Members Advice on Weight Loss

Let me begin by saying I can't afford the price of a counselling session, so in this review I will dish out everything I have on this topic, including why it means so much to me in the first place.

It is a worrying sign of the way the human mind can be manipulated for me to tell you I have never been thin. I was born big, and ever since I can remember I've had a tummy. My family used to cheer at my party trick of rolling the folds ...
...affectionately call it, and back then it didn't worry me at all. I am now 27, and I think about my weight pretty much every day. The reason I say it is a worrying sign, is because I found a photo the other day. The photo is of me on my 18th birthday, and I AM thin. I'm all dressed up in a suit (we went out for the night) and my outdated looking family and I are smiling at the camera, but my slightly gaunt face (dare I say it) is almost unrecognisable. ... more

Let me begin by saying I can't afford the price of a counselling session, so in this review I will dish out everything I have on this topic, including why it means so much to me in the first place.

It is a worrying sign of the way the human mind can be manipulated for me to tell you I have never been thin. I was born big, and ever since I can remember I've had a tummy. My family used to cheer at my party trick of rolling the folds of fat on my stomach together; 'pastry' they used to affectionately call it, and back then it didn't worry me at all. I am now 27, and I think about my weight pretty much every day. The reason I say it is a worrying sign, is because I found a photo the other day. The photo is of me on my 18th birthday, and I AM thin. I'm all dressed up in a suit (we went out for the night) and my outdated looking family and I are smiling at the camera, but my slightly gaunt face (dare I say it) is almost unrecognisable. In my head, I think it's just luck - the photo was taken when I had a growth spurt and the height increase sucked up the fat for a bit, but am I just incapable of thinking of myself as being thin?

I am overweight. For the last 5 years I've ranged from 14st to over 16st (I'm 6 foot 1). This puts me, at my lowest weight, in the 'overweight' bracket, along with 46% of the men in this country. At the highest, it puts me just into obese level, along with 17% of the country.

PART 1: THE CAUSE
Firstly then, why do I have problems with my weight? The simple answer is that my number one outlet, release and past-time is eating good food (it doesn't even have to be that good).

I grew up in a family where there was very little money, and whilst food was not scarce, it certainly wasn't fancy. We practically lived in shops like Locost (the Aldi and Lidl of the 90s). You always know a shop is crap when you make your own carriers out of broken down boxes at the back of the store. My dad would worry me like mad when he was going through the checkout by saying "pick a box, but make it a strong one". I didn't have a clue about the relative strength of boxes, the nasty man.

Growing up, we ate a lot of waffles, oven chips and mince. We never ate brand name products, and never had fresh meat or veg; at 19 my neighbour was in a state of disbelief that I didn't know a cauliflower when I saw one in its raw state. This review is not here to tear apart my mum and dad, but I want to set the groundwork; I never had pik n mix, take-aways, brand names, fresh veg, steak/fish/pork/beef etc. In a nutshell, food was very basic.

In the midst of this, I had a small allowance of pocket money - perhaps 50p a week. When you only have that sort of disposable income, there aren't many options other than to go to the shop and buy some sweets. Perhaps I could have saved up for 5 months and bought a computer game(!), but I spent my pocket money all too quickly at the corner shop, on a quarter of pebbles or mintoes, and the like - my first foray into the world of sweets.

I believe the cause of my eating problems came from the lack of wealth in my childhood; not only was there not much good food around, but there was also only enough disposable income to spend it on food.

An old work colleague told me she believes people are prone to comfort eating when they didn't have a lot of money in their childhood. She said that those from higher classes have past times like sailing, but those who can't afford that, stick to eating, drinking and smoking. This is certainly something I believe in; my poor childhood did not prepare me for an adulthood with money. I had never been out to the theatre or sailing, the only thing I knew to do with disposable income, and to cause happiness, was eat, so when I got money of my own, what did I do with it?

