If you've known me for longer than 5 minutes, then you will absolutely know that I have struggled with my weight for the entire time we have known each other.
You've been there with me as I've embraced the latest fad, and know of at least one diet I've been on during the time we've known each other.
So it won't surprise you when you find out I'm about to try something new again.
But before I tell you about my latest weight loss adventure, it is only fair that you get the whole history of the battle of Danielle's body.
OK, sit back, you may want to grab yourself a drink as it is a bit of a long ride.........
So, it all began in the early hours of Wednesday November 3rd in the year 1971. An extremely exhausted woman of 24 and her equally exhausted husband welcomed a beautiful but tiny baby girl into their lives 6 weeks early and after a 36hr labour that ended in an emergency caesarean that almost saw mother and baby not make it.
Drama, see, I caused it from day one!!!
So this very tiny premi baby was born weighing just over 5 pounds 2 ounces and the first few weeks of her life she struggled to gain weight. They tried breastfeeding, every formula under the sun and after much trial and error the little baby began to put on weight and became a chubby cheeked healthy little baby.
Unfortunately though, that chubby cheeked baby continued to put on weight and was a chubby toddler, a chubby child, a chubby teenager and finally an extremely overweight adult.
Now telling you this history isn't about me blaming my parents, far from it, if they hadn't found the solution when I was a small baby, I may not have made it to be even writing this blog, no, this purely so you know the history and can maybe understand a little about my journey.
So as a kid I always got teased for being chubby ,but remarkably those taunts didn't worry me too much, I was a pretty happy child, I enjoyed music and drama and English at school and I always had friends that I played with at school and after. I didn't really know I was bigger than the other kids unless people pointed it out.
Of course by the time I hit high school that changed as I became aware of boys and puberty kicked in!
I’ve always had boy friends in my life, not relationships, just boys who were good friends, and they never made me feel unattractive, but teenagers can be cruel and sometimes girls as much as boys would take it upon themselves to tease me about my weight. But I was remarkably lucky that those taunts were not the battering to my self-esteem that a lot of kids my age suffered.
As I reached my 20’s my weight was actually pretty stable for a long time, and when I look back at photos of that time, I was maybe only 10 – 15kgs over weight, but sadly, someone very close to me made me feel like I was a whole lot bigger than that and always had, and so I comfort ate to deal with the hurt and humiliation that had been dealt to me for a very long time. (One day I may go into more detail – but for now it’s enough to say that my feeling of self-worth can to this day still be hit hard by this person)
But let’s move on. I’ve had men in my life who have loved and adored me, the kilos not an issue, there has also been others that could have been, if I had of been thinner, but I’ve not particularly let that bother me for the men I’ve loved and been interested in have all been very different, including shapes and sizes themselves, so I figure that is just about preferences and chemistry. That was highlighted for me in my mid 30’s when I had a brief affair with a much younger man. He was a very intelligent man doing a psychology degree and we dated for about a month before we realised the most we really had in common was sex –it was never going to be anything more than that, let’s be honest!! However we remained friends for a long time and once I asked him how we had ended up dating in the first place because I was acutely aware that his girlfriends before and after me were young, thin, blonde and athletic. I was blonde at the time – it was the only common factor and I remember him saying to me, “Dan its chemistry, I can’t put my finger on it other than when I’m around you, when I hear your voice, when I see your smile, I just can’t resist you, it’s like I have no choice”.
And he was right, there has been so many people in my life that I have been attracted to and sometimes been involved with that I have the same reaction to, so my weight loss adventures are not about that, they are so totally about my general health and wellbeing.
So a few months before my beloved Nanna Lucas died I started doing Jenny Craig. I had friends and family, who had done well on it, and I started out going well but financially it was hard on me at the time and I lost focus. I’m not very good at having my weight loss monitored on such a strict scale and with my heart breaking over Nan being gone I stopped going and ate away my pain, putting back on the kilos that I lost, til I got to a weight again where I was constantly ill, had no energy and my immune system was low. It didn’t help that I had an arsehole of a boss at the time that micro managed everything I did either, but the main thing here is not why but how I managed it, I ate my through it. Food, my constant companion who filled the voids and the pain.
At the end of 2008 then I made the biggest decision of my life – to undergo lap band surgery and on the 30th March 2009 my operation took place.
