What I Have Learned This Week ; )
With this title, I sound like a grade schooler writing a report 
.
This could be a boring blog because I am really just using it to formulate my own thoughts. It is going to come in several parts over the next few days, because it is just too long for one blog post (even one of my blog posts).
Sooo...several people have written comments to me this week saying they are amazed I lost weight while away for 10 days for the wedding I went to. Some said that could be a reason for a major gain - and I agreed with them. That got me thinking about how, in fact, I managed to do it.
The first, most obvious answer was that the wedding was towards the end of those ten days. There is nothing like knowing if you overeat, you will look (even more) terrible in a dress to motivate you, especially when the humiliating experience won't be in a few months, but in a couple of days.
But I realised potential embarrassment has been a factor in my weight loss attempts in the past, and I have still overeaten and continued to gain weight right up until whatever the event was. So there must be something else that made this time different.
The first answer is that I am getting better at this. I know I can do it, and I have been practising some of the tools and habits for doing it.
Secondly, my attitude to myself and my lifestyle has changed. When I look back at how I felt about food and how I behaved with it 10 months ago, it is like observing a different person. The main change has been my working on my emotional overeating - trying to change my diet at all without this would have been like trying to ice a cake without actually baking it first. Messy and ultimately pointless.
But beyond this, my general attitude to lifestyle has changed in so many ways, so I am just going to look at the shifts I noticed while I was away.
1. I really enjoyed myself socially. I was busy (sometimes too busy) and I felt entertained. This meant my primary focus wasn't food. I didn't think about every mealtime in advance - sometimes I forgot about mealtimes. It was hard to obtain food at various points and I chose to prioritise other activites - this would never happen at home. I didn't use food to fight boredom. I didn't think so hard about whether or not I 'could do this' that I ate to comfort myself.
2. I didn't allow other people to influence my choices about diet. My best friend's wedding was coming up, so I was constantly in social situations with a 'party' atmosphere about them - where people were making food and drink choices that were more unhealthy than was usual for them. I was staying with two girls, one of whom is slim but eats extremely unhealthily and the other of whom has an extremely 'messed up' attitude to food. To add to that, my main meals were being provided for me.
I could have just 'rolled with it' and eaten what my friends ate - accepted the fantasy that this was something 'I couldn't help' and joined in with the other girls' justifications: 'We are all doing it, so that's OK.' or 'so-and-so is eating it, and she is slim, so it must be OK.'
In the past, there were many situations when I overate because I felt 'I had to'. But in reality, when I look back, I cannot think of a single time in my adult life where I have actually 'had to' eat anything. Sure, some day it might come up. But in my experience thus far there has not been one situation where I could not have come up with a perfectly acceptable alternative solution. The primary reason I couldn't see those solutions at the time? I didn't want to.
During my time away, I recognised that I had a choice over what I put into my mouth. So what choice would I make?
I knew overeating would make me miserable. However, I decided that keeping up the same very healthy habits I have at home would not be worth the effort and sacrifices. So I chose to stick to my calories as best I could, and get in as much nutritious stuff as I could reasonably manage. When I was served up a 'feast', I ate as much as I wanted and then explained I was full. I turned down dessert or, if it was homemade, accepted a small piece.
I avoided most of the snacks and nibbles that were constantly around the place, because that was not going to cause offence. When we bought lunch from a sandwich shop, I chose a healthy option rather than the baguette I really fancied.
If it had come to a choice between serious overeating (ie more than a couple of hundred calories) and causing offence, I would have turned down the food as politely as possible. Maybe on some occasions, I would eat it, but two days before a wedding where the dress didn't do up? No way.
I want to go off the rails plenty of times, without doing it for food I don't even want. 'I am not hungry' should always be an excuse that is understood.
But luckily, with careful eating when I did have an easier choice, it didn't come to causing offence. And it should rarely have to. No one should think you are rude for eating just a regular sized plateful of food.
3. I was extremely active. When at home, I do about 2.5-4.5 hours of aerobics/Pilates/weights etc per week, depending on how 'good' I am feeling, and about one hour of housework each day, plus maybe a walk at the weekend. With all the workouts, it is easy to con myself that I am being healthy.
But I work from home, at a desk job, in a rural area (no walking from place to place), with very little social life. Which means my lifestyle, except for the dedicated workouts, is almost completely sedentary.
During my time away, I only did one dedicated workout like the ones I do at home. But I did hours and hours of physical activity.
I did eat slightly more than usual - but I must have been burning hundreds and hundreds of extra calories each day. Taking the train back and forth across the country, carrying a heavy backpack, running around to appointments, playing with children, long shopping sessions, country walks, trekking with a llama, arranging tables, putting up decorations, walking to friends' houses (and to the pub) and much more.
The whole week was so reminiscent of my life as a student. This was what my life was like before I moved to Cornwall - and started to gain weight. So I wonder how much of my weight gain came from extra calories eaten, and how much from changing my activity levels?
So from now on I am going to try to include much more physical activity in my day to day life. This is going to be hard, because it will be about deliberately incorporating more activity, not just doing it naturally. But I am determined it can be done!
Right, that is enough for me today...and I am assuming it is enough for you too!
I will be back with more tomorrow if you can stand it.
Loads of love Rach xxx 