Good press!

My stupid doctor signed my form today. He looked in to it a bit and did some research, did my medical and it all went fine so he signed. Don't know why he had to make such a big deal of it all, but I've got my signature which will make Howard's Way happy, which means I get my food, which means I can carry on losing weight, which makes me happy!!!

I can't wait until I'm merely 'overweight.' May seem like an unusual stepping block for someone on a diet, but I figure that if I focus all my energies on simply getting down to overweight again I wont get scared. When I've dieted before (I started diets most Monday mornings and they were normally history by lunchtime) I've had a plan to get thin. And thin from obese is quite a long way so I've always given up.

So overweight may not be glamorous, and it may not be what the magazines are telling me I should strive to be, but it'd sure make me happy! My BMI is currently 36, down from 42, but it has to be under 30 before I'm out of the scary orange section on the chart and in to the slightly less scary orange. The Doctor's signed, and I'm on my way (from misery to happiness today)!!!

Bad press.

Weight: 13st 12!!!!!

Went to see my Doctor today. I have to do checkups quite frequently on this diet so they can make sure I'm getting enough of everything that I need, and that I'm healthy and happy. For some reason, he refused to sign my form which states that he's happy for me to continue with the diet. He said he didn't have time to spend with someone who was just losing weight, rather than someone who had a 'genuine health concern.' This is the same man whose immortal words "one cheeseburger away from a heart attack" started this whole damned thing!!!

I'm thinner than I've been in about 5 years, I've got bundles of energy, feel just dandy and was, until he said it, happier than I've been in longer than I can remember. So why wouldn't he just sign it?!?!

I don't know what the big issue is with VLCDs anyway. People who haven't seen me for a while say "you're looking great!," but the second I start telling them how quickly I've lost it, or how easy it's been, they suck in their cheeks, look concerned and tell me "it's not healthy to lose it that quick you know."

NEWSFLASH: It's not that healthy being 220lbs at 1.50m either!

It's like just because I've found it easier than chomping down on lettuce leaves for 3 years whilst saluting the sun and going on brisk walks every weekend, doesn't mean that I'm about to collapse of malnutrition! And now it appears that my Doctor is suffering from the same misconceptions, and wants me back to do further tests.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for checking that I'm healthy. That's why I chose the Howard's Way diet over any of the other VLCDs, because they put such emphasis on health, but if I don't get the form signed and handed back to them, they'll ween me off the food until my Doctor signs it, and the last thing I want right now (and I never thought I'd hear myself say this) is normal food! I almost wish Howard's Way and the Doctor cared just that little bit less, and would just let me decide what's good for me based on how I feel.

I know that there was a lot of bad press surrounding Very Low Calorie Diets back in the day before they were properly regulated, and I know that people are scared because of all of the laughable adverts you see for 'miracle diet pills,' (or, as I like to call them, 'idiot tax') but I just wish people would respect me enough to realise that I have researched this, I do understand what's happening in my body, and I can make up my own mind. Just because I'm fat does not mean I'm a dumbass.

Anyway. Rant over. I've given the Doc all of the Howard's Way information, which I've shown to other Doctors before and they've approved, so fingers crossed I wont be back on normal food any time soon, because I'm actually kind of starting to like the shakes. The butterscotch one is not so good, but the rest are bordering on yum.

A christmas conundrum

I wonder how many bloggers start off by thinking that they'll post every day. And I wonder how long each of them lasts at that.

I think there are good things and bad things about blogging. I love writing it, and I love getting the comments and supports from my fellow bloggers, but the one bad thing is that it does dramatically increase the amount of the day that I spend thinking about the diet and the food that I'm not eating.

Things have settled down in to a pretty good routine at the moment. I've got making and shaking the Total Food Replacements down to a fine art, and I do love not having to spend time thinking about what I'm going to eat when I get home from work. People at work have calmed down now that they've realised that I'm not going to explode/become thinner than them in a matter of weeks. My health is good, my energy levels are great, and the side effects I was experiencing (constipation, dry lips, coldness) have all but vanished.

Yet I can't shake a slight feeling of 'mergh' that I can't seem to describe with an other word.

