lulubenice
Member
Hey guys and gals... well tonights the night, tomorrow I start Exante Total Solution and I'm going to try to do this diary religiously in order to keep myself on track... I know this diet works, I've just got to be strong and focus. 12 short weeks... in the greater scheme of things, is nothing.. and I know I can do it.
A long bit of history on me to set the scene...
Well I just turned 37 in December 2011, and I've been dieting in various forms for 27 long years... yup.. my mum first put me on weight watchers when I was a tender ten years old. Since then I've done Weight Watchers at least 5 times, Slimming World two or three times (but it never worked for me... more on that later...) I did Rosemary Conley.. hopeless... tried various fads... joined a gym and went 5-6 times a week with very limited success...until when I was 29 I went to the GP and was diagnosed with PCOS
Finally... I had a reason why although I can overindulge with the best of them, what I ate never seemed to justify how big i was. I would read Weight loss stories in women's magazines, but couldn't identify with these women who'd lost huge amounts of weight by cutting out the 5 mars bars, 4 breakfasts and two Mcdonalds a day they'd been having only to find their excess weight melt off... well of course it did... but that wasn't me...why was I different?!!...
I'd had skimmed milk and sweeteners since a young child, I didn't eat meat back then, had and still have a pathological loathing of greasy food like chips, can take crisps or leave them, yeah i like chocolate but have maybe 1-2 bars a week never a daily occurrence...i wasn't a secret binger or a junk food addict.. i rarely drink alcohol...I ate fairly large portions but nothing obscene, yet my weight.. always reflected that of someone with eating habits to rival those types that Jerry Springer had to cut out of their homes to get hospital treatment...
But with the diagnosis of PCOS came the answer, although not all women with it are large that's because its a syndrome, and a syndrome is a collection of symptoms that you may or may not experience, a checklist of problems if you like... some people.. like Posh Spice who is famously a pcos sufferer... clearly don't suffer with weight problems.. but then i don't have her skin problems (miaow)
'Insulin Resistance' was a term I started to become more and more familiar with, put simply it very very easy to gain weight when you are insulin resistant and very very hard to lose it. The first time a GP said to me, 'you are insulin resistant.. your weight.. it's not your fault' I burst into tears, finally... someone who recognised that i wasn't simply lazy and ignorant about food but fighting a losing battle. It explained why where most folk put on a few pounds on a two week holiday I could easily stack on a stone, and never lose it. It explained why Slimming World was pointless, I was a vegetarian, I stuck to 'green' days which of course meant unlimited carbs... I hadn't realised that me eating carbs IS like eating those 5 mars bars a day, because my body just can't process them.
So once I was diagnosed, in came the era of low GI dieting and medication... Metformin, Orlistat, Rimanobant...but yet, although i lost a couple of stone initially, the weight loss stalled and eventually I tired of poohing orange fat or taking tablets that seemingly had no effect... so I gave up.. just tried to accept that i was a big girl. My diagnosis coincided with my retraining to be a midwife, I was also aware that infertility was another big issue with Pcos and knew that if I ever wanted kids with my husband (who I met at uni and married in 1998) it wouldn't happen without assistance.
It was ok though, I could ignore the odd cruel comment in the street, Evans had modernised and had some fairly nice stuff... I could dye my hair bright colours and put on lots of makeup to detract from my size, i didn't want kids anyway, I was pretty, big and proud.. like it or lump it...right?
