Where did I go wrong?

Good grief, it's been a really shit summer!

I came off my diet with a vengeance and put back on 2 stone. I'm incredibly jealous of a good friend because she managed to stick to her plan and has now lost 92 lbs. 92 lbs is barely a dent in what I need to lose overall but I didn't even manage that before I tripped myself over and managed to grab failure with both hands.

I think I'm back on plan. Today is day seven. But yet, once again, things with the youngest daughter are getting into my head and taking precedence. We found out that she hasn't completed work from her previous year of school and is going to fail at least one of her subjects. That doesn't even take into account the rest of her school report. The only thing she is passing is P.E.

So we're spending our evenings basically standing over her whilst she completes the components needed. And we get no thanks, no appreciation - in fact, we get resentful and attitude. And all of that makes me want to have MacDonalds on speed dial.

I attended some counselling over the summer. But it turned into yet one more thing that I was putting a face on for - trying to pretend I was more together than I actually was. So I stopped that. Family Support has turned out to be a bit of a bust for us. The focus is on the youngest, which means that it's all about how we can make her do the things she's supposed to do. Everyone involved bends over backwards trying to find ways to make her understand how important all of this is regarding school work and life, and she nods and smiles, or cries, apologises and says she is going to change. Then leaves the room and completely forgets everything she said.

It's so completely frustrating and I make myself even madder because then I spend time trying to figure out where I went wrong. My older two kids are great. I mean, okay the eldest is part of a church that sometimes seems almost cult like. And my middle daughter has taken over far too much responsibility including being my carer, some finance of the house, the pets, the youngest. It's not fair and I know it adds to her stress and anxiety and I wish I could do something about it.

But none of that explains why the youngest acts the way she does. Why she doesn't expect a single, solitary thing from her Dad but expects that me and her sister will do absolutely everything for her, put up with all of this, and do it with a smile on our faces and a song in our hearts. I spend so much time feeling like I could scream that my chest hurts.

Everything hurts. And sometimes I wish it would all just go away.

This is NOT a diet blog....

....and I have no intention of it turning into one. But I don't actually do much - as you may have gathered by now - so it makes sense that I let you know what I've actually been doing since 31st December 2018.

Many, many years ago, I lost nearly 7 stone following a VLCD called the Cambridge Diet. For all sorts of reasons - including an ex who hated me losing weight because it made insecurities pop out of the woodwork - I never actually reached my goal.

Anyway, I started seriously following my version of a VLCD at the end of December. It has had to be my version because I can't afford to follow one with a Counsellor, and Lighterlife is expensive AF if you go through the programme. So I've been buying my stuff from Exante, Superdrug who do Lighterlife Fast and Slim'n'Save.

My first week I lost 35lbs. No, your eyes are not deceiving you - I lost 35lbs in the first week. Complete food replacement, three products a day. The ONLY reason I lost that much weight is that I am a complete and utter camel and hold onto water like there's a drought planned. That, and I have (had) over 250lbs to lose. So that was an incentive to keep going.

It hasn't been easy. Obviously Da Boss and Monster-teen have to eat. And there have been times when I have wanted to rip the food out of their hands and shove it down my throat so that I looked like a snake with undigested food shapes sticking out! But on the whole, I have managed to stick with it. Periodically I have needed vegetables because on a VLCD, you don't *ahem* create a lot of waste. So sometimes constipation can be a problem. Having the odd meal of meat/veg gave my body something to gather up and expel.

Then I have had some problems with the ready-to-drink shakes. I have no idea why - as far as I'm aware, I don't have any sort of dairy intolerance. But every time I had one of the ready to drink shakes, I had a MAJOR explosion in the bathroom. Like, OMG, I need a hazmat suit and a CDC team to deal with this. Fortunately, I have finished nearly all of the RTD shakes so that shouldn't happen any more.

