Week 40 2013 : Results

I am very pleased to say that this week I have lost 2 pounds!  Woo hoo!!  About time eh? 😉

I haven’t done much different to be honest but I have been trying not to eat the wrong things.  I haven’t always succeeded mind you – nothing tastes as nice when I’m feeling stressed as a biscuit or piece of cake with my afternoon cup of tea!

The main thing I’ve changed in the past week is that I am starting my day with the juice of a lemon in warm water.  One of the reasons for doing this is that I’ve been doing some research and something that kept cropping up was the benefits of drinking lemon juice first thing in the morning.  This article in the Daily Mail (not my paper of choice) indicates that including lemons in your diet, both juice and peel, will boost your digestion and could  help you lose weight.  They quoted a leading health writer Theresa Cheung:

“Research seems to show that if your digestive system is not working correctly, healthy weight-loss is almost impossible.  The problem is that poor digestion can stop your body getting the nutrients it needs to burn fat. It can also cause a build-up of toxins in your body, leaving you feeling sluggish and depressed.  This, in turn, slows down your metabolism, making any weight-loss goals unattainable.”

This was one of many web pages extolling the virtues of lemon juice in warm water first thing in the morning, so I decided to give it a try.  I didn’t want to do the whole “Lemon Juice Diet” but I thought that at least starting my day with the juice of a lemon in warm water would be a good thing to try.

I have to confess it isn’t my favourite way to start the day and I nearly always wince when I take the first sip.  But, having said that, I have found that I don’t seem to crave sweet things so much in the morning so it must be making some difference.  And the best thing is that there has been a difference in my weight this week.  Whether or not that is due to this small change in my daily diet remains to be seen, but I will carry on with the lemon juice in the mornings and see how I get on.  At least this isn’t a fad diet – it is just a change to my daily food intake.  I found this page which provided a list of reasons for drinking lemon juice in warm water – it does sound like this is generally a good thing to do for many aspects of health!

Do you drink lemon juice in warm water?  I would be interested to hear any tales of how successful this is.  Thanks for reading 😉

Week 39 2013 : Results

This week I have failed to keep to what I was going to try to do and, unfortunately, have put on a pound.  I really wanted to go for lunch time walks but things at work have been very busy and it hasn’t been easy to get a break.  It’s weeks like that which make me wish I didn’t have to work for a living!  😉

I’ve been thinking a bit more over the past week about ways to improve the quality of my life.  Something which I noticed on the BBC site and which I have blogged about before is the value of sleep and also the fact that sleep may be the key to tackling obesity according to Dr Neil Stanley, an independent sleep expert (how do you get a job like that? :-))

I think that Dr Stanley makes some interesting links between the lack of sleep that people have, due to the ever-busy lives that we lead, and the increase in the number of obese people.  I find that I stay up late so that I can try to catch up on all the things I would have done if I didn’t work such long hours, but actually by doing this I deprive myself of the sleep I need and therefore am not really looking after myself!  Also Dr Stanley states that poor sleep changes our hunger hormones and I know that if I’m feeling tired in the afternoon I am much more likely to eat a biscuit or something sugary rather than a piece of fruit.  Indeed the article says:

Short sleep has also been shown to increase our urge to snack between meals and causes us to excessively season our food, eat fewer vegetables, buy more junk food and buy more food overall.

So this week I am trying an experiment.  I usually get into work between 40 minutes and an hour before I contractually have to be there.  The reason for this is that I want to avoid some of the traffic and therefore have a quicker drive in.  However I am going to try having a bit more sleep and have set my alarm clock to go off 30 minutes later than normal.  This morning I still woke up the same time, and I guess it will take a while to get my body-clock to adjust, but I didn’t get straight up so at least I was relaxing a bit before the day began.  That has to better than waking with a start and stumbling out of bed half awake 😉

Week 38 2013 : Results

I am disappointed that over the past two weeks my weight hasn’t changed at all.  As I said in my last post I was going away on holiday and this meant that instead of sitting at my desk for 8 -10 hours a day I would be out in the open.  In fact every day for 8 days I was out and walking.  Sometimes I was walking until I was aching and tired, but happy.  I didn’t think that I’d eaten any different to my normal diet – in fact I know I’d had less snacks than I have when I’m at work.  Obviously I must have been eating more than I was burning off, but it is a bit of a disappointment that all that walking doesn’t seem to have benefited my weight at all 😦

Also whilst away I have had much more sleep than I usually get.  I’ve been lucky to be able to wake up naturally and therefore (as far as I understand) get the amount of sleep my body needs rather than the amount that my alarm allows me.  Today I have struggled to get up to my alarm again – back to the routine of work.