PART 2: THE PROBLEM

When I was 19, I got my first job. All of a sudden I was working in the city centre, and could go into shops like McDonalds, although it took some time to break my brainwashed mindset that it was an obscene rip-off. With my first few pay packets I went in, bought a McDonalds meal, and ate and ate. I even bought McDonalds for homeless people too - maybe I wanted them to have something that, to me, was like heaven or earth (although some of them politely told me their heaven on earth was drink).

On my days off I went into town and ate at a local pub, gorging on pub food. Each break-time I ran to the shop and bought milkshake, crips and yoghurt coated banana chips, and the weight added onto my already bulky frame.

When I got into a relationship, things developed even further. My girlfriend (now wife) had a car, and she also had Bulimia to go along with it. Suddenly, the hardcore eating began. Each weekend we would have a £20 takeaway (menu c for 2 but swap the spare ribs for soo chow duck) and around £10-£15 of sweets and chocolate. At the end of the night, she would throw up, but I would just leave it all in there, and the weight went on.

When I became a teacher, with it came the further increase of money. Rather than takeaways and supermarket munchies, restaurants became our haunt. Every week I would eat in a fancy restaurant, spending thousands of pounds on food.

In 2004, with my wedding approaching, I wanted to lose weight for the first serious time ever. Taking a leaf out of my then anorexic wife's book, I starved myself, eating just fruit or salad, cutting out everything I could. I was ill, tired and run-down, but I slimmed down to 14st 1 and felt pretty good. Clearly, something was wrong - I was not eating healthily.

PART 3: TRYING TO LOSE WEIGHT STAGE ONE - THE WEIGHT LOSS GROUP

By early 2006, my wife was free from the power of eating disorders, but I was locked in a cycle of poor eating habits. I hated the feeling of being fat. I'm a teacher, and it makes you painfully self aware to stand in front of 150 different kids each day. They can be cruel, and some weight related comments came my way. Step one: I joined Slimming World.

At first I loved Slimming World, and threw myself into it wholeheartedly, dropping a stone pretty quick. As a system, it allows you to eat a lot, and a fair amount of treats too, but after a few months the initial enthusiasm was gone, and I drifted off it. At the end of the day, if you want a takeaway, or a binge, you're not allowed, and no matter how many weird minced meat and wheatabix cakes I ate, I still wasn't satisfied. Paying someone £5 to be told you're fat became a non incentive, and I dropped out.

At this point, I want to explain my mindset. I desperately wanted to lose weight (my new healthy wife was looking at me with a distaste she couldn't hide) but the desire to eat sweet things and takeaways was more powerful. After a long day at work, I often found it impossible not to nip to the shop and buy a tub of Ben N Jerrys or £5 worth of sweets. Of course, this is a vicious lifestyle, as you wake up the next day with a sore mouth, headache, lethargic and feeling fat. It just seemed I could not stop this habit, and I honestly felt powerless. Again, I was reminded of my friend's comments - I needed there to be something else I did to enjoy myself other than eat, but what?

PART 4: TRYING TO LOSE WEIGHT STAGE TWO - JOINING A GYM

In late 2006, it seemed like a good idea to join a gym. I joined 'Canons', the best Plymouth has to offer, using it not just to try and lose weight, but to build muscle, and relax in the Jacuzzi and sauna. Over the course of six months I went at least 4 times a week, but didn't really lose any weight. The problem was I was working out and increasing my appetite, therefore increasing my eating. What I didn't really take account of was that (for example) 30 minutes on the cross trainer would only burn around 350 calories. Now, half an hour of busting a gut on the cross trainer 'felt' like I had really achieved something, and made me feel justified in, perhaps, having a Snickers that night, but it wasn't the case. A Snickers has 271 calories in it, so far from losing weight I was actually staying about the same. I 'felt' better for it, but didn't look better!

After 6 months, my enthusiasm soon went, and the love of comfort eating never went away. No matter what I did, I did not have the will power to make the right choices when it came to eating.

