My experiences with the Lighter Life programme

I am expecting the scales at LL HQ to say that I have lost 1lb this evening.  Not because I've done anything wrong, oh no.  I've done everything they've asked of me.  I'm expecting them to say 1lb because my body is being a complete bastard.  What really gets my goat is that my mum is sitting around eating sausages, onions, lemonade you name it and I bet she still loses 4lb. 

It's not good enough.  I could probably have lost 1lb on a normal diet and still have been able to eat the chocolate fondue and sushi at the Motor Show! See, I've been a freaking saint this week.  I graciously declined the offer of chocolate fondue with a model LL response 'Yes, I want it but I am choosing not to have it'.  I glugged down my water despite being in an unfamiliar place and having to traverse 3 1/2 hours of London transport with limited washroom facilities.  I walked like a bitch all day. 

So where's my freaking reward?  That's why I'm doing it y'know.  Not for my own smug satisfaction or to feel virtuous.  I'm doing it because I was told I would get fast results.  That's what I'm paying good money for.  That's why I'm drinking slimey, lukewarm, tasteless, lumpy 'milkshakes' out of paper cups in Subway while my dad eats a 'mega breakfast' sub. 

Oh, and to top matters off, I'm entering my third week of my lighterlife induced period.  Fucking joy for me.

I'm not going to jump ship though, I'm too stubborn for that.

EDIT:  Might I add I have a very scientific method for anticipating how much I will lose in the evening.

So, we had group last night.  We learnt move about transactional analysis.  The councellor went through it at a rate of knotts and so we didn't really have time to process what she was saying.  I will tell you more about it a different time.

I lost 3lb at the group.  So I have now lost 11lb.  It doesn't really mean anything though because I know at the weekend it was less.  My mum lost 4lb despite drink milk and eating rice, she is a damn dirty cheat.  She didn't tell the group about what she had done, which makes me suspect the rest of them as damn dirty cheats too.  Next time I am there I am going to look them in the eyes and see if they have lapsed.  I think it is appalling.  If you cheat you should come clean and if my mum hasn't then they could all be cheating for all I know.  Stupid cows sitting there so precious and butting in whenever the councellor attempts to explain anything.  They are all so clearly sneaky liars.  Me, on the other hand, I'm as clean as a body piecer's needle and that's the god's honest trust.

I might go shopping this evening.  We have Thursday Late Night Shop here in S'ham.  I am starting to feel like I have lost 11lb soley from my boobs so I think a new bra might be a good investment.

We'll really see how shiz is going down then because Thursday Late Night Shop, despite being a looked forward to weekly ritual for me, consistently makes me pissed off and miserable to the point of wanting to do a Brenda Ann Spencer in the middle of M&S.  If I can walk around the shops and try things on this evening, get in my car and not want to drive into a wall, it will be a success.  Thursday Late Night Shop is destine to fail.  It is fraught with inherent problems.  Tiredness obviously plays a large part.

Oh, and 'no food talk'.  Yeah right.  Thinking briefly about last night, I can recall the following food items being mentioned:  cheese, peanuts, cake, ice cream, fudge, chips, jacket potato, biscuits, salad, doughnuts, McDonalds.  And that's without even really trying.

And my mum managed to call a girl that wasn't there 'the big girl' in front of the entire group.  That was a cringey moment.

I had a niggling feeling through most of yesterday telling me I was hungry.  I couldn't work out if I was phsyically hungry or if my mind was reacting to chatting to my colleague, Paul, which was for me basically food porn.  Well, not like your average porn with food involved but y'know..,

"How is your biscuit, Paul?"
"Nom, nom, nom....uh...yeah...it's good."
"Is it buttery?"
"Nom, nom...yesh."
"Is it crunchy or soft?"
"Crunchy."
"Does it have a flavour?  Is it almondy?"
"Nom, nom, nom...just tastes of biscuit?"
"Does it have sugar on the top?"
"Yep"
"Is it sticky in your mouth?"
"Not really"

Paul picks up another biscuit

"How is your biscuit, Paul?"
"Nom, nom, nom....uh...yeah...it's good."
"Is it buttery?"
"Nom, nom...yep."
...you get the idea

Then later we discussed at some length his lunchtime options.  I was championing the pasty but he says he doesn't like them.  I secretly questioned his manliness considering every man in the world loves the pasty deliciousness of meat and potato in the soft pastry case.  He decided on Subway and thoughts for warm doughy bread and wonderful bread smell entered my mind.  Ah blissful Subway.  Crunchy lettuce, hot peppers and mounds of sweet, sweet olives.  And let us not forget the onion, staple of my Subway experience.   Reggae Reggae Chicken Sub I told him but he said he preferred Steak and Cheese.  Right now even steak and cheese sounds good to me.  I remember liking Ginster's pepper steak slices.

Dear God, I think I must be a man.  What is my obsession with anything wrapped in pastry?  I remember once this lady at work told me I was always eating pies for lunch.  Yes, it sounds amusing but she was being serious and the bizarre thing is I have never eaten a pie for my lunch at work.  Never.  I think she must have been mistaking me for the 70% of obese people who drive lorries for a living.

The ties with Mr Pastry will have to be severed next year if anything is going to become of LL.  If I want it to be anything more than an expensive route to more stretch marks.

So anyway, my scales are saying Xst 12lb this morning so my body's 'Hahahaha, it's LL on Wednesday and we're going to retain water to fuck you up' instinct has kicked in.  Thanks body, nice to see we're on the same side.

I think I have some kind of shopping withdrawal symptoms because this morning I went to the shop to buy a 1 litre bottle of water and was in there for a good ten minutes assessing the shapes of the bottles and their price.  I then milled around just in case they were stashing different bottles somewhere else.  I then ended up buying a 750cl (they were out of 1l damn them) and a 2l bottle.  Why?  It's just water and I can get it at home and work for free?  Is it really necessary to multiples of something just because the only real options you have in a corner shop is water, magazines and black pepper?

