Doing it!

Hi Folks. Thanks once again for so much support. You're showing me a lot of love here and I really appreciate it. Writing the last post helped me calm down a bit about things over the weekend. The problem is still there and still needs to be sorted, but I really had to put it on the backburner for now just to save my sanity - or the last shreds of it anyway.

I mentioned how sometimes in the past when everything is feeling so bad and there are seemingly unsolvable problems, I turn to the one thing that I can fix - my weight. Previously this has sometimes happened deliberately and sometimes it just happened.

I have felt out of control around food for most of the last 4 months. I have not been able to turn this thing around at all. I did manage one good week but it was a struggle and I wasn't able to sustain it. I was in the binge mode not the healthy eating mode. I failed to switch modes.

But over the weekend it happened.

Admittedly you could say I have been working up to this given that I had spent the previous 3 weeks doing a lot of walking. This gradually calmed my blood sugar down and I was able to reduce my food intake. I was still eating too much though.

It wasn't until Sunday that I was FINALLY able to start my diet and return to healthy eating. It wasn't until then that I felt able to commit to a diet and exercise plan.

I have returned to eating the Hay Way - a way of eating which is otherwise known as Food Combining. It is principally about not mixing protein and carbs at the same meal. It's a way of eating which makes sense to me and which I have sustained for long periods in the past. It's not specifically a reduction diet but can be adapted to that. And it doesn't involve counting calories. It naturally lowers your (starchy) carb intake by limiting them to one meal a day.

I have thought about going low carb and my one good week out of the last 4 months was achieved by adopting that approach. It was great for my blood sugar and I was very happy with it - apart from my skin. Over the course of just one week my skin really suffered. I had seen this in a friend over 10 years ago who was low carbing. Her skin looked dreadful. And when I tried the Atkins diet a decade ago the same thing happened.

I don't know how to solve this problem. If any low carbers have any experience of skin problems related to their eating I'd love to hear about it.

So, my goals are

1) to eat healthily for weight loss in the food combining pattern I have now re-established

2) to do a walk of at least 1 1/2 hours 4 days a week

3) to get to bed between 12 and 2am (rather than 3 and 5am)

In the last 4 days I have eaten brilliantly and done 3 long walks. I even made it through a VERY stressful Tuesday without slipping up.

It went like this - Walking into the centre of town to pay a bill at the bank (a very long queue), going to a couple of shops - one on the High St and then a trip round the supermarket and walking home with heavy shopping. Putting the washing on. Then downstair's cleaner asked if she could borrow my hoover as their's was broken. So I felt unable to relax while the washing was on because at any moment there might be a knock at the door with a question on how to empty it or just thank you for lending etc. Then when the washing had finished I had to take it to the launderette to dry it because the dryer is broken. There I had to deal with strangers and the old lady who helps run it - let's just say she's *a bit of a character*.

And, after ALL THAT I still really really wanted to do a walk! I had to stop myself for fear of overdoing it and ending up calling in a convenience store on the way home and buying the old bag of rubbish.

So, I AM DOING IT!