The Moiderer

Thinking Slimmer–Shallow Hal edition

You know the film right?

This is the Wikipedia description of the film

Hal Larson (Jack Black) is a superficial man whose fixation on the physical beauty of women gets in the way of seeing them for their inner beauty. Hal and his equally shallow friend, Mauricio Wilson (Jason Alexander), spend their nights obnoxiously hitting on beautiful women at nightclubs.

By a twist of fate, Hal becomes trapped in an elevator with famous American life coach Tony Robbins, who after talking with Hal, hypnotizes him into only seeing physical manifestations of a person's inner beauty. Hal later meets and is smitten by Rosemary Shanahan (Gwyneth Paltrow), the daughter of Steve Shanahan (Joe Viterelli), the President of Hal's company. Rosemary is very fat but because of her kind and generous personality, she appears to Hal as slender and beautiful. Used to being overlooked by men due to her appearance, Rosemary initially interprets Hal’s interest in her as mocking, but begins to date Hal when she realizes his feelings for her are authentic.

So I suppose at this point you expect me to go on about inner beauty don’t you?

Nope. Not going to.

What I (and a few others) seem to have with Thinking Slimmer is a “Reverse Shallow Hal” effect.

In the Slimpod, Trevor talks to our subconscious, allowing us to unlock our natural behaviour around food so that we recognise full signals better, snack less and actually feel a lot better about ourselves. As a Cognitive Hypnotherapist, Trevor is using hypnosis techniques to talk to us in a trance state rather than address our conscious thoughts. Whilst there, he uses hypnotic suggestions through his WordWeaving approach to reprogramme our unconscious brain.

Over time the weight disappears and one day you realise you are a slim person who has reached or is close to their target weight.

But here’s the catch and the reverse Shallow Hal effect.

Instead of being a fat person that you see as thin, you are a thin person that you can only see as fat!

Because it’s your sub conscious that has driven the changes, what I have found is my conscious brain can’t catch up.

So what I do is I blog, compare photo’s, buy and try on clothes of a smaller size than I know I am because I am constantly trying to prove to myself that I am not a huge overweight person any more.

What I see, when I look in the mirror is this

But what I really am is this

And it just does not compute.

I am a huge overweight person with stones to lose in my head.

On paper, I am very close to fitting a size 12. I have just over half a stone to lose to be in the healthy weight range for my height.

The Slimpod is just too good. It works its magic before you have a chance to adapt to the new you!

I reckon you can spot a Slimpodster a mile off these days – we have a look of dazed disbelief in our eyes about all the positive changes we are seeing!

Thinking Slimmer–the marathon runner

So here I am over 8 months into my journey with Thinking Slimmer.

I’ve stopped counting time because this is just the way my life is now. It’s almost not worth talking about because the old me has gone.

The first picture above was me 2 years ago. The second is last week.

I took great pleasure in putting on a pair of jeans and a jacket and being able to look smart.

Because no-one wants to lose weight so they can look down at the scales and see a different number.

You want to lose weight so you can go into a shop and buy the clothes because you like them and not because they will fit you or hide your fat. There are no more clothes left in my wardrobe that don’t fit. I’m not going to tell you anything about my weight because I no longer weigh myself. When the clothes are fitting better – then I know I am reducing in size. It doesn’t matter what the scales say.

You want to lose weight so you can walk up stairs with out being embarrassed by breathlessness and a emerging sweat. As the miracle of listening to the Slimpod includes not just weight loss, but also the motivation to do more, I find myself training for the London marathon in under 3 months time. Nestle Pure Life offered to sponsor me and I just couldn’t say no so now I’m running in the Nestle Pure Life team. Me! Running! As part of a team! 8 months ago I would have laughed and probably ignored the request!

There are days when I look down and all I see is fat. When I feel the cloth of my t-shirt pressing against my stomach. There are days when I feel like I am getting nowhere. On those days, I look at photo’s like this and I realise how far I have come.

I have set myself a goal now. I know, it’s taken me a while! I’ve never been good with goals. I have never handled failure well. But now I’m ok. So my goal is to be in size 12 jeans by the time I run the London Marathon on the 22nd April. That should be possible right?