I'm all tooled up with my water now.  There is no excuse for not drinking 4l today.  That's fo' shizzle.

Oh. My. God.  You will never believe what happened yesterday.  My mum ate a spoonful of egg fried rice with bacon in it!!  Like, actual rice with actual bacon that is actual food.  And you know what?  She didn't spontaenous combust, her tongue did not swell to gigantic proportions and turn blue, she didn't gain five dress sizes instantly.  She is exactly the same, except she got to eat egg friend rice and I didn't. 

Now this was very strange for me.  I want to denounce her as a cheat and a fraud in group on Wednesday.  She also told me she's been putting milk in her tea.  MILK.  IN HER TEA!! 

It's horrible really because I am being ever so good and my LL brainwashing is proceeding at an agreeable pace.  If the others in the group lapse, it's fine.  They just said 'I had a bad week, I lapsed', we all say 'oh poor you, you weak willed turkey' and then feel smug that we lost more weight than them and are clearly of better moral fibre.  This situation, however, was my mum saying 'Can I have some of your rice?' and me saying 'Are you crazy?' and then her eating rice right in front of me and saying 'That tastes delicious when you haven't eaten for two weeks'.  It was right in front of me, it wasn't someone else telling a boring story with the food items editted out at a time when I've just been told how much weight I've lost and sat through a propaganda filled DVD. 

The worst thing of all is that no awful catastrophe befell her.  I've got it in to my head that if I eat food an anvil will fall from the sky or my stomach will explode like a pigeon.  It will be the very worst thing that could happen.  I will fall ill with carb induced flu.  My head will split open.  But there she was, reading heat magazine with rice in her belly and no pus oozing from her eyes.  I'm still dumbfounded even now.

How could she?  How could she so blithely go against lighter life?  She's totally ruining it for herself.

Having an angelic LL ally is good.  It makes you happy and motivated.  Living with a LL rebel, however is not what I want.  I don't want to see her flouting the rules and drinking goddamn milky tea.  If she loses more than me, I will be very cross.

Then maybe I will drop an anvil on her food-chewing head.

The thing is my mum has survived cancer, she kicked my dad's ass a little while ago, she went to town on our neighbour when he tried to kill our dogs.  She's a kick ass toughster.  How is she giving in after only two weeks?

I don't think I told you about Week 3's wonderous revelation, did I?  This week we learnt about transactional analysis.  We learnt that we all have three different 'ego states': parent, adult and child.  Child is who we are when we stamp our feet and say 'it's not fair!', parent is the part of us that says 'you shouldn't eat cake, you are too fat' and adult is the part of us that makes rational discisions based on facts in the present i.e. 'I want to wash the car while the weather is pleasant'.  Or so LL would have us believe.

Our counsellor then made us discuss at length our childhood meals times (as I mentioned earlier).  Perhaps there was a person who made us finish our plates?  Perhaps we ate our way into mummy's good books?  Perhaps we squabbled with our siblings for the largest portion?  Or maybe, if you're like me, no one made you eat anything because you were so greedy you ate the whole damn thing and you were an only child.  I didn't really like this game.  Even if I did want to erupt in to a wailing ball of distraught childhood recollection, it's not exactly easy with your mum sat a seat away.  All my childhood is concealing is baked beans, mash and dinosaur shaped chicken dippers.  No secret trauma.

Our counsellor then went on to tell us that the things our parents used to say about food when we were young is still with us and manifests itself in our 'parent ego state'.  Apparently, sentences that start with 'I should' and 'I must' are from our parent ego states.  Which is complete bollocks in my humble opinion.  If I say to myself 'You should go on a diet you fat fuck.  I can't believe you just ate a whole packet of jaffa cakes', that is not my parents speaking.  My parents have NEVER said anything of the sort to me.  I can't have got that from anyone else.  That is pure me inspired malice and hatred. 

I mean, I could understand if she said 'Every person has three parts of their personalities and two parts are similar to that of a parent and child'.  I'm sorry but I can't pin me being a heifer on my parents.  I just like pizza and Ben and Jerry's. 

Anyway, enough of LL mumbo jumbo.  It might work for some people but it seriously doesn't work for me.  I had my own epiphany on Saturday morning and no parent bashing in sight.  I was sat there considering blogs (as you do) and how they are only really successful if they have a purpose, for example a blog about new technology or living in Madrid.  If it's just directionless drivel about how depressing your life is, it usually doesn't work out.  Then I got to thinking about times I have written directionless drivel about how depressing my life was and how I used to feel that I was in a horrible cycle of inaction.  I used to really want to do something about my shitty circumstances but never did and I knew I didn't (something LL calls your 'open self') and so I had this horrible sense of knowing I was just going to be unhappy forever because I would never do anything.  Then, ahhh, light shone down from the skies on to my enlightened face as I realised I was doing something now.  I didn't need to be unhappy any more because I'd broken the cycle.  I was on the road.  It doesn't matter if I've only got my tootsies on it, I'm still on it.  Stuff the eternal crappiness.  It's all good.

So I put my unhappy mush in a box and buried it far in to the back of my mind.  I just sat there in quiet contentment with a smile on my face.

So there we are:  LL manipulates you and I am happy.

I went to class last night and I lost 3lb.  I lost the least out of everybody there.  My mum lost 11lb.  Seeing as I had been as good as gold the entire week I was a bit disappointed.  I know I tried to psyche myself up yesterday by saying that weight is just a number but when it comes to the crunch and everyone is sat around you saying they've lost more, it does sting a little.  It's alright though, baby steps and all that.  I've lost 8lb in total now, which is pretty good for not even two weeks (in normal diet terms). 

They kept talking on the DVD last night about how in week 3 the excitement starts to wear off and you realise you're in for a long slog.  It's true of course, so I suppose what happens in these first few weeks is insignificant because it only makes up 1/7 (sorry, I did try to work out the percentage but it's only 8am and that's too early for me to do math) of the time we are there.  It's early days yet.

