I stopped dieting and gained weight
I stop dieting in the hope if I couldn’t lose anymore weight I could at least maintain the weight I’d lost. It didn’t work.
I thought giving up dieting would liberate me from the wretched scales and the endless calorie counting. I thought, I’ve done it now. I’ve lost four stone (56 pounds/25 kilos) and even though I’ve put one of them back on (14 pounds/6 kilos) I could live with that. I was overweight but no longer obese. I was at about the same size many people in the UK are - overweight, could do with lose 10-20 pounds (8/9 kilos), but it doesn’t affect their health that adversely.
Boy was I wrong! I thought I could break the cycle of either dieting or over eating. Of always losing or gaining but never staying the same. I cannot stay the same. I am not that person and I must accept that I never will be. I have to go back on my diet because I know if I don’t I’ll soon be obese again and then some. It’ll just go back on. All of it. Because it always has in the past. Every single time. I have dieted, lost weight, felt great then stopped being vigilant and put all the weight back on. I should know by now that when I don’t weigh in regularly I treat it as a licence to eat. It won’t matter what I eat, I think. It won’t show because, of course it won’t show. If you don’t weigh in you don’t gain weight. If you can’t see it, it didn’t happen. Only, it did. It does. It always does.
I can never be normal
So what have I learned? That I must accept I have a weight problem and an issue with food. I long to be normal - which for me means becoming someone who doesn’t think about their weight and about food all the time but just eats what they need and their weight stays the same. I am not that person. I will never be that person and if you’re reading this chances are you aren’t either.
We lifelong dieters are lifelong dieters for a reason. We have to be constantly vigilant. We never get to the stage where we can say, that’s it! I’ve done it. I need it no more. That day never comes.
Back on the diet then. With the aim of losing just half a pound a week, a stone by the end of the year. That’s an achievable goal. I don’t know if I’ll be able to stick to it but a slow weight loss doesn’t mean I have to starve myself and that’s something I definitely will not be doing. That’s how the cycle perpetuates itself. You eat too little to make up for gaining weight so then you eat too much to make up for not eating enough. The inevitable rebound. The hunger always gets you in the end. The reason nearly all dieters put the weight back on.
So it’s back to calorie counting and weighing in but not starving; not over dieting. I’ll have peanut butter on toast for breakfast, two crispbreads with something delicious on top for lunch (see pic), a bit of fruit and a meal of some kind in the evening that comes in at around 400 calories. Aiming for 1200-1400 calories a day plus at least 4,000 steps a day, half an hour’s brisk walking. Modest. Achievable. Essential. Wish me luck!