When the diet works again!
It was only a two-pound gain but that’s why diets so often fail. I was determined this time would be different.
It had all been going so well. My weight was steadily coming down and I was poised, I hoped, to record three and a half stone off (49 pounds) on the 12-month anniversary of starting my diet on 1st September, 2020. Instead I started to gain. After stagnating at 45 pounds off the weight started to go back on. I had become sensitive in one direction only - upwards. This wasn’t a plateau. This was much worse. A plateau at least means you’re staying put. But I wasn’t. The diet had stopped working and just a couple of glasses of wine and a Bendicks bittermint saw me gain two pounds overnight.
Some reassured me it was just fluid retention but do post-menopausal women get fluid retention!? I have heard alcohol can cause a weight spike. It is empty calories and it’s one of the reasons I hardly ever touch the stuff. Even so it was disheartening. In the past a weight gain, even a small one, used to see me giving up. Throwing my hands in the air and yelling WHAT’S THE POINT!!! Then I’d start to eat again and undo all the good work.
I want this time to be different. I want this to be the last diet I ever go on. I want to get to goal weight - the right BMI for my height, age and sex - and stay there. I long for a maintenance diet where I eat like a normal person. I want to come off the merry-go-round of always being on a diet or bingeing.
Well after three days the two pounds have come back off. Maybe it was fluid retention. Maybe it was wrong to switch to daily weigh-ins. Perhaps if I’d stuck with weekly weigh-ins I’d never have know that I’d gained.
You can never know for sure what works on a diet but I think what did it for me was upping the exercise. I just walked a lot more. Going out several times a day and walking as fast as I could. Burn baby burn I’d say as I pounded the pavements. I ate the same amount of calories - between 1400 and 1500 a day. That may sound a lot to some people. But I know I can’t stick with it if I cut back below 1350. And I’m not in favour of semi-starvation diets. Mine is a long-term plan. It’ll take me at least 18 months to get to target. Possibly longer. But that’s the healthy way to do it. Up the exercise. Don’t cut the calories. Take your time. Crash diets don’t work long term.
So there are setbacks along the way. It isn’t a linear pattern. Weight goes up and down despite our best efforts. It isn’t the weight gain in the end that matters. It’s how you handle it. So many dieters have said once they fall off the wagon they stay off it. ‘I’ve had a chocolate biscuit, may as well eat the whole packet.’ ‘We all know diets don’t work so I’m not going to bother anymore.’ Remember, there’s a reason the diet industry is worth billions. It’s an industry built on failure. Losing weight is easy. Keeping it off is where so many of us fall down.
Keep going is the best advice I’ve been given and can give. Don’t give up. Be tenacious. Get bloody minded and determined. This will not defeat me. I’m going to get those pounds off and I’m going to keep them off.
Thanks for reading and for all the support I’ve had.
This is what I really needed to hear after gaining 2 lbs in 2 days for no apparent reason. Think I’m going to go for a walk.