My diet is better than your diet – Diary of The Recovering Fataholic 21/09/2014

Hello blogosphere people. I’m going through an odd period of weight loss and weight gain which I am struggling to understand to be honest. I have bounced around 104kg. Having been as low as 103kg and as high as 105kg.

• I’ve been running (or trundling) and feeling okay? Check.
• I’ve been keeping up with my press-ups, sit-ups? Check.
• I’ve been following my regime of eating little or no carbs? Ahhh, here’s the thing!

I have been working away from home, not just in an office but up at odd hours, travelling long and short distances, working on sites for 3 or 4 hours at a time, then the long drive home. I have been eating things which to you might seem healthy; but to me are really hard to digest. Take melon for example, to you melon might seem like a healthy option, something you choose when you are trying to lose weight right? So what about if within the hour you consume some brazil or almond nuts? Another healthy option you might think. But the combination of sugar with fat is dietary suicide to anybody like me. The carbs alone are killing me.

On the other hand — I feel tired, angry, irritable, aggression, cravings etc when I get up at 3am and put a dessert spoon of coffee into a travelling mug, add lots of milk to cut the bitterness then top it up with a heaped spoon of sugar to boost my energy level. Soon afterwards I hit a craving for anything sweet. So do I choose another sugary coffee or chocolate? I totally understand why people get fat. I see it clearly and I can also see that a lot of companies are making a lot of money trying to keep me fat. Cadbury’s doesn’t care how my liver is. It stocks the shelves with chocolate because they pay the most for the space. The guy who sells fruit and veg is cast to the back of the shelving display, almost as an afterthought. Why is it I can select from over 100 different types of chocolate confectionery in a garage and only get an option of banana or apple or a tiny pack of melons as fruit options?

I went shopping today. I bought lots of fish at half price £8/kg and some pork at £5/kg. I also got a whole kilo bag of live mussles (rope grown) for £3/kg. My diet isn’t as expensive as you might think. Just because I am not allowed to have a £1 bag of doughnuts or a 50p pack of cake slices or a 75p loaf of bread doesn’t mean I don’t want to be able to eat them but neither does it mean you are eating more cheaply than me. My weekly and personal to me alone “food budget” came to £51. When you are eating processed food you are eating an array of poisons that are only present to lengthen a product’s shelf life, nothing more. A good freezer can do the same thing in a healthier way. We all know chocolate is bad for us so why do we choose it? Some fats aren’t enough to make a product tasty, they must combine sugar into them. They know this, they do this, they win! Affordable diets? Healthy diets? I will not live longer or more happily than you. We both stand the same chance of being killed by a freak accident. Or being utterly miserable and suicidal. So why do I bother doing this? I suppose I bother because I love my wife and want to extract every ounce of time life has to offer me. I cannot think of being without her and I really want to shed a tear when I think that only a few months ago I nearly lost her to cancer. My brave, sweet, lovely wife nearly died because of a freak of nature – cancer. So let’s not get all pious about who’s better than who shall we? Lets just agree that I eat this way because I have a bad liver

I will return to having fish, meat, eggs and veg for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I will have the occasional treat of nuts or plain yoghurt and maybe a piece of fruit a couple of times a week. I have to get this belly down to an acceptable size and it won’t move itself!

Besides — I feel healthy when I eat just meat, fish and eggs and veg.

 

Enjoy your chocolate/cake/biscuit etc.

Diary of a Recovering Fataholic. August 2014. Feeling Great.

Hello world. I had a real boost to my morale today. I was complimented in the most sincere and warm and friendly way possible. Let me tell you why;

When I began my journey shortly after the “witch doctor” forced me to “eat better or die” I had moments when I wasn’t altogether sure it was worth it. Okay the fitness was lower and the self-esteem was being pummeled by the mirror on a daily basis but over the whole of the next two years since 2012 I have had lots of highs and lots of lows. But today I was stopped in my tracks by a lovely lady I know as a client of mine. I was visiting the open plan office where she works and she sits with a colleague I also know well. Anyway, I was visiting somebody else onsite and the job required me to wear their polo shirt so I was wearing their brand. Thing was they gave me an XL shirt, not the normal XXXL I used to wear or the XXL I am down to now. I needed to visit the toilet to change and thought nothing of it. Having returned to the client and showing amazement that I actually fitted into the shirt they offered me.