My training is going really well. I am enjoying the variation in my training programme and I’m sticking to it really well. I’m actually quite proud of myself.

This is a summary of what I have done since I started my training on the 19th December.

 

Increasingly I am becoming a slimmer fitter Dawn and I’m very happy about that.

Thinking Slimmer–Fat days, Thin days

Is is just me that feels they are always precariously balanced on a tipping point?

<< Fat Day

• One day you look in the mirror and think “God, I have so much weight to lose, I can’t believe how fat I am”

Thin Day >>

Another day you look in the same mirror, wearing a different outfit and think “You know what, I don’t look too fat right now, I’m really getting there”

 

Fat Day:

• I did my Cario Endurance workout on the Xbox Kinect and as I did the high knee jog, my mighty belly bounced up and down threatening to knock me out!
• I went to Matalan to get clothes for the little one and bought a size 14 pair of jeans for myself. They don’t fit. The mighty belly continues to rule. And the mighty spare tyre round my middle.

Thin Day:

• I ran for 9 miles, 1 hour 45 minutes, on Sunday. This is the furthest I’ve ever run. I have lost enough weight now that I can run without everything bouncing all over (too much detail I know, sorry!)
• I can fit into every item of clothing in my wardrobe. Work trousers, jackets, everything.
• I am doing a combination of different exercises 6 out of 7 days in the week for my marathon training and I am sticking to it. Some of it is toning, some just running, but all of it has me sweating profusely. On the long runs I burn over 1000 calories!

So I swing constantly between Fat days and Thin days. One day I am really getting there, I feel almost normal weight. And then another day all I can see is a fat person. Everything I do makes me feel fat. And you can’t trust the scales to be the voice of reason, because they swing even more than your head does! Clothes work, as long as you go by how they fit and not by how you think you look.

I guess if I was doing a diet, these tipping points would be a huge problem.

“Oh look, I am so fat despite all this activity. I’m never going to lose weight so I might as well enjoy myself”. Cue scoffing.

And you know what? I have thought that and I have tried. But then, after a couple of mouthfuls I feel full and I can’t eat anymore.

What is the world coming to when you can’t get depressed and eat? It really is quite pathetic. So I go for a run instead. Or I teach the little one to skip (she’s getting very good) and I feel the endorphins giving me the boost I need.

And then my fat day is no more.

Because I can think instead “This may be what I am like now, but I am on the path to a permanent thin day and there is nothing I can do to change that”

That, is the power of Thinking Slimmer.

When good anchors go bad!

In this post I told you about what wonderful things anchors are.

In summary, building anchor is a technique where you attach a positive feeling/emotion to a trigger in such a away as you can recall it whenever you need it.

However, as an anchor can be attached to anything, something physical, a smell, a sound, a person it means that it is also possible to end up with an anchor without even realising it. This can be a positive anchor (a song that was playing at the time of year your child was born) or a negative anchor (a song that was playing when someone you loved very much died)

For example, ever had a smell that makes you feel bad but you don’t know why?

Or maybe there is someone who just by looking at them causes you to react positively or negatively?

There is a good chance you have an anchor for these without even realising it.

From my time working with Trevor, he has become an anchor for me. Seeing his face or reading an email from him, whatever the content, makes me feel calm. It’s very strange!

On the time of year thing, a lot of people who are embarking on their Thinking Slimmer journey are finding they have an anchor to the “diet urge” in the New Year which is causing much confusion! They know they can trust their subconscious to control their eating, but they feel they should be dieting, calorie counting etc. Sandra Roycroft-Davis, CEO of Thinking Slimmer wrote this to explain it

“I am going to give you a little background on how our minds work with regard to a term we use called 'anchors'. An anchor is a trigger that links to an action or emotional state, thereby producing that 'state' in you. This can happen when we hear a particular song and we are transported back to our first dance when we were married or first kiss etc! they are strongly linked to sight, sound, taste and touch. This time of year when we are bombarded with diets, they also bring back memories - strong ones. Even though the majority of people don't lose weight permanently on diets, they go back and do the same old thing over and over again, because it is an anchor and becomes a habit. But then it turns into a bad habit and something that makes people feel bad about themselves. This then batters self esteem and confidence”

