebrity culture is everywhere and I believe having a variety is the spice of life). Think about the celebrities you find beautiful, and examine why.
Examples of mine:
Dawn French is everything sexy about a woman, she is confident, she is funny and she has bangers Gok Wan would love to stick his face in. If I was 20 years older and a convert, I would.
I think Beth Ditto is gorgeous (possibly more so if she shaved more often), and again, it's about spirit. It's pulling off a look, it's saying a big "f you" to the norm. (Although she does have a penchant for dressing in clothes that I think a hooker would find a little revealing).
Tura Satana could have probably birth an infant at 70mph with those hips, but she is a kick ass female. She overcame so many issues in her life to become a sex symbol, which is still true today!
Christina Hendricks. Oh. My. God.
Unfortunately, the last foxy female I wanted to post is a difficult one. For those who know her, it's Jessicka Fodera (now Jessicka Addams) from Jack Off Jill/ Scarling fame. Massive pioneer of girly rock, back when she was in Jack Off Jill she was a gorgeous and voluptuous woman and within the last few years she has slimmed down. Trying to find a before picture that is flattering and how I remember her is damn near impossible, so just take my word for it, she is gorgeous, she is amazing. I am a fangirl.
I think it's a good idea to find other people attractive and see their beauty, but the most important role model in your life should be yourself. Be proud of you, chances are you've been through a lot to get where you are and you need to be less hard on yourself.
Oh my god, I need to digress less (and rhyme more!)
2. Dieting takes time
Do not expect an overnight fix. Live under the ethos of "everything worth having is something worth fighting for". If I had my way, I'd snap my fingers and my bingo wings would be gone. But I know this will never happen (unless by snapping my fingers, I mean "take a large axe and chop off my arms").
And don't fall into the trap of these fad crash diets, or starving yourself, because either a.) you can end up getting an eating disorder and harming your body more than being a bit overweight could ever do, b.) when you eat normally, you will put the weight STRAIGHT back on.
In my teens, I was the self proclaimed Queen of Crash Dieting (but you'll never see my head on a stamp), I remember a period where I would "survive" (I call it surviving, because I was miserable and wasn't really living) on less than 500 calories a day. The lunch I'd take to school was a tin of fruit. Yes, a tin.... of fruit. Sometimes, it wasn't even a full size tin. But then, it would happen that I'd get hungry, crave food, totally binge on inappropriate food and then purge myself of it (vomming was my purge of choice, laxatives a close second). I am just thankful I have the hindsight now (and small and big gapped front teeth as a permanent reminder) to realise what a complete and utter tit I was. I think I hated myself more for what I was doing than actually being the size I was, because looking back, yeah I was big, but I'm a pretty cool person. (N.B. I am very candid and open about my past, I don't feel the need for feeling ashamed because I've acknowledged my mistakes and I am who I am today because of them (although I will never learn that you WILL get your hand caught in a Pringles can if you try to get the last few)).
I still see people today that starve themselves and I just can't get my head around it. I believe anorexia and bulimia are more about control than they are about food. Anorexia is to gain complete control over your life, so much so that you are your own master of your destiny (literally), and bulimia is about wanting that control, losing it and trying to regain it. I think what we need to learn is that we will never have complete control over our lives, and we need to accept that. However, we can regulate aspects and keep them in check.
3. Support. Support. Support.
There's only so much will power a person has. Food is like crack, it can be addictive and that little bit more-ish (or a lot more-ish in my case). My best advice for ROONP, there is safety in numbers.
It's no secret that I owe my successful weight loss to Weight Watchers, but I owe it more to my friend Mandy. She is my friend who first asked me to go to Weight Watchers, and without her I wouldn't have stuck at it. Come to think of it, she's responsible for a lot of good things in my life, she was the one who found the job advert for the current position I'm in (and although I'm not as happy with it as I used to be, I've met some amazing people and been in a fantastic industry), and she also told me about the dating website where I met James. How weird!
But yes, surround yourself with fantastic people who support you. If you have that friend in life who tries to talk you out of what you want and doesn't support you, then sever ties with them. This may sound harsh, but life is too short to spend it being told what you can't do, rather than what you're capable of.
If you want to go to a weight loss group, go with friends. You will encourage each other to go every week and there will be a little bit of healthy competition between you all. The amount of times me and Mandy used to text each other for support, along the lines of "I WANT CHOCOLATE, HELP!" You need that person (or people) in your life who you can relate your experiences to. I can talk to Mandy in terms of points, and it makes sense to both of us, we talk to language of Weight Watcherese.
Have support with exercise, join a class with friends, go running with a friend, join a team, just surround yourself with positive people! Exercising on your own is possibly one of the least motivating things ever.