At the time I was confident that I had made the right decision, that it was the last resort for me and that I was ready. The clinic that I attended and hospital were one of the best and the psych said I was ready, and at the time I think that I was. I followed everything to the letter for those first few months and from my highest weight (which was a few months actually before I decided on the surgery) down to my lowest I lost almost 30 kgs (20 of those as a result of the surgery and its pre preparation) – which is I will admit a damn impressive effort. The band though requires a few constant things to work and that is total calorific restriction, 3 tiny meals a day, chewing small and slowly and total and utter concentration….and I really did think I was ready for all of that.
But it has its restrictions too that are affected by my mental state. When I’m really stressed or upset I can’t eat, sometimes that includes even swallowing water. If I accidently swallow something before I’ve chewed it enough it comes back, you have no option but throw up, and it HURTS – you feel it travel all the way back from the pouch to your mouth (sorry for that graphic description!). I’m not hungry before 9:30 – 10:00am and that is if I get up around 7:00. If I get up later, add an extra hour. When you’re not hungry with the band, it’s a feeling like you’ve already eaten a huge meal and if you need to eat – blood sugar regulation, calories required, breakfast – that can mean that meal gets completely skipped if I have to be somewhere- which for your metabolism is not good. Some activities like going to the gym of a morning are a non-event because I can’t stomach food before I get there. So you get the idea.
It isn’t all bad though, it does stop me from binge eating which I was often guilty of, and if I go to maccas I can now only chew and swallow a cheese burger successfully, no longer what was my favourite the quarter pounder, so there are some advantages!
What I’ve not still 2.5years later got my head around is the 3 small meals, no matter how hard I’ve tried to follow the rules and even when I’ve been good at following them, I’ve found myself constantly hungry, still wanting sugar and especially when I was working out religiously, it was nowhere near enough food.
Do I regret the band? Some days, when I’m tired or sick or angry and I’m starving but I can’t keep anything down I wish I could just rip the damn thing out of me, but overall it has been successful in its own way because what it has meant is that although my head was out of the game for the last year and I had put 12 of those kilos back on, it meant that weight gain was slower and less. Without it, that whole 28kg would have possibly been back and then some.
So the last few months I’ve been re-evaluating what I’m doing with my health. Besides the fact that there are beautiful smaller clothes in my cupboard that I can’t fit into right now and want to wear and can’t, my health has managed to suffer again. My immune system has been low, colds and viruses taking longer than normal to get out of my system and my energy levels at total rock bottom.
I tried doing the Dukan diet, but it was so heavily meat focused and restrictive that after the 7 – 10 day intro phase I’d lost 5kg but I felt constantly light headed and I didn’t feel healthy.
I tried doing shakes again, but after all the Optifast I had to do pre surgery the taste of the first one almost made me ill.
I tried Dr Patrick Holford’s ’Six Weeks to Super Health’ but I hate fruit and yoghurt and grinded seeds – I think we managed about 3 days on that one!
And then I found the breakthrough thanks to the gorgeous Simon who had trained me at the gym. Months ago he recommended a book to me and I kind of ignored it, but after getting frustrated again with myself I decided to bite the bullet and call him and he pointed me in the right direction.
Now, I’m not going to tell you that this is THE book, THE diet or anything like that, because in my almost 40 years one thing I have learned is that whilst we might all be made up of a similar physiology, there is absolutely no one size fits all solution when it comes to your weight and what works for you when you are managing it. But Simon thought that this might be step in the right direction for me, and so far I think he’s steering me along the right track!
So in my first full week I’ve lost 4.3kg, and yes, I have a lot of weight to lose so I always do lose big in the first week, but it’s not about how much I lost, it’s been about how I have felt whilst losing it and why this is working so well for me so far.
Now before I go into any detail I also want to tell you about someone else that I have come across, thanks to a friend ‘liking’ a page on Facebook. She calls herself ‘The Fat Nutritionist’ (http://www.fatnutritionist.com) this is because she’s not your typical nutritionist who has a 0% body fat and tells you that you can’t eat anything. She is a curvy girl with a dietetics and nutrition degree and what I love about her is that her philosophy is that you need to stop making yourself feel guilty for eating the things you love, that there is no bad and good when it comes to food that you just need to find a balance and what works for your body to be in its optimal condition and shape. And when I read her stuff it was like a light bulb going on inside my head. For a large portion of my life I have been made to feel guilty about what I put in my mouth. By people who love me, by people who don’t, by strangers but most importantly by myself. I have for as long as I can remember talked about eating ‘bad’ today or ‘no I’m being good’ and so when I’d eat the ‘bad’ foods, especially if it was during a dieting phase then I’d feel guilty, ‘oh no I’ve broken my diet again’ “I’m so weak and have no willpower’ and then I’d just go off the rails and eat rubbish and start again next week – vicious cycle.