If you have an anchor that you are not happy with here is what I suggest

1. Being aware of it is the first step to being able to cancel it out.
2. Once you are aware that you have an anchor, try and work out where it comes from. How did it get there?
3. Then try and identify the things that trigger that anchor and how it makes you feel. Where do you get that feeling? What is it?
4. The last step is the hardest, you need to reprogramme yourself to cancel out that anchor. There are a number of ways you can do this.
• If you have a positive anchor that you already know about (maybe you set one up after reading my previous post) fire it off.
• Alternatively, try thinking of an opposite, more positive memory. Press on a knuckle if you do this successfully. Repeat every time you need to.
• Or just think of a really good memory that has a similar sort of anchor. If, for example, it was the smell of mushrooms that you didn’t like, then you could try and imagine the smell of bananas that you did (this is over simplistic for the sake of illustration!)

So that’s just a little more information on anchors for you. Hopefully you can find a way to make good use of it in your day-to-day life.

So much more than just Thinking Slimmer

You know, if you think about it, which I do a lot, you realise that it’s very difficult to make a fundamental change to your behaviour in one area without it affecting everything else.

If you decide to do more exercise, then it’s very difficult to maintain old lazy habits because you get the endorphin and energy rush from the exercise. You find yourself doing more.

If you decide to eat less and lose weight, then the confidence you gain as a consequence of your success permeates beyond just food and into all other aspects of your life.

Thinking Slimmer is not a diet. It is a way of changing your thinking and your behaviour around food so that you eat less. Those of us who have struggled with being overweight are used to being ruled by what we eat or shouldn’t eat.

This means that when you lift the guilt of food off our shoulders, once we stop worrying about what or how much we eat, we are actually in a position to do some of those things in our lives that we would like to do. Every waking moment is no longer filled by a battle of wills around food.

Suddenly, one day when we take the dog for a walk, we find ourselves thinking, “I wonder if I could just jog for a little instead of walking” and then next thing you know, you’re going for a run every day. Or you decide to walk to the shops instead of drive, you get home dripping wet and with a huge smile on your face because you realise you have achieved something. Eventually you don’t even consider driving to the shops any more.

And some people are finding all sort of other amazing effects when they change their thinking. The don’t want to drink fizzy diet drinks any more, they feel more relaxed in situations which used to cause them stress, when they do experience stress they don’t turn to food to resolve it anymore. People choose something healthy or nothing instead of a chocolate snack. People are surprising themselves with the other changes in their thinking that happen when they change their behaviour around food.

Then one day, you find that your jeans are falling down and need a belt. But you thought that the Slimpod you’ve been listening to for a few of weeks wasn’t working. The evil scales have barely shifted. And when you think about it, you realise that you aren’t snacking any more and that your portion sizes at meals are smaller than they used to be. You think about it and realise that you’ve done more ‘exercise’ in the last few weeks than you’ve done in your life. You realise that it is actually working and the only reason that you thought it wasn’t is because you’ve been eating naughty “non-diet” food and the evil scales haven’t shifted enough.

But your clothes are loose and your jeans need a belt.

Your friends have commented on how well you look and act. Because there has been a shift in your confidence. You feel unburdened by the “law of the diet”. You have started to look at others and feel sorry for them as they make their resolutions to eat less, eat better, go to the gym. “I don’t need to do that any more” you think. And you smile.

You start to look at your bigger clothes and realise you can take them to the charity shop because you are not on a diet. Any weight that you have lost will stay off because you’ve changed your behaviour.

One day, you will talk to other people at the start of their Thinking Slimmer journey and realise how far you have come and how well it works.

And you will smile.

I am about 8 months into my journey on Thinking Slimmer journey and all these thoughts that I’ve described apply to me.

This week I put on the size 14 Rocha Jon Rocha jeans that I bought a couple of months ago. And they nearly fit but they didn’t. I put them to one side. This week I put them on. They are tight but I can fasten them while I am standing up. So they are not that bad. And they will become looser.

I tried on the remaining clothes in my “too small” for me wardrobe, and they all fit me.

At last I feel I’m getting somewhere.