PART 5: TRYING TO LOSE WEIGHT STAGE THREE - CHANGE OF LIFESTYLE

In 2007, with a new baby having joined us, we took stock of our lives so far. Embarrassingly, our eating habits had contributed to us becoming deep in debt, and it was time to do something about it. After yet another wet and cold 6 week summer holiday, we decided we would emigrate to a nicer country, but first we needed to get debt free.

We had £9000 of debt to clear, and we saw a way that weight loss and healthy eating could be brought together with this target. If we could do things that would hit both of these criteria, there would be a double incentive, and every time it was hard, twice as much pushing us on. Over the course of a few months, we did the following things, all to save money and become healthier/lose weight:

1) Get rid of the car
First, we moved to within walking distance of my work, then we got rid of the car. With no car, we walk everywhere. At first, this was unbelievably tough, and my sluggard of a body struggled like mad. We moved house to be within walking distance of everything, and have now walked everywhere for a year. To get this into perspective, it's 5 minutes to work and back, 40 minutes to Church once a week, and 35 minutes into town once a week. Come rain or shine, we pushed through, and got walking. In high wind and freezing night rain, we just did what our bodies are able to do, and walked. Like it or not, I began losing weight! This isn't about will power, because there is no car to go back to, and no busses where we need to go - I HAVE to walk, so I do.

2) Pocket money
We have to have self restraint, and so I put a pocket money system into my life. My wife and I have £2.50 a week pocket money to spend on sweets. This fits into a tight budget for the whole month, so if we go over we don't clear the debt we have planned, and we won't get to move away on schedule; when thought of like this, it's easier to stick to. As it happens, we walk every Saturday into town, buy two big bags of Pik N Mix, and eat them that night in front of the TV. We don't feel bad, because we know we're only doing it once a week, but at the same time we manage (mostly) to control our cravings in the week, knowing the sweets are only a few days away!

3) We created a menu for the whole month
With every meal carefully planned out, we are finding ourselves eating a more balanced and healthy diet. It's no longer "whatever's in the freezer", but is all planned in advance, which is a lovely feeling. If I go to the fridge in a comfort eating moment of weakness, I know that I can't eat what's in there because it's tomorrow's food! This is also a good way of making sure you are building in enough fruit and veg etc. When it's all written down in front of you, you can see in black and white if what you are eating is good enough for you.

4) Clothes
When I got bigger and bigger, I went from a large to an extra large. Then I had a brainwave - stop buying bigger clothes, stop buying elasticated waists, and admit the fact that you HAVE to lose weight else you'll have nothing to wear. As an example, it was my work's Christmas do this week. I knew my nice gear wouldn't fit me if I carried on the couple of days rubbish eating I'd had (over my birthday) and it made me have a few really good days of eating. Again, this is about having no choice but to eat healthy, and I think it's another valuable tool. It saves money too, because you don't end up buying more and more bigger clothes.

These 3 things did what I needed, in that they took the choice out of my hands, and made it less about will power and more about 'there's no other choice'. For me, that's the only way I am going to get on top of my eating.

So there you have it. The above 3 things have been in motion for around 18 months now, and we've saved £7000 in that time - just two more to go before we start saving the emigration fund. After around 2 months of living this way, I felt radically smaller. Clothes I'd never worn actually fitted, people told me I had lost weight, I had more energy and self confidence - I felt great.

I know this isn't a review of how to save money, but my advice is linked; for me, slimming world didn't do it, neither did the gym. What it took was a radical change of lifestyle, and a strict self discipline that was motivated by more than just losing weight.

Of course, I still find it hard, but I'm on the road to recovery. I'm not where I want to be, but I'm not where I used to be. I occasionally lapse with a takeaway, or a crazy couple of days, but it's about the long-term I think. Because my lifestyle is so different now, because I can't just jump in the car, or go for meal out after meal out, I know that I am winning the battle in the long run. For me, it is about admitting I have poor will power and self control, so putting very strict boundaries or restrictions in place so I don't just give up. 

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