A Graceful Descent

[Mifford]

yep - only 1/2lb again. I need a banging my head against a brick wall smiley! I wouldn't mind if I'd done anything to explain why it's not coming off but based on what I'm eating each day it doesn't make sense. I've stuck to my daily points all of this week and I think used something like 5 weeklies in total whereas last week I probably used all of them and lost the same amount.

I really don't get it.

Anyway - I've worked out that the 3 weeks I've increased the carbs to use my daily points and not be under I've only gained 1/2lb but if I don't have the carbs I'm really struggling to use my daily points and then I don't lose at all. So as from tomorrow I'm going to switch to the filling and healthy plan where I eat just foods marked green in the plan and then have 49 weeklies and see if it makes any difference in next week's weight loss. It fits better with the kind of foods I naturally eat and if I don't need to count my points it gives me the freedom to have as much of the healthier foods as I feel I need without worrying about whether I'm pointing enough or not. Fingers crossed that it suits my body better.

And I definitely need to do something - I was going to try a mild increase in my thyroid meds if I didn't lose over 1/2 lb this week but as of this afternoon I suddenly developed pins and needles down the left of my face and in my left hand again which has now been going on for 4 1/2 hours unbroken and my eye clamped shut for the second time. I was given an emergency appointment at the doctors and the one I saw this evening is totally stumped and doesn't have a clue what it is. The area that I'm describing the pins and needles in my face he says ties in totally with a particular neurological nerve (can't remember which one) but the hand thing has him confused as that would normally be coming from my neck.

The good news is he doesn't seem to think its urgent right now and has sent me away with a prescription for anti-biotics in case its an infection of some kind sparking it off. The bad news is that because I had this before about 15 years ago and it has happened interimittently in between (usually for a few minutes only though) I now have a referral to neurology and have to to wait for an appointment. I just hope that if they are going to start looking at my brain that they find something there worth looking at!!!!! lol

So I don't think I should risk changing my meds without drs approval right now and I'll be crossing everything this week that the healthy and filling route works.

Now I'm off to read my booklets and work out what I'm eating this next week ....

 

[Michillinwoman]

Hi Miff . I can see you are frustrated with this but I know you have the determination to hang in there (well done on planning this week) . The Carbs are hard to know really . I try just to have the healthy ones (wholemeal bread, pasta etc) and what about increasing your protein to increase your points ?? just throwing things out there.

I hope the neurologist will be able to shed some light on your face pins and needles. Will you have long to wait for appointment ?? .

You are brilliant for hanging in there with the looseing weight with all your medical problems . With that persistance you will succeed .

 

[Mifford]

thanks - I'm guessing appointment will take about 3 months to come through but not sure.

At the moment I think its just finding out what my body will accept me having and what it won't - as soon as I find the balance that works for it I'm sure it will start doing what its meant to. And if it doesn't then I'm just going to have to learn to live with 1/2lb off a week because I don't really have any other option really lol

with any luck the simply satisfying will give it a bit of a kick again and drop a bit of a higher amount this week - but I'm also bearing in mind that I did lose some before I started WW so I'm now 13lbs down in total and 8lbs down with WW. Its just taking me a bit longer than most but as long as it keeps going in that direction then at least its heading the right way and I'm going to have to learn patience - not my strongpoint

I'm liking the challenge of the simply satisfying though - I've had to think what I'm eating a bit more today. Looking at what I've done until now I think my normal diet kind of falls somewhere between propoints and simply satisfying - on PP I'm struggling to get my points up without eating non healthy and filling foods but I've been eating a few too many of them to fit into SS totally. Its nice to think I fancy a glass of milk this afternoon without having to think about how many points I'm having or how many I need to use up.

Today has gone as follows:-

Breakfast - boiled egg, slice of WW bread toasted (no butter) and chopped honeydew melon (almost half of one)

Snack - rest of the half a melon that I didn't finish at breakfast

Lunch - crispy salad, beetroot, celery, hard boiled egg and smoked salmon trimmings (thought these were H&F but works out I had to count the points - doh), apple and a curly wurly as a treat.

Dinner - cod with new potatoes and stir fried vegetables using 1 teaspoon of olive oil, fruit

At some point I'm planning on throwing in a smoothie of some kind as well to which I'll add 1 teaspoon of flax seed oil but just don't know if it will be an afternoon snack or pudding for dinner. I also have celery or carrot to chop to have as snacks if I want - possibly even with a bit of low fat cottage cheese to add flavour.