And my “I think I can go for a run” thoughts have led me to accept the offer to run in the London Marathon this year.

My “I don’t have to think about food anymore” thoughts have led me to train for a new career.

I am now 11st 10lbs – down from 15st 11lbs.

I am now a size 14 – down from a size 20/22

I am still going, on my way to a size 10/12. The weight doesn’t matter any more. I get on the scales once every couple of weeks, if that. They are evil.

So what would you do with that freedom? If you had control and were no longer ruled by food, what would you do with that space?

So if you have ever struggled with your weight, ask yourself this “What would I do if I no longer had to worry about controlling or even thinking about what I ate…” and see what comes into your head.

Thinking Slimmer–End of year edition

I started Thinking Slimmer in May 2011. Since then:

• I have lost 4 stone (56lbs, 25.5kg)
• I have lost 4 sizes (now UK size 14)

You know how you read in magazines “ I lost x stone on this amazing diet” or hear about those people who win weight loss awards? You read about these other people that did it. Or you watch the “half tonne man” programmes on TV, asking yourself how people let themselves get like that whilst stuffing another crisp in your mouth.

Because you know, that is not you. These are the mythical people on the telly. They are not real people like you.

I have never been as big as I was after giving birth to the little one 3 years ago. But I have been overweight for a long time. I have lost weight before. I have worked really hard and I know I can do it.

Each time, at some point when I stopped dieting, the weight went back on. And more and more.

I spent my life feeling guilty for what I ate. Oh no, that has carbs in it. Oh no that has sugar. Oh no that’s not low fat. I could never take a mouthful of food without the guilt. And yet I was still eating it all. And gaining weight.

That is no way to live your life!

When I found Thinking Slimmer, I lost the guilt . And I lost the weight.

I don’t need to think about everything I eat because I can trust my subconscious to stop me when I’ve had enough.

Over this Christmas I ate my roast turkey dinner.

I ate chocolates

I ate Christmas pudding

I ate my gingerbread house

And over 2 weeks I lost 5lbs. Because my subconscious stops me eating too much.

And because I’m not on a diet, I can’t ‘stop’ and pile the weight back on. It is a permanent change in me. I have taken 6 black bin bags of clothes to the charity shop. They are too big and I will never need them again.

I still have some way to go to reach my target size. But I am on the road now and there are no junctions to take so it will get me to where I’m going.

Eat what you like, you don’t need willpower. Thinking Slimmer really does what it says on the tin.

Thinking Slimmer–31 weeks

To be honest I’ve kind of lost track of time here. It’s about 7.5 months that I’ve been doing Thinking Slimmer I think. The last 6 months have been such a whirlwind. So much has changed in my life.

Mentally I’ve been struggling the last month or so. I continue to listen to my Slimpod. I now listen to the “Drop 2 Jeans sizes” which initially I didn’t like but I’ve got used to it now and think it works better for me. My eating habits remain the same. I kept a food log for a week recently and it showed that I eat very little but there is a lot more to do on what I eat.

Having “gone off” Diet Coke I am also finding it a challenge to drink enough. I don’t like water or squash. I have started drinking sparkling water with a bit of fresh orange juice but still not enough. Something else to work on.

Meanwhile, despite buying and fitting into a new size 14 jumper, I still look at myself and see a very overweight person. I can stand in the mirror in my size 14 jeans that now need a belt to stay up and my size 14 top and see that I have so far to go. The weight is starting to go off the scales again after a ‘blip’ where I had to stop weighing before I went mad. So I am now around 12 stone. Down from 16 stone-ish. I am now a size 14. Down from a 20/22. And I feel really really fat. All I can see when I look in the mirror is how fat I am. One day I will look in the mirror and not see a fat person. But I still have some way to go.

Now for the other big news…

…are you ready?

…really?

Well, I was approached by a PR company to see if I would be interested in running the London Marathon in 2012 on behalf of their client. The offer includes a training plan and support, kit, tickets etc.

I said yes.

Yep, you read that right.

Me. Who hates running yet still runs most days.

Me. Who can’t run but so far has run as far as 8.3 miles.