However in 2007, we went on holiday with my parents to madeira, it had been 8 years since I'd been on a plane because I hate to fly... oh the shame and mortification when I discovered I had to ask for an extension to the seatbelt... I could of curled up right then and died. I came home determined to make a change but I just didn't know how.. I'd tried everything and it either didn't work or worked so slowly that it would take years to get to goal and life always happened and got in the way of my good intentions. Then I had a friend whose girlfriend suddenly lost 7 stone in under six months with something called Lighter Life which I'd never heard of... then another friends mum lost 6 stone in the same way in just a few months...so I researched it, i couldn't afford Lighter Life at the time and discovered the Cambridge Diet. In May 2008, a few months after the seatbelt debacle my partner (also a big guy) and I started Cambridge sole source, 4 months later I was 6 stone lighter! Finally i had discovered a diet that worked for me, worked the same on me as everyone else.. and worked quickly. My OH lost 5 stone also. However... i stopped too soon, I ld lost six stone i actually needed to lose a fair bit more than that. I felt good though, much better, energised and confident. Between 2008 and 2011 I kept off the majority of that six stone, although i had to
go back on sole source again and even joined Lighter Life in 2010.. I fluctuated between my six stone and a four stone loss, easily losing the regained two stone once restarting within 4-6 weeks. I'd always had to get GP permission to start because my bmi was over 40 and I had a medical condition. When I went to him to sign my lighter life form, he offered to refer me for a gastric band, but I was declined for funding reasons. He was just about to re refer me last April when... shock
of shocks, the impossible happened...I fell pregnant. Let me explain... I'd not used contraception since 1997, I was infertile.. barren... not able to conceive without help... 17 years we'd been together and no whiff of a baby...I'd built a persona around not wanting children thankyouverymuch...and suddenly unbelivably...
... id been taking Metformin again, as it helps with insulin resistance...I was at work ( after qualifying as a midwife in 2006) I was now a sister in charge of labour ward, and discovered via a random blood test that I was .. up the duff...
Well you can guess what happened, dire warnings from consultants ensued.. high blood pressure, gestational diabetes... insulin injections.. and weight gain with no ability to restrict carbs or be in ketosis (foetuses really don't like that..)... 4 stone of my hard won 6 stone regained in pregnancy...bugger.
So now here I am, 2012, with a very unexpected ...very surprising addition to my life and a very unwelcome addition to my waistline. Exante looks just what I need, apart from being half the price of Cambridge, I like the idea of not having to go back to my GP, not having group counselling, and not being given advice by counsellors, I just wanted weighing and buying my stuff and getting out of there, so this is ideal. Scales are purchased, cupboards clear, willpower fully engaged, my OH is doing it too as he regained all his lost weight through simply bingeing... bring it on... this time it's for keeps and I intend to take it further than the six stone I lost before. Wish me luck!!! X
A long bit of history on me to set the scene...
Well I just turned 37 in December 2011, and I've been dieting in various forms for 27 long years... yup.. my mum first put me on weight watchers when I was a tender ten years old. Since then I've done Weight Watchers at least 5 times, Slimming World two or three times (but it never worked for me... more on that later...) I did Rosemary Conley.. hopeless... tried various fads... joined a gym and went 5-6 times a week with very limited success...until when I was 29 I went to the GP and was diagnosed with PCOS
Finally... I had a reason why although I can overindulge with the best of them, what I ate never seemed to justify how big i was. I would read Weight loss stories in women's magazines, but couldn't identify with these women who'd lost huge amounts of weight by cutting out the 5 mars bars, 4 breakfasts and two Mcdonalds a day they'd been having only to find their excess weight melt off... well of course it did... but that wasn't me...why was I different?!!...
I'd had skimmed milk and sweeteners since a young child, I didn't eat meat back then, had and still have a pathological loathing of greasy food like chips, can take crisps or leave them, yeah i like chocolate but have maybe 1-2 bars a week never a daily occurrence...i wasn't a secret binger or a junk food addict.. i rarely drink alcohol...I ate fairly large portions but nothing obscene, yet my weight.. always reflected that of someone with eating habits to rival those types that Jerry Springer had to cut out of their homes to get hospital treatment...
But with the diagnosis of PCOS came the answer, although not all women with it are large that's because its a syndrome, and a syndrome is a collection of symptoms that you may or may not experience, a checklist of problems if you like... some people.. like Posh Spice who is famously a pcos sufferer... clearly don't suffer with weight problems.. but then i don't have her skin problems (miaow)
'Insulin Resistance' was a term I started to become more and more familiar with, put simply it very very easy to gain weight when you are insulin resistant and very very hard to lose it. The first time a GP said to me, 'you are insulin resistant.. your weight.. it's not your fault' I burst into tears, finally... someone who recognised that i wasn't simply lazy and ignorant about food but fighting a losing battle. It explained why where most folk put on a few pounds on a two week holiday I could easily stack on a stone, and never lose it. It explained why Slimming World was pointless, I was a vegetarian, I stuck to 'green' days which of course meant unlimited carbs... I hadn't realised that me eating carbs IS like eating those 5 mars bars a day, because my body just can't process them.
