Everyone has to find their own way when it comes to weight loss. Whatever works for you, so long as it’s not detrimental to your health, is fantastic.

At the time of writing this, i’ve managed to slough off nearly a full stone of excess blubber. I’m not sure what that is in metric measurements, but to give some perspective it’s roughly the weight of Liam Neeson’s legendary genitalia.

There’s no hard  and fast rule for weight loss, but there’s a whole world of hints, tips, diet plans and utter bullshit available to those who wish to drop a couple of pounds. I’m not, for one minute, suggesting that I can offer any more helpful advice than anyone else, but i’m more than willing to throw my  metaphorical two penn’orth into the proverbial hat. So, here’s a run down of my rough daily eating plan.

9:00am – Having fed, watered and on a week day, waved goodbye to the child units, I hungrily devour my breakfast. This usually consists of a bowl of bran flakes or a slice of wholegrain toast with the merest suggestion of a low fat, olive oil based butter alternative and an amount of no added sugar jam which is, in fairness, more like the idea of jam. Jam scented toast.

10:30am – I usually find myself a little peckish around this time. In the bad old days, i’d reach for a bag of crisps or a bar of chocolate, maybe a bag of donuts, all sugary and delicious…
Uh…yeah. That was totally the old me. Now, I tend to just drink plenty of water. Often, when you feel like you’re a little peckish, you’re really just thirsty. A glass of water isn’t quite as satisfying as a slab of cake the size of Piers Morgan’s ego, but it usually does the job.

12:00 noon – Lunch time! After screaming “THANK CHRIST!” I rush to the kitchen as fast as my worthless legs will carry me to whip up a sumptious, yet incredibly healthy repast. If it was bran flakes for breakfast, I usually opt for a sandwich. If I had toast, rather than fill up on bread, i’ll grab a wholewheat tortilla. Bread or round, flat bread which i’ve convinced myself isn’t ACTUALLY bread because it doesn’t look like bread. Either way, i’ll fill it with mixed leaves, sliced peppers, tomato, cucumber and some sort of fish or perhaps sliced meat. The key is to pack as much flavour as possible into the fewest number of calories, while also balancing the level of sugars and trying to include your “five a day” and all the necessary vitamins and whatnot. It’s a balancing act akin to juggling live weasels while riding a unicycle through a minefield, having just drank six litres of Red Bull and injected a large quantity of methamphetamines into your penis. Probably.

3:00pm – Around 3ish, I usually feel the munchies creeping up on me once again. It’s during the afternoon hunger pangs that I generally stare at the cupboards, muttering a selection of curse  words as I spot delicious things which I know that I shouldn’t eat. I fully agree with the idea that you shouldn’t completely cut anything out, as that only makes you want it more. That being said, i’m doing my best to resist the unhealthy options as much as humanly possible. I want to get a little further down the weight loss road before I start to let myself off on the odd occasion, because right now I think a single slice of delicious fruit cake would lead to a three day eating binge in which I would devour all of the food in the cupboards, the cupboards themselves and any passers by who’d had bacon in the last twelve hours. I might, at this time of day, have a small apple.

5:00pm – Time for the evening meal. One of my favourite, healthy meals at the moment is a hot crab noodle salad. I’ll give you the recipe, seeing as the BBC aren’t bothering their arse with that anymore.

INGREDIENTS:

1 packet of straight-to-wok noodles
1 spring onion
1 tin of crab/tuna
A pepper
Olive oil
Soy sauce
Pepper

METHOD:

Chuck all that shit in the pan. NOT THE FISH, YOU PRICK!
All that shit EXCEPT THE FISH goes in a pan or wok.
Cooked? Bung the fish in.
Chuck it on top of some salad.
ON A PLATE. Arsehole.

