We’re currently in the longest recession that the West has seen in recent history. We are seeing record levels of unemployment and more and more men are finding themselves out of work and for the first time, some families have found women being thrown into the role of breadwinner.
Last pictures of 2009 - Goodbye stomach!
Jonny and I met at the very end of 2008 so technically, even though our relationship blossomed throughout 2009, I accredit my luck at meeting such a sweet and lovely man to 2008.
This is because 2009 was mainly rubbish! I spent half of it unemployed and we almost lost my dad in June as a stupid doctor who I would like to poke in the eye, diagnosed acute appendicitis as wind. He’s ok now luckily but I will never forget the horror of seeing my daddy looking weak and forlorn in a hospital bed with a bile bag attached to a tube coming out of his nose. Cue various car problems and the destruction of our bicycles on a 70mph road on the way to Holland. We had hoped things would start to improve… until Jonny was made redundant just 3 days before Christmas which led to me saying “blow it, I’m going to enjoy Christmas and eat/drink what I want!”
The picture above was taken on New Year’s Eve 2009. As you can see, my waist and hips have expanded massively in the last year. What you can’t see is the thigh fat and that my once lovely bottom is becoming saggier and saggier as the days go by.
These are not the words of a paranoid young woman who is looking for compliments, these are the words of a woman desperate not to let herself go just yet! I don’t want to be one of those women who lament the fact that they hated the way they looked when they were young. I want to enjoy my 20’s and not go through my youth pretending that I don’t care about the belly I am starting to acquire.
Louisa aged 12 in Steel Band
Losing weight and looking good for my own benefit is important to me. I was an ugly and awkward child/teenager who was skinny and clumsy. Continually picked on by the jealous and insecure partly for how I looked and partly for having a mouthy sister, I struggled for years accepting my appearance.
Now I am a grown up, I have absolutely no interest in proving anything to people I used to go to school with. I want to get slim now before I let myself go and find myself needing to lose 100lbs in 2011! When I started blogging, I realised that my desire to lose 14lbs would seem ridiculous! I’ve read so many weight loss stories in the last few months and there are people out there who were desperate – they had to lose weight or they would die long before their time. This is why I changed direction and stopped writing about my diet and started writing dieting tips.
I would love to hear your dieting stories and any unusual diet tips you’ve found to work. Please reply in the comments or on the content page if you would like your achievment to be featured on Total Chunk – just like South Beach Steve
Louisa and I can both tell you that our mother can be very critical of us, especially in terms of our looks. After years of my jeans being pulled up and my top down, comments etc, you get the picture, today the momentous moment arrives, she says to me ‘you’re looking skinny. That’s a good outfit for you, you’re looking really slim’. ‘
It’s a great feeling that someone who you wanted to notice your weight loss has done so with no prompting.
Anyways, the point I want to make is that it’s great that people have noticed your achievements and they’re pleased, but sometimes friends and relatives can start saying that you’ve gone too far the other way. Louisa had the same a couple of years ago when she was having a tough time, that’s just weight loss from stress that will rectify itself, it’s not healthy and it’s not cool. Other times, friends can be jealous and want to dampen your success by implying that you have a problem.
I fully expect any time soon, someone will start to say that I’ve lost too much weight. This is a load of rubbish because:
- My bmi is at 24.4, this is in the perfectly healthy range. If it at any time for me personally drops under 21, you can find me in the chippy!
- I eat within the expected amount of calories for a woman each day (2000 – that’s right, I eat the big 2000!)
- I don’t feel the need to hide my eating/not eating/amount I exercise
- I wear a UK 10-12, this is considered to be a slim and healthy size. If 10s or even 8s were falling off me and I could see my bones, I’d start to worry.
No one likes to hug a bag of bones
So while it’s exhilarating to hear people praising you for losing weight, there is still that urge to maintain the status quo if they’re still offering you left overs or using you to feel good about themselves (I don’t see these people anymore) and that’s the point where you have to put the above points as questions and be completely honest with yourself. If it’s just jealousy, then those doubters can shove it! If not, how can you sort this out in the healthiest way possible.
The reason why I wanted to discuss this is because we all talk about our goal weight, but what about when we’re not there yet (like me) and people you care about question if it’s too much. What do you think?
Joe as a fat kid - Aged 13 (source: News of the World - Click Image to Visit)
Joe McElderry lost significant weight before competing in the X Factor 2009
The winner of 2009’s X-Factor was Joe McElderry, an 18 year old boy who lost over 2 stone before entering this years X-Factor.
Joe has an amazing singing voice and never faltered over the 10 or so weeks of constant singing in front of millions watching British T.V.
When his past was revealed it showed that Joe was once very overweight which is still evident in his cheeks but you would never notice it unless it was pointed out to you or you saw his old pictures from a year ago!
