Lisa's diary

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LisaB123456

LisaB123456

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Hi everyone :)

Just want to introduce myself. I am 35, happily married and I have 2 gorgeous boys who are 4 years old and 2 years old. I want to be healthier and happier for them and also to feel better within myself. I want to have the energy to keep up with them instead of being on the sidelines, or playing with them for 20 mins and saying I am tired and I need to rest now.

I am sick of constantly trying new diets and new menu plans and a million different things and the same thing always happens - I lose a few kilos and then a few weeks later I put it all back on again, and this has been happening for years! I am sick of it. I realise that the issue is not the type of menu plan that I am on but the fact that I never seem to be able to stick to it for more than a day or 2. I always do well in the first day and then the next day I do sort of ok, and then after that its all downhill. It's like I weigh myself and see I have lost a kilo or 2 and then think I deserve a treat to reward myself for my good work, or think 1 day of eating junk food or takeaway food wont hurt, but it continues for days and then I can't seem to stop it. Sometimes I do get back into the healthy eating but then it always goes back to the unhealthy stuff after a day or 2 again. I am so over it! I do around 18,000 steps per day according to my fitbit so it is just so silly that I am not losing the weight because I am obviously eating way too many calories. I get so frustrated because I enter all the healthy food into my food diary for the day, the night before, and then when it comes to the actual day I eat all the food I was going to and then add a whole bunch of food that wasn't in there. It's like I get the cravings for the takeaway or junk food and I just can not seem to say no, and I always give in. It's so disheartening.

Anyway, my starting weight last week was 94.4kg and this morning I was 93.3kg. My goal weight is 58kg, but hoenstly I would be happy with between 60 and 65kg which I haven't been in probably 20 years. I am hoping that by keeping this diary I will keep myself a bit more accountable instead of eating anything and everything and not being honest with myself.
 
Hi, Lisa & a great big welcome to the forum! :) I know exactly where you are as I was there once too, even down to having 2 boys 2 years apart. I was 17 kilos heavier :(
By learning new habits now & really concentrating on a new healthy "diet" not only will you help yourself, but it's the perfect time to establish your sons' healthy future lives. I made so many mistakes, went on so many crash diets & probably contributed to our younger son ending up with an eating disorder in his teens. Food should be nourishment & nutrition & should fuel our bodies efficiently, not a reward or just something to fill a gap. I can't change what I did back then, but I sure have changed what I do now. I'm sure you can too. If diets have not worked in the past, maybe try cutting down portions. Do you drink much soda? Sometimes making small changes makes a difference. Look at it as a new healthy lifestyle, rather than a diet, which has negative connotations.
You will find a lot of support in here. They are a great bunch of very supportive people. Keeping a diary is very therapeutic & does help. Cheers, Cate.
 
Thank you so much for your reply Cate <3 You are so right about the kids - I worry that my eating habits will affect my kids later on in life if I dont change it now. my oldest boy is autistic and has a lot of sensory issues with food, but like any 4 year old will pick junk food or McDonalds over healthy options. My 2 year old eats anything and everything which is awesome and I am so scared that me eating unhealthy will change him and he will want the junk food later if I dont change now. He does say "McDonalds is yucky" everytime his brother wants it which is great haha. But seriously though I dont want them growing up and having the same love/hate relationship that I have had with food for so long. I do drink way too much soft drink so I will cut down on that too! Do you find that posting how you went each day helps you stay on track more?
 
LisaB123456 said:
Do you find that posting how you went each day helps you stay on track more?
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I certainly do Lisa. The other night I felt really bad & felt like eating anything & everything (i.e. stuffing my face!) so I came into the forum & said how I felt & what I felt like doing & that helped me deal with it. I ate healthily & had 4 small squares of dark chocolate only. Sometimes, you just need to express how you feel to help you get through it. I have wonderful friends in here who are great support & I hope that I can do the same. We have more in common than we have differences.
I'm with your younger son on the McDonalds is yucky. I refuse to set foot in a McD's ever again. You can switch your brain around. I hate junk food now. You can do this hon. Welcome aboard :)
 
Thank you so much. That's a great idea - next time I feel like eating junk food I will come in here first and say how I am feeling instead of just giving in straight away and reaching for the unhealthy stuff. I have just started Lite n easy a few weeks ago, and I know the food works, but that's only if I stick to it, which in the past week or so I haven't been. It's frustrating cause I am paying the money for it but silly me eats all the food they give me and then eats junk food on top of it and then wonders why I can't lose weight. I think being a stay at home mum makes me feel a bit isolated sometimes and I use food as a comfort. Coming in here and having people to talk to and that support is definitely going to help me I think :)
 
