Monthly update

Just over a month since I last posted, how are things going?  Good.  After I last posted, I stopped dieting briefly, gained a bit, then restarted again.  I also had enough with my medicine and the cravings that it produced, and gave up on them.  I kind of miss the higher quality sleep, but it just wasn't worth it.

Without them, losing weight is much, much easier.  I currently weigh 79.9kg, I've been losing for over a month now.  I seem particularly motivated, I'm not entirely sure where that came from, but I'm making the most of it for now.  I gave up on the idea of not buying clothing until I was at goal, and came across another idea, something that seems to relate well with me.  I'll see how I feel about it, and maybe post when I feel good about it.

I am thoroughly sick and tired of dieting.  I think that I've got about another 20 weeks to go at my ideal rate, and I'll reach goal weight.  I really hope I don't regain, I want to change my eating style and not have to care about gaining and then subsequent months / years losing to get to goal again.

Kind of a short post, but I felt that a short post is better than no post for a while.

See you in about a month.

Mannie.

October update

So the good news is that I've started losing, I've lost 3 weeks in a row so far and it all seems to be going well.  The bad news is that after I posted the last blog entry 6 weeks ago, I put on another 2 kilograms.  Currently I weigh 80.3 kilograms, a whopping 14.3 kilograms above goal weight.  As referred to in my last post, the antidepressant I'm currently on is causing me to eat more.  Even now as I am losing I have days where I spend quite a bit on food.  That's a bit of a financial worry, not too much but I don't want to waste money.  Nor do I want to gain weight.

I've gone back to the doctor for a repeat prescription of mirtazapine.  I'm pretty sure that it's not going to do any good, but I really want to give it a proper go before stopping.  In total it'll be 6 months of use, any change in mood is bound to have been discovered by then.  I'm just over halfway.

Not much to say apart from that.  The whole gain was totally unexpected, I've never had weight gain as a side effect before, I'm hoping no other medicine I ever take will have the same reaction.

I'm starting to wonder how I'll handle maintenance.  I'm totally sick and tired of dieting.  I just want to get to goal weight, weigh myself daily or every few days, and go for a monthly average of 66 kilograms.  What can I do to make myself still want (good enough) to stay at 66?

Currently, I don't have any useful answers.  I thought of having a container where I put $1 per day into it, a reminder of my struggles and a little ritual for me to say to myself "keep maintaining Mannie".  That's as good as I can get so far, when I hit $1,000 or so I'll do something with the money, who knows.  Also I've decided to not buy any clothing until I'm at goal.  The exception being clothing that I need (ie for job interviews etc) or when I've only got one of something, and it needs to be replaced.  I guess that could work.

Anyway, it'll be at least 3-4 months until I reach goal weight probably.  I was aiming for my birthday (mid February) but have since calculated that it's pretty much impossible.  More on that later.

September update (bad news...)

So it's September, and what's the bad news?  I gained.  Not just that I gained a little, I gained a lot.  5 kilograms.  Why so much in so little time?  My new antidepressant, that's why.  Basically, being on Mirtazapine, I think about food differently.  I had some coffee and peppermint slice for lunch, so what's wrong with eating it for dinner too?  Stuff like that. I'm currently 13 kilograms over goal weight.  That's a lot.

Like is full of learning experiences.  The truth of the matter is that I never expected to gain with my new antidepressant.  The reason for that is I've had about 7 before Mirtazapine (none of them were effective in reducing depression, by the way) and I've never had weight gain as a side effect before.  I've been gaining about one kilogram a week, that's very quick.

I've had all sorts of strange side effects with antidepressants over the years.  Excessive yawning, murderous thoughts (yes! - it's listed in the side effects of one which is why I recognised I'd had it), a flickering of my vision when I walk into a dark room, inability to have an orgasm (sadly a common side effect).  Now weight gain.

Mirtazapine also improves my sleep quality significantly, which is something new.  To say that I've had broken sleep is an understatement.  Not any more.  Not even a middle of the night trip to the bathroom.

But weight gain was unexpected.  Also I sort of (really - definitely) was in denial and didn't weigh myself for about a month.  That's never good.  But normally I'd expect to gain one kilogram in a months time, this time it was about 5 kilograms.