I'm quite enjoying it so far - certainly feels healthier

 

[Michillinwoman]

Forgot to say to you in my last post ,you mentioned you have a cat . We had two up to recently and one just disappeared . I was heartbroken after her. She was a real gentle little thing. We are now left with our ginger tom who thinks he is no.5 in the family. He is so funny and playfull and can be found anywhere in the house . we were painting today and he walked on the lid of the paint tin and carried little blue paw marks all over my kitchen !!!!. The kids love him and carry him around like a baby in their arms. .. He is very good inside .He never makes a mess (unless someone has locked him in a room by mistake).we have a catflap so he can go in and out.

We also have a dog and a tortoise ... My husband always says if we had a bigger house I would have a menagerie !!!!!!!!.

Whats your cat like?

 

[Mifford]

aaaagggh - just typed a long post and lost it before I posted.

Cassie thinks she IS the family - she's an absolute queen who thinks she runs my house and has far too much personality for her own good lol She's a tortoiseshell and she's 4 years old now. I love her to pieces but she is definitely demanding lol

Today I went cherry picking on the way back from a meeting with a client. I ended up eating almost as many as went in the punnett to buy I think hahahaha They are absolutely delicious though.

I'm definitely enjoying the simply filling plan (now I've worked out the proper name of it!). I'm a bit hungrier than on the propoints as the stuff I'm eating is lighter and probably has more water in it but then I'm snacking in between on fruit so its cool.

Yesterday I adjusted dinner slightly so it ended up being steamed cod, new potatoes and a big corn on the cob drizzled with olive oil. I then followed it with 2 meringue nests (3 points) topped with madarin which was yummy. Its taking me a little while to get my head round the idea of using my weekly points but its difficult to do the simply filling without using them so I'm trying to split them over the week and use them for healthy add ins to add flavour rather than just using them for less healthy snacks so hopefully that'll work for me this week.

Anyway - today's menu ..

Breakfast
Melon & mint smoothie with low fat natural probiotic yogurt & teaspoon of flax seed oil

Snack
Cherries straight off the tree

Lunch
Apple & celery salad, 10 cashew nuts (3 points) & homemade dressing with yogurt, lime & olive oil
Melon

Dinner
Chicken stir fried with a whole load of mixed veg and possibly some new potato depending on what I fancy by then. I'll probably have a meringue topped with fruit again as well as it then feels like I'm eating normally and not dieting as such.

Oh the only downside of the simply filling is that because there's a lot more water in what I'm eating I haven't stopped peeing all day!!! lol

 

[Michillinwoman]

Hi Miff . I hate when that happens looseing posts like that!!!!!!!!!.

Your cat sounds full of personality and fun . Its amazing how attached you can become to them. They are great company though. We live in the country side and it can be hard to keep them sometimes as they wander offbut as the saying goes you never own a cat they own you!!!!


Your food sounds just amazing . Who said you cant eat well on a "diet". Its eating healthily though isnt it and cutting out all the high point sh.t . What you are doing sounds very sensible. I loved the idea of picking your own fruit. We cant really do that here as there arnt many fruit growers here. Hope the rest of your day goes well .

 

[Mifford]

that's what is frustrating with me and dieting - I don't have to cut out the high point sh*t as I rarely ate it to begin with. I'm now eating more than I did before I started WW but as I said before I think I was maybe falling somewhere between PP and simply filling - not eating enough pointed foods for PP but eating too many for simply filling. I won't know until Tuesday night how this works out but I'm crossing my fingers that this suits my body better.

I guess the thing with having a thyroid problem is that what is normal for anyone else just simply isn't normal for me and I have to just accept that and find a balance that works. Its a bit of trial and error at the moment to see what works and what doesn't - I've worked out that increasing the carbs to bring the points up doesn't work for me and trying to keep them low on PP means I struggle to get my points used so lets see what my body makes of this week Or it could even be that I just need to change what I'm doing every few weeks to shake my system up so it doesn't get too settled - we'll see.

The cat is certainly full of personality - when she wakes me up at 3.30am to pee all over my bed I don't find her so fun though hahahaha I finally let her back in my room about 5am this morning - I was going to shut her out for good this time but she was crying so pitifully outside my door and was so desperate to get in that I gave in and opened the door again. She then fell asleep clutching my arm so I couldn't abandon her lol Yep she's a pain in the butt most of the time but she is cute

 

[Mifford]

omg - I am SO hungry today its insane!! No idea what's up with me but my appetite has gone nuts. Keeping within my daily budget for bonus points is not going to be easy lol

But then again I'm determined to stick to it and not overeat even on the filling and healthy stuff. My scales this morning are back where I want them again so now I've got to make sure they stay that way for Tuesday evening - although they do this to me every week where they are down during the week right up until I get weighed when they suddenly shoot up again. But this week I'm keeping everything crossed that I beat that trend.

