Progress Report

Okay, so I probably didn't explain about the appetite suppressants too clearly in my last posting, but just to re-iterate, they're herbal and they contain no gurana, caffeine or any "speed" like product. They're simply an extract from some wild exotic fruit rind, and about as useful.

After spending a small fortune on a month's supply of this product I can report (albeit, not "cheerfully") that I might have had better results if I'd used actual speed. I am at the same weight as when I started.

I have decided that the only way I'm going to shift this weight is start by making every meal vegetable-based and add some protein (rather than the other way around). This should also go someway to ensuring that I have my 5 vegetable serves a day.

Having spend so many years starving myself, and living with anorexia and bulimia, I have developed the ability to ignore hunger and have a much reduced ability to understand when I have had enough to eat (due to my body compensating for the starvation buy storing away fat supplies for the next round of self-induced famine).

I have been extraordinarily stressed-out over the last 4 months and I suspect that it has something to do with all the emotional issues I have with my weight - I could go into it all, but mostly, it's personal and as such really only relevant to me. I will say that having had a Father who made me very aware all of his life that being even slightly over-weight made me "less good" in his eyes has played a lot on my sense of self-worth and body hatred.

I also realise after much therapy/discussion/cups of tea with a fellow recovering bulimic that it's very likely that my Father also suffered from an eating disorder. I know that he certainly jumped on every weird food craze that was going around in the 80s and followed me into the Herbalife shake & pills weight loss program. He was obsessed with watching what I ate, even when he was dying he was still lecturing me about eating too much (I was breastfeeding at the time and I dared to have 1 1/2 toasted sandwiches in front of him).

Whilst I can intellectualise that on some level my Father thought he was doing the right thing for me I also know that he must have known the damage his words were having on me. To this day I still think that skinny girls have happier lives than normal-weight or over-weight girls do (which is clearly wrong - When was the last time that you saw Posh Spice smile? The woman is miserable!).

I have set myself a mini-goal to lose 6 kilos by August. I'm hoping that this smaller more achievable goal will re-focus my efforts and provide a moral boost.

Exercise wise- I'm trying to get to the gym first thing in the morning, before breakfast, to kick-start the metabolism and make it strip off fat stores to get the energy from there first. It's a fucking nightmare getting up at 4:30am (I have to walk the dog first!) but I have decided that it's all about balancing my "wants" i.e.:

1. I have to want to be slim, toned, and fit more than I want to sleep-in
2. I have to want to be slim more than I want to snack on chocolate
3. I have to want to be a happy slim person more than wanting to stay in my current situation

Tomorrow morning I'm going to try a RPM spin class at 5:25am, if that doesn't strip some fat off I don't know what will.

Wish me luck.

Kate