Anyway after receiving the job brief I headed out of the door and was stopped in my tracks by this lady who was stunned by the change in my appearance. Her genuine warmth and curiosity about how I had physically changed so dramatically, to her mind, was incredibly touching and lifted my emotions enormously. I explained that it was mostly down to switching to fish. She thought this idea was brilliant as she liked fish and would give it a go. I hope she does and mentioned how I buy in bulk to get discounts and shop when there are offers on as well, all of which she took note of. Only the rich can afford to eat fish at RRP!

I was really happy when I walked away from her.

Thanks lovely lady for making me feel brilliant, and you don’t even know you’ve done it.

 

 

Low Carb Diet Diary 29/06/14

Yet again eating a low carb diet has caused me more weight loss last week — I weighed 105.4kg and this week I am 104.8kg now that isn’t much to some people but it is plenty for me. See below for my personal “tale of the tape”, (it’s a pdf and virus checked)

We it’s only 6:30pm but I can’t see me eating much more today. I am stuffed. I might add some brazil nuts later but I doubt it.

Whether you are trying to lose weight or lose fat or just eat low carb food in order to get a healthier liver, like I do, whatever your reason I honestly believe you can do worse than find your inspiration on WordPress. Hope you lose some too. Or if you can’t be bothered with all of that – just like and follow my blog already! Good luck to you.

Food Diary 290614

Diary of The Recovering Fataholic. May 2014. No2

This is the home of the random musings from the “Recovering Fataholic”.

I have turned a corner, had an epiphany, been bollocked by the doctor, call it what you want. The news she gave me while I was lying in a bed in A&E recovering from a pulmonary embolism frightened me into action. I was a 20 stone (126kg) mess and dying of liver disease.

I am following a low carb lifestyle because my doctor said that if I don’t, I will lose my liver and by default – my life. I reckon I kind of need that major organ, so I decided to follow her instructions. You can read the story that scared me on the other page above.

May is not a great month for me normally. So many birthdays among my relatives and I am always tempted by birthday cake. Hardly the best low carb food and a definite no-no as far as the doctor is concerned. She banned me from cake, bread, pasta, rice, cheese, alcohol, the list goes on. So I started this month at 106kg. And here we are at the 29th of the month and my weight today was 106.5kg.

So am I bothered? Well no not really. I got myself into this mess and I am getting myself out of this mess, one day at a time. Sure it’s May and my folks want to celebrate their old age, why wouldn’t they ? And who am I to rain on anybody’s parade? So I had a piece of birthday cake or more. But it was always one piece only and it was always the only bad thing I had that day. You see I am following what I call a “Pay Attention” diet. You can too it’s a doddle. And I will lose that last 0.5kg very soon and very easily.

Follow my blog and I will show you how you can do this too – through my postings. It’s not rocket science. You don’t need to be rich. But you do need to want it enough to do it. Not just pay lip service to it. Which is the biggest hurdle by far for you while you read this. I bet just talking about cake got you thinking about sweet things and here you are reading about being good and losing weight and all you can think about is cake. That’s the first hurdle. Stop that and you are on the first rung.

I use FatSecret to record what I eat and thus control the intake. This is the biggest single mistake you are all making when you start dieting for weight loss. Not knowing how much you really weigh and not recording what is being put into your mouth is what got you into the mess in the first place. Time to grow some faith in yourself and time to get started.

I don’t do anything special. I am not a member of a special gym or do much in the way of exercise to lose weight. I just take care of the food I eat now. You can do this too, it is so easy.

Low Carb Kippers

Try this: my doctor told me to begin by eating fish for half the week. Make that mean whatever you want it to mean. I took it to mean eating steamed/poached white fish with vegetables (I’m not allowed potatoes though) for tea. I have a hob-top steamer (old school) and boil the kettle to kick start it with some pre-heated water. In this I can put all my prepped veg and fish into one container and 20-30 mins later its food time. If I don’t fancy steaming or if it’s lunch at work I am looking for then I often put a can of tuna on top of a half a salad bag from the supermarket (top with a tablespoon of mayo or other low carb sauce) and for breakfast I am now well used to eating kippers or mackerel. I like it grilled to crisp it up but its up to you.

 

Adding my allowance of only 2 eggs per day to the kippers or chucking in a couple of basic mushrooms really mellows the flavour but open the windows!

