The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl

Headaches and Weight Maintenance

I've got a brand spankin' new episode of Two Fit Chicks And A Microphone for you - Episode 26 - Lynn & The Art of Weight Maintainence. Yep we've finally tackled the oft-requested topic of maintaining.

We spoke to the wonderful Lynn Haraldson of Lynn's Weigh who has maintained a 175lb weight loss for over five years. And she's been on Oprah, so needless to say we had oodles to chat about! It was quite an emotional interview in many ways. Lynn is very open and honest, so we really got down to the guts of the ups and downs of maintenance, what mindshifts are required to be successful, and what it's like to write publically about your weight. As someone who seriously flunked out in the maintenance department these past couple of years, it was great to ask her some how the hell do you do it kind of questions.

I've also just realised that I negelcted to link to Episode 25 - When Staying Healthy Is A Pain, in which we spoke to Jennette Fulda about her new book Chocolate & Vicodin and her never-ending horrible headache. Jennette is another very open and articulate woman, and in this interview she is so philosophical and brave about living with chronic pain. She is a legend.

So two new episodes that I'm really bloody excited about. If you fancy something new to listen to while you're slaving away at the gym or bored to tears on a long commute, why not give us a go?

Scott the Strawberry

These past few months have been rather batty. Stuff that is too personal or awkward to write about in real time. Also, stuff that is too personal and bloody tedious to subject you to.

A healthy eating poster at the local primary school

Basically I took myself off to a shrink. After a year or more of saying I should be able to fix this on my own I thought I'd try talking to an objective person about things.

It was very fruitless to begin with, because I was being very half-arsed about it. There were many conflicting voices:

• Shame and Fraudulent: I'm wasting her time, I should be able to fix things on my own.
• Denial: There's nothing wrong with you; harden the f*ck up whinge bag!
• Hopeless: You've cocked up so badly you're beyond help
  
• Blogging Out Loud: telling "hilarious" stories and not being honest about how crappy things were, in case she didn't believe me and/or thought I was pathetic.

It was three expensive months of not much progress and soooooo much denial. I bawled and/or binged and binged and binged after every session. I was tempted to churn out a few of my "I'm doing great now!" blog posts even when I wasn't, because I felt like I should have been doing better.

But slowly, slowly... light bulbs started going off. The energy saving kind that take awhile to warm up, but still, progress.

Recently I got home from work and went to get changed for a workout. I saw my favourite winter coat in the wardrobe and for some reason decided to try it on. It was so tight that I couldn't get it over my shoulders. I looked in the mirror and the bullshit and denial just fell away. I plonked on the bedroom floor and had a cry for twenty minutes.

Then I thought, Righto, ENOUGH. I got up, put on my gym clothes and did a Cathe weights DVD. I started sniffling again halfway through because I couldn't lift as heavy as I used to, but it still felt like a minor triumph over the "you suck, you're doomed!" voice.

"What has changed?" the shrink asked in our next session. What's changed is that I finally accept that I have work to do. I accept that I need to change the way I think and I accept that this takes hard work. I accept I need to communicate properly with my loved ones and not hide or deny problems.

I accept that I need to build a healthy relationship with food that will sustain me for the rest of my life. I had to buy size 18 jeans recently. I want to get back into my 14s but my approach is different now. It can't be about losing weight so I'll fit into a wedding dress, or have an ending for a book, or look acceptable to promote a book, or to live up to the expectations of certain people. It will never stick until deep down, I want to live a healthy life just for me.

I finally see how damaging the language of shoulds, musts and have tos has been. I see how needlessly worrying about what other people think has steered my actions. I see how hiding my problems has made them worse. Man, it's really embarrassing to realise how you've let things go to pot. Even more embarrassing to see how powerful the LA LA LA EVERYTHING'S FINE denial has been.