Well it's official - I am an idiot :rolleyes:
Let me explain - I decided that tomorrow is the first day that I am going to stick to my menu plan 100% and that I am going to aim for 30 days to start with, without any takeaway food or junk food or soft drink. So of course in my mind I freak out about not being able to eat any of the rubbish that I have been addicted to eating for so long and decide to eat Red Rooster "one last time" before I start tomorrow. I have crohns disease so a lot of the time when I eat something greasy or unhealthy it really does not agree with my stomach and I am stuck on the toilet for quite a while. Yet, despite this I continue to do it (the reason why I called myself an idiot at the beginning of my post). The Red Rooster did not agree with me at all. Don't get me wrong it tasted awesome, I loved eating it, but afterwards not so much haha. And this is not the first time that this has happened. It doesn't matter where the takeaway food has come from, it's the same result a lot of the time so you would think I would learn my lesson, but nope I keep doing the same thing over and over :beathorse:

So, what can I do? Well my specialist has told me that if I stop eating the unhealthy foods and also lose weight that it should help my crohns a lot. I also had preeclampsia in both my pregnancies and my blood pressure specialist has told me that unless I want to put myself at risk when I am older then I need to lose weight and be healthier in the next 5 years or else I am at risk of heart attack and stroke, because of my BP history. My GP also said at my last check up that my results came back as being pre diabetic, and that if I have the same results at the next check up then they are putting me on medication for it.

Writing all this down it makes me so ashamed that I have not only let myself get this unhealthy but that I also keep making bad food decisions, knowing that I am putting my health at further risk by making those choices and yet I sometimes feel so out of control with my eating. I hide food from family, I eat extra in secret, I binge eat, and a lot of the time once I start I can not stop until that food is gone. I know something has to change and that's why I am here. I truely believe that with expressing my feelings and thoughts, and sharing those, and having the support of others who have or are currently going through the same thing will help me to finally lose weight.

Before I had my first son I was 83kg, after I had my second son I was 86kg and now I am 93kg and I just keep losing and gaining the same 4 or 5 kg over and over. My youngest is 2 years old and that's how long I have been gaining and losing those 5kg over and over again. it's so frustrating and I want to change. I know I have to make those choices and that I am the one who controls what I eat so I have to be the one who makes those changes. I am starting tomorrow and I will do this - for myself and my boys.
 
Hi Lisa and welcome to the forum! I think Cate´s right (I usually do) that writing here might help. Let off steam, make it harder to fool yourself, just chat a bit... anything goes. I don´t think there´s a single person on this forum who hasn´t been ashamed of the way they behaved around food at times (I know I have, ugh!) so there´s no need to hide and pretend here. My guts are only mildly broken but I definitely feel you on the greasy-food=toilet-bondage :(
Be gentle with yourself. Recognize that you´re not weak, life is just hard sometimes. But it would be that little bit easier if you found healthier ways to deal with the hard stuff.
Best of luck!
 
Thanks so much LaMaria. I think even seeing someone say dont be too hard on yourself makes me feel a little better. For so long I have behaved horribly around food, made poor choices and then hated myself for those choices. It's nice to be honest and not feel judged about it. I feel like this is the start of my journey and that I can do this, especially with such wonderful support. Thank you xx
 
Lisa, I feel quite sure that any fault you may find in yourself we almost all have also found in ourselves at one stage or another & still do, from time to time. There is no judgement here. We are all learning xo
 
We only ever get one day at a time anyway, so that´s handy :) And remember: if you eat something your rational mind says wasn´t the greatest idea you don´t "start over" the next day. You continue right away. That way you can save a lot of frustration calories.
 
Hi Lisa
Welcome!
There are a lot of nice people on here and we try to help each other. I find that posting on here pretty regularly helps keep me focused.
I see you have 2 little boys! My 2 little boys are now 21 and 19 and off in collage! I loved the 2- 4 year old stage. They were so much fun!

Here is something I have found to be true. I call it the snowball effect.
1. First you gotta find a way to string 3-4 good days together. Days where you are 90-100% on plan with your diet and exercise.
2. This is really all it takes to see some small results like a pound or two gone ...
3. Then you start to feel a bit better about yourself! You have a tiny spring in your step! Your energy levels improve.
4. It gets easier to keep going (snowballs)
5. Repeat and so on

Good luck getting started on your positive snowball!
 
LaMaria that is a great point :) . I know in the past I have eaten something I considered "bad" and then thought to myself Oh well I may aswell keep eating unhealthy for the entire rest of the day, I will remind myself from now on if I do have a slip up that I will continue with the healthy eating straight away and not use it as an excuse to continue eating junk food for the rest of the day and night.

