How I've lost 40 kilos! (And counting!)

As I reach around 40 kilos (90 lbs) of weight loss I’ve been reflecting on how it has happened.

I didn’t mean to lose weight. Don’t get me wrong – I was delighted, but it was accidental, in the main. And easy. In the main.

Because I needed to sort out my blood sugar, I started eating a low Gycaemic Index diet (low GI). Sod losing weight, I mean, heaven knows I needed it – still do come to that, I hardly look like the after pic in the Before and After stories, but that could wait. The blood sugar was the priority and to make sure I got that under control the weight loss would have to come later. Except that is not how it worked out.

Firstly I needed to get my head around what a low GI diet meant. Broadly it is low sugar or food that will convert easily into sugar in the blood. So sugar, flour, rice, cooked root veggies, tropical fruit, sweetcorn and pumpkin, fruit juices and other mixers, beer, and a host of other favourites were all now on my seriously portion control list. This had to be a lifestyle so nothing was going to be forbidden – if I was self proclaiming a ban on certain foods, it would virtually guarantee I couldn’t stick to it, so nothing was out, but I wasn’t going to eat them on a daily basis any more, either.

Then there was the processing, and what it was eaten with. Broadly, the less processed the better, and that included chopping and cooking times. Cooking breaks down the cellular structure, making the food easier to digest, and therefore increasing the GI. So, carrots eaten raw are low GI, whereas cooked they leap up in GI points. If I wanted, say, spaghetti, it should be al dente and skinny spaghetti, but also served with an oily sauce – carbonnara or bolognaise, for example, since the fat means that there is less of an impact on the blood sugar. So, higher fat! I had no idea.

It also isn’t necessarily the same for the same food – an apple might have a very different GI from another of the same variety and size; or for different people – what is high GI for me, may not be as high for you, and vice versa. Just to compound this, the low GI thing is also hard to get your head around as there is so much nonsense online about it. Anyone can set up a website or a facebook page and produce a glossy recipe selection of low carb and low GI foods and so many are just wrong. Rice cakes, breads, and pasta feature so often in these 20 (or 50; or 100) favourite low GI dishes that it can get confusing.

And then there is the classification. Glycaemic Index is divided into low (under 56), medium (under 70) and high (above 70). Glucose has a GI of 100 and everything else is then measured from that. Now, the problem I had with this, is that, strictly speaking, I could eat entirely from the low GI range but still eat too many carbs as the upper end of that range isn’t actually that low. So, I decided to try to eat almost entirely from the under 30 range, giving myself the leeway to have a dessert, or chocolate, from time to time. And this has worked well for me.

So, that first week I tucked into pork belly (without the potato accompaniments) and cheeses (without the bread or biscuits) and veggies and steaks and houmous and crudités. I drank wine and tea, gallons of tea, with full fat milk. And to my utter amazement, the weight fell off. Hugely that first week. Largely due to the water retention that sorted out in a week of low GI eating.

It took a while to get used to not having the carb sides – leave the bread, no noodles for me, and potatoes. Like a smoker who has got as far as quitting buying cigarettes and now bums them from friends, I’d have a French fry from someone’s plate. After all, it was better for me than a jacket or boiled potato – at least from a low GI standpoint! And the weight kept coming.

Portion control has really been the key. I crave a gin and tonic, so have a sip from a friend’s. A spoonful of rice when the curry is too hot (and I’m a total spice wuss so this is more often than I’d like!), a spoonful of mac and cheese at a kid’s birthday party.

When I first started eating low GI, weight loss wasn’t my goal, but once I realised it was so very much easier than I’d ever found it in the past, that changed. At the beginning, losing weight involved practically no effort. I ate within my self imposed rules and lost weight easily. Soon a pattern emerged. I would lose a chunk of weight overnight, generally on an evening I’d stayed home and eaten very little for dinner the night before. The following day most of that weight would be back on and I’d slowly get down to that magic number I’d landed on the week or fortnight, or even month, before. Then the pattern would start again. This meant that most of the time I would be trying to get down to where I was before. Until I realised and relaxed into this pattern, that was quite a downer. Understanding that – and as I plotted my weight on Excel, I was able to produce graphs at the touch of a button which showed it so clearly – really helped me.

I knew Christmas would be a problem. I have such a sweet tooth and I was compounded by the fact that I was going to be making mince pies and cakes for people to buy over the Christmas period. All that temptation. So I bought the most fabulous cheese selection. I indulged massively, putting on weight (huge amounts of cheese!) but managed to keep my blood sugars under contol. That was the most important. It took six weeks to lose that weight and get back on track with more weight loss but I’m there. Back on the slow bumpy downward slide of the graph towards a normal(ish?) weight.

The weight loss has been fabulous, but it isn’t the only side effect. I’ve got energy. I’ve got spark. I’ve got an enthusiasm for life again. Some days I practically bounce around the room like Tigger, struggling to keep the energy at bay. Not by any means all the time, but certainly a lot more than before. Before I didn’t want to get up. Ever. I’d practically stopped moving. Clearly this is not good.

Now I’ve filled my computer with cheesy songs that get me dancing. I bounce around the house. I walk more – not enough, but more. I try but generally fail to do my 10,000 steps a day, I sometimes use a step machine, though not enough, and the stationary bike, though... It’s not enough, but it’s a lot better, and it’s improving all the time. From time to time I screw up – I got cocky about how much fitter I was and the lump on my Achilles tendon hasn’t gone down yet. I need to take it slowly, and I’m doing that, so I don’t beat myself up over it. I just make small steps all the time in the right direction.

Buying new clothes (and getting out the old clothes I’d grown out of) was wonderful. I felt better, I received heaps of compliments, I loved it. And that spark. The more energy I have, the more weight I lose, the more compliments I receive, the better I feel about myself, the more the spark is there. And it ends up with an upward spiral where it gets easier and easier to move, so I move more, and I eat less and I feel better and I get more compliments and I lose more weight and it gets easier to move and so it continues. I have a zest for life again. And what could be better than that.

From this



To this

And on it goes.