So after this light bulb moment, I found myself correcting my thoughts about the good and bad and amazingly I was eating smaller portions and making better choices. Now whilst I didn’t lose any weight in those next 2 weeks, I found my head in a much better space and ready to commence the next phase as recommended by Simon – The 4 Hour Body.
The 4 Hour Body (4HB) is a book by a US guy called Tim Ferris and the book is broken up into different sections focusing on fat loss, building muscle etc. and is all about eating ‘Slow Carbs’. It’s not your strictly low GI affair because low GI is only about the effects of insulin on your body with the glycaemic index, slow carbs also focuses on glucose and that all important effect they have together on your ability to lose and store fat. You’re also not allowed to eat fruit, but that suits me because I’ve never been a fan unless it’s in a smoothie or dessert!
So the overall premise is that for 6 days of the week you eat slow carb – no gluten, wheat, dairy or sugar – no white foods and on the 7th day you can go nuts and eat all the chocolate and cakes and foods you love til your heart’s content and then next morning you wake up and hit the high protein foods again.
Now I am without question a sugar addict. I crave it and think about it 24/7 – I’m always ‘needing’ chocolate or cake or biscuits or ice cream, you name it I can’t stop myself if it’s in my presence and no diet, not even Dukan fixed that for me.
By day 2 following Tim’s plan those cravings were completely gone and for the first time on an eating plan I haven’t had headaches, lethargy or the need for sweet foods – and I’ve felt fabulous and lighter.
Now there is quirks to it as well to help you lose fat faster – using cold packs to change your internal temperature to make you burn fat faster (I haven’t tried that one yet!) taking certain supplements and completing a small exercise pattern twice a week but he guarantees that even if you just eat slow carb and nothing else that you cannot not lose weight, it just may be a little slower. Funnily for me, I almost didn’t want to do my Saturday cheat day because I was afraid of getting the sugar cravings and things again today and I was so happy with my scale results, but he recommends it so your body doesn’t go into starvation mode after the 6 days of limited food groups, and he was right, I’ve been fine today, and I actually didn’t go all out, I had some bocconcinni cheese, roast potato and then a little ice-cream and berries, and I didn’t go crazy with the portion sizes!
And this is why Simon thought it would work for me, I get a whole day to ‘cheat’ and I only really had to make small changes to my life to accommodate it all.
Best of all, he really sells the use of lentils and legumes and beans as protein, not just meat, so it’s actually easy to find and make interesting dishes and he isn’t cutting out your fat, you can still use good quality oils to stir fry in and use as a dressing on your salads etc.
Best of all with exercise he has deduced through scientific research that the body for fat loss only needs a certain amount of specific exercise to burn that fat, anything over and above it is great for general health and cardio fitness, but you’re actually over working your body if fat loss is the goal. The best exercises to get great arms, abs and arses and get a whole body workout cardio and weights is with Kettlebells and you do that work out twice a week for about 15 – 20 mins at a time. Even me, who am totally time poor can, fit that in! So Ken and Kendall Kettlebell arrived yesterday and I’m doing my first workout with them tomorrow J
Any for my 4.3kg the only exercise I got was my usual 15 minute powerwalk racing for the train each morning, the slightly more leisurely 20 mins home (which is standard every day exercise) and a lovely evening of which you need know nothing further!!!
So I’m really looking forward to seeing how I go with week 2 – I’m away interstate for 3 days and will manage best I can without being able to take lunch and having to eat room service for dinner, but I’m sure I can easily ditch the carbs and order a main and entrée that is all protein and salad if I have to!
If anyone is interested in checking it out here is Tim's website www.fourhourbody.com and pics of some of my food for last week can be found on my Facebook page (for Facebook friends) Below here is 2 of my favourites - eggs with Smokey Paprika and the 'taco bowl'- lean mince, refried beans, mexican beans, corn,peas, tomato, onion and capsicum salad J
Danielle x