I think it might be Christmas. I love Christmas, love the build up, love the day itself, love just thinking about it for months and months before hand.... and I honestly never thought before that any part of that love revolved around food, yet I find myself thinking longingly of all the foods that I wont be eating, all the selection boxes that will go unwrapped, and all the puddings that will not melt tantalizingly on my tastebuds.

What does that mean? That I'm so shallow and obsessed with food that the only enjoyment I get from the hi-light of the Christian calendar is cake??? That my love affair with Christmas is really an opportunity to gorge myself without anyone judging me?

Friends and family that I've explained this to, came up with the wonderful advice of simply 'saving' all of the good food until my diet ends 3 weeks after Christmas. Good to know that the art of completely missing the point is not dead! If I save myself a little hoard of cakes and chocolates and puddings ready to tuck into the second the 12 weeks is up, just how long will my new found figure and resolution last? But if I don't, do I really have the strength to miss out on the time of year that I spend at least 11 months looking forward to?

It's a conundrum alright, any tips from more experienced dieters?

The pupil becomes the master

Have been overtaken by an uncontrollable urge to dance today. All day long I've been pirouetting, moonwalking and making jazz hands at opportune moments and I have no idea why!

Normally this is the result of watching Dirty Dancing/High School Musical/Other classics of the genre, but today I have no idea- I'm just absurdly happy!

Spent the day at my Mums, which is always fun. She's thinking of doing this diet too, and I ALMOST found myself doing what other people have done to me; the old "oh you don't need to lose weight" because they're too uncomfortable around the subject to offer a real opinion. I stopped myself just in time, and told her all about it (technology and Mum don't go that well together, not sure she'd be ready for the idea of reading a website just yet).

So I spent the afternoon showing off my newly acquired knowledge about fatty acids and the difference between good carbohydrates and bad carbohydrates etc, feeling very superior. It was interesting for me, because if my Mum doesn't know this stuff, exactly where was I supposed to learn it from? I have no intention of turning in to some Jamie Oliver-esq hippie rushing around schools and pushing pamphlets about the power of wholegrain under people's noses, but I honestly didn't know this stuff! And if I didn't know it, no wonder I kept putting on pound after pound (although admittedly I did know that chocolate cake was bad and that didn't stop me much.)

Would I have become 6 stone overweight if I'd known all of the things I'm learning about now? Would I have paid attention if someone had tried to teach me before I had hit rock bottom? Who knows, and I'm not trying to pass the buck on to society/advertising/peer pressure or anything like that, but do you want to know what I learnt about in food technology at school?

We did one term making Christmas cakes, one term making soups, and one term making sandwiches. Seriously, I did a whole 12 weeks learning how to make sandwiches!! I honestly don't remember anyone mentioning that if I ate white bread instead of brown for the next 5 years I'd wind up on a Doctor's couch hearing the words "morbidly obese" followed by "severe coronary complications."

What have I become!!!

I have officially become a smug health freak. Not entirely sure how it happened, but slowly over the past three weeks I appear to have transformed in to one of the formerly despised 'health food shoppers' who walk around Sainsbury's looking in to other people's baskets and muttering about the effects of various food products on their insides.

I found myself in Tescos today with my big bro to get officially weighed (my scales are wonderfully encouraging, but perhaps not as accurate as they might be), and actually caught myself judging other people by what they had in their trolleys! I saw a woman with crisps and chocolate, and a bunch of screaming kids who were clearly not in need of any more sugar, and tutted something about blood sugar and glucose under my breath. Then I saw another woman with nothing but a watermelon in her basket, and found myself giving her an approving smile as I passed.

So it's happened. A little knowledge is clearly a dangerous thing in my case! Reading up on what is, and what isn't good to put in my body has become something of an addiction! I've spent a lot of the day on Wikipedia and reading my Howard's Way bumpf, and being completely overwhelmed and scared about the past 20 odd years of putting just about anything in my mouth, I think I'm finally starting to figure a few things out.

I heard of this great game the other day, which I thought we could all play to make the time pass. You have to pick less than 5 items from a supermarket, and you have to make the checkout girl gasp. Simple enough? My brother's girlfriend's sister came up with one, which I think is going to be just impossible to beat:

2 items: a pregnancy test and a pack of wire clothes hangers.

Bet she got some pretty darned weird looks!

So that's today's story. I have been freaking out checkout girls whilst slowly transforming in to the sort of person who brings their own supply of microbiotic foods to parties and wont let their kids eat anything except milk. Oh wait, that's Madonna.