Me. Who struggles to find time for work, being a mum and doing my course

Me. I’m going to run the London Marathon in 2012

Me. I’m off my trolley!

I guess with the training plan I’m going to need to follow, it will be impossible not to get to my target size by April 22nd next year. This is the date of the marathon.

Anyway, just in case you need to understand a little bit more of the magic of the Slimpods, here is Trevor explaining all about how it works

Hi, my name is Trevor Silvester and I'm the founder of Cognitive Hypnotherapy. I really want to help you reach your weight goal, and, just as importantly, change your relationship with food for the better. To help us achieve that I want you to listen to the following recording every night just before you fall asleep - and I'll tell you why. Most of what we do every day is driven by our unconscious, and that includes our relationship to food. If losing weight was just down to a conscious decision it would be easy and everyone would do it. It's not. What the recording is aimed at achieving is retuning your unconscious so that you begin to notice your relationship to food changing. So sometimes it might be just small things that you notice, sometimes it might be big, even amazing things.it doesn't matter.just that things begin to change.because the more they do the more they will so sooner than you might expect lots of things about the way you are with food.or exercise.or clothes..might change.that's the lovely thing about this process.because the changes are occurring at an unconscious level you can get on with your life and just enjoy the differences that begin to appear.and sometimes those differences might make you smile because they feel so natural.and they are because they're coming from inside of you.So you only need to listen to this once.but I need you to promise me that you'll listen to the recording every night  to give your unconscious the chance to absorb the suggestions it contains and act on them.by having this as the last thing you hear I think it primes your brain for what you want it to do the next day.and as the days go by the messages become more and more powerful because they' become familiar.so familiar that you'll probably notice yourself relaxing faster and deeper every time you hear my voice.and you might even fall asleep during it.and if you do that's fine.your ears  never stop listening.so that you're ready now to change your shape and change your life.enjoy making yourself different. So don't listen to this when doing anything else.especially not something involving machinery or where paying attention is important.because you may find your mind drifting.which is a good thing because it means your unconscious is opening itself to the new ideas that  will change your world.
Research shows that for many people 21 days is the time it takes to install a new habit, but we've found that for creating the kind of permanent change that we want for you it varies from listener to listener. After a month or so if everything is going the way you want it to you could begin to reduce the frequency to 3 times a week and just be aware of whether anything changes. Most people get a feeling that lets them know when they've changed for good. Trust that feeling.  If results are slower in coming then please just give it more time, and I'd recommend you keep a record of any change, however small, that could be a sign of success. We tend to be whatever we pay most attention to, so if you put your focus on those things that could mean this is working you'll become someone for whom this is working. If you focus most on what stays the same you'll stay the same. Working together in this way we can get you where you want to be. Science is showing that our brains are changing all the time; the idea behind your slimpod is that you can guide your brain into one with a healthier response to food, so begin whenever you're ready to be different. Good luck.

Thinking Slimmer–back on track and pressie!

Eat all you want and lose weight!

That’s what many diets claim isn’t it? We so desperately want to believe it too. That we can scoff ourselves silly and still lose weight. So we spend loads of money on diets to achieve this Nirvana that is rarely delivered.

Eat all you want and lose weight!

This is what Thinking Slimmer also claims but the focus is on *want* not on *eat*. Thinking Slimmer Slimpods are special voice recordings which use a unique hypnosis method to retune the mind to eat less. To *want* less. It changes your attitude to food so you can literally eat all you want because you know you won’t want to eat anywhere near as much as you used to.

I have been struggling over the last couple of weeks - you probably noticed in my latest posts. Thinking Slimmer has changed my attitude to food so much. So I felt full so quickly. So I wanted to eat so little. This is why it has worked so well for me. But then I felt like I’d reached a plateau. The things that I saw happening to other Slimpod users were not happening to me. I have been eating rubbish food. I have been drinking loads of diet coke. I eat crisps, peanut M&M’s, kebabs, curry. All the bad stuff. I still eat all I want – I just eat very little. This whole “desire to eat more healthily” seemed to have totally passed me by.

I felt there was something blocking me from being more sensible around food. As a result, I felt my weight loss journey had stalled. I thought about it and realised that I was still carrying this attitude from my childhood. I told you about it in this post. I was choosing to eat all the crap food because I could. And do you notice something? The past tense?