I keep dreaming that I have eaten stuff.  I don't dream of going 'stuff foodpacks, stuff the counsellor - I'm going to eat this chocolate brownie!'.  In my dreams I am already eating and not thinking of LL at all.  Then all of a sudden I'll go 'oh shit, this is food.  I've lapsed now.' and I feel really bummed out.  Then I'm left feeling defeated and useless.  Last night I dreamt I was sat with my mum eating a kinder egg.  Then I said (exactly as I put up there) 'oh shit, this is food.  I've lapsed now.' and thought 'I really wanted to go the whole 14 weeks without lapsing' and wondered what would happen with ketosis. 

The only good thing about it is that I wake up and think 'What the hell?  Why would I even consider putting a kinder egg anywhere near my mouth?  I wouldn't even get in to the situation of having a kinder egg to eat, let alone actually doing it'.  In the light of day it seems bizarre because my food intake goes:  foodpack, foodpack, foodpack, foodpack and water.  There's no grey area there.  There's no 'Hmm, am I allowed to eat a kinder egg?', so how I'd end up eating half of it and then going 'oh, this is food?' is beyond me.  We can't help what we dream I suppose.  At least I am getting the chance to eat conventional food, even if it is in the dreamworld and I feel guilty afterwards.

I wonder what it means though.  Maybe I am paranoid about abstaining.  I have had similar dreams on other diets.  I remember once when I was only eating cream crackers (bizarre but I liked it) and I had a dream that I had stuff myself with dolly mixtures.  I woke up feeling really bad because I was doing so well but then realised it wasn't real.  The food dreams are a lot more frequent on LL though.  A lot more.

We made up this rule at LL last night not to talk about food.  So if you do fall off the wagon and indulge in a foot long frankfurter (I just googled frankfurter and can now actually taste that lovely sausagey mustardy goodness) you can't mention it.  You just have to say 'I had a bad week, I lapsed'.  The counsellor justified it by saying she didn't want to talk about food for two hours.  Fair enough but we did spend a very long time discussing childhood dinner times.  While we may have self regulated our food expletives we were still talking about eating, portion sizes, where we ate, how much was on our forks.  Not just a few sentences but the real nitty gritty.  So really we were focusing entirely food the whole time.  Maybe not food the object but the action of eating food.  

I'm going to stop saying the words 'food' and 'eating' now because I feel I have said them too much!

Oh my god!  I forgot to say - they're stopping Raspberry and Caramel milkshakes!!  No way!! I love raspberry.  Couldn't give a toss about caramel though as I haven't made a nice one since being on LL but raspberry was such a refreshing change from the sort of plain and sweet flavours.  Raspberry was in your face.  Veggie soup also got a make over.  I tried it last night and it's alright.   I liked the old one and although the new one tastes nothing like it, I still thought it was good.  I'm in the habit of tipping giant handfuls of pepper in my soups at the moment.  Anything to wring a bit of life out of them.  My mum only buys four different flavours of shake (seven of each and no soups) so I don't know how she is going to cope without raspberry.  I tend to buy one or two of each thing thinking that even if I don't like something as much as another thing at least I'm getting a bit of variety.  I think the same old flavours would really make me bored and fed up.

Okay, time for a peanut bar I think.  Yum yum yum.

See, even I can't stop talking about the f word.  Oh well, maybe LL makes you obsessed or something.

The last act of denial for a desperate girl: I have decided my scales must be wrong. I have two sets: one set is digital and the other is old school. I keep them on a bit of wood because the readings go squishy when they are on carpet. The old school set are saying Xst 0lb but the digital are saying Xst 2lb. This is totally why you're not supposed to weigh yourself outside of class! Maybe I should just chuck 'em out because they are doing me more damage than good.

I have a class tonight, so whatever LL's scales say is the truth. Well, I've followed the programme and drunk my water (ahem, most of my water) and that's all I can do. I will let you know what they say of course.

I must keep telling myself weight is just a number. If I stick to the rules, I have done all I need to do. It's not a big deal if it comes off slowly because at least it is coming off! If I have to stay on this diet for nine months a pound here or there is not going to make a difference. I will get there in the end. I'm in this for the long haul.

My clothes look baggier today but I think I must just be kidding myself. It's probably the angle or the way they've fallen or something. They can't just miraculously not fit if I haven't lost any weight, can they?

It's not even been 14 days yet. I need to stop expecting miracles. Let's see in a month how baggy my clothes are. I think I need to realise nothing is going to happen over night. In the words of the Smiths "these things take time".

So what I said yesterday is complete rubbish.  The weight is not falling off.  My scales are a pain in the arse and I am cross that I can feel hatred towards an inanimate object.  It's not the scale's fault, they just produce a number.  What annoys me though is that on Sunday I weighed Xst 13lb (as in the one below what I was) then Monday morning I was Xst 1lb (the one up), Monday evening I was Xst 4lb (HOW???) and this morning I was Xst 2lb.  What?  This is why you should not weigh yourself outside of class I assume and now I feel cross and disheartened. 

Most of the time I am happy to do lighter life and it is no hardship for me.  Yesterday there were biscuits in the kitchen all day and although they looked and smelt lovely I didn't think 'oh my God, I seriously need to eat one of those'.  I just sort of reminsced about eating biscuits.  Hmm, it's hard to explain.  Basically there is no hardcore urge to eat anything that I have to deny because it's as if a mental block has formed that says 'Conventional food is not for you' and so you look at it, are interested in it but have no desire to eat it.  So I just looked at the biscuits in the kitchen and smiled,  I smelt them and thought 'oh, they smell wonderful' and then walked off. 

The problem comes when, at moments like this, you think about all the 'hard work' you put in for very little weight loss (it seems little to me, I'm sure someone on WW would be over the moon).  I was standing in Co-op half an hour ago faced with a wall of brightly coloured sweet wrappers.  As I have already said, there was no desire to eat them but instead of having a happy reminsce about sweets, I was sad.  A colourful wall of sweets used to be a fun thing but now it isn't.  I used to buy kinder eggs and make the toys or scarf down Haribo like no tomorrow.  I wonder if the hard work we think we have put in is maybe emotional rather than something like physical hunger?  It's only every so often, things like someone eating pasta at work for their lunch or Daddy getting chips from the take away.  I feel like a well trained police dog sitting patiently in front of a treat.  You're not gonna touch it whatever happens.