Pros and Cons

NEGATIVES:

• Feeling much colder than I normally would. I was told this might happen, something to do with less excess energy for heat and less body fat than I'm used to. Find this interesting, does it mean that skinny midget girls are constantly cold? And if so, how on earth do they walk around with bare midrifts all year round?
• Keep getting pins and needles randomly. Bit weird, apparently it's because I'm still not drinking enough. Because all food contains some water, so you don't really realise how much you're taking in, and blood needs water to get round the body. So must do better there.
• Still have a slightly dry mouth, but think this is to do with the water thing again. I'm supposed to drink 5l a day but that's a LOT!!!

POSITIVES:

• Fit in to my size 20 jeans today, which I brought a year ago and never wore
• Also fit in to favourite top which have never actually worn and thought it would spend it's days lying in my wardrobe looking pretty but unatainable
• Bowels nice and regular, think we've definitely clearer up that little fiasco
• Lots of nice compliments from various people
• Compared photos of myself now and 3 weeks ago and my goodness but you can notice it!
• Learnt lots more about foods - apparently brown rice, bread and possibly sugar is much better for me than white rice, bread and possibly sugar (may have made up the sugar thing, I'll look it up at some point)
• Evil girls in office appear to be giving up
• Feeling much more confident at work, better able to voice opinion without assuming that everyone else is thinking "well what does she know, she's fat!"
• AM 14stone, 3pounds and 9 ounces!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP!
  

Temptation

14st 4lbs (v.g.), calories 450 (slightly repetitive there), Cravings denied 1,000 (v.g.), Cravings given into 0 (excellent!), Books read Moved on to Bridget Jones 2 now

Don't worry people, you can stop crying hysterically, I'm not dead! Nor have I fallen off the dieting bandwagon! I just went out and got me a life for a couple of days and I'm afraid to say blogging took a bit of a backseat for a while.

But don't worry, that madness has passed and I shall probably not do anything vaguely interesting for the next few weeks and will be able to write every day about the sheer mundaneness of life. Guess that's one of the problems with blogging - if I led a more interesting life worth talking about in great detail then I wouldn't have time to write about it. Bet Edmund Hillary doesn't keep a blog.

The last few days, I've had friends round, and I've been out with friends just like most crazy, 'mad fer it' 24 year olds. What struck me the most is how much of life revolves around food.

Most social activities include some sort of accompanying food. We went to see Bond (bloody awful) it was popcorn and ice cream. We went bowling, it was hotdogs. We went shopping, and 'popped in for a coffee and maybe just a little slice of cake.' We had a girls night in with a dvd, and of course, pizza was ordered. We played poker, and it was crisps and nibbles.

Now I wasn't hungry for most of this, and, like Howard's Way promised, by now I'm really not craving food in the same way as before. But it's very hard to break the habit of eating food that's in front of you - it's almost an unconscious thing.

These were great friends I was hanging out with, and not people who were deliberately putting temptation before me, but I couldn't help noticing just how much I must've eaten before!! When I used to 'record' the food I ate each day, I never would've thought to include the obscene amounts of 'nibbles' I ate, or little snacks used to 'keep me going' when shopping, or the bars of chocolate used to 'pick me up' when I was a bit down. Guess I'm finally learning what I actually need to survive, and what is excess!

These past few days would've been really hard for me, what with all the food under my nose the whole time. Of course my amazing friends offered to not get all of the junk food in, and of course I said that they should and it wouldn't be a problem, but it sure wasn't easy to keep having to stop myself as I leant forwards to grab some popcorn. Think I looked like I'd developed a twitch actually.

But I got through it, I live to diet another day! And at 14stone 4, I've seen enough results to keep me well and truly on the straight and narrow!

Christmas is coming, and Emma's getting thin!

I just had such an awful evening and morning, I shall tell you about it because I think it would make you laugh. Hopefully this will be something that I can laugh about too in a couple of Millennia.

I went shopping in Canary Wharf, I got home and found I'd been locked out! There's a yale lock and a chubb lock on the door, I don't use the chubb lock because it's old and very stiff, I can sometimes open it from the inside, but not from the outside. Anyway, my mate (who is staying with me) had locked the bottom door and after 10 mins, I still couldn't get in. So, I went next door and they tried the lock, and they couldn't open it, so I climbed over the wall into my back garden and hoped the kitchen door would open. It didn't.