Anyway so far today menu is as follows:-

Breakfast

20g puffed wheat and milk with a teaspoon of sugar (just couldn't stomach them without as they were too bland) (1pp)
Pear

Snacks = satsuma & curly wurly (3pps)

Lunch = mixed bean salad, lettuce, beetroot, butternut squash & 50g low fat feta cheese (2 pps). 2 slices of WW bread. Fruit and sugar free jelly.

Dinner = pork escalope and ratatouille. I might have a jacket potato or some wholemeal pasta with this as well as I'm so hungry today.

I know I could make myself a sandwich with WW bread and some turkey slice for a snack as well but I'm really trying to resist the temptation to do it. Then again the idea of simply filling is to eat until I'm satisfied so maybe I might make a sandwich as an afternoon snack as opposed to fruit if I'm still that hungry after lunch and that way I'm learning to listen to what my body actually needs rather than what I think it does.

So as long as I don't use any more of my weeklies than I've already had today that leaves me with 26 for the next 4 days so 6 1/2 each day. That should be do-able without a problem - it just takes some concentration and planning. I could save 2 pps at lunch by making the salad with ham or turkey instead of the feta cheese but I'm really craving that right now so I'm going to allow myself to have it

 

[Mifford]

ok I don't know what is happening this week but I could easily eat my entire house again today. Not the contents - the whole actual house!!!

I've never eaten so much fruit in my life - I don't see me losing a lot of weight again this week lol I'm guessing the switch of plan may be responsible but hopefully once my body adjusts it'll find a balance again. Either that or its where my thyroid meds are wearing off from the decrease and its impacting me - I can't do my planned slight nudge increase this week because of the other stuff I've had going on so don't dare risk it but I might try that from next week and see what happens.

So far today I've had scrambled egg on toast for breakfast followed by a load of grapes and I'm planning lunch the same as yesterday - I tend to make up a BIG salad and then eat it in 2 sittings rather than on the 1 day. Dinner will be bubble & squeek made with spinach, cabbage and green leaves, potato all mashed and then topped with a small amount of low fat grated cheese.

I've already had my daily curly wurly allowance and I'm down to 18 bonus points left to see me through until the end of Tuesday. Its been fine so far in that I've spread my weeklies over the week to give me so many a day but this will be the first time I've used all of my weeklies as the weeks until now I've had loads of them left at the end of the week. I need to work it out for next week though as I'm hoping to hit the cinema next weekend for Harry Potter which means I need to find a way of keeping about 20 of the weeklies just for the popcorn I will take with me and that's going to make sticking to simply filling difficult. Could be an interesting challenge though - we'll see

 

[Mifford]

My weekly phone call to my nan this morning and I discovered last weekend that my mum had let slip that I was doing WW again. First thing out of her mouth - so have you lost weight this week then?

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo - I've made it VERY clear that this is exactly why I didn't tell anyone I'm doing it and I am NOT discussing whether or not I've lost weight each week or what I am or am not eating because it puts too much pressure on straight away.

Its difficult to explain to other people but I'm not actually doing WW just for the weight loss either - because of my thyroid I know that that is pretty much out of my hands and it doesn't matter how well I stick to the diet my body will lose what it wants when it wants and there's very little I can do to affect that. But over the years I've managed to get a really screwed up relationship with food and my body image etc and over the last 2 years I've been pretty much starving myself and eating really irratically to try and keep my weight down. Plus having done Cambridge it was really hard to get myself back to a normal diet. So part of the reason for me doing WW is to deal with the mental side of it and to remind myself how to eat a normal healthy balanced diet and that it's ok to actually have food again. If I lose the weight on the way then great but if I don't then I know that I am eating properly and it means that my thyroid is what is causing the weight to stay where it is and I need to change my meds.

