Categories: uncategorized
Date: 17 August 2008 19:07:29
... has been quiet. Both yesterday and this afternoon Spike has gone to Guildford to rehearse and then sing for Evensong. Today I've been to Mass this morning and visited my mother-in-law this afternoon. Now we all know the stereotypes, given a huge boost by Les Dawson, about mothers-in-law and how all men suffer at their hands, but my experience is that the difficult in-law relationships tend to be between women. But my mother-in-law is a star and I love her :D (although Spike has the best mother-in-law ever, obviously).
So what did I do yesterday? Well, I walked up to the shops for a few bits, and I did a leetle bit of housework, but mostly I read. My reading list is:
Jane Hirschmann and Carol Munter: Overcoming Overeating (first read this a good few years ago). Talks about how eating too much and being overweight are not motivated by self-destructiveness, but are a misguided attempt to care for ourselves, and how we can get a healthy relationship with food by allowing ourselves to eat what we want and stop trying to diet.
Sophie and Audrey Boss: Beyond Chocolate (first read this a year or two ago, and mentioned it on here I think). Talks about how trying to diet doesn't work, and what we need to do is accept and take care of ourselves as we are now and stop dieting. The healthy way is to eat what you want, when you are hungry, and enjoy it, and you will then find yourself eating a balanced diet (ie enjoying healthy stuff and only wanting junk occasionally, when you stop thinking about 'naughty' foods and 'being good'). A bit Trinny and Susannah, only far more polite.
Paul McKenna: I Can Make You Thin (first read this last weekend. Bad BAD title - I don't want to be *thin*, and if I become *slimmer* it will be through my own efforts, with your advice.) For non-UK readers, Paul McKenna is now mostly a pop psychologist/life coach type, but first became famous as a stage hypnotist. The second half of the book is about what he calls 'reprogramming your mind'. Stuff about using positive language and not beating yourself up is good, stuff about visualisation and repeating affirmations has been heavily filtered through my combination of evangelical dodgyometer and liberal scepticism (is that how we spell it in the UK?). But as for the bit about banishing food cravings by tapping various bits of your body (acupressure points allegedly) and humming 'Happy Birthday' (I kid you not), well the bollocksometer really went off. However, Paul McK's four main action points, which are a more concise version of the Beyond Chocolate points are: Eat when you're hungry (and don't when you're not), eat what you fancy, eat it slowly and enjoy it, and stop when you're full.
I've also been reading - the Weight Watchers handbook. Erm, yeah, I'll be mostly ignoring that one. You may perhaps have noticed a theme. About a month ago, all the girls on my team came up with the idea of us forming a diet club. You probably won't be surprised to know that most of them aren't at all overweight, and none of them come anywhere near the 17st8, size 24, BMI 38-ish I started with. But I thought I'd give it a go, following the principles outlined above. I've been on it for 4 weeks now, and lost 6lb. Yay! My long-term goal is to get down to 13st4, which will be BMI 29.75 or something, and therefore moves me from 'obese' to 'overweight' (thanks, medical terminology), and into a place where I should be eligible for endo surgery and/or IVF, by my 38th birthday 13 months from now.
So the weight-loss project continues, but I think I've done enough reading up on it for a while, and it's novel time. I've started reading World Without End by Ken Follett, and I'm enjoying it, but as it's 1111 pages in hardback I think I'm going to put something else in my handbag to read on the train ....