MissAma
Silver Member
###WARNING MEGA LONG AND POTENTIALLY CONTROVERSIAL###
Okay then - gigantic water bottle at the ready and metric to pounds calculator as well (metric is what I use in my head but it would make no sense to the reader) so let's do this.
I have Beverley75 to thank for motivating me to write this. In the past few years I often thought that if I had had a diary and kept to it I would have found it harder to ummm... "stumble"
On the "Get a baby" mission that took a few years and considerable fertility challenges I had a diary and that community helped me to no end.
Let's see when has all of this adventure started? 1978 I guess I was big all along. Not "big", I'm only 5'6" - fat. Not horribly so, I was lucky and it looked slightly proportionate even at my hugest which meant that with the exception of a bully or two I didn't have horribly long lasting effects from being chubby and it didn't prompt me to change. It seemed to not even be an issue with boys so while I have tried all diets under the sun for -chiefly- half arsed attempts and short periods of time here I am in 2009, over 30 and being told by the NHS equivalent in Sweden that we can get on the waiting list but it's no wonder our other IVF attempts didn't work, we're fat and smoking so we need to change that. I came home and cried up in arms that they dared blame our well documented infertility (his fault) on my rolls of flab and vowing to do another private attempt instead. But we were out of money and will to live so a day or two after the indignation I realised they were right. So here I was. January 2009 "honey, we have to give up ciggies and food, let's do it together". I was 280 lbs with a BMI of nearly 50. His was maybe 40. We were chubby and to be fair we were blissfully enjoying life and food together. But yes, we wanted the baby more than the jaffa cakes so we settled on Cambridge. I started writing on here (dig out those embarassing posts if you want to laugh, I took all the before pictures, bought a Wii Fit Balance (I still miss its sound every morning as I stepped on it) and found a consultant (never a real one BTW so J, if you ever get to read this after our first meeting in January, while I am an old hat at Cambridge I am not very lucky to have ever had a consultant's support, they were mostly sellers of packages to me and your "well done" on email a few days ago is more encouragement than any of them provided LOL but KD here was one of my inspirations of all time.)
It was marvellous to do it with the hubby the first time - I attribute the success mostly to that. He lost it fast of course -I was on 3 series of 12 weeks, he was done after 1 and a half and didn't even have to do maintenance right but still annoyingly kept it off but I kept going. Sole Source. Never cheated once. Not even sugar free stuff. Water and 3 shakes. Nearly 8 months. I was nearly at target when I nearly died. My gall bladder literally exploded after having no fat for 8 months and it was bombarding my pancreas with stones - peritonitis - nearly died. Nonetheless my chief concern was how many bags of glucose they were pouring in my veins pre-op!
Here I am at the end of 2009 told not to go back to CD but maybe do something other to lose remaining and maintain so I embark on a gruesome 4-5 months of LowCarb (Protein Power and Atkins) and it was lovely at first - food!!!! but then the weight came off very very hard so when we got called for my IVf appointment I paniked and threw in a few weeks of CD which took me to a BMI they'd like - 22.4 (58 kg - 127 lbs). I looked horrid. Loose skin everywhere, gaunt, like i had cancer and having a niggly feeling I have given myself an eating disorder as my main concern was to get into smaller and smaller of sizes "Can I buy XS next week?!?"
I gained the first 45 lbs during the IVF drugs stimulation already so I was already barely able to move when we found out it worked and I was carrying our absolute miracle. I have then eaten everything. EVERY. THING.
December 2010 baby out I jumped on a scale to see what my long awaited Cambridge starting weight was and I was shocked beyond belief - 300 lbs. My heaviest. 170 lbs heavier in 10 months.
Did I jump straight into Sole Source and became a success story all over again? Like hell I did. I was a new mom and had a new job which meant I had to travel abroad every week and I must have started and failed at Cambridge 30 times in the two years to come. I'd lose a bit then gain a lot and so on.
