A Victim Of Vanity Sizing

There must be many ladies this has happened to and I have to wonder how dangerous the habit of manufacturers altering clothes sizes for vanity actually is.

When I left school in 1976 at the age of sixteen, I was a portly 10 stone 7lbs (147 lbs) and a (UK) size 16 going on 18.

Thirty six years later I was 14 stones 7lbs (203 lbs) and a size 18 going on 20 ... now if I'm only one size bigger despite being 4 stones (56lbs) heavier, methinks there's something wrong with this picture.

Suffice it to say I did suspect that I'd chunked up a bit ... I'd been on several diets over the years, only weighing myself during these brief interludes, and I never measured my ample proportions at any other time - I mean, why would I, it's not nice.

Around 2004 I'd decided dieting wasn't for me ever again. What was the point in all that deprivation for a few months; only for me to regain all that lost weight - plus more for good measure.
So I spent the last few years avoiding my reflection and hiding at the sight of a camera because what I didn't see couldn't hurt me.

Arranging to get married and going to Center Parcs - where all the fit people tend to go - for our honeymoon late 2012 made me rethink my decision on trying yet another diet. I didn't have very high hopes of success, all the diets I'd followed were fine for a quick fix but not sustainable in any permanent way.

Let's face it, what diets are sustainable? How many people GO BACK to Slimming World and Weight Watchers because it worked last time. Yes it did, and they're both very good diets to follow, but can you keep it up? ... No - or you wouldn't be going back.

Seeing some photos of us waiting for the Olympic torch going through Skegness - June 2012 - my so called friend had taken WITH ME IN THE MIDDLE - how very dare she! - was something of a revelation. But it was still one heck of a shock when I stepped on the scales, then I was even more shocked - and quite upset - when I got the tape measure out ... OUCH!!

I was fortunate enough - only one week into my cereal diet - to have watched Horizon's 'Eat, Fast and Live Longer' with Dr Michael Mosley ... this changed my life completely - I may have mentioned it before ... happy, happy days.

Then out of curiosity, and because I've got a good memory for detail, I fetched out an old pair of hardly worn - bought during one of my brief 'slimmer moments - 'Marks and Spencer's leggings that I'd saved from the early 1990s ... for when they'd be back in fashion (they were expensive) and also for when they'd fit me - ever the optimist - the label said size 18 and 32" waist.

Here I was 20 odd years later, wearing size 18-20 with a 40+ waist. It's not right is it? ... I'd been lied to, I wasn't just middling to chunky, I WAS FAT.

Now a year and a half later - after following the most amazing weight loss lifestyle (I'm in easy-peasy maintenance now) - that I simply can't stop talking or writing about - I'm a few pounds under the weight I was when I left school and there's not many women my age can say that.

And what was porky for a sixteen year old doesn't look too bad on a fifty four year old ... and my clothes size - 14 top and 12 bottom. I'm not bragging here. My point is ... if the sizing of the good old days - 1970-1990 - were implemented now, I'd be at least a 18 top and 16 bottom ... but it doesn't sound anywhere near as nice.

Even my sister has been fooled, she was a size 12 when she left school and was recently telling me that she must be slimmer now - albeit a stone or so heavier - because she's down to a size 10.

The clothing industry is not doing us any favours. We're becoming obese whilst convincing ourselves that we're still the same size we used to be - hardly good for our health is it? ...

A Year of Alternate Day Fasting

Flipping heck! I get worse. I wrote this nearly a week ago (8th August, my ADF anniversary) and went off at a tangent - yeah, Facebook mostly and a bit of work. This is because I now use the android app to blog - while it's fresh in my mind - then tidy it up later on the laptop ... only I forgot that bit. 

.....

Well, I'd set my target to lose 57lbs. Yes I know it's a lovely 'even' number (not). But I need to get down to an even number (of course). As usual I failed to reach my target on a specific date by 1lb, but who cares?

