Diet Doodle Diary

Following my wake up call I have been looking at ways of motivating myself to stay on track with my healthy living plan. Instagram has been great because there are so many accounts with before and after slimming pictures and there are also fantastic ideas for healthy meals and exercise tips. Whilst I was flicking through the pictures I spotted that several people had mentioned the Diet Doodle Diary and from the pictures I thought it might be fun to have one too! I was using a notebook to keep a food diary but as well as being a food diary this book contains tips, motivational quotes and unique ways to set goals.

There are interesting ways of measuring your progress including whether your boots will zip up to your knees and how to make small changes that will add up to increase your confidence. The drawings are fabulous, the advice is great and if you are looking for a lifestyle change this book will encourage you to develop in different areas of your life. The book also acts as a journal for you to note how you are feeling and there are plenty of inspirational and amusing quotes to spur you on.

I’m not the most confident person and I find that if I get too discouraged  I quit! This book really helps to look at things from a different perspective and rather than buying into the myth that when you lose weight your life will change it encourages you to increase your confidence levels so that you are more likely to succeed and from that success you can learn to build confidence in other areas.

I would definitely recommend this book as a gift to anyone you know starting a healthy living plan and if you are starting any kind of diet change I recommend you buy a copy for yourself too.

The Diet Doodle Diary was illustrated by Julie Mackey and is available here.

Motivation (or how to keep on the straight and narrow when all you want is chocolate)

Ever since I had my wake up call I have been really keen on finding ways to lose weight whilst eating healthily. This isn’t about having a ‘beach body’ (I have a body and I can take it on the beach already!) and this isn’t about short term weight loss; for me this is about finding a way of eating that improves my health. Unfortunately the fact that I have picked up bad eating habits along the way makes it difficult to undo those habits and reinforce new, healthy ones. In some ways the battle isn’t so much against ‘carbohydrates or sugar, but a battle against my own habits and though patterns and battling against habit is hard.

Up until yesterday I had been able to focus on eating healthily and I felt pretty motivated but yesterday I had a bad day. A couple of things that went wrong and there was a problem with one of the kids; for some people this would have been the cue to open a bottle of wine but for me this was the cue to eat chocolate. I have been really careful about what food I have in the house but my husband had bought me a box of chocolates and my gut reaction was to open the box and eat the lot. However much I put the thought to the back of my mind it kept creeping forward again, with that little voice that says ‘just eat one’. (Although I know for a fact if I have one chocolate I will end up eating far more). I know that a sustainable lifestyle change is about eating a variety of things in moderation but I recognised that this was potentially emotional eating so I grabbed my laptop and tried to find distraction online. Whilst browsing the internet I managed to find some pretty good motivation in a way I wouldn’t have imagined.

I don’t own a full length mirror, and as I’m not photogenic I tend to avoid photos, so I was wondering what I really look like to other people. Whilst browsing the internet I found an amazing site called Model My Diet that lets you see what you look like now and what you will look like at your target weight. I created the below images of where I’m at and where I want to be at eventually.

I can see that I have a long way to go but these images can help me see how worthwhile this weight loss is and how I need to keep going and avoid the urge to fall back into old ways. This was the motivation I needed to put the chocolate away, brush my teeth and have an early night! Ohana 1 Temptation 0

Sweet Addiction

I am pretty impressed with myself at the moment as I have managed to keep to my regime of drinking water instead of Pepsi Max. This is literally the only thing I am drinking and I am starting to get into the habit of automatically going to the tap instead of the fridge or juice. I have noticed that cutting the sweet flavour, associated with Pepsi, out of my diet has actually started to alter my palate; I just don’t crave sweet things like I used to. So what else have I changed in my diet and is it working?

Cutting the Pepsi out of my diet made me feel better in myself and I wondered how much of that was to do with cutting out the additives so I decided to ensure that I use fresh produce when cooking, as much as possible. I have always done a lot of cooking, so this wasn’t too much of a lifestyle change in itself, but I have also tended to cheat and use’ bought’ sauces which can contain additives and preservatives. By making my own sauces I realised that I could control what was going into the meal without spending much additional time cooking.

The other plus with cutting out the ‘ready made’ aspect of meals was that I could control how much sugar was in each meal. I hadn’t realised just how much sugar goes into savoury things until I took a long hard look at the label. I knew that cutting sugar out of my diet completely would be unrealistic but I also know that I have a sweet tooth and that sugar is an issue for me. When I started my food diary I realised that sugar is actually an addiction of mine and that when I start nibbling on biscuits or chocolate I find it hard to stop. I know that many diets recommend eating them in moderation but I also know myself and that where chocolate is concerned I really lack willpower. With this in mind I decided that I would still buy the occasional dessert for the family to eat as a treat but that the only desserts I would eat would be fresh fruit. I also decided that as there is no nutritional value in chocolate I had to bite the bullet and give it up. This was a difficult decision for me to make but it is actually easier for me to stop myself taking that first bite rather than stop after one biscuit.

I’m lucky in that my weight gain seems to have more to do with my bad snacking habits rather than portion control so there are some elements of my meals that I have been able to keep the same but I have also replaced unhealthy components with healthier options where possible. For example instead of eating 2 pieces of toast for breakfast I have replaced this with a bowl of porridge. This should keep me fuller for longer and contains more fibre so is a healthier option. I have also replaced white rice and pasta for brown and try to eat very small portions of carbohydrates with larger portions of fresh vegetables.

So how is it going so far? I have a lot of weight to lose so I am only on the first few steps of a long journey but I am pleased to say that in the first 10 days I have managed to lose 7 lbs; that’s half a stone!

Where do I Start – Food Diary Fun!

Following my wake up call with the nurse I started work on my food diary straight away. I am fond of spread-sheets and online diaries but I decided that, for me, the most practical way of keeping a note of my eating habits was the old fashioned way, with pen and notebook. The conversation with the nurse showed that I had gradually gained a lot of weight so I decided that the notebook needed to highlight the eating patterns behind the weight gain.

I suspected that some of my extra calories were coming from picking at food when bored and comfort eating when stressed. I looked online to see what kind of headings would be helpful for my notebook to reflect what was driving the weight gain and decided on the following;

Time

What I ate

Where I ate it

BH or MH (Body hunger or mouth hunger)

The BH or MH heading helps to identify what is driving your eating; Body Hunger is when you eat because you are physically hungry and feel the hunger from your stomach and Mouth Hunger is when you feel your mouth salivating or craving the urge to chew; the two don’t necessarily happen together.

So what have I discovered so far? I can see that when I sit down to meals at the table I eat reasonable portions but I need to increase the amount of fresh fruit and vegetables in my diet. It would also be helpful if I increased the amount of fibre I’m eating so that I feel fuller for longer. I tend to snack when I am in the kitchen, either preparing a meal or ‘just stopping by’ for a snack! I definitely snack when I am bored or emotional and I am actually quite shocked by how much I was snacking without really realising it. I can also see that my caffeine intake is quite high and I tend to couple snacking with having a drink (oh the irony of eating a packet of crisps with a diet soda!)

Where do I go from here? Rather than just ‘guesstimating’ how much weight I need to lose and how many calories I need to eat a day to achieve that weight loss I have used the NHS BMI too.

http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/weight-loss-guide/Pages/set-your-target-weight

Now that I know how many calories I can eat each day in order to lose weight I am going to create menu plans and incorporate some of the healthy changes I am going to make to my eating, into family meals too. If that is step 2 then I guess step 3 will involve exercise; watch this space!