So I called the landlord (who was in London) and he said, just to break in. So I looked at the glass and it looked back, and ya know, I always think of glass as being fragile, ephemeral stuff. So I hit it with a gardening fork. It didn't break. So I shouted at it and hit it again, no joy. It's bloody hard to nerve yourself up to an actual act of vandalism and then find it doesn't work. By the way, it's pouring down with rain the whole time. So I went and found a pick axe, which worked very well. It took quite a while, but I got there, unlocked the door, tracked glass through the house and went to bed.

I woke up this morning to find the BASTARD mate had 'tidied' the bathroom by removing all of my stuff, so no shower for me. I then found I couldn't unlock the door from the inside. I called the landlord and read a book. About 9-30 there was a knock at the door, so I went downstairs. It wasn't the landlord, it was the builder, waiting for his money. He talked to me through the letterbox for half an hour culminating in him proposing marriage and many small children, and me getting out of it as nicely as I could. Fortunately the landlord turned up, let me out and I got to work for 11.45.

sigh, at least I can still make the people at work laugh, it'd just be nice if I could get them to laugh with me instead of at me!!!

Me and the mastiff

Read a great post today from another guy on a liquid diet. He'd just passed the 250lbs mark, and was feeling justifiably proud of himself, and he chose to put this photo on his blog:

Why? Because the average black bear weighs 250kg apparently! So it got me thinking that I could rate my weekly success by which animal I weighed the same as (to be honest, much as I'm LOVING doing my little Excel graph which documents my weightloss (this is of course slightly unreliable now after the 'wrongly callibrated scales' debacle, which has RUINED my beautiful downwards curve!), and I thought that a beautiful chart which had a photo of a different animal each week would be something else that I could waste time on. (I lie, beautifully colour coded graphs are never a waste of time, just so long as the line goes downwards!)

Anyway, turns out it's harder than I expected to find out the average weight of animals. I google-d it, I wikipedia-ed it, I even encycolpedia-ed it, and all I got was a bunch of nutters worried that their poodle might be pregnant. But during my highly unsuccessful attempt to visualise my journey from hippo to ...hamster (alliteration won out over making sense there I'm afraid) I did find out some fascinating facts to share with you.

• An average African elephant will eat AT LEAST my weight everyday in food, and drink 113litres of water (I'm struggling to get through my required 4!)
• A mastiff (biiiiiig type of dog) averages 170-220 lbs. (That's the closest I could get to an animal that weighs the same as me.)
• Americans stop eating when they're full, whereas Europeans stop eating when they're no longer hungry. Big difference if you ask me, and it's the main thing I'm going to put in to practise when I'm back on regular food.

I went to the gym yesterday. Normally, when I was on diets before, I went first thing in the morning before anyone got there so that I could exercise without anyone worrying about the structural damage to the building. And although I've not lost a really noticeable amount yet, although I'm still obese, I didn't feel the need to hide today. I felt like people were staring at me, but somehow those glances and little smirks didn't seem the same today, they seemed positive, encouraging almost. I don't know if that's a difference in perception, or a difference in confidence, but I really noticed it today and I did the longest workout I've ever done because of it.

Maybe people just suddenly woke up nicer! Guess we'll wait to see the girls at work on Monday to find out how long it lasts!!!

yet another constipation based posting

Now I'm not normally the sort of person who rates their days based on the number of times they've managed to poo, but if I were, then today would have been a good day.

Three whole poos! I thought the constipation had gone a couple of days ago, but I was still having a few problems in that department, so my locum lady suggested a stronger laxative. And it worked wonders! Feeling more sprightly as a result - which is funny, because it wasn't like there was a lot there, but I feel much lighter now it's come out.

Bad news today. Turns out my scales are calibrated slightly wrongly, and have been giving me readings that were about 2lbs under what I actually am. I go to the gym or Tescos to get officially weighed once a week, so I've been thinking that on those days I just happen to be randomly putting on weight and the day after I'm doing well (yes, it did take me a whole 2 weeks to notice, please don't laugh!)