Most problems have solutions, and my solution is simple.  I now photograph everything that I eat.  I've been doing this for a few days so far, it's helped in diverting me from going to the supermarket and buying lots of nice but fattening foods.

I won't post the photos here, simply because I don't want to clutter the blog with a 200-300 photos of every single thing that I buy or get given.  But people do get to see the photos, which helps.

As for what I'm planning, back to basics, which means the best diet I've ever been on.  Unlimited vegetables and unlimited sardines.  I'll also have reward meals every half kilogram.

I'll leave it at that and update you all on how it's going soon.

Sugar addiction

74kg, about 8kg above goal weight

I'm still struggling to post once a month, but also, right now, I'm struggling to lose weight as well.  There are a number of issues that are happening with me right now, and I guess with all of the stress that they are creating, I'm finding it difficult to lose weight.  In fact I'm slowly gaining weight because of eating large quantities of food, well maybe not large but more than it takes to maintain.

Another issue is sugar, I'm eating it every day at the moment, yes that's not a good thing to do when you're trying to lose weight.

I'll keep this post short.  Probably too short, but from today onwards, I'll be keeping a record of days I'm losing and days I'm over eating.  I still want to lose weight, I still want to reach goal weight again.

Hope to post more often, I'll keep my posts short and see if that helps.

Yeah, it's been a long time!

10 months is a really long time!  So what happened?  I don't know really, I caught a chesty cold that was rather bad, that threw me, then my laptop died, then Yolanda came and went, causing problems with the Internet in the Philippines.  But really, I just got out of touch with the blog, and just couldn't get up the motivation to start posting.

In case you were wondering, my weight has been stable, currently about 8kg above goal weight.

I'm back in New Zealand.  It's good to be back!  Although I am grateful for my year in the Philippines, some parts of it were tough, and my inability to cope particularly well didn't help.  Mainly we're talking depression and anxiety.  Problems that I had in New Zealand followed me to the Philippines.

Anyway, I have decided to post now and then about my experiences, and try and get into the routine of posting every calendar month again.

Just a few notes about how things went while I was there:

• My relationship with Miss Minadano was "okay" but she had to go back 3 months early because she didn't look for a job, as I was running low on money towards the end of my stay
• I never got used to being stared at.  Although white people are there in the Philippines, the numbers vary considerably depending on where you are.  Highest concentration that I came across would be Bo's Coffee in Ayala mall, Cebu where about 25% of people would be Caucasians.  I took a few boat rides where I was the only one of 500 people who weren't Philippine.  Being stared at constantly tended to sap my mental energy so I taught myself to not look back at the person staring at me.  I don't know if it's a problem with other visitors, but I constantly felt like I was on display
• As Caron asked in the comments, Yolanda came and went, there was one fatality in Lapu Lapu, the city where I lived.  The winds were strong there (you could hear the metal roof buckling) for about 4 hours but I never felt unsafe.  Of course it was different elsewhere along the main path
• I did feel unsafe when the Bohol earthquake happened.  After all that my home city of Christchurch had gone through in terms of earthquakes, to be sitting upstairs and starting to notice that the bed was shaking, reminding me of all that Christchurch had experienced, was rather unsettling
• The heat was amazing.  I got sweat rashes, stood in heavy rain and didn't feel cold, and generally loved the heat.  Surprisingly, where I swam the water was cool.  Highest temperature was my upstairs bedroom at 38 degrees C, lowest was 26 degrees which actually felt cool.  Ha ha!  But it wasn't so much the heat, as the humidity which had an equal effect on how you felt

So that's a brief summary of some of the things that have happened in the last year.

I found it rather difficult to lose weight in the Philippines, mainly because I use vegetables as a way to lose weight and the veges that I came across in the local supermarket were rather sad looking.  Open air markets would have been different, but I was too far away from them, and it would have been too costly to travel regularly to buy them.

Now that I have easy access to quality vegetables, it's time to lose weight!  Getting back to goal, I want to lose about 1kg/month, resulting in my reaching goal weight in late December.  I really don't think I'll have trouble getting there.  From then, it's staying at goal weight for 2 years then applying to join the National Weight Loss Registry.  I am eligible to join now, but I feel two years at goal is sufficient time to show I'm capable of staying there, I don't want to shame myself by joining and then putting on 5kg or so.

See you next month.