What Happened Next: 2023 Part 1

So the New Year came with lots of good intentions to start doing Slimming World again and to get back to walking.  It didn't exactly happen.  I saw an advert for Healthy Cornwall on facebook though, saying that those that lived in certain postcodes with a BMI above 30 could get a free trial for Slimming World.  I applied to Healthy Cornwall on behalf of both myself and my husband.  It took a few weeks to sort.

We unfortunately lost a close family member of my husband's in January 2023 after a short stay in hospital.  Not the best time for dieting.  It was still cold and wet and my husband was even less inclined to go out for walks with me at that time, he just had too much on.

By the time Healthy Cornwall contacted me, the funeral at least was over and we were both more than ready to get back on it.  We joined a group near us and it has been very good for me in so many ways.  I was quite happy to find I had not regained the weight I lost before Christmas and in fact had lost a few more pounds.   My husband wanted to lose a little weight but he didn't need to in the same way that I do.  It was always clear to me that he was there to support me first and any weight he lost was a bonus.  He absolutely knew that I would be too anxious to join a group and attend by myself.

The regular meeting though did begin to have a good affect on my mental health too.  It's a fairly low stakes social meeting.  It is managed and you don't have to sit and chat.  Getting to know people happened at a pace I was comfortable with.  Becoming part of a group of people socially was only a good thing.  This was, at that time, my only social event out the house.

We knew from attending before that staying to the main meeting was really important for us.  I think staying reinforces mentally that you are committed to losing weight.  The more messages you can send to your brain that you want to do this and need to do this, the better.  It didn't always feel comfortable in the beginning especially, but now, staying is not in dispute unless I am poorly or have somewhere else I really need to be.

I also knew from before that I really loved the Slimming World cookbooks, although I no longer had any from before.  I started to buy them over time.  Each week, I would plan our evenings meal, cooking enough for four so that we would have the leftovers for lunch the following day.  I find that if I don't want to become bored I need to be cooking and eating a wide variety of foods and I need to be really enjoying it.  At the beginning, most of the recipes were completely new each week.  I would put little sticky index notes in the books.  After I cooked the recipe I would add, a sad face, a neutral face, a smiley face or an extra smiley face to the index sticky.  Planning our meals really helped with shopping as we had a definite shopping list each week.

In the beginning we both used the app religiously to record our food to track our syns and healthy extras.  This worked so much better for my husband as he just isn't someone who would plan and look up in a book.  In the app you can scan barcodes to see the values and we found ourselves doing our weekly shop, phones in hand, scanning everything.  The app made it so much easier for my husband and with that and the group, his commitment didn't waiver as it had before Christmas.  Over time, we found our things to eat and settled in to a routine.  

My husband likes yogurt with fruit and there are so many great syn free or low syn yogurts now, often with added protein.  He started to get through a fortune in fresh fruit and flavoured yogurts each week though and eventually made the switch to buying more plain greek style yogurt and adding frozen fruit.  He would serve it up in advance and eat it once it was defrosted.

My crisps and chocolate were replaced with hi-fi bars and skinny whip bars.  We found some low syn chocolate and caramel mousses in Aldi that are lovely.  In the summer I eat ready made jelly which is low syn.  I also love meringue nests for that hit of real sugar.  Fizzy drinks changed into diet versions and squash switched to free alternative versions.  Sugar switched to sweetener.  Instead of frying with oil we would use a spray or even just water.

My anxiety was still a huge issue though and walking was not happening with any great frequency though I did start again in the March.  I only managed one walk in March but in April I was walking pretty much every other day.  I learnt to judge the weather in order to dodge the rain as best I could.  I used the weather forecasts made by the Kernow Weather Team and online weather radar to judge when my best chance of a dry walk was.  

To begin with, I would leave a few fresh items off the shopping list each week so that I would have to go the shops by myself during the week.  This is a pretty short walk of about 1km altogether.  Most of the way I am on my road and I could see my house and I knew people in some of the houses along the street.  When I left my street, I would be walking across a car park with security cameras and then in shops with staff and security.  It helped me feel safe enough to be out although it was very tough.  There would often be men drinking near the shops and I would feel very anxious.  

I did finally finish my Amalfi Coast challenge, just in time to start Easter Island at Easter.  I kept walking with most of my walks being less than 2km.  A couple of them were just under 3km for this challenge, towards the end.

I was absolutely using the things I had learnt from my first round of CBT and putting in to practice the techniques.  It was slow, but I was working through things.

I also had my first appointment with the Weight Management Service.  This was with a consultant and we talked about my health and issues with weight loss.  He went through what the service does as they offer more in depth support than you can get at a community level.  They give dietician and psychological support working towards bariatric surgery or weight loss drugs.  I don't want to use either but, I know I need to lose weight and until I am healthy, it is always a possibility.  The next step would be group dietician sessions.

The Consultant also asked me to have a full set of blood tests at my local GP Surgery.  I did this and they found that some things were a little high, but only in the way they would expect to see in someone of my weight.  They did find that I was deficient in Vitamin D though, so I added another line to my repeat prescription list.

So by the end of the first half of the year, things were in motion.  By the end of June I was down to 23 stone 1.5 pounds which altogether was a loss of around 3.5 stone.  I was working on my anxiety and fitness with walking.  I had group sessions with a dietician and a further round of CBT in my pipeline of support and continued to attend Slimming World.