Eating fish is easy but the biggest mistake you are about to make is to think fish fingers count. Listen very carefully to this – processed is banned. If it has been messed with so it doesn’t look like fish then it is not a food you should eat because you cannot control what additives are used in it. Fish in it’s natural form is cost effective for your health because it is so easy to digest, low in fat, low in carbs, calories and tastes great and most important of all you are 100% in charge of what goes into your body. This is the first lesson in learning how to “Pay Attention” to what you eat.

Low Carb Diet Cod Loins – A personal favourite for healthy eating

Try it – I double dare you. One month. You can do this. Moderate everything else. Avoid the complex carbs like bread, pasta, potatoes, rice, porridge, flour and so on. And don’t eat red meat (except bacon). Beyond that it’s your call. Eat as much as you need to but don’t be a glutton. It’s that attitude that got you in this mess in the first place and your head is the first place to begin this low carb way of life.

 

 

Only in your head can you begin the process of “Paying Attention”.

Let me know how you get on?

Low Carb Diet Menu for day 01/05/2014

I was feeling quite lazy when it came to eating yesterday. Much like any normal person I can sometimes be a little too busy to mess about with picky food regimes. Today’s menu (below) shows the low carb food I have eaten yesterday. I ate the same things only because I was too busy to bother being different.

Low Carb Cod Loins

The low carb fish was microwaved at 1.5 minute intervals, turned and cooked again. I didn’t count how many minutes it took, I just did this until it was cooked. It’s not rocket science and you don’t need permission to be smart for yourself. The sauce was out of a squeezy bottle and the salad was prepared by a supermarket in England called the Co-Op. How lazy can low carb and low fat dieting be right?

Seriously though – let me remind you all that I am not on a diet because I am fat. My weight loss is merely a by-product of the regime my doctor has put me on. I am forced to eat this way on doctors orders. I have been eating like this for some three months now, (I began this low carb diet on 31st January this year when I weighed 117.5kg). I am due to be reviewed in a couple of weeks but after three months I now weigh 107.5kg. My main worry is the blood tests. What impact on me will there be if the doctor tells me the regime had not affected the unusual blood results I have been producing. What if she tells me I am going to have to go on the liver transplant list? What happens to somebody who has a liver transplant? What happens if none can be found to match my specific type? It’s not about dieting for me. I have a far more powerful motivator. Fear!

This is what I ate yesterday. I enter everything in Fat Secret which is a food diary app that can apply to most common dieting styles like calorie counting or low fat or low GI etc. You will have to spend a moment looking at the numbers for them to pop out at you. I am not gonna treat you like you’re stupid. I just did a copy/paste from my site.

These are the totals for the day:
Fat Carbs Sugar Net C Prot Cals
62.28 25.79 8.25 17.90 164.71 1344

Breakfast 15.36 3.05 2.29 2.96 15.19 218

Tesco Chestnut Mushrooms
92 g
0.46 0.37 0.18 0.28 1.66 15

Scrambled Egg (Whole, Cooked)
2 large
14.90 2.68 2.11 2.68 13.53 203

Lunch 6.14 8.30 2.40 6.30 51.04 307

Co-Op Sweet & Crunchy Salad
1 pack
0.40 7.00 1.40 5.00 1.30 40

Hellmann’s French Dressing
1 portion, 15 g
4.00 1.30 1.00 1.30 0.50 43

Steamed or Poached Cod
220 g
1.74 49.24 224

Dinner 7.56 8.30 2.40 6.30 91.32 491

Steamed or Poached Cod
400 g
3.16 89.52 408

Hellmann’s French Dressing
1 portion, 15 g
4.00 1.30 1.00 1.30 0.50 43

Co-Op Sweet & Crunchy Salad
1 pack
0.40 7.00 1.40 5.00 1.30 40

Snacks/Other 33.22 6.14 1.16 2.34 7.16 328

Brazil Nuts
50 g
33.22 6.14 1.16 2.34 7.16 328

My low carb diet diary #22 Mar 2014

This is not a low carb posting. It’s just a blog posting about my hospital appointment.

The last time I went to see my doctor she told me she would get a scan of my liver sorted. That was January.

My appointment came around today (March) and so I went to the hospital for what was loosely described as an ultrasound scan.

I waited around for ages in reception, overhearing conversations from about 5 different languages, none of which were English. I would feel upset about that except I speak Spanish fluently so I am that “bloody foreigner” whenever I am with my Mum and we want to talk about the English people nearby.

Anyway I got called in and when I was in there I got gel liberally smeared about my midriff and then the doctor did her thing and ushered me out. She scanned my liver and my spleen.