I wonder in darker moments if LL is going to fuck up my eating habits more than they are already.  I think if I lost all the weight I wanted, I would have done foundation three times.  That's 45 weeks of food packs.  That's 45 weeks of:  Food is bad, food will mess everything up, do not touch food, if you eat food everything will go wrong.  So when I get down to that fabulous 10st 4lb and they say 'okay, you can eat X this week' am I going to say 'but I don't want to because food is bad and scary and if I eat it I will put on loads of weight'? 

Food packs are easy.  Food packs are safe.  Food packs are put in front of you in set amounts and you just pour them in to a cup and drink them.  Food is limitless.  Food is full of secret fats and carbs.  Food needs weighing and measuring and calculating.  Food tricks you in to eating too much.  I don't think I like food.

But still I carry on, even with my concerns.  Even with all the side effects I've spoken about before and the worry that I may be messing with my head rather than helping it I carry on.  Why?  Because I'm vain?  Because I need to be accepted?  Because I'm unhappy?  It can't be 'for health reasons' like some people bleat if it is as 'unhealthy' as others say.  I honestly can't think why.  I am asking myself those questions sat here but the only response I'm getting is 'because I want to be thin' and we all know that's only the top layer of a very bitter onion.  I will have to think about it some more.

In other, less depressing, news I bought a one litre bottle of water today.  I've been concerned that I'm not getting enough water and I think the cups at work are deceptively small.  Now all I need to do is drink four bottles and I will have got enough water.  Sounds a lot more simple that thirteen glasses.  I have nearly finished the bottle now and it's only 8.20.  Yay, only three more to go and I will be the most hydradated person in Hampshire.

My car broke yesterday and now it's in the garage, which may account for my glum manner.  Yesterday afternoon I was a dark cloud thundering down anyone who dare accost me.

Hello folks

Just a quick one to tell you that I'm doing okay.  It hurts when I swallow today but I'm not sure if that is LL related.

I'm seeing the weight drop off the on the scales (yes, I know you're not supposed to weigh yourself between sessions) and I can see it on myself.  Yesterday I wore a skirt that fit in June and it kept falling down (embarrassing as you get up out of your seat in the cinema)!  On future wearings on said skirt I will be sure to utilise a belt.  I will continue to wear it as it is like a dear friend to me.  A top that I bought recently that was a little baggy in the first place now looks kinda stupid. 

I have a top I bought in March without trying on (foolish of me).  I got home and put it on and it was pretty much skin tight but I didn't want to take it back though because it was super cute.  I tried it on yesterday and it looks better.  No puckering of the material around the boobage area.  I think it will need a few more weeks before it is acceptable to wear outside though.  It is getting there though, which is encouraging.  I have clothes in a zillion different sizes in my wardrobe, so it will be fun to resdiscover clothes I haven't worn in a long time.

It'll be fun buying more clothes too!  If I can afford it onces LL has taken its cut of my paycheck.

I had my first real 'outing' on LL yesterday.  I went to the cinema and then to the pub for a veeeeery long time.  I had a shake before I went out and then sat in the cinema with the bottle of water permanently attached to my mouth like a baby with a dummy.  My belly started rumbling a bit but I wasn't particularly hungry.  Managed to go the whole film without peeing, which I thought was an achievement.  Did have to rush out at the end though.  'So, what do you think?' my friend said 'I think I need to pee!' I said.

Then we spent an age trying to find a particular pub (I'm new to driving, so get lost easily).  Failed to find the pub in question and so went to a different pub.  Realised we had no money so went to Co-op to get money.  My friend then said he was hungry and decided to buy a ploughmans sandwich and Doritos, I wasn't that phased but I did eye up a cheese salad in the refridgeration unit.

We got back in the car and he proceeded to eat his lunchy snacks.  I felt okay but his crisps did smell nice.  Off we went again in search of the first pub but yet again I could not find it so I filled up on petrol and then decided to drive across the forest.  Didn't really have a clue where I was going but ended up outside a pub in Brockenhurst that had parking (woo hoo!) so stopped there for a while.  I had to explain the whole 'not even a slice of lemon.  If it has lemon in it, I can't drink it' thing to my friend.  Got my tap water, my friend got their beer/lager/whatever and we sat outside.  I very self-consciously ate my peanut bar.  It was sooooo good but I didn't like eating it in front of someone.  And there we sat for hours upon hours and I knocked over two glasses of water.

Anyway, nearly work time.  Best be off!

So my first week of LL is drawing to a close.  When I put my jeans on this morning (I haven't worn them since Saturday - Day 1) they felt a little looser than they were, which gave me a little boost.  It would probably be a 'warm fuzzy' as my mum was going on about last night.  Warm fuzzies and prickly nasties she was saying, apparently it's from the LL book she received but on Wednesday the lady didn't have enough for everyone so I said she could post mine.  Maybe I will receive it today or tomorrow.

Seven days of LL and what have I learnt?  Let me see...