Hunger makes me tetchy

8:30pm – Marital Unit returns from work and often grabs herself something to eat. This usually begins a rage spiral in which I loathe her for eating in front of me, myself for uncharitable thoughts, the purveyors of oven chips for laying temptation at my feet and everything else in the world for being….well, for being.
Seriously, it’s amazing how irritable you can get when you’re hungry, so it’s good to find some sensible snackage. I like dutch crispbakes with just a scraping of butter. I also like fuck off slabs of lardy cake and long cold glasses of fizzy beverages loaded with enough sugar to render me unconscious at twenty paces, but arse to it, crispbakes will do.

11:00pm – Everyone is asleep. The temptation, at this point, to hoover a bag of Wispa bites in less time than it takes to say  “SHIT, THE WIFE’S AWAKE!” is considerable. Don’t do it, folks. Don’t give in to temptation and sneak a snack. It’s easy to think “I’ll make up for it tomorrow” but you won’t. You’ll eat an entire bar of Galaxy, three packets of prawn cocktail crisps and sob yourself to sleep. Maybe. You might not. The important thing  is to stay strong and if you do have a bit of an off day, try to do some damage limitation. I was gagging for something sweet a couple of days ago, so I grabbed a biscuit. One biscuit. Took the edge off and I didn’t hate myself for doing it.

3:00am – Pass out. This one is just me, I loathe sleep. I used to spend half that time snacking but now I pump myself full of water, both still and sparkling, while watching copious quantities of absolute shite on Netflix and occasionally molesting myself to images of…too much sharing? Too much sharing.

That’s all the advice I have. It’s largely worthless, but it does me good to spill my digital guts once in a while and you never know, amongst this shit shower of unwanted tips, you might find something useful. Even if it’s just the knowledge that you’d best avoid my house in the wee small hours, unless you want to see something that cannot be unseen.

3 thoughts on “The Sugar-Blood Diaries: The Unfattening”

  1. I feel your pain. Well, not right now, as I’ve decided life is too short to deny myself the only vice left to me, I.e. eating my own body weight in chocolate, cake and ice cream. However, a few years ago I made a concerted effort to lose weight and I did very well, losing 95lbs in around 10 months.

    I used a website http://www.sparkpeople.com to record my food and water intake, log my exercise and record my weight. I found it a very useful tool. My plan looked something like this:

    BREAKFAST:
    Porridge made with semi-skimmed milk & water, with sultanas or 1 small over-ripe banana & sunflower seeds. Alternatively I’d have a grilled bacon & poached egg sandwich on toasted Danish-style bread. On weekends I might have a veggie omelette with toast.

    LUNCH:
    Lean meat sandwich on wholemeal bread with homemade soup or a side salad & a packet of reduced fat crisps.

    DINNER:
    Grilled or baked chicken or fish with lots of veggies (onion, peppers, mushrooms, broccoli) and a portion of rice, pasta or potatoes. Tinned fruit in sugar-free jelly for dessert.

    SNACKS:
    A piece of fruit. Low-fat yoghurt. Low-fat crisps. Low-fat houmous & crudites. A handful of nuts.

    My biggest issue was chocolate. I’ve never been able to just have a little bit. I’m an all-or-nothing kinda gal. So to get my fix I would drink cocoa. My recipe was 1 rounded tsp cocoa powder, 2 rounded tsps reduced fat coffee whitener, 2 sweeteners & 20mls skimmed milk. Add boiling water and you have a mug of chocolaty loveliness for around 40 calories.

    I fell off the wagon numerous times, but I got back on again and again. It wasn’t always a trial, though. Some days I ate far less than my allowance and didn’t feel deprived. Losing weight made it easier to be active, which contributed to my weight loss. Being active also kept my mind occupied, so I thought less about what I was going to shove down my gullet next.

    You’ve made a good start, so keep up the good work and if you need recipe ideas feel free to give me a shout.

    1. Sounds like a great plan! Although, fun fact (not fun), it turns out low-fat yoghurt is crazy high in sugar. Christ knows what that’s all about but that’s what the nurse told me.
      Cheers for the support and the recipe offer, might well take you up on that.
      Next stop, Youtube cooking show.

      1. Muller Light has no sugar. I think it’s ~ 100 cals a pot. I ate loads of it when I was dieting. Just stay away from Muller Corners – they’re lethal.

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