If you find yourself without support, for goodness sake, use me! I'll be your own personal Gillian McKeith (but I'm more qualified and promise not to look at your poo).
If you're in a relationship, live with a partner or have a housemate, get them involved. They don't necessarily have to eat the ROONP way.
This needs explaining.
Right, my fiance is very supportive of what I do. He understands my way of thinking because he has a similar struggle. James has always been a slender guy, has been trying for years to bulk up and has tried many different methods. My ROONP is lower calorie and lower saturated fat, his is higher calorie and lower saturated fat, but we manage this. He has the majority of his calorie intake before he comes home for dinner, so that he knows he will still reach his target regardless of what he has with me for dinner. Sometimes at home, we exercise together, because we spur eachother on. I'm very thankful I have his support, because we are both foodies at heart, if we could eat take away every day, we would. We are lazy, we like to eat and we like junk food, but we also care about each other's well being so we try that bit harder.
(He is doing a similar thing to me, but blogging his experiences with trying to gain weight and muscle, which can be seen
here and is beneficial for any guys (or girls) in a similar situation).
4. Don't deny yourself
The worst thing you can do in a ROONP is denying yourself foods. You need all sorts of food. Do not fall for the kind of bollocks like the Maple Syrup D word, Cabbage Soup D word, or even Atkins. They are faddy and by saying you can't have foods just makes you want them all the more. It's everything in moderation.
5. Tablets
Not diet pills (although the herbal ones are okay), but multivitamins. Get your body kitted out. I believe people should take multivitamins anyway, but you need them more so when you're ROONPing. Also, use a thermogenic like Green Tea tablets, it will naturally increase your metabolism and make you sweat more (gross, but really useful when exercising). Caffeine is good in moderation, but be wary of caffeinated drinks as they can add to unnecessary calories (swap full fat fizzy drinks for their diet brother, or water/squash. With tea and coffee, switch to red milk or don't have sugar, you will get used to the taste).
6. Figure out why you gained weight in the first place
How can you change something when you don't know what started, caused or exacerbated it?
For me, my most unhealthy time was University. But I would totally do it again. These were (and some still are) my downfalls:
a.) Alcohol.
At uni, I drank about four times a week, to excess. And my drink of choice was Snakebite (for those of you that don't know, it's beer + cider + blackcurrant + excess = purple vom). I would have about 2 of them a night, 2 or 3 shots of Corky's, 3 VKs, and half a bottle of Lambrini before leaving the house.
Let's do the maths:
A snakebite roughly has 230 calories in it, a White Chocolate Corkys is 102 calories, VK apple has 179 calories per bottle and half a bottle of Lambrini is roughly 275 calories.
230 + 230 + 102 + 102 + 102 + 179 + 179 + 179 + 275 =
1,578.
Then we need to include the compulsory Large Donor Kebab I'd have when I got home, which is around the 1,400 calories.
Altogether that makes my average night out 2,978 calories. That's about 1,000 calories over my recommended daily allowance, that's not including the food I would have during the day! (Let's put it this way, it probably wasn't a salad for lunch).
If we're talking WW points (and I love talking points), at the time I was at uni, I would have been allowed around 27 points a day. The alcohol ALONE is my 27 points.
It's when you examine this kind of thing, you realise why.
The first step: Drink less. Drink fewer nights a week, you'll cut out so much already. Don't drink during the week, it'll take you fewer drinks to get tipsy at the weekend as your tolerance will change.
The second step: Swap beers and sugary alcopops for straight spirits. Vodka is my spirit of choice. In a single shot of vodka, it's 55 calories. FIFTY. FIVE. (Or one WW point)
The third step: Swap full sugar mixers for their diet counterpart. 0 points, very few calories.
b. Takeaways
I love the laziness that comes with takeaways (and we all know, I'm a lazy mofo). Back at university, I would eat take away about 4 times a week. Big fan of pizza, Indian, Chinese and Kebab.
For pizza, I would have an XL BBQ pizza (That's 16 inches). Whatever I did not eat on the night, I'd have the next morning. One of those pizzas is roughly 2500 calories (or 48 WW points). That's a lot!
For the next bit, I've decided to do examples in a table, it's better than me writing shit loads!
These are just some rough calories from reputable websites. I'm not saying change your current take away habits for the ones suggested, but ignorance isn't an excuse! You can find rough estimates of take away calories online, so have a look at what's generally lower in calorie and have that instead.
Either that or do what I do with take aways. The most frequent one I have is a Chicken Shish Kebab, I have that about once every week and a half. Then once a month, or every two months, I will have an Indian, Chinese or Pizza.