But I am writing this with a dopey grin on my face because I feel alive and clear-headed and unburdened. I've just spewed this entry straight from the guts today and feel like a complete WANKER for all the psychobabbly dullness but thought an update was overdue. It's been a very insular, delicate, roller coaster process that leaves you feeling very raw and haggard at times, so hopefully you can understand why the blogging has been sparse. I hope you're well and dandy and thank you, as always, for sticking around!

Midnight Quickie

Greeting comrades!

• There was going to be a new post today here today, but I spent ten gazillion hours mucking about with my book tour guest post for Refuse To Regain. Sometimes it's bloody hard to find the right words! The post is called After The Happy Ending and is all about my maintenance adventures - how it was great and then it sucked and then it got okay again. 
• Amazon and Barnes & Noble.com are currently out of DG stock. The publishers are printing some more as we speak and they will be ready to ship on Monday! In the meantime try Powell's or this site helps you find a local independent bookseller. 'Mon the indies!
  UPDATE: 11 January - Barnes & Noble.com now back in stock, woohoo!
  
• I'm a guest contributor on Blogs.com today with 10 Blogs To Drool Over When You're On A Diet. Food p0rn ahoy!

After the happy ending

I wrote this guest post for Refuse To Regain as part of the Dietgirl Virtual Book Tour. I've archived it here as I know lots of people stalk their way through the archives and it's a very important entry, explaining where I'm at now in terms of my maintenance struggles adventures! Be sure to stop by at Refuse To Regain - it's a fabulous blog and resource for maintainers.

My first year of maintenance was easy. I think I cruised through on euphoria alone. Every day in my new body was an adventure - I rejoiced in my new clothes, new fitness and new ability to fit inside bathtubs.

Later that year I finished writing a book that charted my six-year, 175-pound weight loss journey. I was still giddy with excitement as I churned out the Epilogue. My body is something to savor and celebrate, I wrote. Every time I put on lipstick and high heels it feels like I'm singing to world about the joy I've found within.

The second year was a different story. Everything was messy and unpredictable. I was simultaneously renovating our apartment, starting a demanding new job and promoting my book in the UK and Ireland. I also took on big fitness challenges, such as training for kickboxing grades and a marathon walk. As the year dragged on there were personal issues and a serious financial scare, then we sold our apartment and moved house.

As a result my maintenance efforts were chaotic. I'd alternate weeks of intense exercise with weeks of nothing at all. I'd buy takeout too often then go crazy with healthy cooking to compensate. I wrestled the same ten pounds all year long, pinging up and down the scale. Instead of high heels and celebrations, it was more brooding on the couch in my sweatpants.

Meanwhile, my inbox was flooded with messages from people who'd read my book. You're such an inspiration! You're living the happy ending! You must be so proud! I didn't feel proud or inspiring. Sure I've lost a few pounds but look at me now! I'm barely holding it together! If those kind readers knew how much I struggled, they'd demand a refund! I felt like a fraud as I answered their email questions about my exercise program, instead of actually doing my exercise program. I made jokes about my woes on my blog, not wanting to alienate readers new and old with too much doom and gloom. But the negativity crept in. I spoke about maintenance with words like "struggle" and "battle" and "never-ending stinkfest".

There were times when I could have cheerfully burned my book. I bugged the heck out of myself with my optimism and irritating self acceptance. I was just plain jealous of Book Shauna, to be honest. I could barely believe that was me who'd lost all that weight and stuck at it for so many years. How did I start wanting change more than chocolate? That determined girl seemed like a stranger and I worried I'd never find her again.

The third year of maintenance was rapidly approaching and I was desperate to make it different. It was a lot like the start of my weight loss mission - I thought someone else must have the secret. I started reading blogs written by fellow maintainers, such as this one. I stalked through their archives, looking for magic solutions. But instead of magic, I read about hard work and persistence; the ability to learn from mistakes and pick yourself back up after a crappy day. Or even a crappy month or year.