• The shaker/sippie cup you get given when you start could well put you off the diet for good.  I've come to the conclusion that nothing tastes good when you make and drink it form the suppie cup.  It some how mixes the smell of a perfectly good soup with a stinky, clingy plastic smell and the result is very unpleasant.  Cups and bowls of normal folk are the way forward.  And don't even get me started on how shit your 'shaken' milkshake will be.  Lump city will prevail, which brings me on to my next point...
• Whisks are everything.  I carry a little whisk around in my bag now, Mr Whiskie I call it.  Whisk that bitch in to submission.  The lumps will go and when they do you have have a lovely 'creamy' milkshake that is infinitely better that the lumpy one.  I promise!  Just keep whisking!  Forks, spoons, shakers, big ass electronic whisk don't work.
• You will pee A LOT but drinking the water isn't that hard because you will start to get a horrible taste in your mouth and it will be quite dry, so you sorta feel as if you want to drink more anyway.
• Water flavouring helps make water more appetising.  It is genuinely very nice.  Fruits of the Forest tastes just like Robinsons Summer Fruit.
• A new flavour or bar is as exciting as Gok Wan coming to Southampton.  Peanut is the BEST!  Lemon and toffee are not so good.
• Thai Chilli soup taste neither thai nor chilli.  Very dissappointing.
• Foodpacks at work are not as much of a problem as I thought it would be.
• Savoury drinks are my saviour.  They should be called savioury drinks.  I think they are delicious and they really fill a gap.  So lovely and warm and delicious.
• I still miss dinners - but not because I am hungry.  I think it's because it's ingrained in me to think 'Ah, just get home and have a nice dinner'.  The dinner involves sitting down with my family and watching TV and so is relaxing, so I guess it's not really the food I look forward to but somehow my brain has decided to think it is.  I still like having my soup when I get in.  It's still nice.
• Once you get on your abstience horse, it's not that hard.  You won't want to give up because (a) you worked damn hard to get in to ketosis and one little bite will fuck it up (b) putting conventional food anywhere near you will seem alien (c) you're not actually hungry so it gives you a chance to think 'Why am I doing this?  Is this really the thing I want to do?' (not that I have got in that situation but when I think about cheese, chips, pasta etc that is what I think I think to myself).
• Cheesy as it is, that shit about the wall is true.  You get to the top of your wall and everything seems rosy.  You just get a boost of energy.  I wake up in the morning now and bounce out of bed.  Don't even feel tired.  No headaches, no lethagy, okay maybe some irregularness of the womanly area but hey, I don't feel bad.

So that's it for the time being I think.  I will let you know if I think of anything different.

Ta ta!

Hello folks

First of all I would like to tell you about two dreams I had last night. 

I firstly dreamt that I had three male friends in my car (in reality I do not know them) and I was sat in the back.  There was a guy driving and he pulled up outside a shop and jumped out.  My car started rolling forwards and I shouted for the guy in front to put the handbrake on.  He didn't and so I leant forward (difficult in my car) and pull it.  It didn't work and we rolled into a barrier and crapped my car up completely.  Very horrible dream.

Second I dreamt that I was in the kitchen at work and I had a big white baguette filled with cheese.  I took a bite of the baguette and the bread was so fluffy and doughy and delicious.  Then after chewing for a couple of times I realised with alarm that I was on LL and had to spit it all out.  I dreamt that a couple of times in a row.  It's very odd because this morning I nearly opened the fridge to get some lemonade.  How am I still doing silly things like that six days in?

The second dream was a very, very horrible dream.  The bread did taste delicious though.  It's funny that I remember that a lot better than I remember the cheese.

Anyway, last night I had my first meeting.  I met the ladies in my group and they are all lovely.  I am the youngest there by some way I think.  It's a bit like being in a mothers' meeting. 

We watched a DVD that I didn't really see the point of.  It said that your hair might fall out and I am not very happy about it.  My hair is the only part of my body I like and if that goes I will just be a balding heifer.  It really does make me wonder about LL.  People say 'Oh you get headaches and your hair falls out and you feel weak and you have three week long periods but think of how good you will look when you've lost that weight!'.  What are we doing to our bodies?  Is being thin really so important to us that we are willing to go against our bodies clearly protesting?  We shouldn't get any side effects, let alone your hair falling out and bizarre irregular periods.  Maybe it's a case of pot and kettles though because I am still sat here doing it.  If my hair really did start to fall out though I would have to think twice.  My hair means a lot to me.

We had to make specific and realistic goals too last night and it wasn't easy for me.  I didn't want to say 'in three months time I want to be a size 18' because I honestly don't know if that is realistic or not.  I'm new to the world of yo-yo dieting and I don't know how weight relates to size and time.  The size of clothes is more important to me than weight.  In the long run I suppose my goal would be to walk into somewhere like Monsoon, Topshop, Dorothy Perkins, Gap or New Look and just pick up a size 10 and know it will fit.  I go to New Look quite often because they do young and fashionable fat clothes (as opposed to Evans who do boring, old moo moos that cost the Earth) and I go in to my tiny, tiny little fat person section and spot things in the normal people section that are so lovely and I think 'oh, I wish I could buy that David Bowie top' so that's the place I dream of hunting most.  Also the New Look in Southampton is massive, so there's more clothes to roam.

I did end up making a short term goal.  Our foundation finishes on 11 October and it is my birthday on 10 October.  So my goal is to be slim enough to fit on the rides at Alton Towers or Thorpe Park so I can go for my birthday.  I have been once before and I couldn't fit on the big rides.  That shit sucks, I tell you.  I sat in the test chair and boyfriend of the time was leaning down on the restraint trying to squeeze me in as people walked past.  Never again.  The restriction is 52 inches and my counsellor measured my waist at 53 inches so I think it is realistic that in 13 weeks I can slip below 52 inches.

When my counsellor weighed me last night I had lost 5lb.  My mum had lost 7lb.  All good in the hood.

Best get on.   Work time beckons.

I had a good day yesterday.  Didn't feel that bad most of the time.  I did start to get a headache in the late afternoon but I took some pain killers and I was fine after that.  Having a big hot bowl (okay, it wasn't big) of veggie soup when I got home from work was lovely.  My late evening chocolate mousse did not mousse very well, so I ended up having the world's most piddly sized shake.  Still, it was chocolate and it was nice.

I don't think I drank enough water yesteday.  I cut down on my water in take at around 4ish because I am paranoid about being caught short in my car.  The traffic home is unpredictable and I don't want to take any chances.  Then when I got home I got quite engrossed in my studying and realised I hadn't drunk anything for at least two hours (except for my soup).  I had a couple of glasses after that and my mini-shake so hopefully I was okay?  I woke up with a really dry mouth. 