Last week was week 8. Monster-teen went to visit her dad. And I went down with the mother of all viruses, including a hacking cough that made me think my eyeballs were going to explode out of my head, and my brain was shaking in my skull. Everything hurt like you wouldn't believe. So I ate. All week. Mostly one meal a day - pizza one day, tagliatelli another day, MacDonalds one day. I planned a couple of times to get back on track and then wanted food - it was very Arianna Grande: I see it, I like it, I want it, I get it. (Apart from the complete fail by UberEats that we won't discuss but that almost made me cry!) I haven't managed to kick this virus completely - still coughing a lot, headaches are still bad. But better than I was.

 But today, my order arrived from Slim'n'Save, and I'm back on just the packs. I weighed in and have been fortunate enough to only put on 1lb which is a complete miracle if I'm gonna be honest.

My knees are bad again - I think it might be time for another steroid injection. I'm not looking forward to the actual injection but by God, I'm looking forward to the relief.

I've now lost 53lbs in 8 weeks. I'm very proud but also completely terrified. I haven't been this successful on a diet in years. Quite possibly a decade. I can't actually see much difference in myself. But yeah, it's been messing with my head just a bit.

So that's me. I'm trying to keep track of things on Instagram Chutney Spires which is a daily log of what I'm eating and how I'm doing. And I'm kinda hoping to use this place for the headstuff. But it's definitely not gonna be a diet blog.

Oh yeah. I missed my MRI because of the virus but it's been rescheduled for March so that's happening. I don't know why, but I'm scared they're going to say they can't see anything wrong. Like somehow, the MRI isn't going to see the arthritis etc and they're going to label me a fraud. Does anyone else ever have that stuff go on in their head?

Happy New Year!

Don't act all surprised that we're well into the second week of January before I'm writing that!

Okay, how do I catch you up? No shock to anyone, I was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes back in September. Just over the edge of, but enough to kick me into the next level of medical attention. That means Dietician, eye checks, foot checks, you name it, they want to suddenly check it because I've gone from level 44 to 48.

The Dietician - I am not really a violent person, despite what this blog might have you believe. But I wanted to kill her. At our Doctor's surgery, they know I use a wheelchair. So imagine our surprise when the appointment with the Dietician was upstairs. Through two heavy fire doors to get to the minuscule lift, then out of the lift we were basically re-enacting the 'Friends' "PIVOT" scene in order to get round the corner to go through two more fire doors to get into her office. Where I promptly fainted - exertion, stress, whatever.

She did everything but flap her hands and go 'oh dear, oh dear'. Then she asked us why we were there. Once we explained that we had been sent following a diabetes diagnosis, she proceeded to give us (no word of a lie) two print outs of diets you can find for yourself on the internet, which just so happen to contradict each other on the advice they give you. When it came time to weigh me, she had to go and find some scales which were dead (needed new batteries that she didn't have any spares of) and her manual scales showed me as 20kg heavier than the ones in the Dr's office had less than two months previously.

She knew nothing about VLCD diet plans - I had to find the products I've been using on her website for her to have a read - and she said she couldn't give advice on them as she didn't know about them. Obviously she can't know about every single diet out there - I wouldn't expect her to - but considering the Government are considering funding people who have Type 2 Diabetes to follow them in an official capacity, you would think she would have at least heard of the plans.She then said I needed to be booked in for bloods before we could talk any further - which seemed fair enough. I stated that any future appointments would need to be in a downstairs room to which she replied 'well she can't promise that' (like, WTAF, does she seriously expect me to go through this every time I have to see her?!) so I said well if it's not downstairs then I won't see her again. She kinda looked relieved!

Booked ourselves in for bloods. Letters received giving me dates for my Diabetes review, telling me where I can go for appropriate eye tests, etc. Need to have recent blood test results from no more than three weeks (I believe) in the past. Well that doesn't gel with the blood tests the dietician has booked us in for. Umpteen phone calls later, it turns out that no one at the surgery has any idea what tests she has booked me in for, they make no sense to the blood team, the receptionists, none of them. But they don't want to cancel them in case she has a reason for it. I swear, I thought I had boiled my brain, the sheer amount of steam coming out of my ears following these conversations.

