Initial victories.

Whilst I don't want this blog to be a food diary of any kind it will be a place where I will upload my progress.  I started Weight Watchers again last Wednesday. As per usual when starting weight loss programs it is easy to start out with all the zeal of Mr. Motivator. As has been the case over the last week. When I started this blog I had intended to point out all the hardships of losing weight. Losing weight is hard, don't get me wrong, but when I remember that one simply needs to take it one week at a time it is difficult to remember where the problems come from. Of course there will be problems but one week in and 4 lbs lighter I can't imagine them as clearly.

I have never been hungry over this last week and even managed to have sushi twice and stay within my daily/weekly points allowance. This is something that I have always struggled with. As someone who has always had a weight problem you start to feel that food is your biggest enemy. The only means of keeping it off is to cut down to this arbitrary number and stay there. The thing is, biologically, that's just not how it works. This arbitrary number usually exists around the 1200 calories per day area. Don't believe me, look at any commercially available diet supplement and it'll advertise an average of 1200 calories. The principle of this is a simple one. The average WOMAN needs c. 1800 calories per day simply to survive. Those calories go in to everything from breathing to sleeping to digesting. One pound in weight loss terms comes from a loss of 500 calories per day (or 3500 calories over a week). In simple terms if you cut out 500 calories per day, in a week you will lose that one pound. Unfortunately, 1200 calories simply is not enough for many people to lose weight, and in some cases may be too much of a drop in daily caloric intake. As such, (I just did the maths) I need 2692 calories in a day JUST TO SURVIVE. This is why most commercial weight loss plans simply do not work for everybody.

Now, I hear the dissenters say "but surely, if you need over 2500 calories in a day to survive, cutting over 1300 will only increase your weight loss?" Indeed, initially, I would lose more weight but then my body would cut down into starvation mode, the huge weight losses would cease and, in most cases, I would gain weight as my body stores more fat. This is why fad diets don't work in the long run and why many people have destroyed their metabolism through yo yo dieting.

As it is I have my daily points allowance and my weekly allowance to keep me going. I remember when I first started Weight Watchers properly in 2008 and in the first week I never, not once, ate all of my points. It was only when my leader told me that it won't work properly in the long run as my points allowance goes down that I realised I was actually, for the first diet ever, allowed to eat. Starting a different plan last August, with a weekly allowance through me. We're told we get 49 proPoints a week for special occasions and generally 'living' whilst losing weight. I steered entirely clear of those thinking that it would negate the work I'd done in the week. This time round I actually used some of those weekly points. And to my surprise, I still lost a significant amount of weight in my first week. It is now a case of continuing on, making the plan work for me and not being bogged down when things go wrong (which they will-we're only human) that I need to work on. I know this is the plan for me and my first victory came this evening. Not when I got on the scales and saw that I'd dropped 4 lbs (even though I was absolutely bursting for the loo-probably would've knocked another pound off...a girl can dream) but rather the much more utilitarian victory of standing on our home scales and it once again being able to register my body weight. Yes, it was still a 23 stone 7 lbs but you have to start somewhere.