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By Groovybabe • Oct 26th, 2007 • Category: stugglingI don’t know about you but I have certain emotional triggers. Until August of this year I was living at my mothers house. I moved back in temporarily in March 2006 and just ended up not leaving FOR EVER. When I finally did go it was a case of sink or swim.
My mother and I have never had a good relationship. I can locate that back to certain events in my childhood (none of which I will go into on a public blog!) but the jist is that she may have given birth to me but she won’t force herself to like me. Over the years I tried everything in my power to fix this but nothing I ever did was good enough. People said to me once you move out things will change, you will get on better then. But this has not happened. Our relationship is exactly the same because fundamentally her attitude towards me hasn’t changed and I still refuse to be walked over. The difference is I can now minimise my time spent with her. However, her house still ties me up in emotional knots.
I had to go there to meet her to get my son back the other day. She wasn’t there when she said she would be (surprise surprise) and I ended up helping myself to food (I’d just been to the gym and it was lunch time). The only thing to eat was a sandwich and while I normally stay away from bread I thought it wouldn’t hurt for one day, despite it being teh evil white bread. So I had a ham sandwich, which was fine. But then I spotted a selection box of biscuits that had been opened. Before I knew it I was stuffing my face with biscuit upon biscuit. I managed to reign myself in after about 8 biscuits, convincing myself that it was 200-300 calories, but I was like a woman possessed, or someone who hasn’t eaten for a week. When I eventually put the food into my WLR database, it came back at 600+ calories. I thought this was a bit high but feesible and so I kept it in the journal (I couldn’t find the exact biscuits I had in the database, so just used some random selection biscuits). It severely restricted by intake for the rest of the day but then I had the idea to eat my exercise calories.
I have this theory that exercising does not give you an automatic right to eat those calories and still lose weight, so I have always avoided eating exercise calories in the past. But they are there for a reason, and this was a good enough reason. I burned off 700+ calories in the gym that day (nearer 800) and ended up eating 500 of those calories (so I ate a total of 2000 calories) and the next morning I weighed in 3lbs HEAVIER!
So you can imagine that yesterday I was finding it very hard to stay in control. I had breakfast (Optivita and soya milk) at 7am and by 9am I was making a salad to curb my hunger! I then had lunch (an omelette) at 11am as we were going to the cinema and I didn’t want to be hungry in the face of cinema popcorn. But by the time we got into town again all I could think of was food food food! I had a packet of quavers crisps (potato chips) but at 0.9 sat fat and 89 cals, no big deal. But then I ended up buying a egg and cress sandwich (I did share that with my son) and a sushi minipack! Then we got to the cinema and I gave it and let my son buy a big bag of Minstrals chocolate with the view that I would eat half the packet (I haven’t eaten chocolate for 20 weeks!). But just before I was going to tuck in I remembered that if I did the Xenical would make me pay (the day before I had a bad tummy ache all day) and I did not fancy that again so I limited myself to 10 minstrals! Still hungry I bought another packet of Quavers, this time a big cinema packet, with double the cals and fat I mentioned earlier. By the time we got home I was happy to go without for the rest of the night but ended up having half a low fat thin crust pizza with my son (350cals per half). When I input my calories into WLR last night I’d eaten into my exercise calories but again hadn’t exceeded them and yet I weighed in this morning having put on a FURTHER 2lbs!
So 5lbs on in 2 days without exceeding my quota! Anyone who says you can eat your exercise calories is fibbing!!!!
So I am not weighing in today! The last time I weighed in was on Monday so I think I will make Monday my weigh in day and spend the next 3 days getting that excess weight off. If I manage to maintain this week at -5lbs on my current weight then I will consider that a MASSIVE achievement!
I am so staying away from all junk. What I went through was a clear example of why we should stay away from it. Just for eating a few biscuits I then was on a mission to eat the calorie quota of a small european country! I swear to Him Upstairs that they put chemicals in junk food to ellicit this kind of reaction. It keeps the profit margins up.
Groovybabe is 14.9 stones today and has lost 2lbs at her last weigh in.
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Sorry to read about your relationship with your mother - a daughter/mother relationship is a special bond, or is supposed to be.
If you will allow me to be blunt, I think you are making mistake to delay your weigh-in. That tells me you are focusing too much on 1) what the scale says and 2) results, not decisions.
You’ve had amazing success to date. I am sure you have had weeks were the scale went up - and that’s OK. You need to look at the downward trend.
I love the idea of working hard over the next 3 days but you should do that anyway, after you’ve weighed in.
Good luck!
Thanks for your comments. I am doing what I need to, psychologically, in order to beat the small hurdle. Plus I only changed it to Friday in the early days for the same reason (it was Monday’s originally) and it worked before. I’ve only had a few days so I am giving myself a proper chance before I weigh in. I *know* that if I weighed in officially today I wouldnt try extra hard over the next few days. It’s about knowing your strengths and weaknesses and playing to them, it’s always been about that.
Good point, you’ve got to know yourself.
Are you doing low-carb, GB?
I read a fascinating article the other day about why LC-ers see gains when they being eating carbs again. The gist of it is that it’s not “true” weight, but rather the (ridiculous amount of) water and (little bit of) glycogen your body processes naturally when it eats carbs, and that it balances out again if you continue eating healthier carbs (ie: whole grains instead of white bread). I’ll see if I can find the article again, if you’d like.
No, I’m not doing low carb. I went a week without bread but that is not happening at the moment as much as I try to do it. The weight gain came from eating biscuits and crisps so I think it is salt weight/water retention.
I do the same thing…I pig out…weigh in…and when I see a gain I throw all caution to the wind and eat like a madwoman. I think that probably is a good plan for now. If you work extra hard you may be in for a bit of a treat scale-wise later on. I think junk food makes you swell and retain water. So you may not have gained that much anyway.
I found myself putting on the brakes to stress eating this week. I had something stressful take place but it took me a few days to recognize it as stress eating. The most important part is that you’ve put on the brakes and got yourself back on track.
Sorry to hear your relationship with your Mom is strained. It sounds like you grew up and became an adult but she stayed right where she was. I have an older sister like this, I’ve cut ties and its been the best thing for me. I hope you find a way to make things right but if you can’t, I hope you find a way to move on and not let the past draw from you.
Yeah, I agree with Rachel, you wouldn’t have gained that much in fat, your water retention normally is probably really low lately and so you eat salty snacks and your body becomes a sponge.
I don’t want you to change your weigh in day but only because I like that we weigh in on the same day. What can I say? I’m selfish!
Oh and I didn’t comment on the your mom thing because I knew about this already. Shame that she can’t just be a mom and let go of whatever this is that she’s got against you. She sounds like a charmer. But she IS your mom so of course you want it to get better.
Oh and stop going into her kitchen. You already know it’s filled with crap!
Rachel - urgh I came on later that day so I guess that explains the eating junk and putting on so much weight. I didnt manage to control myself though (will write a post about it) but hopefully today is another day.
Diana - Yeah, I am getting there. If you’d seen me a year ago you wouldnt recognise me against the me of today. I am largely over my mother now but for some reason when I am at her house I become an emotional retard, lol.
Betz - Yeah I like Fridays too, and the fact we weigh in together, so it’ll only be for one or two weeks. Maybe I’ll miss this weigh in all together and wait until Friday as its been such a disaster this week.
I need to stop going to her house, much less her kitchen (the biscuits were not in the kitchen!). I don’t really go there much at all anymore (twice since I’ve moved out) but I need to put a stop to it entirely.
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