Tag Archive for 'tracking points'

1st May – New Month – New Start

Published
by
thetoad
on 1 May 2008
in Dieting, Food and Mental Health
. 0 Comments

Greetings audience, I offer my apologies for neglecting the blog for as long as I have.

Basically, after the psychiatric assessment I lost the plot a little bit – going over the past and stirring up the mud at the bottom of the pond is never good for me and I got a lot ill for a couple of days. I didn’t much feel like blogging, in fact, I didn’t feel much like doing anything much at all.

Then when I’d just about got myself together, TuT had to go away for a couple of days for a training course for his job. I know couples that don’t mind separation, that can deal with one of them spending Monday to Friday away and just spending weekends together, but that is not the relationship TuT and I have. We both HATE being apart. Especially at night. It was playing on my mind, TuT’s impending departure for a few days, and this further added to my stress in trying to get over the psychiatric assessment.

TuT left on the Sunday afternoon, leaving me with an empty hollow feeling in my stomach, that was never full, no matter how much food I ate. I tried to stick to my weight watchers points, but was comfort eating. I hate spending long periods of time on my own. I was also scared to death that something would happen to TuT on his long drive to the North.

On the Monday I decided to treat myself to something nice for lunch as I was hungry and hadn’t really eaten a proper evening meal on Sunday evening. In town there is a sandwich shop – doing all the typical sandwich fillings and jacket potatoes, but it is run by Thai people. In addition to doing the normal stuff you expect from a sandwich shop they have a Thai menu.

I was craving a Chinese take away with TuT away, but, they are never open at lunch time, so I thought I would satisfy my craving with a Thai Takeaway. I ordered the Thai noodle soup – with eager anticipation. What I got was a bag of micro-waved supernoodles, the vegetable component was carrots and cauliflower – I had no idea that cauliflowers were Thai?! And a few pieces of sandwich chicken. I was disappointed, but starving, so ate a fair bit of it, but then felt really bad.

Supernoodles can be up to 12 points – and they are certainly not worth 12 points. So I just felt like I had ruined weight watchers on something that wasn’t even worth it.

I recently read an article that explained that cravings are not actually your body signalling that you are low on a particular vitamin or mineral. For example just before your period you sometimes justify the chocolate craving as your body needing sugar and magnesium. Or if you crave crisps it’s because your body is low on sodium. In actual fact these cravings are down to a craving for comfort as these are the foods that we associate with happy and comforting times. It’s a psychological craving as opposed to a physical need.

I read this article after the Chinese takeaway cravings I’d experienced whilst TuT was away; and it made sense. Chinese takeaways are my favourite take away and TuT and I often enjoy one together on a Friday night at the beginning of the weekend – I have rarely ever ordered a Chinese take away on my own before moving in with TuT – so I was craving the togetherness of enjoying a Chinese takeaway together, which is something I always associate with Friday nights and the beginning of TuT and I’s weekend together.

On the third day of TuT’s absence my parents arrived for a short stay. They weren’t up for bedding down on the inflatable air bed in our spare room, so stayed in a nearby hotel.

Spending days with my parents also spelt diet disaster. Already, thanks to the evil “Thai” noodles and comfort eating I had a 1lb gain on the scales on the Tuesday morning weigh – in. It was annoying, but not unexpected, due to the foods I had been eating.
My parents took me to the posh sandwich shop over the road for Tuesday’s lunch and then we had some lagers whilst watching the football in the evening, and finally, for me, a Chinese takeaway!!! Craving satisfied, whilst sharing with my mum.

The next day saw us going to Brighton for the day and we went for a lovely lunch at an “all-you-can-eat” Italian – pizza, pasta, salad and garlic bread. It was delicious and I tried to focus on filling up on the delicious salad bar.

In the evening I wanted some “mum cooked goodness”; so I got mum to cook tea for us all out of the ingredients I had in the flat. We had savoury mince with mashed potatoes (the aunt bessie’s frozen version! – thank you Delia!) and vegetables. It was comforting and delicious and fairly healthy I would say; although by this point I had abandoned sticking to my weight watchers points allowance as I had no idea how to point what I had eaten so just tried to keep things as healthy as possible, whilst not pointing.

TuT returned on Wednesday night – hurrah! So happy he returned safely. The parents left on Thursday lunch time and I was pretty stressed out by all the changes. It was wonderful seeing the parental units, but a total change to my usual routine and with TuT being away as well, plus still getting over the psychiatric assessment; the upshot was by Friday I lost the plot big time.
I had this constant churning feeling in my stomach and was convinced that cosmic forces were out to get me. I couldn’t stop crying and my head was constantly buzzing with sounds and thoughts. I managed to get through to the nurse that had conducted my psych assessment – by this point I was thinking that I needed to be on the psych ward I felt so spaced out and frightened, all the time, with a churning stomach. It was awful.

The nurse agreed to see me that afternoon, and there was talk of a doctor being called in to potentially give me something to calm things down a bit for me. I was a total state.

After seeing the nurse things calmed down a bit. I talked through everything and the churning feeling eased off somewhat. The psych nurse explained that there had been a mess up with my referral to the day hospital and it would be a while before they picked me up, so in the meantime she would see me – “off the record” as it were, to keep an eye on me until my support system was properly in place. This was reassuring.

