Happy New Year! It’s 2009 and I survived the whole of the holiday period on plan. Our New years eve was a bit pants in the end though cos the kids fell asleep before we could go out. It’s not all bad though, got to see in the New Year in the bath with the missus (ooer). That’s another plus point you see, with our new bathroom and my new size, we can both fit in it! It’s not quite the Jacuzzi we had in our Mexico hotel room during our honeymoon but it’s better than nothing. As most of you know I’m now into my last full week of abstinence on the lighterlife plan. Next Thursday I start the route to management phase of the diet. I’ll go into that in much more detail when the time comes. I don’t think there are enough detailed lighterlife blogs out there anyway, especially ones dealing with RTM and maintenance long term so don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere! As I’m doing another 2 week stint for my last period of hardcore abstaining, I’m going to give my LLC (Lighterlife counsellor) a call to see if I can get my RTM (Route to Management) books and bumf a week early. It’s not good getting it at 10:30pm the day before I’m starting. I need some time to plan and prepare!
It’s strange in a way that this period feels very much like when I first started this blog with 8 days to go. It’s like the calm before the storm or (for all you Lord of the Rings fans out there) ‘The Deep breath before the plunge’ as I named my previous post on the subject many moons ago. I’m actually feeling very excited about the RTM phase now. As you may have gathered over the last few posts, I’d been to and fro about carrying on for a bit but I definitely think enough is enough now. Anyway, I’m going to go off on a tangent for a sec. I’m trying to plan my posts a bit more and at the end of the last one I promised to cover some specific topics. I’m sure there are some new starters reading this that would like some kind of specific comments as opposed to my normal rambling style lol. I won’t be doing that today but I just want to get them down in black and white so I don’t forget. I’m going to do a review of the blog with some favourite/least favourite posts along with highs and lows of my time in full abstinence. I’m going to cover my weekly losses in a bit more detail all in one place and talk in detail about Route to Management, what’s involved, what I can/can’t eat etc. I also have a couple of specific exercise plans I want to start which I’ll take you through and I’m going to finish each post with what I’ve eaten that day along with Calorie values and calories burned through certain types of exercise. Well, that’s all the posts I intend to make in the short term anyway…… Most importantly I’m going to need to seriously consider goals for the management phase. I have an ultimate goal already. To be the weight I am now or less this time next year. What I need to do is work on the mini goals between now and then so I can make sure that happens!
Hmmmmmmm, what else can I cover in this strange no man’s land between Hardcore and RTM?………. Oh yes, I hate this time of year. Ironically a lot of people start the New Year with a resolution to lose weight etc but I find this time of year particularly depressing. It’s cold, dark and boring. It’s the first full week back at work for a while and there are sweets and stuff left over from Christmas that everyone wants to avoid. To me the night before the first full week at work after Christmas always feels like when you were on your last day of the school holidays lol. It wouldn’t surprise me if I’ve put more weight on during Jan/Feb than I have over Christmas during my fat time. One thing I do have to look forward to is my holiday though (hmmmm, deffo could be goals relating to that) to Turkey on the 11th of May. I’ll be completely finished RTM by then too! On another positive note, I’ve had some very good comments over the last few days. We went to my sister in laws for dinner on Saturday and we (me and my 3 year old son) made a big chocolate cake to take for desert. Anyway there was a woman there who I’d never met and (during the cake scoffing) my sister in law was telling her that I’d made the cake but I wasn’t have any cos I was on a diet. Well this woman looked me up and down and said she couldn’t believe I was on a diet and that I didn’t need to be etc, etc. It’s nice to get an honest first impression from someone you don’t know. The second instance turned into a bit of a ‘reveal’ albeit unintentional. It was one of my friend’s birthdays yesterday and he was down the pub celebrating. I spoke to his missus on the phone and he said he was with his dad and my other friend. Now I’ve seen all 3 of these reasonably frequently so it wasn’t a big deal. Anyway, when I walked in there were about 10 people I knew that I hadn’t seen since I started lighterlife. It was a really funny reaction. I think people just couldn’t believe it. I guess it helped that I was actually wearing clothes that fit me! As uncomfortable as close scrutiny makes me feel, it felt great to receive so many compliments and such a short space of time. Oh I’ve just thought of another one. I saw my next door neighbour on Saturday too and if you can believe it, I haven’t seen him either. I see his wife all the time though. I think he does shift work or something…. Anyway, he was very surprised to and started grilling me about the plan (he wants to lose a couple of stone). So, all good news on the compliment front.
There are some negatives sides to all this though. My LLC said to me in one of the early weeks that the compliments are great but you shouldn’t rely on them. They WILL dry up eventually then, the pressure’s on. It could even go the other way with people commenting on me putting weight on. That’s one of the reasons why I tell pretty much everyone I meet that I’m quite happy to put a stone or so back on lol. I guess the possibility of failure is always there. People are a strange bunch. They love an underdog and are rooting for you to succeed while doing something so hard but then, just as easily, they love a good old fall from grace and adopting an ‘I told you so’ attitude. This isn’t helped by the amount of comments you read about LL failures. Something I’ve read countless times is ‘Once he/she started eating normally again, they put it all back on’. I take some heart in the vague nature of the word ‘normally’ in that sentence though. It could mean so many different things. Here are the facts. If I eat/drink like I used to, I will put it all back on and a lot quicker too. My metabolism has slowed to a crawl due to lack of calories. I need to speed it up slowly (hence the RTM phase) and if I don’t exercise regularly, I’ll put it back on. The next few months are going to be absolutely crucial. I’ve said before that the hard part is coming but now I’m staring it in the face, I truly understand that abstaining is the easy part of the this crazy adventure. I need to stay the course and build up my metabolic rate and exercise slowly in order to maintain long term. I WILL succeed!
As I love my film references, Finding Nemo springs to mind. ‘I haven’t come this far to be breakfast!’
G