When it comes to Indian, I refuse to give up my Chicken Korma. Point Blank. I love it far too much. So I haven't given it up, I just have it on a special occassion (and don't give me that crap about them tasting just as good if you make it yourself, or if you store buy it, it doesn't. I want it dripping in ghee, so unhealthy my arteries want to burst), and no, your cousin's gerbil's mum's 6th anniversary of their death does not count. Put down the take away menu and step away.
c. Snacking
I am a snacker. Anything sweet for me. Chocolate is my big downfall. My worst is when I first started doing Waking Nights at work (For those who don't know, Waking Nights are when you have to do a turn around from doing a day shift, to covering a 21:30 - 7:30 am shift, on your own for 10 hours, it's mind numbingly lonely, dull and scary). I would consume anything any everything, but my worst was having one of the big share bags (and note I say "share") of Galaxy Minstrels.
And I'm talking the 270g ones here, the "more to share". I'd get through one of them a night, two (or three) nights in a row. In one of those bags it is 1,459 calories, I shit you not.
By the way, if any of you out there are saying "I could never get through one of them on my own", that is a bald faced lie and you know it! Anyone put in a boredom or stressful situation could cannonball their way through that bad boy.
I'd use the excuse of "It's only twice in one week, it's fine", but that was twice a week, two times a month, along with the calories I'd eat during the day.
This is my new method:
I measure out 60g of Butterkist Cinema Sweet Popcorn (303 Calories), 2 Satsumas (50 Calories for the 2), tube of Smarties (174 Calories) and sometimes the optional 1 bag of Monster Munch (108 Calories).
That's 635 Calories altogether, which pales in comparison of the 1,459 Calorie Chocolate!
My tip, find something else sweet to substitute, and mix it up with fruit. Om nom nom nom.
7. Exercise
Man cannot lose weight by the D-word alone. Cardio Cardio Cardio Cardio. Exercise will make you feel great about yourself (even though at the time you're doing it, you'll hate everyone and want them all to catch fire) and it will help tone and sculpt you.
Despite what you may be told by adverts for exercise equipment (Slendertone is the number one for this), you CANNOT spot train. Spot training means you work on one particular body part and you will lose weight from it. It's a load of bollocks. For example (and a lot of my friends are guilty for this, and I have been in the past), if you dislike your stomach because of excess fat cells, the myth is that by doing lots of sit ups, you will have a toned and flat stomach. This. Is. Bollocks. True, you will gain fantastic muscles. However, you will not be able to see them, they will be under the existing fat cells!
Cardio exercise is key, you need to get your heart pumping, sweat pouring and you need to get out of breath, THIS IS WHAT BURNS FAT. They recommend AT LEAST 4 lots of 30 minute Cardio per week for a reason. It is bloody good for you (if you ignore the case of
Jim Fixx).
8. Structure
If I'm going to stick to something, I need structure. I need a plan. I need a ROONP. Weight Watchers was mine, and I whole heartedly recommend it, and I know many others who would. I know many who would recommend Slimming World too, it's all about personal preference.
Personally, I would not do the following:
Atkins, Slimfast, Cambridge Diet, Cabbage Diet, Maple Syrup Diet, or any other faddy diets that include swapping food for shakes (I have teeth, I can chew thank you, it burns more calories), cutting out complete food groups, restricting calories too much (I've heard of diets where you have 400- 500 calories a day, it is mental), or where you are recommended to chew on kangaroo knob (I may have just made that one up, but I imagine there's similar out there).
If you're likely to be susceptible and nothing else has worked for you, you can even try hypnotherapy (although I think it's for the easily manipulated and is all in the mind and a bit bollocks, if it works for you, it works for you!)
9. Treat yourself well.
Example, I had a shit Waking Night on Wednesday 12th January 2011, the shittest of the shit. I spent 5 hours at A&E, I was stressed, on energy drinks, but had gone past the stage of being hungry because I was worried and completely anxious. After a long sleep Thursday morning - afternoon, I text James saying "We're having Dominoes tonight". And you know what? We did. I bought myself a Large Texas BBQ pizza with Delite Mozarella (Low Fat Option), and although occassionally I had the "This is naughty" thought, I don't feel guilty about this. Not one bit. I ate 3/4 of it and threw out the rest. It was what I needed. I needed to give up control and to just do what I wanted for one night. Every now and again you need to do this.
However, if you find that the stresses in your life are causing you to eat badly more often, then you need to re-examine your life and job. No career should make you that stressed.
Another example, I gained almost a stone over Christmas. I will not be good over Christmas or on my Birthday. No way. These are MY times and always will be. (The good thing is, I've lost the stone already, because my metabolism was so high from eating all the crap over Christmas, as soon as I started eating sensibly and exercising, it dropped back off).
I think this will be enough to get anyone started, my fingers may go numb if I type anymore. I will elaborate on things I've spoken about on here more in future posts, but I need to jump on the Kinnect and burn some fat. Yeah Roy!
Peace out biatches. X