Anyway, I thought I was 14'8 when I woke up this morning, turns out I'm really 14'10. It's still good, it's still a stone lost, but there's still a long way to go before I'm going to be prancing around in a bikini.

Sketch show humour

Weight: 14stone 10lbs, alcohol units: 0, calories: 450 (v good), encounters with mean girls: 450 (conservative estimate), styles of writing copied from Bridget Jones: 1

Funniest thing ever happened today. I almost had to look around me to make sure I wasn't in a sketch show because it was so damned ridiculous!

I was talking to some girls at work, and they're both maybe a tad overweight but nothing to write home about. One of them offered me tea, and it's always a bit embarassing turning down tea because no one understands why I'm not allowed things like that (technically I am allowed tea, but no milk in it - yuck!). So I reminded her about the diet, and she apologised and said she was being inconsiderate. Then the other one, straight off, said "I'm getting a McDonalds later, bet you wish you could have one!" At which they both chuckled hysterically.

So I (after counting slowly to 10) said "I know this diet may seem a little extreme to you, but it's really working for me and hopefully in a few months time I"ll be thin."

Then they (and this is the funny part) said "OH. SO YOU'RE SAYING WE'RE FAT ARE YOU!?"

Self absorbed much?

It was only afterwards when I thought how WITTY it would have been to say "oh shove it up your bottoms you big stinky piles of horse manure" or something of that tone, but alas, I was still spluttering away to myself when they linked arms and marched away, noses in the air.

What I learnt today in class

Well today has been frightfully exciting. I have to do little tests once a week to make sure that I'm learning all of the things that I should be learning about what is going on inside my body and why it's reacting in certain ways to certain things.

So I thought I'd share all of this fascinating information with you, my loyal readers. Some of it may be completely obvious to you, but Biology was never my strong point, so bare with me and maybe we'll all learn something! I'm going to be tested on this tomorrow, so if I've got anything drastically wrong, hopefully some genius reader will spot it.

Normally, my body breaks down foods and converts carbohydrates in to brain sugar and blood sugar (also known as glucose). This provides me with the necessary energy to wobble to work and dance around with my hairbrush etc. When I eat more than necessary, the extra glucose is stored in the liver, but when the liver is full too, the excess is converted into a condensed form for storage, which is FAT.

So when losing weight, you have to use up first your energy supply, then the glucose stored in the liver, and finally you can make a dent in the fat. As the glucose stored in the liver is stored with about 4 times its weight in water, the first week of a diet involves lots of trips to the bathroom to get rid of the liver water (as the glucose stored there is being used to run the body) and that's why you lose a lot of weight in the first week!

Did I pass?!?!?

The Howard's Way formula contains about 450 calories for a girl (think boys get about 600), so by about day 3-4 all the liver glucose has been used up, and you burn the fat instead. This is why I spend my evenings peeing in bottles- because they monitor it to see if there is glycogen left, and if there isn't, it's called KETOSIS (which is a good thing).

So there you have it. I call it "Emma's Biology 101."

Speaking of which, why do people say that? 101 I mean, why does that mean a basic level of learning? Think it's an American thing, care to enlighten me?

Putting it back on

Since well before I started this diet, I've known that losing the weight is the easy part. The hard part is keeping it off for the rest of your life.

The way I feel at the moment, it's almost impossible to imagine that after 12 weeks of this diet, I'll EVER put myself in a position where I'm overweight, even less dangerously obese, again.
I'm feeling so strong right now, like nothing can stop me achieving this. And I know I've only been on the diet for a 10 days or so, and I know that it's easy in the beginning because the weight comes off so fast, but having been obese for so long, and feeling so wonderful now, I feel like every time I look at that second slice of chocolate cake in the future I'll remember and I'll have that incentive to stop myself.

Because it's all about incentive. I got fat when I was depressed, and I didn't think anyone cared about how I looked. Then, once I was fat, I had no incentive to stop eating, because what did it matter - I was already fat. And that's how I became obese.

I nowhere near where I want to be yet in terms of size or appearance, but the difference in how I feel when I walk in a room now, compared with just a fortnight ago is just breathtaking, and if that carries on, then nothing is ever going to bring me down again.

...except possibly the weather. That's a bit shite.