So once I was diagnosed, in came the era of low GI dieting and medication... Metformin, Orlistat, Rimanobant...but yet, although i lost a couple of stone initially, the weight loss stalled and eventually I tired of poohing orange fat or taking tablets that seemingly had no effect... so I gave up.. just tried to accept that i was a big girl. My diagnosis coincided with my retraining to be a midwife, I was also aware that infertility was another big issue with Pcos and knew that if I ever wanted kids with my husband (who I met at uni and married in 1998) it wouldn't happen without assistance.
It was ok though, I could ignore the odd cruel comment in the street, Evans had modernised and had some fairly nice stuff... I could dye my hair bright colours and put on lots of makeup to detract from my size, i didn't want kids anyway, I was pretty, big and proud.. like it or lump it...right?
However in 2007, we went on holiday with my parents to madeira, it had been 8 years since I'd been on a plane because I hate to fly... oh the shame and mortification when I discovered I had to ask for an extension to the seatbelt... I could of curled up right then and died. I came home determined to make a change but I just didn't know how.. I'd tried everything and it either didn't work or worked so slowly that it would take years to get to goal and life always happened and got in the way of my good intentions. Then I had a friend whose girlfriend suddenly lost 7 stone in under six months with something called Lighter Life which I'd never heard of... then another friends mum lost 6 stone in the same way in just a few months...so I researched it, i couldn't afford Lighter Life at the time and discovered the Cambridge Diet. In May 2008, a few months after the seatbelt debacle my partner (also a big guy) and I started Cambridge sole source, 4 months later I was 6 stone lighter! Finally i had discovered a diet that worked for me, worked the same on me as everyone else.. and worked quickly. My OH lost 5 stone also. However... i stopped too soon, I ld lost six stone i actually needed to lose a fair bit more than that. I felt good though, much better, energised and confident. Between 2008 and 2011 I kept off the majority of that six stone, although i had to
go back on sole source again and even joined Lighter Life in 2010.. I fluctuated between my six stone and a four stone loss, easily losing the regained two stone once restarting within 4-6 weeks. I'd always had to get GP permission to start because my bmi was over 40 and I had a medical condition. When I went to him to sign my lighter life form, he offered to refer me for a gastric band, but I was declined for funding reasons. He was just about to re refer me last April when... shock
of shocks, the impossible happened...I fell pregnant. Let me explain... I'd not used contraception since 1997, I was infertile.. barren... not able to conceive without help... 17 years we'd been together and no whiff of a baby...I'd built a persona around not wanting children thankyouverymuch...and suddenly unbelivably...
... id been taking Metformin again, as it helps with insulin resistance...I was at work ( after qualifying as a midwife in 2006) I was now a sister in charge of labour ward, and discovered via a random blood test that I was .. up the duff...
Well you can guess what happened, dire warnings from consultants ensued.. high blood pressure, gestational diabetes... insulin injections.. and weight gain with no ability to restrict carbs or be in ketosis (foetuses really don't like that..)... 4 stone of my hard won 6 stone regained in pregnancy...bugger.
So now here I am, 2012, with a very unexpected ...very surprising addition to my life and a very unwelcome addition to my waistline. Exante looks just what I need, apart from being half the price of Cambridge, I like the idea of not having to go back to my GP, not having group counselling, and not being given advice by counsellors, I just wanted weighing and buying my stuff and getting out of there, so this is ideal. Scales are purchased, cupboards clear, willpower fully engaged, my OH is doing it too as he regained all his lost weight through simply bingeing... bring it on... this time it's for keeps and I intend to take it further than the six stone I lost before. Wish me luck!!! X