But I learned a lot in this time:
- I learned that doing CD properly by the book is a million times easier than falling off the wagon every two weeks and that failing doesn't mean I need to finish the contents of my kitchen but I can stop after that wrong nibble and just have a shake. Sounds DUH but not to a food addict.
- I learned I have given myself body dysmorphia - falling off the wagon one night meant I would feel fat, disgusting, self loathing to the highest degree, I would physically see new rolls of flab that I could swear were not there that morning only to have them vanish as soon as I had my shake.
- I learned food NEVER tastes as good as I imagine it will and chasing that perfect, heart stopping, worth-killing-for taste moment is just delusional and self-destructive.
- I learned I can go to the gym - I can! I have a FitBit and have consciently worked on building a habit and 4 months later I was addicted. Me!!!
- I learned I need loads of support (my husband having done it with me really helped, my PA being instructed on what not to book me helped, if I kept to MiniMins it would keep me on track as I need accountability, etc)
- I learned looking small is nice (although as I said in another thread I am sexier when I am heavier) but it's not as important as how much easier and doable everything is when I lose the weight and feeling effortless is worth not looking in a certain fashion.
About 6 months ago I made a decision to walk away from Cambridge -for once went up the steps properly- and promised myself I'd succeed at counting calories and gym-ing more and basically losing the remaining weight to target (a much higher target this time! 165 lbs) the right way around as this is a lifetime commitment and the way forward for the rest of my days. In that sense, being on my second day of Sole Source is a failure, I failed at playing nice with food so it disheartens me when I think maintenance will be hell and I'm a restarter on SS again, blah blah but at the same time even now when I restarted in a panic as I was disgusted with myself I was 218 lbs not the 300lbs I was at the beginning of this post-baby last leg of the race.
So last 50 lbs and maintenance for the last time - here we go. It's on now!
P.S. I am adding some pictures so you guys see what was managed the last time (first 3 are before and afters from 2009 and last one is from a couple of weeks ago) and where we're at now.
Okay then - gigantic water bottle at the ready and metric to pounds calculator as well (metric is what I use in my head but it would make no sense to the reader) so let's do this.
I have Beverley75 to thank for motivating me to write this. In the past few years I often thought that if I had had a diary and kept to it I would have found it harder to ummm... "stumble"
On the "Get a baby" mission that took a few years and considerable fertility challenges I had a diary and that community helped me to no end. Let's see when has all of this adventure started? 1978 I guess
I was big all along. Not "big", I'm only 5'6" - fat. Not horribly so, I was lucky and it looked slightly proportionate even at my hugest which meant that with the exception of a bully or two I didn't have horribly long lasting effects from being chubby and it didn't prompt me to change. It seemed to not even be an issue with boys so while I have tried all diets under the sun for -chiefly- half arsed attempts and short periods of time here I am in 2009, over 30 and being told by the NHS equivalent in Sweden that we can get on the waiting list but it's no wonder our other IVF attempts didn't work, we're fat and smoking so we need to change that. I came home and cried up in arms that they dared blame our well documented infertility (his fault) on my rolls of flab and vowing to do another private attempt instead. But we were out of money and will to live so a day or two after the indignation I realised they were right. So here I was. January 2009 "honey, we have to give up ciggies and food, let's do it together". I was 280 lbs with a BMI of nearly 50. His was maybe 40. We were chubby and to be fair we were blissfully enjoying life and food together. But yes, we wanted the baby more than the jaffa cakes so we settled on Cambridge. I started writing on here (dig out those embarassing posts if you want to laugh, I took all the before pictures, bought a Wii Fit Balance (I still miss its sound every morning as I stepped on it) and found a consultant (never a real one BTW so J, if you ever get to read this after our first meeting in January, while I am an old hat at Cambridge I am not very lucky to have ever had a consultant's support, they were mostly sellers of packages to me and your "well done" on email a few days ago is more encouragement than any of them provided LOL but KD here was one of my inspirations of all time.)It was marvellous to do it with the hubby the first time - I attribute the success mostly to that. He lost it fast of course -I was on 3 series of 12 weeks, he was done after 1 and a half and didn't even have to do maintenance right but still annoyingly kept it off but I kept going. Sole Source. Never cheated once. Not even sugar free stuff. Water and 3 shakes. Nearly 8 months. I was nearly at target when I nearly died. My gall bladder literally exploded after having no fat for 8 months and it was bombarding my pancreas with stones - peritonitis - nearly died. Nonetheless my chief concern was how many bags of glucose they were pouring in my veins pre-op!