I spoke to Sandra at Thinking Slimmer and we talked through how I could use a couple of the techniques that I’d learnt on my Cognitive Hypnotherapy course to remove the block (my plan was to get someone to do that for me on the last weekend but I was a muppet and bugged out)

So I did exactly that. On Tuesday night, when I went to bed, I tried a couple of things. I really felt they didn’t work. I couldn’t find the right memory on the timeline, I couldn’t concentrate for the visual squash. But on Wednesday when I woke up something was different. I could feel that my attitude was different.

I went to Starbucks and came back with a latte and a mince pie. I ate half the mince pie and didn’t want any more. I drank half the latte and that was enough.

Then I realised as I was drinking the diet coke that I didn’t want it. That I would prefer to drink water.

Bizarre. I was totally bemused.

Since Wednesday I have notice a distinct difference in my attitude to food. I am back to the good old days of not wanting to eat much. And this includes not wanting to eat rubbish food. I have exercised every day this week with quite a mix of activities.

I am that person with the new attitude to food again. The weight is ticking off the scales again, I can see the jeans are fitting better and better and I’m on my way again.

Phew!

Ok so after all that,  there is a pretty cool offer available for any of you who have been reading these posts and wondering if the Slimpod from Thinking Slimmer is for you.

A free  ‘Keep The Pounds Off Over Xmas' Slimpod download worth £29.99! Freeeeeeee!

It will mean you can eat, drink and be merry this Christmas without having to worry about your waistline because you can eat as much as you want, knowing that you won’t want to eat much. It is genius.

You listen for just 10 minutes a day and don't need to diet or count calories.
Here is the blurb from Sandra:

“You’ll still be able to enjoy yourself but the Slimpod will make you want smaller portions of everything. No matter what diet you’ve been on before Christmas, our Slimpod downloads will look after your waistline for you.
"The great thing is there’s no willpower involved. You get on with enjoying Christmas while your mind gets on with controlling your weight."
Mother of two Alison Segal, from Eastcote, Middlesex, used the Slimpod last year and lost 24lbs in three months.  “I'm really looking forward to Christmas and the party season again now that Slimpod has transformed my life," she says.
"For the first time I don’t have any qualms about feeling hungry and eating Christmas pudding and mince pies. With a Slimpod I didn’t feel tempted at all last year and Christmas was brilliant."

From December 4th an Xmas Slimpod MP3 download can be yours instantly if go to the Thinking Slimmer Facebook page and click the Like button (or click on the pretty bauble up in the post)

You will be shown a special code which gives a 100% discount at the ThinkingSlimmer.com checkout on the 'Keep The Pounds Off Over Xmas' MP3 product.
You will also be entitled to free VIP membership of the Thinking Slimmer club, with no obligation to purchase anything, as well as full online access to over 450 pages of articles and videos on food, fashion and fitness. There's also a recipe club with pages of healthy meal ideas.

What are you waiting for?(apart from it to be Sunday so you can get it – stick a reminder in your calendar!) It’s freeeeeee!

Thinking Slimmer–7 months

Really?

How can it have been 7 months already?

So this is me, ready for my run  (ok I haven’t put my trainers on yet…)

The T-Shirt is XL. The tracksuit bottoms are size 14.

I have fallen out with the scales big time. I rarely weigh myself now but when I do it shows I am half a stone heavier than the lowest weight I reached.

So what do I see in these photo’s? I see a fat woman. I see all the overhanging “wobbly bits” that are still there. I see the fact that I can sort of hide the massive belly with clothes but that it is still definitely there.

I see that I am a million miles away from where I need to be at a size 10/12.

And right now, it feels unachievable. I feel like I have steadied off (and am working really hard at ignoring the voice in my head that’s telling me I am putting weight on again – it’s wrong!)

What I do know, is that the message in the slimpod around eating healthier, that seems to have worked so well for so many people, has totally passed me by.

I think I may know why. I just need to fix it. If I wasn’t such a muppet, someone on my Cognitive Hypnotherapy course would have been able to do it.

So what does my day look like for food these days.