So as part of that this week's challenge is to reduce the number of times I weigh myself to twice a day and no more. I'm panicking just at the idea of being in my bathroom and NOT getting on the scales - I have no idea why but its like an addiction. The idea of trusting myself to stick to the diet and not weigh myself that often to check whether its working ok or not is seriously scary - I'm paranoid that if I don't keep an eye on it all the time then I'm going to regain everything and be back to where I started and that certainly isn't healthy and needs to stop. Over time. So this week I'm challenging myself to cut it down to twice a day if I can. Next week will be down to once a day. Week after is every other day and so on until I get to the point where my life is no longer ruled by the scales but they are there as a tool to help me here and there.

Which is where WW comes in and is why I'm staying to the meetings every week - I have to keep reminding myself as to what is "normal" and that all of this psychological stuff needs dealing with if this is going to work for good.

Right - therapy session over for today lol I'm about to go and make lunch and then this afternoon I'm meeting a friend to go on a 3 1/4 mile walk locally. I'm actually quite looking forward to the challenge of treking through fields and over styles as I've not done that for years and it strikes me as being a bit more fun than 30 minutes on the cross trainer with the tv on in the background

Today's menu ...

Breakfast

Banana, oat and pineapple milkshake/smoothie with teaspoon flaxseed oil

Lunch

Ham, beetroot, celery, grated carrot and apple salad
2 x kiwi fruit

Dinner

Stir fried chicken with aubergine, babycorn, mange tout, asparagus, half a tin of ratatouille (needs using up) and butternut squash mash
Rhubarb crumble

I'll take a couple of satsumas out with me on my walk and try and avoiding snacking on anything but fruit this evening.

And if I can stick to this without straying from it at all then it will be my first day that I manage to stick to healthy & filling foods only without the need to use any of my weeklies so that would be satisfying

 

[Michillinwoman]

Hi Miff . Hope you had a lovely walk today. Your food looks excellent . With all this filling foods you will probably find yu have less cravings for the sweet things. I now crave melon and oranges !!!!!!!

I know what you mean about people asking you .Well what did you lose this week !!!!!!!!! ? . Just puts more pressure on doesnt it.

Hope you have a good day tomorrow .Keep up the good work

 

[Karen]

Hi Mifford

Im exactly the same about not telling anyone Im on WW. Only my hubby, sister and parents know and its only really my sister that asks. I love having everyone here to talk to about the plan and then be 'anon' in the playground or out having coffee with friends.

I think you have a very healthy attitude towards WW and your medical status. You'll benefit from your approach and that will keep you sane for the long term Enjoying your diary xxx

 

[Mifford]

thanks - my diary is kind of my free of charge counselling session lol Its easier to type things down in here as a kind of random stream of consciousness which is always so much easier when its on something so anonymous.

Today I'm having a real "sod it" type of day. I have no idea why but I can't be bothered with it today and I don't feel like making up food etc. I'm trying to stick on plan at the same time but I've not logged anything today and I'm just not going to worry about it. Its one of those throw together anything I find in the cupboard without giving it too much thought and just hope it works days. I think I just need to have the odd day here and there where I'm not thinking about what I'm eating all the time and I just give myself a bit of a break. I'm trying not to go off track too much at the same time as I have weigh in night tomorrow and I don't want to blow anything I've done this week so close to it.

so today has been ...

Breakfast

chocolate & mint milkshake made with WW hot chocolate drink and fresh mint (1pp)
2 slices of toast with WW bread

Lunch
1/2 tin chickpeas
2 boiled eggs
small tin of tuna & sweetcorn in mayonnaise (1pp)
Grapes

Dinner

Sweetcorn and butterbean chowder (1pp)

I still never got round to making rhubarb crumble as I ended up eating meringues last night instead but I may try and do that tonight and see if that gets me back on track to realise that I can eat "normal" food while staying on track. I've enjoyed doing the simply filling this week but I think I'm mentally beginning to rebel against being restricted on what I eat - I've eaten so healthily all week I have this urge to go and eat something less "pure"!

 

[Karen]

TA-DA!

chocolate & mint milkshake made with WW hot chocolate drink and fresh mint (1pp)
2 slices of toast with WW bread (4) Butter? (2ish)

Lunch
1/2 tin chickpeas (3 per 100g - so 6PPs for 1/2 of a large tin)
2 boiled eggs (4 for medium or 5 for large)
small tin of tuna & sweetcorn in mayonnaise (1pp)
Grapes (0)

Dinner

Sweetcorn and butterbean chowder (1pp)


I like the sound of that chowder! Do you have the recipe? xx

 

