Hungry - why do we sometimes get the munchies?

I had the serious munchies yesterday.

I had them all day, and it played hell with my will power and my ability to stick to my diet.

I have done very well over the past few weeks, and have lost around a stone in weight. I have roughly another stone to go, and I am feeling relatively confident that I can make it. Munchies aside of course.

What is it about some days that you simply feel starving all day regardless of the amount you eat? I blame my hormones (well I am the right age and I might as well, they have such a bad reputation any way) but surely other people feel like this and they can’t all be hormonal?

My chosen diet at the moment does as much as it can to help by providing a daily snack which you are supposed to save up for your ‘weak’ time of day and by permitting you two daily fruit snacks as well. Yesterday, I had my breakfast, my morning fruit, my lunch with permitted soup plus an allowed bread roll and a yoghurt, my afternoon fruit and my savoury snack and by late afternoon I was still starving! It was ages until dinner, and I am was in serious danger of buckling under the smell of the fast food as I entered Victoria station tonight. I almost had to go home with a peg on the end of my nose!

I am using a diet from a company called Diet Chef, which is essentially a fully catered diet using old fashioned calorie counting as its basis. And it works. You get an allowance of 1200 calories a day of which they provide approximately 800 in a pre prepared breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack. You make up the remainder by plenty of fruit and vegetables and a small amount of carbohydrate. There is plenty of choice (you get to pick your month’s meal selection yourself from a set of drop down choices) and without exception everything I have eaten so far has been tasty. The portions are smaller than you would cook yourself, but reasonably filling. You can have the odd night off (for instance if you are out with friends for dinner) as long as you don’t do it too regularly. All in all, I am quite impressed. It’s just as well, because I had to sign up for four months and it was expensive.

I have tried numerous other ways over the years from Atkins (which did make me lose weight but I got terrible wind, constipation and bad breath) to detoxing (which is just weird) through very odd pills which 'cleanse' your colon and stop you absorbing fat to Weight Watchers (where I was hungry ALL the time and which, judging from the lardy women that attend their meetings week after week, doesn’t work long term). None of them were terribly successful and all of them, in their own way, were unpleasant. I didn’t stick at anything longer than a month.

I have been doing this for almost seven weeks now, so my weight loss is averaging just over 2lb a week, which is the recommended amount if you want to keep the weight off long term. I have another two and a bit months to go (I can’t afford to do it for any longer) to get down to a goal weight I haven’t seen for about 15 years. If I can do it, I am promised a pair of Armani jeans by The Hubby.

Now that we have the dog of course, and now that she is old enough to go out for walks, I hope to accelerate the rate of loss by taking her out daily and for at least one long walk at the weekend. She is still a baby and can’t walk for hours, but an hour’s play in the field will be an hour longer than I would have done before. It should help me lose weight, tone up my thighs and calves, tighten up my belly muscles and improve my heart. A lot is riding on this, so it better bloody work!

An update on my fitness regime

I thought it was about time I gave you an update on my fitness regime.

An earlier blog set out all sorts of resolutions for losing weight and getting fitter, having more energy etc, and I bet you all thought I'd given up didn't you, because it had all gone quiet?

As some of you know, I've tried loads of diets in the past. Old fashioned calorie counting (mathematically beyond me after a while and sooo boring) , diet shakes and soups (expensive and a waste of time), Weight Watchers (OK, apart from the collection of permanently lardy and weight obsessed women who go and their blinkered faith in weight watchers soup to help them lose weight - of course it doesn't, because you are so bloody hungry afterwards you eat biscuits!), Atkins (nice lots of protein but hardens your arteries) and detox programmes (disgusting food). None of it has really worked, and none of it has had a long term effect. So this time, I've just cut down, cut out the obvious bad guys (pasta, bread, fried food, fat itself and sugar), eaten more salad, fruit and lean meat and drunk loads of water. So far, together with my little quack herbal supplements (see below), it seems to be working.

Because, ye of little faith, as of last Sunday morning the bathroom scales tell me that in total over the past three weeks I have lost about 10lb in weight. The equivalent of 20 blocks of butter! Come on, that deserves a standing ovation, because it's a bloody good achievement and far more than I have managed at any diet regime whatsoever over the past few years. I am, as of today, feeling slightly smug and pleased with myself.

I think it's a combination of a few things. Smaller portions, no snacking, no alcohol from Sunday to Thursday night, minimal chocolate (I have had one Twirl bar in the last three weeks which has required an incredible effort of will, and nothing else chocolatey at all), no other treats and a bit more physical activity. The Zumba game for the Wii is great fun, and I have been back to the gym (can't afford to do that too often though). I have also been using the herbal appetite suppressants I blogged about a while back, and something called Colon Cleanse (I'm sure I don't have to go into detail about what it does, but apparently Cheryl Cole lost three stone using it, so it must be OK).

So feeling buoyed up by my success, I'm going to keep going. I have a goal weight in sight, and I intend to reach it by the time I go away in the summer. I know it will get harder, but I am more determined this time than I have ever been.

The trouble is, after a few weeks boredom tends to set in and that's when it is easy to stray. So it's probably a good job I am also skint, because that means I can't afford to go to Cafe Nero in the morning and buy a capucino and pain au chocolat, and I make do with a bowl of cereal at the office instead. Lunch is packed up the night before and taken to work, so no temptation to go to Maccie D's, and dinner is good quality protein and nice veg.

I'll keep you posted over the next few weeks, but super model status, here I come!

New Year's Resolutions - must lose weight

The excesses of the past few days are definitely catching up with me. Just like when you go on holiday, and a few days in you collapse as the adrenalin which has kept you going gradually recedes, I feel exhausted. My digestive system is groaning and I have an ulcer the size of Vesuvius on my tongue which must be the result of too much acid (ie wine!) in too short a space of time. Knowing it's my own fault for being an overeating, wine guzzling, chocaholic couch potato doesn't make it any better.

I am therefore determined that once we get into the new year (and probably after the panto which also involves an excess of wine and bad eating habits) I must do something about a) my weight and b) my general fitness.

How many times have I said that before? Well yes, several, but this year I really must. I can't go on putting on weight at the rate I have over the past decade for the next few years; if I do, by the time I'm 60 I'll be bigger than Hattie Jacques (you know, the fat one in the Carry On films - although by all accounts she was quite a girl with a voracious sexual appetite). And I refuse to buy clothes where the size label starts with the number two!

The big question is how to do it. I've tried Weight Watchers in the past and it wasn't too bad, but I was hungry quite a lot and it was expensive. The online version is OK, but doesn't have the discipline of the weekly meetings and tellings off by the 'Leader'. I've tried basic calorie counting but that's friggin hard work, weighing everything out and again, being very hungry quite a lot. I don't fancy the idea of food combining (too much thought) Atkins (gives you shocking wind and bad breath) or detoxing (don't like wheatgrass that much). I have obtained a supply of herbal appetite suppressants and colon cleaners from the internet which I'm going to try, but not for long because basically they give you the shits and you should never trust strange pills from strange men!

I'm also just going to eat less, cut out chocolate completely and cut out alcohol in the week. Think using side plates as dinner plates and halving the amounts I'm inclined to eat naturally. I'll hate it. I also need to do some exercise and I think that means I'm going to have to go back to the gym. Because of my bad back and knees, I can't run so I think some low impact stuff on treadmills, bikes and cross trainers is probably what's needed. Awful thought, and might have to get the Wii Fit back out, too.

I'm gonna hate this, and will need to be nagged. But I'm determined that by the time I go away in June, I will be at least a stone and a half lighter, be fitter and have more energy. At least, that's the plan.