Brawny - Thank you :) I really struggled lately with even getting 1 day of healthy eating, I kept finding excuses but you are right. It only takes a couple of days to want to achieve more and more days of being healthy. Once I get through those first few hard days, it should get easier and then I can see my snowball effect building which will be amazing.

Thanks Cate :)

happy to report that Day 1 today is going well. I was a little tempted this morning to deviate from my plan (it sucks that McDonalds is literally 30 seconds away from my oldest son's preschool), but I resisted and I have stuck to my menu plan for the entire day. I did have a can of coke zero, but I will work on the soft drink second, and for now i want to concentrate on just sticking to my menu plan for a few days and then once I have a few days there I am aiming to quit drinking the soft drink aswell. Thanks so much for the support everyone, it makes a huge difference honestly. Knowing I could come in here this afternoon and happily say I did well, made me want to stick to the menu plan more instead of just thinking no one cares if I dont stick to it or not xx
 
LisaB123456 said:
I did have a can of coke zero, but I will work on the soft drink second, and for now i want to concentrate on just sticking to my menu plan for a few days
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Good thinking. Changing habits is hard and doing all of them at the same time can be too much for anyone.
LisaB123456 said:
Knowing I could come in here this afternoon and happily say I did well, made me want to stick to the menu plan more
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That´s so nice to hear :grouphug: Well done on your first day.
 
Thanks Cate :)

Day 2 today and I am feeling very positive. I proved to myself yesterday that I can do this, and if I just stick to it and take it one day at a time, sometimes even just one meal at a time then I can do it. You are right what you said about trying to change all the habits together LaMaria. I think that's where I have gone wrong in the past, I have tried to do so many things like cut down on drinking alcohol, stop drinking coke, stop the takeaway, stick to my healthy eating, drink more water, exercise more, I think it all becomes very overwhelming and if I didn't succeed with one of those things then I felt like I failed all of it for the day and then just gave up. So I know I need to cut out the soft drink but I think just focusing on the food for now and doing one thing at a time will help a lot.

I got a huge shock when I hopped on the scales this morning - I had actually lost a whole kilo overnight! I know that's not going to happen all the time, I am normally only going to weigh myself once a week or even fortnight, but I was curious after eating so healthy and not filling my body with takeaway food how much it would drop on the scales in one day. I was so shocked. Imagine how the scales are going to look after a month of me eating healthy woohoo!

Tuesday today so no preschool for the little ones, but we do have playgroup, and we go past about 1000 McDonalds and other takeaway places on the way there and back. I will stay strong though, I will have my snack before we go, have my lunch when we get back and make them some sandwiches to have afterwards on the way home. I think a lot of the time I blame me buying takeaway food on the fact that "the kids were hungry" when really I know i could have just got them a sandwich, they would not starve by waiting 15 mins to get home from wherever we were, but I buy them something to buy myself something I think. I really don't want them getting used to eating this type of food and then struggling with their weight when they are older. I know how hard it is for me to try and break this cycle and I don't want them having to go through it all, it really sucks.

Hope you both have a lovely day Cate and LaMaria, and I will pop back in here tonight with how I went today :)
 
LisaB123456 said:
Imagine how the scales are going to look after a month of me eating healthy woohoo!
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I can imagine that Lisa. Planning is key. Taking something for the kids & making sure you're not hungry will really help. What a successful start to your new healthy life. Good for you!
 
Thanks guys :) Happy to report I did well today yay!!! I ate my apple on the way to playgroup so that I wasn't starving when I left. I made up sandwiches for the kids to eat on the way home. I stuck to my menu plan 100% with the exception of 2 small teaspoons of ice cream (my little one was sharing his ice cream with me after his dinner). Funny thing is I always say my oldest is super picky and never eats his dinner but I dont think I realised how much junk food I was letting him eat trhough the day normally. I didn't let him eat any junk food or takeaway, he only was offered healthy options, he didn't eat a lot through the day and then for dinner he ate all of his chicken, potato and vegies. I was so shocked! I think because he was born premmie and has always been small for his age I have let him eat more junk food than I should cause for so long I thought well at least he is eating, but not realising that it was allowing him to turn down all the healthy stuff, cause he is holding out for the bad foods that he likes. That makes me really sad that I had not realised this before and yet happy that I am discovering this now and that I am not letting it continue.

Seems we all have a lot of work to do - myself and the boys, but we will get there. As I reminded myself today it only takes one step at a time, one day at a time and I will achieve everything I want to. It's not just about the weight loss, it's about being a good role model for my gorgeous boys and teaching them healthy eating habits now so that they don't have to go through the same thing when they are older.
 
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