This is the only thing (well, apart from on Monday when there were many, many things) that annoys me about LL.  I hate having to plan my life around when and where my next loo stop is.  It's ridiculous.  Some days I pee every half hour.  EVERY HALF HOUR!!  Sometimes it's every hour.  Fair enough when I'm at home or work it's fairly easy but what happens when I want to go to a car boot sale or shopping or god forbid a jaunt down the motorway where there are no loos?  I mean, I'm paranoid already so I guess 4 litres of water is not helping the situtation but it is ridiculous.  Then there's the beloved 'water wheel' approach.  'To keep our bodies running smoothly we need water little and often, like a water wheel'.  So there goes downing a two litre bottle twice a day.  Maybe I'm getting too hung up on it.  Maybe I'm drinking too much.  Maybe my body will get used to it and allow me two hours uniterrupted living without demanding a trip to the loo.  The worst thing is I keep reading things on the internet saying 'I drunk 5 litres a day instead of 4 and lost X amount of pounds in a week!!  This diet really is 'the more you drink the more you shrink'.  Dear God, pleeeeeeease don't tell me that is true!  I can't cope with more water. 

Apparently there is a group in Southampton that has just started that is later in the evening, so I might have to end up going there instead of Romsey with my mum.  I don't want to but if my work is  going to be diffifcult and the traffic is that bad then I've got no choice really.  I suppose it will be easier in the long run with drop-ins or pop-ins or whatever they are called.  And hey, who knows, maybe I do have some secret buried anxiety about my mum and food that we'll uncover in the comfy, safe environment of Southampton LL HQ.  Or maybe not.  Probably not if I'm honest.  I'm just greedy.  I just like pizza.

Anyway, I have to be off because I need to start work half an hour early so that I can leave half an hour early so that I can get to wonderful Romsey LL HQ and weight my bad self to see that yes, I really have lost 9st in one week and don't need to eat foodpacks anymore.  Woot woot.

Ta ta for now.

Well after that lovely peanut bar my day has gone simply swimmingly.  I feel really upbeat and full of beans.  The headaches, grumpiness and general body grumbles seen to have gone. 

Could I have reached the top of my wall?  (LL mumbo-gumbo to keep you going through the shitness).  Am I pearched at the top laughing at the people climbing up?  Well, I don't know.  I feel pretty good though.

I whipped up a little banana mousse for much lunch, which was also wonderful. 

I'm tell you, I better have lost a whole load of weight when I get weighed tomorrow!

It's funny how you can go from feeling bloody awful one day to great the next.  Maybe my mum was right about the four hourly eating thing.  I don't think I will eat my 'dinner' (veggie soup) at 4pm though as (a) I think I will be too busy to plonk down with a bowl of soup at work (c) everyone would look at me and ask me what I was doing (c) I wouldn't enjoy it fully because I would be too busy working and (d) I'm so used to walking through the door and eating something that I don't think I could cope if I didn't.  Besides, it's just weird to eat your dinner at work if you work in an office doing the 9-5.

Something else that is bugging me is the whole 'eating vanilla mousse while watching Eastenders' thing.  Am I really changing my eating habits if I'm still eating nice food while watching TV?  Isn't the whole point of it to change your habits?  Is it okay to do? 

Oh, I don't know.  Maybe I just have to wait and see what counselling we get.  Perhaps that is the key to everything.  I feel quite sorry for people in their first week of LL because it is damn hard and you do spend time wondering if you're doing things right and if it's meant to be as hard as it is.  You get a lot of questions.  I did get given my counsellor's mobile number though, so I suppose if I was in a jam I could ring her.

People at work are intrigued as to what I'm doing.  I don't understand how watching me whisk a shake is so fascinating.  Maybe a very large person attempting to lose weight is an entertaining spectacle to the skinnies.  To be fair I have been known to eat four Kit Kats in one day so they're probably just curious about how I am going to live on a shake and a mousse without dying or ripping their heads off (oh dear lord, I nearly did yesterday).

Anyway, onwards and upwards!  Tomorrow is LL day so I will fill you in on what I've lost and what the group is like (and any more mumbo-gumbo I learn). 

I'm telling you know, I better lose at least 7lbs!

Just a quick one to say:

Yesterday was the worst day ever!  By about 5 o' clock I was ready the quit the programme.  It was my first day at work on LL and I was walking around all day in the terrible mood, ready to jump down anyone's throat. I  was peeing every half hour and I still wasn't drinking enough.  All I could think about was cheese:  cheese sandwich, cheese on toast, cheese and onion pastie, macaroni and cheese.  I was cross because I was feeling more obsessed with food than I ever was before.

I got home and told my mum 'I'm fed up already.  Grumble, grumble, grumble' and she tried to motivate me by saying I looked like I had lost weight and then she made me a thai chilli soup with half a savoury drink sachet in and it was actually really nice.  I felt better afterwards.  Then we both made a mousse out of a vanilla shake and watched Eastenders.  I felt lots better after that!

So this morning I am sat eating a peanut bar from my breakfast.  I have never been so excited about being able to eat a bar before in my life.  It's actually quite good.  It's nice to eat something in the morning.  I didn't eat (haha, 'eat' what a joke) until 12 yesterday and I think that's why I was in a bad mood.  My mum reckons I should eat every 4 hours. 

My boss won't let me leave early to get to LL so I might have to switch groups or days or something.  I'm not sure what is happening yet but I am definitely going to my normal group on Wednesday.  After that, who knows.  That was another reason I was really cheesed (no pun intended) off yesterday.  It was all a big kaffufle.

Anyway, I best get on!  Just wanted to update you on the shiteous situation.  Hopefully today will be better.

First of all, I would like to say that I really want some cheese. Something gooey like brie and a toasted bagel. Mmmmm.