I put my new top on, and suddenly everything is fine :)

For those of you on tenterhooks, I did get in to that top that had been staring accusingly at me, and yes, I did to a little victory dance. Dance like no one is watching right! (unfortunately of course, someone was watching, and they may never let me forget it.)

Today was shit. And it should've been so good. I'm down to 14'9, which means that I've lost a stone already. I fit in to that top I've not worn since I brought it two years ago. My jeans need a belt. My boss said how good I was looking. For the first time since I honestly can't remember when, I looked in the mirror and didn't hate what I saw - do you have any idea what that can do for your self confidence!?!?

So I was practically soaring on my way to work this morning, my feet barely touched the ground, and I was singing my little heart out on the bus (note to self: other people can still hear you when you're wearing headphones!)

So, I hear you cry, what dampened this perfect mood? What cloud could possibly have blackened my mood on today of all days, when my arse is looking so excitingly like an arse rather than a marshmellow.

Can't you guess?

It was girls. Bloody shitty crappy snotty bitchy girls.

And I love them, hell, some of my best friends are girls. But god damn it, we can be bitchy when we want to!

Would any nice, normal, vaguely humane person, bring in a homemade chocolate cake and deliberately waft it under the nose of someone who is one week in to a serious diet, whilst constantly purring about how delicious and moist it happens to be, possibly the best chocolate cake in the world and don't worry because there's plenty for everyone? And when that plan spectacularly failed, would anyone who wasn't competing with Hitler, Stalin and Bush on the evil-o-meter then bring out a foil wrapped roast dinner to microwave and waft the smells about some more?

This is a girl who, until now, has never brought anything more interesting in to lunch than a mouldy sandwich. Suddenly she's turned in to Bree from Desperate Housewives!

I just wonder how long it'll go on for. SURELY she'll get bored eventually, and I know that I can outlast her. In fact, she's doing me a favour really - she's pissed me off now, and I'm bloody stubborn when I'm pissed off. Not one teeny tiny morsel, other than what Howard's Way tell me to eat, will touch my lips until a) I have reached my target weight, and b) I am skinnier than her (not that hard).

I don't mean to go on about why girls are evil to other girls on diets, and to be fair, there are some people at work who have been really great about it, asking me about how it's going and telling me I'm looking good (sometimes over the phone, which is a little suspicious, but every girl likes a compliment!).

Anyway, home now and about to tuck in to my favourite of the foods (chocolate milkshake) which I've been looking forward to all afternoon. I got a cereal bar today too- pineapple flavoured and delish! Think my taste buds might explode if I ever got hold of some actual calories!

Blogs

Also, I spent a lot of time today looking at blogs (in my spare time of course, I would certainly never consider wasting time while I'm at work looking at blogs on the computer when I could be doing so many more productive things like....)

It was really nice to be able to comment on some of the people's blogs that I've been reading for ages, when I was trying to get up the courage to start this diet and this blog. I think people on the internet can be a real inspiration to other people, even if they're a million miles away, because it's always nice to know that whatever you're going through, someone else has been there are felt that.

So thank you to everyone who inspired this diet, because I really feel that it's given me a massive boost already. I'm a stone lighter than I was a week ago and if I'd known it was this easy, I'd have done it years ago!

Opinions on surgery.

Read a great post today from "Tales of the morbidly obese". It's an old post, but will always be relevant I think.

"Sometimes I wonder about the people who stumble upon this blog from comments on other blogs or just from searches. Are they just disgusted like people are in the real world by morbidly obese people? Am I somehow even less since I used surgery to escape the prison of morbid obesity?

Just I am just starting to learn what it is like to travel in a regular size body. No one can know the cumulative effects of morbid obesity without having lived it. Every day is one indignity after another. While you are suffering through those, people expect a constantly sunny disposition. You feel beholden to give them the funny, smiling fatty persona they expect.

What about you? The ones who have stumbled on this blog. Look at my before pictures and tell what you would have thought of me seeing me on the street. How does your impression change by seeing recent pictures of me? Or does it? Is the fat lot cast?"

It makes me really regret my previous post about people who get surgery to 'release themselves from the prison of morbid obesity.' At the time (and this was only a week ago), it seemed like surgery was a cheat. That somehow, by paying rather than working for the weight loss, you somehow don't deserve it. It's taken me a week of drinking nothing but milkshakes to realise that being morbidly obese is payment in itself, and anything that you do to relieve yourself from that prison is a positive step, and one that everyone should respect.