Here I am at the end of 2009 told not to go back to CD but maybe do something other to lose remaining and maintain so I embark on a gruesome 4-5 months of LowCarb (Protein Power and Atkins) and it was lovely at first - food!!!! but then the weight came off very very hard so when we got called for my IVf appointment I paniked and threw in a few weeks of CD which took me to a BMI they'd like - 22.4 (58 kg - 127 lbs). I looked horrid. Loose skin everywhere, gaunt, like i had cancer and having a niggly feeling I have given myself an eating disorder as my main concern was to get into smaller and smaller of sizes "Can I buy XS next week?!?"
I gained the first 45 lbs during the IVF drugs stimulation already so I was already barely able to move when we found out it worked and I was carrying our absolute miracle. I have then eaten everything. EVERY. THING.
December 2010 baby out I jumped on a scale to see what my long awaited Cambridge starting weight was and I was shocked beyond belief - 300 lbs. My heaviest. 170 lbs heavier in 10 months.
Did I jump straight into Sole Source and became a success story all over again? Like hell I did. I was a new mom and had a new job which meant I had to travel abroad every week and I must have started and failed at Cambridge 30 times in the two years to come. I'd lose a bit then gain a lot and so on.
But I learned a lot in this time:
- I learned that doing CD properly by the book is a million times easier than falling off the wagon every two weeks and that failing doesn't mean I need to finish the contents of my kitchen but I can stop after that wrong nibble and just have a shake. Sounds DUH but not to a food addict.
- I learned I have given myself body dysmorphia - falling off the wagon one night meant I would feel fat, disgusting, self loathing to the highest degree, I would physically see new rolls of flab that I could swear were not there that morning only to have them vanish as soon as I had my shake.
- I learned food NEVER tastes as good as I imagine it will and chasing that perfect, heart stopping, worth-killing-for taste moment is just delusional and self-destructive.
- I learned I can go to the gym - I can! I have a FitBit and have consciently worked on building a habit and 4 months later I was addicted. Me!!!
- I learned I need loads of support (my husband having done it with me really helped, my PA being instructed on what not to book me helped, if I kept to MiniMins it would keep me on track as I need accountability, etc)
- I learned looking small is nice (although as I said in another thread I am sexier when I am heavier) but it's not as important as how much easier and doable everything is when I lose the weight and feeling effortless is worth not looking in a certain fashion.
About 6 months ago I made a decision to walk away from Cambridge -for once went up the steps properly- and promised myself I'd succeed at counting calories and gym-ing more and basically losing the remaining weight to target (a much higher target this time! 165 lbs) the right way around as this is a lifetime commitment and the way forward for the rest of my days. In that sense, being on my second day of Sole Source is a failure, I failed at playing nice with food so it disheartens me when I think maintenance will be hell and I'm a restarter on SS again, blah blah but at the same time even now when I restarted in a panic as I was disgusted with myself I was 218 lbs not the 300lbs I was at the beginning of this post-baby last leg of the race.
So last 50 lbs and maintenance for the last time - here we go. It's on now!
P.S. I am adding some pictures so you guys see what was managed the last time (first 3 are before and afters from 2009 and last one is from a couple of weeks ago) and where we're at now.
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