Anyway, had my Diabetes review this week. Because of Christmas, my numbers had gone up a little BUT they are still in the green so Diabetes nurse is happy with me and wants me to keep going on the weight loss front. Giggled my way through the foot check (very nice man put up with me snorting, giggling and hiding in Stripes' teeshirt to muffle my sounds) and that was quite possibly the nicest trip to the Dr's we've had in years!

Hmmm, this is gargantuan as it is, and I haven't filled you in on LM yet. I shall write more once I've recovered! If you made it to the end, well done you! 

Keto not working or me not working Keto?

You didn't really think I was going to be able to blog constantly did you? I did think about it, but I went down with a cold and a severe case of sloth-city, and therefore no blogging.

I had my CPAP review at the beginning of March.  Good news? I used to stop breathing 89 times per hour when sleeping. Yeah, you read that right - 89 times per hour 😨😨😨 Now, its more like 4 - 5 times per hour (anything less than 5 is considered normal). They want me to get a better sleep pattern but are happy with my progress and my appointments are now patient led - basically, they don't call me, I call them if I need anything. 

Bad news? I got on their scales expecting to see a drop. The last time I was weighed there, I was 182 kgs - that was in March 2017. When I started keto, I was around the same (so I  believed). This time their scales said 191 kgs (including my boots - that's important, honest). So I had put on nearly 10 kgs in a year. I was horrified. Terrified. Sad af. Poor Stripes had to comfort me whilst the nurse I was seeing tried to figure out how to make me feel better (it could be worse, you know now so you can do something about it, etc etc).

We left the appointment and I had to put a smile on my face as Lil Monster was with us, as well as a friend, and we were off to see Black Panther (go see it - life-changing, Wakanda Forever). Loved the movie - had a great time - got home and basically curled up in bed and sobbed like a child. I think I actually cried myself to sleep, that's how sad I was feeling.

I've been following keto since the beginning of January. I think I've had a couple of slips - (I attacked Stripes for a chocolate digestive last week, it wasn't pretty but it tasted lovely) - and I had some baileys in my hot chocolate one night last week. But apart from that, I've been a good girl. No bread, potatoes, pasta, rice since the beginning of January. Spinach is my vegetable of choice. Water. Atkins bars.

Now it could be the Atkins bars - one per day as a treat since I gave up cream cheese cheesecake as I was close to over-dosing on it and I found it too moreish. They fitted into my macros - I was watching YouTube videos and joining keto groups on facebook and reading feverishly to see what I could do to make things work better. But the scales don't agree.

I've weighed myself twice since that CPAP review, and each time I've put weight on. We're not even sure it's physically possible and are seriously considering that the scales might say they can weigh that high, but they can't cope. But I don't feel  smaller, don't look smaller, my clothes don't fit better.

So it looks like keto isn't working for me. Or maybe I'm not doing keto the right way. Either way, it's been two months and I've seen zero weight loss.  So time for a change.

Stripes and I had a chat and I've decided to give VLCD another try. I was successful on the Cambridge Diet about 14 years ago - lost 100 lbs - but life got in the way in the form of my unsupportive spouse, financial devastation, physical problems - and the weight crept back on.

I've been watching YouTube videos to see people's experiences - to see if things have changed; and I've been surfing the internet to find the cheapest  way to follow the plan. I've found a deal on Exante products, so have ordered 25 days worth of products and once they arrive, I will slide from keto into meal replacements. I want to stick to it for at least one month - if it's working, maybe I'll just keep going.

Terrified in case it doesn't work - haven't heard anything back from the Dr's surgery or the weight loss clinic. Terrified in case it does work - it was a mind-f*ck losing all that weight all those years ago. And maybe, tentatively hopeful?

Maybe you'll hear more from me as I go through this. No promises though.