[Mifford]

aha - those points would be the case if I was pointing but I'm doing simply filling this week so I only count the points that aren't on the list. Bizarelly I had my toast dry - sounds horrible I know and I had to have it with a cup of tea to stop it being too bad but I only had 7 weeklies available for the whole of today and tomorrow so didn't want to use any that I could avoid. That is the downside of the simply filling - ANYTHING that isn't on the list has to come off the weeklies and I then don't have many left for any little treats. I'm going to see what my weight loss is like for this week and if its better then next week I'm going to try planning it better and start adding things like potato to bulk things out more. I might try a week of dinners being white meat or fish, veggies and potatoes with the hope that it leaves me with enough weeklies to be able to have popcorn at the cinema when I hopefully go to see Harry Potter lol

The sweetcorn and butterbean is a Carol Vorderman special and to save me typing it out I just found it online for you

Celebrity square meals: Carol Vorderman's butter bean chowder with green chilli cornbread - Recipes, Food & Drink - The Independent

I don't add the garlic or pepper as my stomach can't handle either and I blitzed it to make it a smooth soup but it was still absolutely delicious. On the simply filling I only have to count 1 point for the stock and I'm afraid I can't remember how many points I calculated on the pro points as its a while since I made it - I think its probably on my diary here somewhere though. Its designed to make enough for 4 people but I think I reduced the quantities thinking it would make 2 bigger meals but still ended up having to split it in 3 - I don't think I followed the recipe weights too closely though and it was probably a case of stick in a tin of butterbeans, tin of potatoes, tin of sweetcorn etc.

Oh and I haven't got a clue what the chilli cornbread is like because I can't eat either chillis or wheat either but her recipes are usually REALLY good and generally very healthy so I would expect that to be as well

 

[Mifford]

nope I mentioned the chowder last time I had it but annoyingly didn't point it - sorry

oh and I think I've discovered the other downside of the simply filling. I couldn't work out why I'm so edgy today and not wanting any of the healthy food and just kind of fed up - until I started noticing that my hands were shaking around 3ish so had something sweet and I'm suddenly feeling a lot better and more positive again. It didn't occur to me that when I'm sticking to the simply filling to the letter I'm very low GI and I didn't realise it my set me off on a hypoglycaemic attack. I will need to keep an eye on that and it could be that I need to start adding in some porridge oats etc - I probably should have added them to my shake this morning to level things off a bit. Its generally a sign that my thyroid meds are too low and I think that is the case again at the moment so I've started to give them a little nudge by just throwing in a very minor increase once a week to see how I get on with that. Watch this space - it'll start to take effect in about 3 or 4 weeks so it'll be interesting to see how my weight losses reflect it.

 

[Mifford]

well according to my own scales I'm down by .... 1/2lb this week. Aaaaaaaaaggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!! The only slight worry on that is that my scales showed a bigger loss than the WW scales last week so now I'm panicking that it means that I won't be showing a loss at all tonight!

SO frustrating but it could be that I just have to accept that my body is going to give up 1/2lb a week and that's it no matter what I do. Exercise, no exercise, carbs, no carbs, pro points, simply filling, use weeklies, don't use weeklies ... all roads lead to 1/2lb. Its making it harder and harder to resist the Cambridge shakes that I have leftover in my kitchen knowing that I could do a week of Cambridge and kick myself down to being out of the obesity bracket. So far I'm ignoring it as I'm committing to doing this healthily but its taking quite some willpower.

So in order to distract myself I have decided to take the morning off work and drag my arse into town to buy an outfit. I'm not going to spend loads on lots of separate items as I have loads of those in my wardrobe already and can never find anything that goes together to wear but I'm going to actually buy one complete outfit that goes together as a whole and makes me feel really good right now.

Oh and I forgot to mention yesterday that on the good news front - I may only be losing 1/2lb a week but I am now able to fit back into my size 14 linen trousers. I'm not going to pretend they aren't tight but 2 months ago I couldn't even get close to doing them up and they were hidden in the back of the wardrobe so its a definite achievement so that's making me feel good right now

Breakfast was a big fruit salad. Lunch will be wholegrain couscous with chickpeas, cucumber and no idea what. Dinner I haven't planned yet but as its post weigh in I may go with gluten free pasta and low fat feta cheese as a treat.

Hope everyone else is having a good day and fingers crossed for my official weigh in tonight!

 

[Michillinwoman]

Well done on keeping the willpower going Miff . Its a minus each week and as yo say you are seeing a change in your clothes . Hope you have a nice day shopping .Beautiful sunny day here. Let us know how it goes tonight .

