Well, having the trots for 3-4 days is a great aid to weight loss. When I woke up this morning I felt fine, and ravenous, having had nothing for about 16 hours apart from a glass of wine and some pork scratchings (I know all about healthy eating, me). I had to go for a fasting blood test - so I went, then went to have a coffee and something to eat at the supermarket... (and a life of luxury). Trying to adhere to a vaguely Atkinsy regime I had scrambled eggs, tomatoes, mushroom and bacon. It is mysterious how the scrambled egg can be made to resemble little yellow rubber pellets. Why? It is apparently freshly cooked - so why kill it? What happened to the lovely buttery stage - did they ever pass through it? Or did they look undercooked at that point and concerned about health and safety they decided to boil the mixture to ensure not one soft melting bit remained? God knows, nobody likes scrambled egg like this - so why do they do it? The mushrooms tasted a bit odd, the bacon pale and flecked with that pale foam that wet bacon exudes, but the tomato was fantastically nice. There was wholemeal toast - I ate a bit thinking that it didn't really matter today. I couldn't eat the whole plateful - my stomach began to grouse about the food input. So I stopped.
Last night there was an interesting programme on tv about fat - the discovery that people who have gastric bypasses find themselves less interested in food psychologically...the operation affects the stomach's "brain"... I suspect it is something very simple: the stomach has been traumatised, and just as when you have some sort of gastric upset you lose your appetite (if not your hunger), the stomach is not interested in coping with any more food at present while it recovers. Does it - in the long term - ever recover from the trauma of gastric by-pass?- interesting to see whether that effect is as marked in people who had the op. 10 years or so ago.
The other interesting revelation was about how eating-related hormones are switched on... a classic case was in utero - where a mother eats little during pregnancy (keeping her figure!) the baby is born small and weedy (like me) and as a result eats because it lives in permanent fear of starvation. This is something so atavistic that it must take years before one can rationalise one's way out of it. I certainly don't consciously fear starvation now, but I do remember when I was younger eating things "in case". I don't know where that idea came from - I don't think it was ever consciously expressed by my mother or grandmother. It never occurred to me that perhaps an 11 stone teenager was unlikely to die of hunger because there would be no food available at her next meal time.
I spoke to A-M last night - she has lost 10.5 stone in 18 months - quite extraordinary - she was very overweight, a size 30-32 - and now she's normal. She did this with Weight Watchers (where they have changed their values to ensure people don't eat too much carb now). She is not a major exercise freak - but believes in "moving about" - something I would do well to adopt. This encouraged me to think that I could and would do it. The feeling that a lack of exercise will scupper me makes me feel guilty and un-motivated. She also pointed out that living on her own and just cooking for herself made things a lot simpler. I unfortunately am currently cooking for one food-loving man and 3 teenage boys... on a tight budget... life would be so easy if I could live off slabs of salmon, lamb chops and spinach and broccoli... with the occasional piece of fruit and lump of cheese. Will I ever get that freedom? Once the boys have left I suppose. But actually I intend to lose this weight by October 2014...not an unreasonable goal. If I can just force myself to walk around the block occasionally.
Last night there was an interesting programme on tv about fat - the discovery that people who have gastric bypasses find themselves less interested in food psychologically...the operation affects the stomach's "brain"... I suspect it is something very simple: the stomach has been traumatised, and just as when you have some sort of gastric upset you lose your appetite (if not your hunger), the stomach is not interested in coping with any more food at present while it recovers. Does it - in the long term - ever recover from the trauma of gastric by-pass?- interesting to see whether that effect is as marked in people who had the op. 10 years or so ago.
The other interesting revelation was about how eating-related hormones are switched on... a classic case was in utero - where a mother eats little during pregnancy (keeping her figure!) the baby is born small and weedy (like me) and as a result eats because it lives in permanent fear of starvation. This is something so atavistic that it must take years before one can rationalise one's way out of it. I certainly don't consciously fear starvation now, but I do remember when I was younger eating things "in case". I don't know where that idea came from - I don't think it was ever consciously expressed by my mother or grandmother. It never occurred to me that perhaps an 11 stone teenager was unlikely to die of hunger because there would be no food available at her next meal time.
I spoke to A-M last night - she has lost 10.5 stone in 18 months - quite extraordinary - she was very overweight, a size 30-32 - and now she's normal. She did this with Weight Watchers (where they have changed their values to ensure people don't eat too much carb now). She is not a major exercise freak - but believes in "moving about" - something I would do well to adopt. This encouraged me to think that I could and would do it. The feeling that a lack of exercise will scupper me makes me feel guilty and un-motivated. She also pointed out that living on her own and just cooking for herself made things a lot simpler. I unfortunately am currently cooking for one food-loving man and 3 teenage boys... on a tight budget... life would be so easy if I could live off slabs of salmon, lamb chops and spinach and broccoli... with the occasional piece of fruit and lump of cheese. Will I ever get that freedom? Once the boys have left I suppose. But actually I intend to lose this weight by October 2014...not an unreasonable goal. If I can just force myself to walk around the block occasionally.
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