Was this sudden weight loss for the show? Or was it that Joe hit the wall and said “enough is enough” a year ago whilst looking in the mirror?
Previous contestants of talent contests such as Michelle McManus and Rick Waller have been heavily criticised for their weight with Michelle’s career going no-where after she won the talent show Pop Idol. This showed a need to be attractive as well as talented on such singing contests as with so many other areas of entertainment in the modern world.
So whether Joe lost the weight to increase his changes of winning the X Factor or he just did it for himself I say well done Joe and I wish all the best for the future!
Boy that little fella can sing……..
UPDATE 2010 – WE WERE RIGHT!!!!!
Joe has spoke publicly about his weight loss, claiming to have lost 2 stone through plain good eating and exercise. Knowing that the weight was the one factor holding him back for the contract with Simon Cowell he shed the weight in just a year to reveal his squeaky clean handsome looks 
Here’s Daily Mail’s take on our story
A few weeks back, I wrote a post about how singing could help you lose weight. If you’re sat in a car on a long journey or you’re in a traffic jam with precious little else to do, it’s no substitute for the gym, but it’s worth a shot to pass the time! Sit up straight, pull your stomach in and belt out those notes!
Anyway, Jonny likes to watch The One Show at 7pm when we’re eating dinner because he likes to pretend that he likes presenter Christine Bleakley. In reality, he is a bit of an old man at heart and enjoys the inoffensive banter and the nature sections they include. Well, today they included an item about how singing lowers your cortisol levels which I thought mildly interesting… (more…)
AMELIA
Today is my driving test and just over an hour before I get in the car with the examiner, of course I’m nervous, but I’m calmer than I have been in recent weeks over it.
I’ve had a cup of coffee and some frosties for my breakfast which I know isn’t going to hold me in good stead because it’s sugar and I’ll definitely feel hungry again in half an hour.
The temptation to eat badly at times like this is overwhelming, you just grab what you know is going to be tasty and something that is going to reassure you that everything is going to be ok. Just before my instructor picks me up in a bit, I am going to have a bit of a snack, 2 oatcakes and an apple and knowing that I’ve put something good into my body I believe is going to help me firstly not feel hungry and secondly feel good about myself that I am worth it.
Sometimes when you are stressed, you might just grab food before you have even thought about it and say later that you deserved it because you’re stressed. Perhaps instead of a bowl of frosties I should have had a bowl of porridge and an apple… because I deserve it, which depending on your feelings of porridge might sound self deprecating, but it works.
More than ever when you’re feeling stressed, you need to slow yourself down and just stop and think about what is going on, before you snap at your partner, feel the pressure get on top of you and the next thing you know you’re in the nearest car park of a drive-thru scoffing junk.
Total Chunk Tip: Stress can lead you many different ways, but if you take a moment to think about what you’re about to eat and believe that you deserve to eat well to be able to cope with what you’re going through, you’ll make better choices and feel good about yourself and have the energy to get through the day.
This last week has been difficult to say the least! My car died and I was terrified that the time had come to scrap my 13 year old corsa. Firstly because I love her, secondly because I can’t afford to replace her. As always, Jonny and I persevered and I would drop him off at work on my way to work. Inevitably, he would make me late but beggars can’t be choosers – he was letting me borrow his car so that I could get there in the first place. Anyway, the difficulty lay in that he was working 14/15 hour days last week as his company are launching a new product this week. On the Tuesday, he worked 12 hours and I sat in his office waiting for him. Clearly, that is very impractical to bother with for more than one day. The following two days I had to go back out to his work to get him. On the Thursday, I stopped at the supermarket to pick him up something microwavable yet healthy. He got salmon and new potatoes. That was alright for him!
You see, my father and I have a difficult relationship at times. He is extremely temperamental and we’ve had monumental arguments in the past. We still do to this day. However, if I need him, he will whinge and generally make a pain of himself but he does always come through for me. He demonstrated this last week by driving 100 miles from Gloucestershire to where I live (Nottinghamshire) to fix my car. So (back to the original point about Jonny being lucky to have salmon) I decided to make him a home-made sausage casserole for me and dad as cooking is not one of mum’s strong points. Unfortunately, my efforts were rubbish! I had lost the recipe and I tried to memorise it but clearly to no avail. Anyway, in spite of my poor show in the kitchen which resulted in the breaking of a glass measuring jug and an equally innocent wine glass, dad fixed my car in less than 40 mins. He even looked at Jonny’s car and fixed my phone as I had dropped it the previous night. We are currently liking my dad.
I drove back home for the MOT on Friday night sans Jonny. It was easier that way as I needed to be up early Saturday morning for the aforementioned MOT. Surprisingly, my car PASSED! Don’t worry about congratulating me, I have already celebrated – with one solitary glass of wine.Have you not noticed, I am trying to diet but had no time to exercise and prepare decent meals. This week, it’s about damage limitation.