I've not been this weight since I left school in the mid-70's. The first thing I did on leaving school was to go on a diet to lose 2lbs I needed to qualify for something. Of course - me being me - I starved for a week and lost 7 lbs, and I've never looked back, hmmm :/

Since then I've gone on umpteen little diets (lasting a month or less - usually hours). And several proper 'let's do this fatso - and de-flab this pudgy little body' diets lasting three months and more. Never have I got beyond six months. That was Slimming World and only so long because I was allowed to change my target (the weight I'd already reached) and go for free.

And here I am, a whole year of Alternate Day Fasting and no signs of tiring of it. It's just so natural to me now. I'm also back to Mon/Weds/Fri as my down days after faffing about trying to mix things up.

I have incorporated a gentler version of Fast-5 (19 hours fast/5 hours noshing) into ADF because it eventually became obvious that my breakfast cereals were causing me problems:

1. I wasn't losing weight.
2. I was always hungry before lunch.
3. I was constantly bloated on up days.

So now when I wake up in a morning I don't have to think 'can I have a biscuit this morning?' Because the answer is 'no'. I've extended my previous day's (complete) 'fast' to 19 hours by not eating until 1.30pm.

During this day I continue to eat normally up to 8.30pm, when ALL snacking must cease. If you were to be in my vicinity between 8.00-8.30, you'd spot me munching on nuts.
So I have a seven-ish hour eating window on up days and six hour eating window on down days. This does NOT include Saturday. This is my 'munch' day when I start with a biscuit in bed with my coffee, then continue to munch throughout the day, including booze at night, then I stagger to bed completely stuffed.

By Sunday morning, I'm relieved to wait until 1.30 for my dinner and bemoaning the fact that I ate too much the day before. This has been my pattern for the last couple of months unless we've had visitors. Then I just do a fast-8 (16 hours fast, 8 hours to eat) every day - basically I just miss breakfast - this maintains my weight for that week.

I've decided that I'm going to carry on and lose another 6-8lbs ... or until my sisters tell me to stop - I'm very obedient - because I still see a very fat woman in the mirror (but not photos oddly enough). This extra few pounds  will ensure I've got a bit of leeway while I find which maintenance method suits me best.

I still like the idea of 500 cal days at least once a week. So my latest idea is to have one down day of 500 calories, one super up day and the rest Fast-6ish days. I'll let you know if this works when I get there ...
 

.....

1. Me and Alternate Day Fasting
2. Me and Alternate Day Fasting ... Three Weeks On
3. Five Weeks of Alternate Day Fasting
4. Eight Weeks of Alternate Day Fasting
5. Ten Weeks of Alternate Day Fasting
6. Alternate Day Fasting Three Months On
7. Alternate Day Fasting in Winter
8. Alternate Day Fasting Over Christmas
9. Me and Zumba
10. Saying Goodbye To My Curves 
11. Eight Months Of Alternate Day Fasting And Me
12. Growing Up 
13. A Year Of Alternate Day Fasting 
14. 60 Pounds Of Blubber - Vanished
15. The Perils of Alternate Day Fasting 
16. Mr Grumpy Is Losing It
17. Mr Grumpy Has Lost It
18. Fasting For Maintenance
19. Tweaking Maintenance
20. Weight Gain 
21. Still Maintaining
22. Four Years Of Intermittent Fasting

  .....

• ADF Facebook Group ... come and join us :)

Eight Weeks Of Alternate Day Fasting

Any of my regular readers NOT interested in alternate day fasting, will do well to give this a miss as it will bore the pants off you...

Well, believe it or not I'm still sticking with it. My most oft uttered words now are no longer 'who put that there?', but ... 'I'm a good girl I am'. This is my new mantra and is repeated throughout my down days when I've either been crunching on salad (bored with that now), ploughing my way through a delicious 'stir-fry' or chewing on kale which seems to have all the properties of green chewing gum!

I still feel great, my energy levels are way up there where they used to be when I was much younger. I'd originally put my sluggishness down to getting older (any excuse), but now I know - and will admit - the truth ... I was just too fat.

I've decided that when I reach the weight I want - which won't be ridiculously low as I really don't have the frame for it - I'll continue doing the fasting but only one or two days a week. This is what I consider a good way to maintain my weight and should also keep the other health benefits that this lifestyle has promised.

.....