 

[Mifford]

its a grotty drizzly day here unfortunately. I did enjoy the shopping though - especially when I was getting into tops the next size down One of them I decided to go for a larger size because I preferred the way it hung but it surprised me that I wasn't worried about what the size itself said because I knew the next size down did actually fit - that's a big difference psychologically.

I found an absolutely gorgeous skirt in TK Maxx down from £130 to £30 that came home with me - its a little bit on the "snug" side at the moment but I'm viewing that as incentive to keep going.

I got a few really nice tops on offer in New Look as well that are much brighter than I usually wear. So I have 2 tops that go with my jeans, work skirts or the denim skirt I got. And then I have a gorgeous mainly bright orange top that goes with the skirt as well as all the previously mentioned clothes. And a cropped yellow cardigan to cover the tops of my arms that goes with everything as well. So in 6 items I've probably given myself somewhere between 15 and 20 outfit options. I refused to buy anything that I couldn't picture at least 4 different things I could wear it with and look good which is most unlike me as I tend to buy the same basic stuff all the time and then never have anything that goes together - I'm planning that by the time I have finished dieting I will have put myself together a classic "capsule" wardrobe without having quite so much rubbish that doesn't get worn. At least that's the plan - whether it will ever happen is a totally different matter lol

Still crossing my fingers for my weigh in in an hour - I'm not eating or drinking anything between now and then and I'm going to try peeing as many times as humanly possible in between hahahahahaha

 

[Mifford]

well that was much better than I expected - I was dreading getting on the scales and seeing either a sts or gain or at best 1/2lb loss again. I am down 1lb. A WHOLE ONE!!! wahoooooooooooooooooooo

I know its not much but its double what I have been losing and for me 1lb is quite an achievement as my body quite simply does not give up weight easily. My thyroid is still all over the place and I have now lost 9lb despite that which feels like quite an achievement. For some reason getting to the 9 is psychologically a lot bigger than the 7 or 8 as it feels like a real loss and not something that I can go up and down by quite so easily.

And I had a lightbulb moment this evening. The meeting was discussing changing habits and the subject came up of anyone having tried other possibly more extreme diets before and I offered to just take over the meeting at that point if the leader wanted me to because whatever diet anyone wanted to know about I had done and could tell you why its a bad idea to do it! I reeled off a long list of the ones I've tried - I think to everyone else's horror from the looks on some of their faces. When I got home I sat down with a cup of tea and I started remembering everything I've done over the years ...

Cambridge Diet (put me in A&E)
Slimming World
2 different versions of Weight Watchers (this is my 3rd)
Atkins diet
Food combining
Low GI diet
Dukan diet
South Beach diet
Carol Vorderman Detox (3 different versions)
2 years with nutritionists and various diet supplements (that was the only one that was actually healthy!)
Chromium supplements
Only eating 1 meal a day
Limiting to 800 - 1,000 calories a day
Rosemary Connelly
Appetite suppressants (on prescription)
The presciption strength version of Alli (xenical or orlistat? I know I had both but can't remember which did what)
Metformin (diabetes drug)
Wheat free
Dairy free
Wheat free and dairy free together
PCOS diet
Juice master
Ration book diet
Personal trainers
Acupunture
Homeopathy
Hypnosis

And I'm sure there are more - these are just the ones I can remember off the top of my head. When I got home I also started remembering all the times I'd been told my weight was the problem and made to feel that I was responsible for being overweight (I wasn't - it was my untreated thyroid) and how that made me feel like such a failure as I was already half starving myself with no success so each time I would just cut back and eat less and less. I was put through so many tests for stuff that I didn't have or misdiagnosed because no-one would listen to me as well and some of the treatments made the weight problem worse as well. I had years of being subjected to the humiliation of that judgement and feeling that this was somehow something I was doing wrong and I have been at the point of absolute DESPERATION to lose weight and not knowing why I couldn't.

So when I eventually stopped feeling the absolute horror of it all I got up and went to my kitchen, took my Cambridge shakes out of the tin where I've kept them and they are now at the very bottom of a very horrible disgusting wheelie bin where I cannot get to them again.

As of right now I am taking my life back and I refuse to feel like I need to take desperate measures to fix it. If I only lose 1/2lb a week by doing it sensibly then 1/2lb a week it is no matter how long it takes. I am NOT going back to how I used to be again no matter what.

My name is Miffy and this is my confession. Thank you for letting me share and I now feel a huge sense of relief that I will never EVER do that to myself again. I am DEFINITELY worth so much more.