Rachel's Blog
 

My name is Rachel Black and I am a serial dieter. I am many other things too: a mother, a colleague, a wife, a friend and like most women, an all round multi-tasker juggling several balls in the air, dropping them occasionally! I have been aware of my weight for many years and have tried to modify it for three decades to date.
Despite this I am still a work in progress. I know lots about food, diets and calories and I know what I should be doing. But I have no idea why, I simply cannot do it. I weigh myself a lot and count calories in pretty notebooks and I will not give up. I am nothing if not a trier.  I wrote my book ‘Cake O’Clock’ in an attempt to make sense of my disordered relationship with food and to find a level of acceptance allowing me to live, and to eat, like a normal person.

Come with me as I recount my ‘Tales from the Scales' For my previous blogs click here

 

Tales from the Scales

(since June Rachel has been taking some personal time and is not currently blogging but she'll be back ...)

May 2015

I have been on the Cambridge Weight Plan for 10 weeks now and have lost 13lbs. This is disappointing news to everyone apart from me. My Consultant is puzzled (or pretends to be while thinking that I cannot possibly be doing things correctly). My friends sympathise, and I can visualise you, dear Reader, not rating this a great success either.
But for me it is.
I am small,5’ 1 1/2” and every pound shows and counts. 13 lbs is almost 2 dress sizes. My last great successful weight loss of 2 1/2 stone several years ago with Weight Watchers averaged at 1/2 lb per week over 18 months. These halves seem to plague me in all directions!
The fact of the matter is that being small and not very sporty means I don’t need very many calories to stay alive and even less than this to lose weight. Creating an energy (calorie) deficit is hard, really hard, and consistency in following any programme is challenging when you have 4 weeks in a row of staying the same. Indeed, only this time I’ve managed to keep at the forefront of my mind that diving into a vat of cheap carby calories is not going to help my cause in the longer term.
Maybe I’m beginning to grow up where food is concerned, or maybe I’m just sick and tired of repeating the same old process and wondering why I never lose weight and struggle continually not to put any on.

Meal replacements are not a long term solution and at some point a normal diet will be resumed; whatever normal is. Cambridge now has a stepwise plan to facilitate this and weight maintenance in the long term. I have only ever been on step 2 which involves 3 products (I have been having the lemon yoghurt bars), 3/4 pint of milk (which has been a god send for my cups of tea), and a meal consisting of a huge portion of lean protein (think 200g chicken) and a smal amount of vegetables or salad.
This week I’ve moved onto step 3 where a cereal option for breakfast is introduced and a second meal along similar lines; high protein, low fat, low carb.

So yes, I would like to lose more weight each week but I can’t argue that this plan, despite its reputation, supporters and detractors is working for me. I am going to stick with it in the long term and see if by following their maintenance plan I can learn to eat healthily, moderately, mindfully and perhaps, normally. This is a big ask I know!
To contact Rachel email blog@bigmatters.co.uk and subject line of Rachel
Rachel is an independant blogger, the views and opinions expressed in blogs are soley those of the original authors and other contributors.
These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of Big Matters and/or any/all contributors to this site.
 
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