Surgery is not for me, it's not something that I ever considered, but I would like to apologise to everyone who has 'gone under the knife,' because I realise that I've been trying to disassociate myself from you. In my arrogance, I've passed judgement on other people who have been through the social ostracism, taunts, and feelings of self disgust that have plagued me for most of my life, and I have labelled them cheats because they found a way out of it.

Do other people consider me a cheat because I've chosen the relatively easy weight loss plan of a Very Low Calorie Diet instead of stomach crunches every morning? Probably. This diet is the easiest thing I've ever done - I don't have to even think about cooking or washing up, and the weight is just falling off me. It's probably considerably easier than surgery, and involves considerably less risk, money and pain.

I watched Louis Theroux last night, doing a documentary on plastic surgery in which he actually wound up getting liposuction. It was amazing to see the confidence people gained from their surgery, and the happier they were in their lives afterwards. I'm still no fan of it, but who am I to deny other fat people their chance at a happy life where people don't stare at them as they walk down the street. From now, anything that makes someone happy is just fine by me.

Slightly bizarre side effects

Interesting side effect; my mouth is dry. Dunno why, as I'm drinking about 4litres of water a day. Anyone know why?

I could ask my locum lady, but don't want to bother her on a Sunday. They say they don't mind, but who wants to work on a Sunday! Frankly I'd rather not work any day!

Constipation update

I know that everyone is just dying to know the updated state of my bowels after Thursday's riveting post on the subject. How could I be so callous as to do a whole post without mentioning it!?!

Well, you'll be pleased to hear that I am no longer getting the tummy pains or making the embarrassing gurgling noises. I took a slightly stronger laxative that my locum recommended and believe that there is now officially nothing left to come out.

Let me hear you say wooooop!!!

I'm so happy today. I went to the gym and did a good workout, I am over the constipation debacle, I passed the test so I know everything there is to know about what's going on in my body, and I got through a shopping trip to Tescos without really desiring anything. Also, my pyjama bottoms fell off when I stood up this morning!!!

I brought a top ages ago that I really liked and then promptly put on about half a stone before I had the opportunity to wear it. It's been sitting in my wardrobe for months, staring at me accusingly every time I chose my trackybums. It even still has the price tag on it, but I couldn't stand to take it back and hear the shop assistant thinking "bit optimistic were we fatty?"

I shall try it on tomorrow, and if it fits I shall go and find that hypothetical shop assistant and I shall do a little dance infront of her, and then she'll be sorry! Then they'll all be sorry!!!

other people's reactions

Normally when I start a diet, I don't tell anyone.

It's not that I'm afraid of their reaction if I fail or anything logical like that, it's just that I find that people fall in to about 4 basic categories:

- Supportive. I can deal with these people, they're nice and leave me to get on with it while occasionally remarking how thin I'm looking

- Bemused. After the unbelievable frustrating chorus of "oh but you're fine the way you are!" (which traditionally leaves me unmotivated and with an overwhelming desire to scream "apart from the fact that I'm about 4lbs away from being Jabba the Hut!")

- Critical. Thought I was over-reacting to the bemused people? Try telling me that I'm dieting all wrong and should try cutting out all carbs and jogging 6 miles every morning if you want to see me turn slowly purple in an effort not to choke on my own bitter retorts.

- Destructive. These are the worst. They pretend to be your friend, and start of all supportive, whilst secretly plotting to undermine your willpower by 'rewarding' you for losing a pound with a large slab of chocolate cake that they cooked especially for you and will be soooo hurt if you don't just take a bite. There is no circle in hell deep enough for these people. Except the one populated by double-glazing sales people.

So that is a basic summary of why I don't tell people when I go on a diet, but unfortunately that means that there's not as much pressure to stay on the straight and narrow. This diet, I decided to tell everyone about. Mostly because it's quite hard to hide the fact that I'm only drinking milkshakes for 12 weeks, but more importantly, it's because I'm actually really proud of myself for deciding to do this diet.

This is not a fad diet, this is me changing my life around. I've done all the research to answer the critical people, I have more than enough bitter retorts in my armoury for the bemused people, and frankly I am quite prepared to bitch-slap the destructive people. So bring it on.