Anyway, since my return from The ‘Shire, I have been massively tired and completely incapable of writing anything carefully constructed. In fact, this has been a stream of consciousness which I expect to read back tomorrow and think HUH?!
It’s not about self-discipline, it’s about being in the right frame of mind to make dieting work otherwise the stressful aspects of your life suddenly magnify. There is self-discipline, there is knowing when to stop eating… and then there is knowing when to give yourself a break. Losing weight is a lifestyle choice that needs to revolve around you. When you start revolving around your diet and stop doing the things you are MEANT to be doing (meeting friends, lunch with a colleague etc) that is when you need to ask yourself if you have a problem.
Over the next few weeks, I hope to cover the issue of taking dieting too far and why it is better to be slim rather than thin.
It’s been a while since I weighed myself. As I’ve started a new job, I’ve found routines a bit rough as for the first few weeks we were next door to a supermarket and would squeeze though the fence to get food at lunch time. After 3 weeks, we moved to another office with no shops for miles around. This is good as you can’t pick up snacks in weak moments. It is bad because you don’t bother to go for a walk at lunch time.
Now I’m starting to get settled into the job I decided to weigh myself. I had worried that I would gain weight but I had stayed constant at 11 stone (154lbs). I had dared to think that I had lost weight as both Jonny and his mum complimented me last week but alas the scales don’t lie. Unfortunately, I’ve not been taking Proactol either which means my stomach hasn’t been great. This morning I was seriously considering picking up some laxatives on the way home but it wasn’t necessary. Phew!
I feel much more settled now though and ready to commit to dieting properly. Even though I am a healthy weight, I would like to be fitter and slimmer rather than a healthy weight and a little wobbly around the edges. My BMI is in the healthy range at under 25.
breakfast: strawberry museli
snack: kit kat senses (165 cals)
lunch: cheese sandwhich
snack: cinnamon bagel with a tiny bit of butter
dinner: half a pizza
Overall, that’s roughly 1800 calories.
I could have eaten the whole pizza but I didn’t want to. It’s not a signal of self-control or strength as some would have you believe, it is a sign that you are more in tune with your body and you should be pleased with yourself that you can stop when you want to, rather than you think you should. I know I am proud of myself!
You’re reading my blog for diet tips. For this I must applaud you as you must be fairly intelligent. Having established this fact, you must be pretty confused as to why the UK government has gone back on it’s advice regarding calorie intake. According to the latest information released, women and men can eat an extra 16% of the original government recommended daily intake of calories without gaining weight.
Women can apparently safely consume an extra 320 calories whereas men can have an extra 400 calories. To make it easy, that is a small cheese burger a day you can eat on top of your diet. Apparently.
As I said, you’re probably fairly intelligent so you will understand that this advice could blow back in the face of the DoH when the UK is set to rival America in 2012 with a third of adults being overweight if current trends continue. So why am I outraged?
Everybody processes calories and converts food into energy at different rates. What’s good for the goose is not always good for the gander. This is because our current weight and the speed at which we metabolise mean that a blanket one-size-fits-all approach is not suitable when advising adults how many calories they should eat. There are methods by which you can calculate how many calories you can eat to maintain your weight but this is complicated and should be done with an expert who you are fully honest with.
Michael Phelps can eat far more than the average person as he burns calories off swimming to an Olympic standard.
At the Beijing Olympics last year, it was revealed that Olympic swimmer, American Michael Phelps ate 10,000 calories a day. His breakfast was:
However a woman weighing 10 stone may only be able to eat 1800 calories a day to maintain her weight but a smaller woman with greater muscle mass may be able to have 2200 calories a day. A guideline such as this is dangerous for those who stick to these guidelines but does not have a particularly active metabolism.
Also, studies have indicated that people misjudge the amount of calories they actually eat. This is why you should keep a rigorous and detailed diary of everything that you put in your mouth, including drinks.
If you are currently trying to lose weight, keep a strict food diary and log everything you eat. Yes, unfortunately, you must be clear about your portion sizes too. Weigh your food if it helps. From there you will be able to calculate what you honestly consume in a day and from there you can make your own boundaries.
As even a spokesperson for the National Obesity Forum said, this is not a green light for people to eat themselves silly. In this situation, I wholeheartedly suggest dieters ignore government advise on this issue as I feel they are not only giving out mixed messages, they could further contribute to the growing obesity crisis.
Researchers have pinpointed the day that thousands of people across the nation will start their diets – today! Just in time for Christmas.
There are two reasons for this:
1. People want to look amazing over the Christmas period as lots of photographs will be taken
2. Others will want to lose weight in anticipation of the weight they expect to gain over the gluttonous Christmas period.
Either way, get behind the 60% of women who are dieting for the Christmas period and bring fruit into the office instead of mince pies!
