Monday 14 May 2012

No weigh in this week

Yesterday was supposed to be Weigh In (WI) day. That didn't happen. My mum's partner asked if we could do it another day, as he needed to complete his tutor-marked assessment as part of his Open Degree. I can understand that having the 5 children (my 3, and my younger brother and sister) running excitedly around the house might have been a little distracting, so my mum and I agreed to WI next Sunday instead.

I was secretly relieved as Saturday was my husband's surprise 30th birthday party and I had made the decision that I was going to take the day off of my diet. I regretted eating. The food wasn't as great as I remembered or imagined it would be, and I was in flare up with my Crohn's disease all night and all of Sunday. I'm not beating myself up for 'falling off the wagon', though. After all, it didn't feel like a loss of control, but rather a bad decision. I knew what I was doing, weighed up the pros and cons and made the choice to break my diet. I was in total control. And I can learn from this.

From the full 7 days that I completed on the VLCD before Saturday, I have learnt that I can take or leave food. And that I can actually do this diet. I am a little nervous about how my gut will react to food when I refeed, and if I will instantly go into flare up when I am trying to eat solid food, but I'm trying not to think of that for now. For now I am getting some relief from the pain and sickness, and I am losing much needed weight along the way. I will cross all the other bridges when I come to them.

From eating on Saturday, and the pain and illness that followed, I have learnt that food is - without any doubt - not worth it.

Not weighing in was a bit of a bummer but it gives me a week to correct any damage done by my 'day off', to work out hard and to lose as much weight as possible.

Short term plan: Stick to VLCD 100% for the full week (No crafty splashes of milk in my tea!), work out 3 times a week, walk the school run (total 8 miles a day). See AMAZING results on WI day.

After that, I'm just taking each day and week as it comes for now.

2 comments:

  1. Can I ask what the VLCD is?

    I know if I eat junk my IBS flares up terribly and believe you me the hubs doesn't want me in the bed that night :)

    Hey it was one day, today will be an awesome day!

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    Replies
    1. Sure :) A VLCD (Very Low Calorie Diet) is a meal replacement programme made up of 3 or 4 nutritionally complete products per day. Most programmes consist of a bar, shake, soup or porridge a day providing 100% of all RDAs and a calorie intake of between 500 and 800 calories daily. The programme that I am following consists of 3 products a day - I am on the liquid ones only as solid food aggrivates my Crohn's disease - adding up to a total of 610kcals a day.

      The intended purpose of VLCDs is dramatic, fast weight loss for very obese people to quickly reduce the side effects and health risks of obesity.

      Although I am obese and I will benefit from the weight loss (understatement!) the reason that I chose the VLCD was to get the crohn's disease in my stomach and small intestine into remission. My crohn's has been in flare for years, and the steroids that I have been on have not worked so far. As well as the pain, bloating and toilet troubles, the inflammation and ulcers have caused damage to the villi in my small bowel making it hard for my body to absorb nutritients. I've got quite desperate I suppose!

      If you're interested, I talked more about crohn's disease and the VLCD in this post: http://18to8-thejourneyoffattothin.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/serious-change-drastic-measures.html It's a bit long, though!

      Thanks for stopping by my blog and commenting :)

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