I swear I waited for about an hour and was dealt with in 10 minutes! No wonder they call it the “waiting room”. Gotta love the British NHS

Apparently my liver consultant will get the results and decide if she wants me to come in or not, as she pleases.

I feel like a cow some times. Honestly…

 

My low carb diet diary #19 Feb 2014

Low Carb Diet and Fish

I’m still losing weight eating low carb fish, fish and a bit more fish. I can eat 400g (nearly a pound of fish) and be stuffed to the gills and still lose weight on the scales tomorrow.

I am now 113.5kg

I like cod, tuna, mackerel, salmon, most other white fish, mullet, snapper,etc but you don’t hear of it being commercially pushed unless it’s a processed version like with Birdseye, Findus and the like. All of the processed ones are banned from my low carb diet.

The latest news regarding fish, fresh from my local fishmonger or scaremonger if you believe him is that the boats can’t get out and back with enough fish to supply the demand. That means the prices are going up. I recently saw cod in a supermarket at £18/kilo and for those who need a comparative I bought cod in Morrisons Supermarket in Stamford Lincolnshire at £5.99/kilo only one week ago. This fish was “on offer” from £11/kilo.

If the intelligencia wants us to consume more iodine then fish is a dead certain source. But most people are scared of fish. I’ve no idea why. It is fast to cook, easy to digest, low in fat , low in carbs, high in protein. And the staff at Tescos, Morrisons, Sainsburys etc will cut it any way you like, they will gut it for you, de-head it for you, everything except cook it and trust me when I say that steaming fish is the easiest thing in the world and a lot less washing up than doing a roast chicken.

Fish is about as low carb as it gets when trying to prepare a healthy low-carb lifestyle meal. All you need extra is a salad bag or a few veg. Nothing could be easier and healthier.

In fact have a look at this video. I know it’s geared to one supermarket but the principle is the same at all of them. Your local independent fishmonger is no different you know:

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Hello Blogosphere

I hope you have had a better couple of weeks than I have.

You will recall I returned from a holiday where apart from relaxing I ate bad things like ice-cream and fish and chips and all that bad stuff? And you will recall I came back from that holiday having not gained weight.

Well my triumph didn’t last long. I have gained weight; it is not much but it’s a “gain”.

My colleague went on holiday straight after I returned and I am the holiday cover for that job. It’s the same job that saw me go from 80kg back in 1999 to 120kg last year. Over the space of 13 years I have gained 40kg or 88lbs or 6.3 stones in or around ‘that chair’. I don’t hate it or fear it. It’s just a chair and the job isn’t rocket science. But it does involve an extraordinary amount of personal sacrifice in terms of comforts. I call it the whipping post. Just like Jesus’ whipping post back in those days you get punished and praised in equal measure for the simple job of trying to be fair to all. For being a professional nice guy. So it was inevitable that I was going to seek comfort in something once I had quit smoking and it ended up being Pepperoni Pizza, Chips, Burgers, Chinese, Indian, crap. All of it was and still is crap. I would end up so dog-tired at the end of a gruelling day. Some days I would literally roll out of bed, bimble down to breakfast and eat. Then roll into the car and drive to work, then bimble into my chair, that chair. Then stay there, sometimes not even getting up to go for a pee until 5pm. I might stay there until the early or late evening then bimble back into the car, drive back home, eat more food and then without digesting go straight to bed. No exercise at all. Just talking to people all day. The weight gain started to accelerate once I gave up smoking in 2005 but I was already ‘solid’ back then. Add one holiday trip to America into the mix and pop goes the belly! I gained a whole stone in one month from that American trip.

So back to the present and that chair had me in it’s evil clutches once more and it did to me what it always does. It made me fat! Well fatter. I ate but I didn’t exercise and that’s where it all goes wrong for me. I HAVE to exercise or I get fat. That’s the key to my success right there. So now that my colleague is back and things are settling down I must get a grip on myself once more and do more exercise to un-balance the calories going into my body from the food I am eating back in my favour again.

Personally my favourite exercise is walking. I got a subscription to Country Walking magazine where you can pick the great walks it posts at the back of the magazine that you can cut out and take with you for step by step guidance without the expense of GPS devices.