TuT and I enjoyed a wonderful weekend together, without the shadow of TuT going away as we had had the previous weekend.
Tuesday morning revealed another 1lb gain, which to say I had been comfort eating with TuT away and hadn’t pointed my food the whole time my parents were staying and when TuT came home, was expected, and to be fair, with what I’d eaten, I could have deserved to have put on a little more.

I just need to focus now. I bought one of the weight watchers journals, and I am going to fill in every single bite of food and every single drink and track all my points properly from now on.

I am also wearing my weight watchers points pedometer and trying to beat the previous days bonus point earning score.
So yesterday, armed with my trusty pedometer on my pocket, I marched to see my psych nurse for my second appointment with her and to find out the progress of my referral to the day hospital.

What surprise news I was greeted with when we met, She has arranged to take me on her case load officially and will see me until my referral to the day hospital comes through and continue to support me during my attendance at the day hospital. She is my official care co-ordinator and I now have the support of my own permanent CPN (community psychiatric nurse). This level of support is something I have not had since I lived in the north and is a big relief.

Today is the 1st May and I am a big believer in starting new things, or improving on old things. So first thing, I need to keep all you readers entertained and get blogging again! I think I’ve got off to a good start!

Win The Weight War!!

Published
by
thetoad
on 20 March 2008
in Losing Weight
. 1 Comment

I posted yesterday all fired up after my 5km run/walk I’d been on – with all those endorphins rushing around my body I couldn’t help but write a positive entry after the gloom of writing about my weight misery the previous day. I am thinking that I should update you all on what happened when I went to see lovely Triage nurse Jane and what has happened since on the battle of my blubber.

I saw Jane, she spoke to me about what I ate and weighed me. I told her I thought it was the Trazodone and Amisulpride combo that was piling the weight on and making it difficult to shift. I then half-heartedly mentioned that I was on the Depot Provera injection – now is not the time for pregnancy! Surprisingly Jane told me that would be the cause of my weight gain and that it is famous for putting weight on.

“Whenever any of my patients go on the injection I warn them that they should be prepared to gain weight.”

Jane said gravely. When I went on the injection nearly two years ago I was very borderline anorexic and spoke at length with the nurse in the North about weight gain. She said it was possible because it increased your appetite. I had ultimate control over my appetite at that time and was pretty used to feeling hungry so if the only way I could gain weight was by eating more, then I would ensure I continued to eat very little.

However, the weight has slowly crept on in the last 18 months since being on it. When I got home I looked on the web and there were similar stories to mine out there, women that had gained three or four stone in the years whilst they had been receiving the injection.

It was a great relief to find out the cause of my weight gain. I spoke to Jane about what I generally eat in a typical day and she could see no problem with what I was eating, although she does want me to keep a food diary for a week and return to see her with it, and of course, I no longer want to use the Depot Provera injections to prevent pregnancy of bambino Toads.

I felt as though a weight had been lifted off my shoulders (if not yet off my body!) – if Jane had confirmed my suspicions that it was the Amisulpride and the Trazodone I would have just had to continue taking them as I am the most stable I have been in a long time on that combination of medication. Whenever I have been taking my medication in the last year since the weight started to creep on, at the back of my mind I have been thinking they are making me fat. For a while I messed about not taking my doses properly thinking that would aid weight loss, but getting mentally poorly at the same time. (and funnily enough, not losing any weight!!)

After seeing Jane I quickly hot footed it to my local Weight Watchers meeting which was taking place the very morning I was seeing Jane – Tuesday mornings at 10am. I was a bit late so had to creep about whilst Melanie conducted the meeting, getting myself weighed with a clerk and signing up for the monthly pass that not only saves me money on my weekly meeting fee, but gives TuT and I access to the ‘e-source’ which contains an online points tracker, recipe builder – basically everything you need to accurately track your points of the food you are cooking and eating.

Finding out my weight wasn’t too much of a shock as I’d already just been weighed at the Surgery with Jane. When I attended Weight Watchers in the North it was Tuesday mornings at 10am with the lovely Jenny. Now it’s Tuesday mornings at 10am with Melanie in the South, but she seems just as lovely – conducting her meeting wearing a pink rabbit ears headband for Easter! At the end of the meeting myself and another newbie spent some time with Melanie as she went through the two plans.

Melanie had joined Weight Watchers nine times before cracking it and losing her weight – it took her 18 months to lose something like 30 pounds, and then she became a Weight Watchers leader. I asked her what was it, on the ninth time, that everything clicked and she lost her weight. Melanie explained that she began staying to the meetings and just taking the programme more seriously, she began cooking whereas previously she would have four or five takeaways a week. I was advised to try the points plan and make small changes this week. I am slightly concerned that I have joined the week before Easter – I am not expecting any eggs – but TuT and I are off together for four days with days out planned and it will take some discipline to stick to my running programme. In some ways I feel as though I have joined the week before Christmas and if I’d realised I might have joined next Tuesday.

But the war on my weight is now waged! I am determined to stick to my points over the Easter weekend and get some sort of weight loss on Tuesday – even if it’s just a pound.

Time is ticking on – it is time to stop writing about weight loss and get out for my run and do something proactive to lose that pound!