I'll pick up where I left off. So on Friday I went to my music festival with Gina and it was simply wonderful. Food and LL did play on my mind a lot though. Gina has just passed her physiotherapy degree and so is very knowledgable about food, weight, the human body, everything. He began referring to it as a cult. I said 'I don't want to get sucked in to it but at the same time I don't want to be so skeptical that I get nothing from it'. She wasn't sold by the whole thing but she did say that just taking that first step towards changing yourself is a big deal so what was happening was positive. She always knows the right thing to say.

Before we went to Hyde Park we went to have lunch with Gina's sister, Alex. She took use to a Japanese restaurant. I had never been to a Japanese restaurant, so was a little unsure of what to have. Gina and Alex were obviously pros on the Japanese food scene and they were flicking through their menus swiftly scanning the dishes. I was fumbling through like a numpty. We all settled on an obento box (I copied them) and I had veggie sushi (hoping that they knew fish was not considered veggie by some of us). It was actually very nice. It was abit strange that it mainly tasted of fish but I think that was the seaweed. I haven't tasted fish in a very long time so maybe my tastebuds were just confused. It came in a little square box with four different sections - two of sushi, one of salad and one of fruit. Now, when I was learning Chinese at college I won the chopstick using competition and consider myself fairly skilled but man is it hard to pick up big chunks of fruit with chopsticks.  In the end Alex told me to spear it.  I did so but felt a bit self conscious nibbling on a chuck of pineapple on a stick in the middle of a fairly posh (it's London, so everything seems posh to me) restaurant.  When we paid the bill Gina noted my lack of fruit eating.  It wasn't 'cos I don't like fruit girl!

The sushi was surprisingly filling despite being made up of a little bit of rice and vegetables.  Off we went to Hyde Park and in to the festival.  As we arrived there were O2 representatives with fluffy angel wings telling people that if you text a certain number you can get a voucher worth £5 for lunch.  Five quid is five quid having eaten or not, so we fired our messages off.  We walked around the festival accumulating free stuff and trying to work up an appetite.  The offer ran out at 4.00, so when 3.50 rolled around and we were stood by a half pipe watched skaters and BMXers fly through the air in slow motion, we ran off like crazed free food maniacs across the park.  Gina decided to have an Australian pie for her second lunch.  I thought eating any more would make me sluggish and bloated (wow, using my head for once when it comes to food) so I used my voucher to buy a can of energy drink and a bottle of water, which came to £4.50.  £4.50!!!  Insane prices.

And that's where my food story of Hyde Park ends because I didn't eat any more when I was there.  I think Gina was damn full after her steak and mushroom (very Australian?) pie and I was too caught up with seeing bands and not peeing too much.  I only started to feel hungry on the train back from London, which was just after 11.00.

Once I got home my tummy was really rumbling so at 1.00am in the morning I ate a small amouth of roasted veggie past (cold) and retired to bed with a Muller cruch corner (vanilla choco balls).  Vanilla choco balls have a special place in my heart as one of my beloved yoghurts.  Damn, now I'm thinking of all the lovely yoghurts I have eaten in my time.  *Sigh*  Fairwell fond yoghurts, I will see you on the other side.

So that was the last thing I ate.  I was rudely awaken on Saturday but my obnoxious and unthinking alarm alerting me to the fact it was 10.30 and I needed to get up to have a shower.  I didn't, then half an hour later and rushed about like a loon getting ready.  We arrived at the LL Den hella early but decided to barge in anyway because we couldn't be bothered to wait. 

Now, for you info junkies who are considering joining, here's the low down on what happens (bearing in mind we started mid-week and not with the rest of the group):

1.  LL person takes your form just to check you're not walking around with unfinished heart surgery or something.
2.  LL person weighs you (I am dubious about their scales) and measures your boobs, waist and hips.  This involves spinning on the spot, which I enjoyed.
3.  LL person takes full length pictures of you front and sideways on.  I wished that I had got up earlier and dried my hair instead of leaving it wet.  LL person informs me that when I get the pictures back I won't be looking at my hair.  I guess I will be staring in disbelief at how much of a heifer I used to be.
4.  LL person gives you a little record book with your weight in and a booklet about the first week for you to read before the next meeting.
5.  LL person gives you a selection of soups, shakes and bars to last you until the next meeting.
6.  LL person takes your money.
7.  LL person wishes you good luck.

Here is a picture of my lovely goodie bag.

And here is a picture showing a selection of the wonderful products I am going to consume over the next week together with a tub of water flavouring (which is surprisingly nice and that you have to pay £9 for) and my booklets.

The contents of my bag was:

1 caramel shake
2 strawberry shakes
1 raspberry shake
3 chocolate shakes
2 vegetable soups
2 banana shakes
2 chicken soups
3 vanilla shakes
2 thai chilli soups
1 savoury drink powder
1 crispy cranberry and raspberry bar
1 peanut bar
1 tub of forest fruits water flavouring
1 LL big sippie cup

I then went with my family to the supermarket so my dad could pick up his food for the week.  I have never felt so careless about a supermarket before.  I was walking round thinking 'Can we just go now?  I can't eat this stuff so why bother looking at it?' and decided to busy myself choosing toothpaste and looking for bepanthen (which worked well because they didn't have any).  I wanted a stick wizzy blender thing but they were out of stock so I bought a old school cheap-ass electronic whisk thing (you can tell I don't cook, can't you?) for about a fiver.

Once we got home me and mum were pretty hungry (it was about 2.00) and so rifled through our LL bags like kids on Christmas morning.  I plumped for a Thai Chilli soup and my mum had a Caramel shake.  We tipped the sachet in to the big sippie cup that LL provided and I whisked away.  It was unsuccessful because the sippie cup was too deep.  I gave up and stirred it with a fork instead.  I added hot water and voila!  All done.  Mummy put waaaay too much water in her shake and the flavour was quite weak.  I approached trying my soup with trepidation, God knows what I was worried about looking back.  I thought it was going to taste like chemical space dust or something.  In actual fact it tasted like an own-brand chicken cup-a-soup.  Not that bad but not that good.  Definitely no hint or Thai or chilli flavour though.  All in all - bearable.  Hurrah! 