I also have a treadmill I can use and an adroid phone where you can download the app for Fat Secret. That’s got a neat little gadget that lets you scan the barcodes on most foods and it pre-loads them in for you to adjust the quantity to what serving you are eating then accept and move on. A great update from them in my humble opinion. And seeing the number of calories going in makes the job of stopping them so much easier

Last weekend I had had enough and took my sorry arse out for a walk. I went geocaching. If you don’t know what that is research via the internet for the clear explanation but basically you select a target cache and use the clues and co-ordinates given to find it. Most require that you walk there and that’s where the exercise bit slips in unnoticed (we hope). But it was so hot and I took my daughter with me so I only got to walk for about 3 miles. It’s tough being a dad. You want to do the right thing to show them you can and it’s ok to be healthy but then they wimp out coz they are just kids and you are torn between the two halves of that dilemma, oh well.

So with all of that at my disposal plus the love and joy of my extended family encouraging me to ‘just do it’ I guess there is nothing left for it. I will start it all again on Monday… and will naturally keep you posted on the results.

Oh? You wanted to know how much I had gained? I don’t know to be honest. I’m too scared to get on the scales. All I can tell you is that my hips ache, I’m constantly tired, I don’t do much activity, I just feel heavier. And then I went and tripped up over this article about how fat drivers are more likely to die than thin drivers and I really felt cheerful, not. 🙂

What do you think I should do to lose the weight? Let me know by replying using the link here. If the activity is not unnatural I may just do it and photograph myself in the process.

My low fat diet blog from “The Recovering Fataholic” #11 February 2013

Hi folks.

Ok the news report. Did I lose weight or not? Yes! I did it again. This is great. I don’t lose weight for ages, and then suddenly I am losing weight consistently three weeks in a row and this one makes four weeks.

I am now 121.5kg. I can’t see this lasting. I am not exercising. And I know that in order to make this lifestyle change a permanent feature of my life I am going to have to get off my bottom and on my feet and do something. So in honour of that fact. I am going to do 10 minutes of walking on my treadmill. Then at the hefty weight of 121.5kg I am going to let you know how it felt. Here goes…

Phew! Ten minutes and 5 seconds. Travelling at 4kph on a 5 degree upward incline. I didn’t have to go at that speed. I just knew I had to get “out of breath”. So I snuck the speed higher and higher until I had reached a point at which I knew I could do ten minutes but out of puff throughout. It wasn’t so bad. I am thirsty now though. That kind of exercise is going to make me dry which is a good thing because I need to increase my water intake. I added a small amount of orange squash to the water. Much easier to take. I have no idea how many calories I used, or how it affects me. Now I shall log on to my http://www.fatsecret.co.uk website and add that to the breakfast foods I consumed.

You know I still crave chips, even now at 10:20am – Chips made by the local chipshop. With some Brava Sauce I got given from Spain. (I mentioned I used to like “Patatas Brava” and began to explain how it was made to the person who recently went there on holiday. And they remembered me. How kind. How 20th Century!).

I ought to remind you – the reader – that I am not on a diet. I am exploring the emotional and mental side of being a fataholic and trying to stay “off the fat”. I am doing a home-made change of eating style which I have called my “paying attention” diet. Where nothing is off limits but when presented with a choice I would choose the low fat option each time.

Speaking of emotions and thoughts I was looking at myself in the mirror the other day, after a shower, and noticed that my arms are nearer to my body than they have been for ages. I had to jiggle myself about a bit to make sure it wasn’t just the way I happened to be standing at that moment. I was also told by my lovely, suportive and incredibly patient wife that the crease under my man-boobs has diminished to no crease at all. It seems I am “changing shape” along with everything else. The main reason I wanted to do things at such a tortuously slow pace anyway was to prevent sagging skin folds. You cannot go from 20 stone to 14 stone without having a little bit of flapping flesh. And I gather from research that the elastin in my skin is generally exhausted by the time I pass puberty so I may well be buggered whatever I do – but this shape-shifting is quite a positive feeling. It helps me (in my head) to stay focussed on the reason I am doing this. It’s not to lose weight, it’s to stay alive and keep my liver going after the serious diagnosis I received. I must keep going to make sure I can only pass away once all the debts and mortgages (that are part of normal life) are paid off, so my wife and kids have nothing to worry about. That’s my motivation I suppose. The family. I am not sure that if they weren’t about I wouldn’t be down the chippy buying a bag of fatty badness right now. Us fataholics are a tempestuous bunch ain’t we?

What do you think? Should I have a better reason for dieting? I’ve never been vain to that extent.
Ok. 1/2 litre of water consumed. 10 mins of my daily exercise done. Back to work then! See you next time.