Pre-brekkie: I run for 15-25 minutes in the morning Mon-Fri (been a bad month due to foot injury and chest cold)

Breakfast : Coffee and an innocent smoothie

Lunch: sandwich or something with 2 pieces of brown bread and cheese. Sometimes have a McD’s where I just have a McChicken sandwich

Snacks: Afternoon snacks may be a small packet of Dorito’s or a bowl of nuts. If I go out in the car I might have a handful of peanut M&M’s

Dinner: Small bowl of Slow cooker chilli, stew or something. When I have a Chinese takeaway on a Saturday night it will be chicken and sweetcorn soup and 2 out of a packet of spare ribs with no sauce. I have a kebab once a week. I buy a small donner and eat about 1/3 of it.

I never eat anything after dinner.

Add maybe 3-4 cups of coffee throughout the day and 2 cans of diet coke.

You can see it’s not that I eat a lot. Since I started Thinking Slimmer I just don’t have the desire to eat much. But it is definitely not a healthy and nutritious diet.

This is my next goal. I need to sort this out.

Thinking Slimmer–26 weeks

Wheeeeeeeeeeeee BANG!

What was that noise? That was the scales being flung full force out of the window.

I have a set of Salter scales. They don’t just do the weight, they also do the fat/muscle % and BMI. Do I pay any attention to those numbers?

No.

Why not? Because the only way I know how to benchmark progress is in Stones and pounds. And BMI. These are my frame of reference.

I have the scales in my office. My office has a carpet on the floor. As I’m sure you know, carpet can skew the results a little. As a result I have looked at the weight more as a variance than an absolute value i.e. I look at a change in terms of pounds lost rather than the reported weight.

And then I accidentally shifted the scales. The result? Half a stone more on the absolute weight.

This is why weight lost is not relevant.

Who knows how far I really am away from the healthy target weight? I certainly am not sure.

Along with all the studies that increasingly show calorie counting is not the way to go, I know that increasing exercise causes weight loss to stop, as heavier muscle replaces lighter fat.

As I haven’t measured from the start (anyone trying to lose “weight” should always measure too) there is little point me starting now. So all I have to go on is clothes.

This week I wore a top I bought when I went I was in Chicago about 8 years ago. I went to see the Blue Man Group (it was fab by the way!). My friend bought me a long sleeved T-shirt after the show. I was disappointed to put it on and find it too tight. It was XL and I had assumed that American sizes would be nice and big as usual.

It wasn’t.

So this week, as I work through my wardrobe finding clothes that now fit, I put it on. It doesn’t just fit, it’s actually pretty loose. Now in many ways, an XL top being loose is not a huge achievement. But as it has never fit then it’s a wonderful achievement. Add that to the fact that my size 16 jeans are all way too loose now and fall down without a belt, then progress is good. I have a number of size 14 jeans that fit but there are a couple that I have bought that are way too small. It’s amazing how sizes vary isn’t it?

I have to look at all these facts because when I look in the mirror, a fat woman is staring back at me. When I look in the mirror I feel there is no progress whatsoever.

So I write down these facts. Because writing it down makes it impossible to ignore it. It makes it impossible to say I’m failing. Whatever I feel.

I have also decided I just can’t motivate myself to run on the treadmill. It’s just asking too much of myself when it is already a challenge to run in the first place. So, given the weather limitations that make my local path too muddy to run on, I have switched to running up and down the hill outside of my house. 4 times up the hill is 1.8 miles and 22 minutes of running so a good workout. If it is icy, I will run the path. Otherwise I will run the road.

This person, who was close to 19 stone over 2 years ago, is now somewhere around 12 stone. That is a fact you can’t change. This person who was wearing size 22 jeans and finding them tight over 2 years ago, can now wear size 14 jeans and find them comfortable.

This person now, is a fraction of the person I was then.

The reprogrammed behaviours continue. This is a permanent change. Whatever else happens and however else I feel, I love the change in the person I am and how I behave. It’s all about fine tuning now as I get closer to my goal.

Whatever else happens, I will keep the faith and continue to let Trevor chat away to my unconscious every day. They seem to get on well together. Why spoil a great relationship like that?