I finally had my DUH moment. Maintenance was really no different from weight loss. Sometimes it is fabulous and sometimes it sucks. And that's okay.

I think part of me thought that writing THE END on my manuscript would mean The End of the struggle and The End of learning stuff. Surely after six ridiculous years of lard-busting I'd have figured out my Issues for good? But life doesn't stop when you close a book. The story plows on, the character keeps evolving. Holding on to that happy ending is hard work.

A few months on I'm starting to feel more at peace with the realities of maintenance. I'm starting to live and breathe that happy ending again, albeit without the delirium of the first year. Life is still stupidly busy, but I remembered the best thing I learned in the weight loss phase - the journey is easier when you make it enjoyable. Last year I was falling back into the arms of my old dieter's mindset - all or nothing thinking, expecting perfection, dwelling on mistakes and not savouring the good stuff. But now I want to celebrate how far I've come, instead of feeling overwhelmed by it or taking it for granted. Maintenance doesn't seem like such a drag when I take time out to find the joy in the little things. The peacefulness of a Pilates stretch. The gleeful clobbering of my kickboxing class. The wholesome smugness of a healthy day's eating. I'm ready to dust off those high heels and lipsticks.

Don't Stop Moving

One of my favourite blogs this year has been Jen's Perfect In Our Imperfections. Sometimes you get lucky and find someone on the other side of the world who seems to be working through the same issues as you and is articulating thoughts you didn't even know you were thinking. In this case, it's been the JOY of maintenance. I enjoyed her take on That Oprah Article today:

"The thing that we both forgot, that most of us don't realize, is that we can't just grab onto the new set of circumstances and hold on for dear life. We have to keep moving forward, keep letting go, keep rolling with new circumstances. That's why weight maintenance is so hard, I think. It's easier to take risks to move toward a big exciting goal and an imagined better life. It's harder to keep living in the present when you realize it's not just one big shining moment where you feel great all the time. You can't 'conquer this battle once and for all,' you can just keep living and working through your new stuff."

. . .

Hope you had a Merry Christmas, if you're Christmasly inclined! If not, hope your December 25th was generally ace.

Holiday Hangover

On Saturday night we went to a beer festival. It was all for charity, as they reminded us in the programme:

(the next bit of that sentence was "...of Dunfermline Rugby Club.")

You get a glass on arrival then you get stuck right in to your choice of 77 different ales. I reckon the best strategy is to go for the one's with the funniest names, such as Enter the Flagon, Sheepshagger's Gold, Old Fecker and Laughing Gravy.

Only problem is I can't stand beer in any strength or shade, so I sampled the ciders instead. I'm not much good with cider either but the words of the programme haunted me:

"I know this is difficult but please keep fighting those drinks down, as every pint is more money for the lifesaving work of The Anthony Nolan Trust..."

So in this photie I am absolutely shitfaced from a wimpy pair of pints, right before the dancing began and I knocked Gareth's glass of Farmer's Pale Ale all over his head with my stylish moves.

No alcohol-related hangover on Sunday, just one of those reality hangovers. I did really well in New York with my food - the now tried-and-true tactic of being choosy then savouring the goods. But when we got home it was a week of back to school blues - we both picked up rotten colds so moped around having a Who's The Most Unwell contest with multiple takeaways and minimal vegetables. On Friday I ate cake for breakfast on the premise that I'd forgotten to bring a spoon to work for my yogurt and muesli... ignoring the seventy spoons in the office kitchen... hmm hmm.

I made a Comeback Curry last night - packed with spinach, butternut squash and black beans - with the aim of starting the new week as I mean to go on. I'm still barking and snottery so had to bail on kickboxing tonight, but I'm determined to have a healthier week. It's taken a long, long time to accept that this maintenance lark means that you will go through unsettled periods. The only way to prevent them would be to live like a robot - never going anywhere or doing anything or interacting with the humans. That doesn't sound very good, so I'll dust off the dumbells and veggies and get back to it.