Yes, about those health benefits ... I'd read about asthma, diabetes, heart disease, alzheimer's, cholesterol etc. But what I'd not come across was stomach problems. It seems odd that I've missed it as I thought I'd have latched onto that one straight away.

All my friends know that I've suffered with an over-acid stomach for donkeys years. I'm always sucking or munching on a fruit flavoured antacid tablet. I've always had pockets full of them and been in a total panic if I think I've forgotten them.

I still carry them with me out of habit, but I haven't needed a single tablet in four weeks ... not one! I usually needed a minimum of four or five a day. AND we had pepperoni pizza the other night - guaranteed to put my stomach in a hyper-fizz ... nothing.

I hadn't noticed that I hadn't needed over-acid stomach remedies ... well you don't, do you. I always empty my pockets onto the dressing table before placing shorts/cropped trousers/jeans/fleeces in the wash - this theoretically means I don't wash tissues, chewing gum or antacids with my clothes. In actuality, something from the aforementioned list gets washed almost every week, leaving interesting stains or shredded, fluffy paper - I then restock my pockets from this pile every day but gradually realised that the same packets were coming back unused.

I will of course write in the future if my apparent 'stomach cure' changes. My intention is to be scrupulously honest (as ever) about this 'diet' as I know that my blog - and I assume it's the same for everyone else blogging about this subject - has elicited some interest from certain medical and scientific reasearch establishments because we're all basically guinea pigs.

.....

When I embarked on this lifestyle choice, I knew I'd be able to stick with it (for now) because:

1. I work at home.
2. I have will power.
3. I bought the dress I want to wear for my wedding years ago when I was slimmer and I love it.
4. Writing about it publicly is a great incentive, my diets are usually sneaky so I don't look daft when I fail.

Probably point 1 is the most important factor to me. Going out to work doing this 'diet' requires a lot of forward planning and understanding workmates. One of my friends who started ADF keeps coming a cropper because even her husband makes fun of her and deliberately eats yummy food that she loves - in a way that would try the patience of a saint ... or guarantee his swift demise. I've now had a quiet word with him and he's promised to stop being so damned annoying.

Even though I work at home - or the tin hut - and so don't need to think of what to eat at work, I've started to make my soup in batches on a Sunday afternoon, instead of on the mornings of my down day. This has stopped me wanting to eat it straight away and becoming over-souped. I make enough for six days weighing and chopping the vegetables of my choice, cook them either in the slow cooker at home or the oven at the tin hut (caravan near Skegness for those who don't know). When it's cooled I blend half of it to make it nice and thick.

Then I freeze most of it in tubs with added cooked chicken style quorn and soaked and boiled exotic (Morrisons) beans to give it substance. I now have lots of different flavoured soups (chilli, korma, garlic, herb) and a variety of vegetables - yum yum - with a maximum of 250 calories in each huge tub. This does NOT mean I have soup every down day, it's just there in case I haven't got anything in to dry stir fry or for when I get fed up of crunching through salads, oh yeah ... and sick of the sight of tinned tomatoes.

Oh, didn't I mention my weight loss? Well up to now I've lost 24lb ...

.....

1. Me and Alternate Day Fasting
2. Me and Alternate Day Fasting ... Three Weeks On
3. Five Weeks of Alternate Day Fasting
4. Eight Weeks of Alternate Day Fasting
5. Ten Weeks of Alternate Day Fasting
6. Alternate Day Fasting Three Months On
7. Alternate Day Fasting in Winter
8. Alternate Day Fasting Over Christmas
9. Me and Zumba
10. Saying Goodbye To My Curves 
11. Eight Months Of Alternate Day Fasting And Me
12. Growing Up 
13. A Year Of Alternate Day Fasting 
14. 60 Pounds Of Blubber - Vanished
15. The Perils of Alternate Day Fasting 
16. Mr Grumpy Is Losing It
17. Mr Grumpy Has Lost It
18. Fasting For Maintenance
19. Tweaking Maintenance
20. Weight Gain 
21. Still Maintaining
22. Four Years Of Intermittent Fasting

  .....

• ADF Facebook Group ... come and join us :)