I know people who have lost a lot of weight and the only exercise that they have done is walking.  This appeals to me as I like walking and you get the extra benefit of fresh air and (hopefully) nice scenery. So I’m going to try to continue my walking now that I’m back at work.  It will be harder as the nights are drawing in and the weather isn’t great.  I should be able to manage a 30 minute walk most lunchtimes but if it’s raining then I will probably have to avoid it as I don’t want to be sitting at my desk in wet clothes all afternoon!

Whilst looking for information on walking for weight loss I found this article about how to walk properly.  I will try to study the guidance with regards to posture as I know that my posture is bad and maybe if I keep up this walking I will get some benefits!  Fingers crossed 😉

Week 36 2013 : Results

I am happy to report that my weight didn’t change at all this week which isn’t bad when I think what I’ve eaten.  I’ve tried to balance it all out (i.e. food vs exercise) and it looks like I’ve succeeded.

The biggest challenge this week was going to an “all you can eat” restaurant. Whilst they are a great idea for a group of people, as you can all eat the type of food you prefer, I think that this type of restaurant is probably not a great place for someone trying to be good about what they eat!  The problems are twofold: firstly you want to get value for money – that’s human nature; and secondly, there is so much variety available that it is very easy to overeat – your eyes are suddenly much bigger than your stomach!  That said I think that most of our party were quite good – one person definitely over-indulged but it wasn’t me 😉

I’ve done some reading up on the psychology of this type of eating and found this article which seems to be related to my interest. It’s interesting but I’m not sure all of its recommendations are possible.  At the restaurant I went to we were told where to sit and there was only one one size of plate available.

This article seems to be based on the same study at Cornell University.  The key things seem  to be to take a smaller plate and to circle the buffet before selecting your food. One other interesting quote was from Rachel Begun, a registered dietitian and spokeswoman for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics:

“Research shows that when faced with a variety of food at one sitting, people tend to eat more. It is the temptation of wanting to try a variety of foods that makes it particularly hard not to overeat at a buffet.”

So, as I indicated earlier, it is temptation which means we are more than likely going to overeat. As Oscar Wilde said : “I can resist anything except temptation.” It is most definitely something which a lot of people struggle with. If anyone has any advice on how to resist the lure of all the different food on offer in a buffet please let me know.

I am going away for a short break so my next post will probably not be for two weeks – unless I get time (and technology!) whilst I am away!!  In the meantime I am going to try very hard to resist temptation 😉

Week 35 2013 : Results

This week I have lost one pound.  Given that I did a lot more walking that normal over the weekend and didn’t over-eat, I would have expected to lose more but I guess one pound off is better than nothing 😉

Yesterday whilst talking to a friend she advised me that if I was starting my menopause (not totally sure yet!) then I would struggle to lose weight as it was harder to lose weight during the menopause.  This was something new to me and, at the time, I was a bit disappointed as it seemed that mother nature was going to throw me a curve ball!

Anyway, not one to just believe something without a bit of research, I decided to check this out today.  But all I found was conflicting information!

I found this article in the Huffington Post which implies to me that the rules for weight loss are the same whether you are pre-menopause or beyond, which was good news.  In fact it seemed to mostly be obvious: “Eating more fruits and vegetables but fewer desserts and sugar-sweetened drinks, as well as less meat and cheese, were key”.

I then searched further and found this article on Medical News Today.  I think that they are probably referring to the same study as the previous article but they seem to have more statements supporting the fact that it is more difficult to lose weight.  For example their opening paragraph is:

“Postmenopausal women naturally consume much less energy than when they were younger, the strategies and behaviors they followed earlier in life are simply not sustainable or effective in the long-term any more, researchers from the University of Pittsburgh Department of Health and Physical Activity, reported in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. The authors added that several factors work against postmenopausal women when they try to lose weight over the long term.”

Not exactly encouraging is it?  Well I’m not going to focus on what they say for now and I’m going to try to stay on track with a healthy eating plan.  I know people who have lost weight at an age when I assume that they must have been post-menopause so I don’t believe it is impossible.  However I would be interested if anyone has any experience of weight loss during the menopause and how easy or difficult it was 🙂