Blogs, blogs, blogs and more blogs!

A while ago, I posted that the average weight loss for weight loss bloggers was pretty much zero. I find this disappointing because I want people to be successful, and also because I want to be around people who are losing weight. My solution today was to get a great big list of blogs, and find out the people on this list who are losing weight consistantly. There has to be at least 5 or 10 percent who do so.

So I went online, and starting at one site Lose 20 pounds in 10 weeks - Sunshine Mama's still losing, by the way and moving outwards on any links. It's rather tedious, clicking on links, but it was worth it. I now have 270 more weight loss blogs in my RSS reader! It's just too many to read, obviously, although if you ever want to read a freshly posted blog post, all you need to do is refresh all blogs and there are a few who have been posted in the last hour or so. As for how I'm going to sort them, they just have to lose weight every month. I'll also be giving shout-outs when people reach goal.

4kg lost, 24kg to go

Another kilogram down. I'm starting to really get confident about the whole thing, and also I've noticed that my pot belly is smaller than it used to be, and it's easier putting shoes on, something that was difficult with my pants done up. I haven't seen a film or gone swimming recently, but on the 19th I had flour caused by starting something stressful, on the 23rd I had it again, again caused by stress. I know that stress is going to be less of an issue now.

Photos

Well, I promised them a while ago, and finally I'm putting them up. They aren't the greatest photos (having been into photography for ages) for all sort of technical reasons, but they'll do.

3kg lost, 25kg to go

Another kilogram down. I'm starting to feel like I'm getting headway with this diet, and more confidence that I'll be successful.

Tue 13th 92.3kg Saw Up(3D)
Thu 15th 91.7kg Saw Young Victoria

First shirt gone

It had to happen I guess, as you may have read in my starting post, I plan on throwing away a shirt each week unless I have lost weight. So yesterday I noticed that I hadn't lost any (gained about 200g) so out goes a shirt. This one is not my favourite, I don't like the roughness of it anyway. I'm wondering how many shirts I'll have when I reach goal weight. Hopefully more than 3.

My relationship with food - part 1

Have a look at the photo above. What do you notice about it? The young man there, aged about 23 is me. I probably weighed about 65kg, although I'll never know because I didn't know how much I weighed back then.

Back then two things were different. First, my weight stabilisation mechanism was perfect. P-E-R-F-E-C-T. My weight never changed, or if it did, I never noticed it. My clothes never got looser or tighter. Everything was stable. Second, my relationship with food was different. How was it different? It would be accurate to say that in terms of my relationship with food, we'd just got to first base. Sure, I'd eat a lot on my birthday and on Christmas day, but apart from that, I don't recall overeating, or eating in times of stress, depression, or celebration.

I have one little gem from the past, when I first arrived in the city I live in, I wrote down all of my spending, because I was short of money. It's hidden away in storage, but when I get hold of it, I can see exactly how much money, and more importantly, what I spent my money on. To me back then, food was a source of energy and not much more.

Anyway, back to the present. I plan to go through all the things involved in my relationship with food, starting with one that seems to be a big thing for me:

Self congratulating.

What do I do when I achieve something significant in my life? I buy something tasty to celebrate. What do I do when I buy something expensive? The same. I congratulate myself when I lose weight (some may see this as a bad thing, although I think it's good so long as it's only when I lost weight). There are lots of things I say to myself ("It's time to treat myself with something tasty").

The one thing that I really, really liked (coffee and mochaccino slice) I can't have now because the slice contains flour. That will change, but in the future I'd like to be different about how I treat food. Maybe I can have fruit instead of something fattening or containing flour. When I start eating flour again, I will try to maintain my weight and that means no more treating myself because something good has happened. As an example, back in the days of when I looked like I did in the photo, when I went to a job interview, what did I do when I had done it to relax? I went for a fast drive on a windy uphill part, just outside town. I couldn't afford something fancy to eat. I want to get back to that attitude.

A shock

Today I got a shock because something bad has happened in another persons life that made me see how important my own weight loss is to me. Without divulging private issues both about myself and other people, it's impossible to say what's going on, but basically it was a 'wakeup call' that something similar to me could happen unless I changed the way I was living regarding my weight loss.

Hearing the bad news I immediately decided that I would change the way I ate food. Sure, my 4 day motivational system is a good idea, but there has to be more than that. Today I decided:

To not eat flour except in certain situations. I'm not sure what these situations are, maybe like being invited to dinner somewhere, or someones's birthday, I'm not sure. What I am sure is that I'm not allowed flour when it's packaged as a treat, which I seem to be having 2-3 times a week at the moment. Cutting out flour is the best thing to do, simply because most of the things that are slowing or reversing weight loss are foods that contain flour. I went without it for a month a few years ago, so I know that I can do it. Sure, it'll be boring, but I think back to the days when I was slim, what was my relationship with food? It's so long ago I can't really remember, but it has to be better than this. I know that I can retrain myself about my relationship with food (less celebratory treats when there really isn't that much worth celebrating).

I don't want to end up like someone I know who is having this problem that has changed their life.

2kg lost, 26kg to go

It's taken a while, but I'm pleased to have dropped another kilogram. I've not written down all of my coffee purchases and going to see a film, but they all are within my updated rules.

Fri 2nd Oct saw 500 days of Summer. This was using the once every 3 months allowance for going to see a film, I guess I used it early and hope that I don't have any problems in the next 3 months when I want to go and see a film, but can't.

Sun 4th Bought coffee

Tue 6th Saw Year one

Counting kilojoules is going well, I'll post about it in the next few days.

Change of plan

I know I haven't posted for a while, and there is a reason for that. I took a break. The reason for this was while I was attempting to lose weight, my weight started heading in the wrong direction again. When this happens to me, the only solution I know of is to do the thing I hate the most (well, almost the worst of dieting) - counting kilojoules.

I have never liked it because it is so tedious. One solution is to organise my food the previous day and work out what I should eat. I don't like this either, it makes me feel like my life is too organised and structured. I'm not sure which one to do.

Anyway, that's the plan for now. 6000kj is the goal, I know I've done this in the past, but that was at a much lower weight, so I don't know if it's suitable now. My body will tell me in the first day or so I guess.

The whole motivation system is going well except I've decided to change one motivation - going to see a film, I am allowed to go to one film every 3 months, even if I haven't lost the weight. The reason for this is that I really wanted to see Fame, and I did, and it broke my original rule because I was over what I'd been last time I saw a film (I love you Beth Cooper). Rather than break rules now and then which will eventually cause me to stop using the whole motivation system, I decided to modify the rules. So every 3 months (Jan-Mar, Apr-Jun, Jul-Sep, Oct-Dec) I am allowed to see a film, even if I'm above the last film. Just one film though. I am allowed to save up these allowances and use them later on.

I decided to stop posting what I've eaten and bought as it doesn't give me enough privacy, I feel that people might be judging me and that usually doesn't have a good effect on me.

I'm going to try 10 days at counting kilojoules and see how I manage.