Thanks 
Sleeping pills are hard to get here, and are prescribed extremely cautiously. I know some of the risks and so have little desire to go down that route (although I would under medical supervision for a limited time if I got desperate enough- I've been getting pretty close to that desperate lately). Hopefully this routine or something similar will be a longer term solution and help me develop some healthier patterns. Just need to make it consistent.
The big problem here is the vast majority of places don't offer nutritional information (I think it becomes compulsory in the UK in September of this year). The ones that do tend to be not terribly upmarket and tend to be chain places. My boyfriend wants to take me to little one-of-a-kind places which, while not expensive/ upmarket, are much nicer than the chain places.
My feeling on this sort of matter is that if I'm going to do this sort of thing I'd do it properly. Why would I spend 15 quid on a soup and a salad when I could make a more satisfying dish for a fifth of that at home, if you see what I mean? I probably would hold back on what we used to do- four or five course banquet meals (his preference)- but I would have two or even the full three courses and do them properly. We then fall into a different category of my foibles- from calorie counting to value for money. I know how much the vegetables in a salad don't cost and it bugs me to have to pay 10x that or more to be given it all prettified.
It'd be easier psychologically if I could calorie count it, even if it was 2000 calories, so I could quantify the damage and perhaps make gradual amends (as in cut an additional 100 calories a day for 20 days, not something crazy), but I think that's the way to do it. Sort of like the 80-20 rule- except for me it'd be more like 95-5. If I stick to a low calorie diet most of the time and have a blowout meal once a month or less, I'm extremely unlikely to put on weight and will probably only slow my weight loss. At least that's my theory. Obviously haven't tried it yet.
Sleeping pills are hard to get here, and are prescribed extremely cautiously. I know some of the risks and so have little desire to go down that route (although I would under medical supervision for a limited time if I got desperate enough- I've been getting pretty close to that desperate lately). Hopefully this routine or something similar will be a longer term solution and help me develop some healthier patterns. Just need to make it consistent.The big problem here is the vast majority of places don't offer nutritional information (I think it becomes compulsory in the UK in September of this year). The ones that do tend to be not terribly upmarket and tend to be chain places. My boyfriend wants to take me to little one-of-a-kind places which, while not expensive/ upmarket, are much nicer than the chain places.
My feeling on this sort of matter is that if I'm going to do this sort of thing I'd do it properly. Why would I spend 15 quid on a soup and a salad when I could make a more satisfying dish for a fifth of that at home, if you see what I mean? I probably would hold back on what we used to do- four or five course banquet meals (his preference)- but I would have two or even the full three courses and do them properly. We then fall into a different category of my foibles- from calorie counting to value for money. I know how much the vegetables in a salad don't cost and it bugs me to have to pay 10x that or more to be given it all prettified.
It'd be easier psychologically if I could calorie count it, even if it was 2000 calories, so I could quantify the damage and perhaps make gradual amends (as in cut an additional 100 calories a day for 20 days, not something crazy), but I think that's the way to do it. Sort of like the 80-20 rule- except for me it'd be more like 95-5. If I stick to a low calorie diet most of the time and have a blowout meal once a month or less, I'm extremely unlikely to put on weight and will probably only slow my weight loss. At least that's my theory. Obviously haven't tried it yet.