Lumps are an issue with my creations so far, I must admit.

After that I tried a vanilla shake.  I put less water in to avoid what happened to mum.  It was pretty nice really, except for the lumps.

For dinner I had a vegetable soup.  Once again, quite lumpy but enjoyable.  I find putting really hot water in helps me feel more full.

My mum gave me this whack method of avoiding lumps, insisting it was how she made gravy.  For my next meal (a chocolate shake) I decided to use her method.  It was damn awful!  It was the lumpiest yet.  I must have misunderstood her instructions because that shit was lumpy as hell (is hell lumpy?  You know what I mean)! 

I expected the chocolate shake to be one of those pathetic "look, you can eat chocolate when you're on a diet - this is chocolate flavour doesn't it taste just like the real thing" monstrosities bu it was actually really good.  Really chocolately, really satisfying (despit the lumps).  I can see them become a staple in my diet.

I was struggling with the water intake but I did really try to keep sipping on my sports bottle.  It has a little measure on the side so you can tell how much you have drunk.  I do not enjoy the increase in my trips to the loo though. 

By the late evening I felt pretty bad.  I had a headache and felt stiff and shrivelled.  The feeling continued through the night and I woke up at about 5.30 and just couldn't go back to sleep.  The headache was still there and I felt very, very groggy. 

I will tell you one thing though and this is very important, I did not feel hungry.  I still don't now and that was 7 hours ago and I still haven't eaten.  It's bizarre, I can't tell you how it works but I have had no belly rumblings.  I still want to eat, of course I do, I want to eat because I like eating food but I am not hungy.  It's fucking crazy, huh?  I'm not eating and I don't feel hungry!!  Stuff you world!

Who knows what today will bring.  I'm pretty sure it will bring me a chocolate shake, another flavour shake, a soup and maybe another shake after that.  Maybe I will try chicken soup today and even a banana milkshake (I generally hate banana milkshakes) if I'm feeling brave.  Maybe I will try raspberry or strawberry.  Oh the possibilities are quite limited but feel endless.

Ta ta for now.

Right, so my lighter life adventure is beginning.

I went to my 'free hour consultation'.  When my mum first told me about it I was like 'It's three hours long??'.  Of course it wasn't! 

We watched a DVD with two anxious looking, podgy men.  The DVD consisted of people saying things like 'I was a pathetic, miserable fat person.  I didn't exist.  Being fat is the worst thing in the world you can be but now I'm thin so my life is great'.  Nerve hitting stuff designed to make you feel shit I think.  Fair play to them though, if they get the results it's all that matters.  There were lots of 'slim' people lounging around talking about their new found sex lives and trying on medium sized tops. 

The DVD did answer a few questions I had.  The nutrition packs that you are given are not to give you energy.  They are literally just to give you the nutrients you need.  They've squeezed them down as much as they can and that's your 530 calories.  Apparently (and I cannot see how this works and I'll get back to you with whether it does or not!) once you've burnt this energy store thing in your liver and you're in ketosis just burning fat you don't feel hungry and people reportedly have an overall sense of well being.  To be fair I doubt I get all the nutrients I'm supposed to get on what I eat at the moment (shit and processed shit), so maybe I will feel better.  People on the DVD said they slept better and felt better in the morning.  The councellor lady told us some guy in one of her groups use to have bad headaches but they've simply disappeared.

If you're thinking about joining, here is another tidbit for you...men and women are split in to same sex groups.  The men are on the foundation course for eight weeks and women for fourteen.  This is because men lose weight quicker than women.  Once you come to the end of your eight or fourteen weeks, if you haven't lost all the weight you want to lose you just carry on in the foundation period with your food packs.

The mens' counselling sessions are also shorter than the womens' because we talk too much I assume.  From the consultation I got the impression that I'd prefer to be in the mens' group to be honest, less talk about periods and 'feelings' I guess. 

At the end of the consultation you are given a magazine (full of LL propaganda to get you hyped up) and a form for your doctor to fill in.  It's nothing too intrusive, just whether you are pregnant, have angina, DVT or completely lactose intolerant among other things.  It asks what your blood pressue is (mine is good apparently), pulse, height and weight.  My doctor glanced at it with a wry smile on his face and took delight in tell me my ideal weight was 10st 4lb.  Thanks Doc, I'll bear that in mind.  He's a cheeky sod.

My mum is doing LL with me too and she has just got her form signed.  We are going to the little LL Den on Saturday to get our food packs so that we can gatecrash the current female group.  Leaving the consultation on Wednesday and walking past them was a little bit like walking past a queue to get into a big ladies' tea party hosted by Barbara Cartland.  It was all floaty fabric and sequins.  Very strange but they will become my best buddies in obesity I guess. 

Right now I am coming to terms with losing all my favourite food items and beverages.  I think I will miss Pepsi Max, cream teas, quorn family roasts (yes, they are for a family but I eat one all to myself because my family consists of me and two meat eaters), Chinese takeaway, pizzas, cheese and olives.  I feel like stuffing my face one last time but know that's not the way to go.  My last day of eating real food is tomorrow and I am going to a music festival with my friend Gina, so I don't think I will get an opportunity to scarf down a few scones or a bean curd and black bean sauce with boiled rice.

I keep thinking 'what the fuck are you doing?  You will never be able to keep this up.  You are going to get so bored and so damn hungry' but I keep looking at the girl on the front of the LL propaganda rag and she goes from big blob and beautiful creature all by eating space dust and drinking gallons of water.  It's like - follow the rules and you will lose a shit load of weight.  As simple as.  It seems like some magic formula or something but it's not.  It's just very expensive starvation (or so it feels like).

Anyway, enough speculation.  I will let you know how my last day of freedom and my first day of the fight goes.  Can't wait to try out those flavours and go carb cold turkey.  I'm imagining it to be like the hallucination scene in Trainspotting.  I hope wee Dawn doesn't pay me a visit.

Wish me luck!