Thinking Slimmer – 12 Week Review

WOW! It’s amazing how fast 12 weeks can go!

As most of you know, I embarked upon a 12 week programme with Thinking Slimmer with a healthy degree of skepticism. I wasn’t convinced that listening to a recorded voice was going to be able to change my attitude with food, never mind be able to help me lose the weight that I’d managed to pile back on over recent months.

So, judgement day has arrived. 12 weeks of listening to the Slimpod has come to an end. Has it changed the way I look at food now? – YES! Has it helped me lose weight? – YES! After 12 weeks I am 21lbs and 15 inches down from day 1. I no longer feel as though food is ruling my life. I am able to go food shopping and not just ignore the sweetie/chocolate/cake aisles, but I don’t even contemplate browsing them now. I am making healthier changes on a daily basis and feeling in general like a ‘normal’ person.

During these 12 weeks, there has been 2 birthdays and 1 rare night out without the kids. I have enjoyed a piece of cake on each occasion and a meal out, wthout feeling any guilt. It has been a breath of fresh air to not have to watch calories or count anything, to know that eating out is a part of life that can be enjoyed every now and again.

One of the positives for me has been the way the kids have seen my attitude to food change. They are eating healthier food every day now and are tending to reach for fruit rather than ask for crisps, simply because the bowl is always full and not going through various stages of decay. One thing I was always worried about was having my 2 girls start an unhealthy relationship with food because they had seen what Mummy was going through with all the can’t have this, can only have this much of that!

The main thing for me has been my issue of confidence and self like. It has been at rock bottom for many years, but since listening to the Slimpod, it has been gradually getting better and better to the point, where I’m looking at doing volunteer work, which is something I would never have considered in the past.

Overall, this has been a very rewarding and enlightening experience and I’m quite sad that the 12 weeks has come to an end. Will I continue to carry on using the Slimpod? Absolutely! I still have a way to go weight wise and I know that it will get me to where I want to be, gently and totally.

Thinking Slimmer – 4 week summary

So, as you know, I embarked upon the program with Thinking Slimmer with a healthy degree of skepticism. I have now completed 4 weeks and have come across an unexpected (but rather lovely) side effect!

So, what have I discovered?

1) Gradually over the course of the last few weeks, I have automatically started to make healthier choices. I haven’t bought any of my usual ‘rubbish’ crisps, cakes, biscuits etc. It’s not as though I’ve gone to the shops thinking that I won’t buy them, I just haven’t given them a conscious thought.

2) Usually when I tell myself I’m going on a ‘diet’ I am overcome with waves of unquenching hunger. This time, because I haven’t had to say it’s a diet, I’ve had no hunger pangs whatsoever. If I’m hungry, I eat and I stop when I’m full.

3) Holland and Barrett! Now this is a shop I usually avoid like the plague – it’s full of ‘healthy’ stuff that has always been forbidden on other plans. Things like nuts and seeds, dried fruits and other goodies. I now have a loyalty card – very bizarre!

4) I can have smoothies! I’ve never had smoothies, these are the work of the devil according to some plans and will eat up your daily allowance of whatever plan you are following. I have been out and bought a smoothie maker and enjoyed lovely fruity concoctions and can now get plenty of the 5 a day into my kids diets as they don’t care what’s in them as long as it’s a smoothie and looks cool.

5,6,7,8,9&10) The best bits – the ‘side effect’ I mentioned at the top. I have discovered self confidence. This is something that left me at the age of 16 after years of being bullied at school. I had no self confidence, self esteem that didn’t even register on the scale and a deep rooted hatred of myself. Over the last few weeks, I have gradually started to regain some of that, through listening to the Slimpod. I’m looking at life through normal eyes and realising that there is a life to be lived and I deserve to live it.

I am now 6″ smaller and 10.5lbs lighter than when I started and all this by eating normal, wholesome foods that are widely available to everyone. I haven’t once felt deprived and I’m enjoying eating things I never thought I would be able to eat.

I was asked to try the Slimpod, but all opinions expressed here are entirely my own.

Thinking Myself Slim?!

So as far as dieting goes, I’m a card carrying member of extreme dieters anonymous! No matter whether it’s a fasting, counting, souping, tabletting or eat it whilst standing on your head diet (and I think I’ve tried them all) they only ever end one way – in total abject failure. In my late teens (yes I’ve been dieting more than half of my life) I ordered tablets from a newspaper advert, filling in my details in miniature handwriting on a minuscule scrap of paper and handing over a cheque for an obscene amount of money for a 19 year old on a YTS placement. I lost lots of weight that time by being violently sick from whatever was in an obnoxious looking green torpedo that promised I would lose 2 stone in 2 weeks!

Oh I start with the enthusiasm and dedication that would make an Olympic athlete proud – nothing and I mean NOTHING will get in the way of my reaching target. My blinkers are on and I’m heading only in one direction.  Unfortunately, disillusionment often kicks in before I’ve got more than a few days in with some and a few months with others. Sometimes due to side effects that have been horrendously disabling, see obnoxious green torpedoes above and also  fat blocking tablets prescribed for me by my own GP! They are something I prefer to block out of my memory, as does my husband!! But more often than not, it’s due to the restrictions these diets place on you. No matter how much food these diets claim you can eat, there is always something that has to be measured/restricted/counted and no matter what it is, I want it – NOW – with a passion.

So begins the slippery slope to failure. It’s always going to happen. That item becomes your focus, that initial determination is now focused on any way to get that item. Mine has always been cake. It doesn’t matter what type, size or shape it is, if it has buttercream or marzipan on it, I want it. Which is why, unless someone invents an all you can eat cake diet, I’m always destined to fail. Or am I?

A few weeks ago I heard about the Slimpod from Thinking Slimmer and I thought what the heck, not tried this before, why not give it a go?  However  the more I read about it the more skeptical I became. The Slimpod is designed to help you lose weight WITHOUT dieting, now I don’t know about you, but as far as I’m concerned, the only way to lose weight is to diet. Despite the skepticism I decided to get involved, it suited me perfectly, as I could lie on the couch and listen to the podcast which was going to transform me by changing my conceptions of food and change the way I eat and think about food. So last Monday I downloaded the recording, and after Little Devil went to Nursery, I dutifully plugged in my headphones, lay down and listened to what can only be described and one of the warmest, calming voices I’d ever heard and I was quite disappointed when it came to an end and even more disappointed when I realised I couldn’t actually remember what had been said! I’d agreed to listen once a day for 12 weeks and decided it wouldn’t be too much of a hardship! As to whether it had worked straight away, well time would tell.

The following day I went shopping and before I knew it I’d piled fresh fruit into the trolley and skipped straight past my favourite aisle – the cakes. Now that didn’t just surprise me, it totally shocked Little D, who started crying and shouting Mummy you need cherry bakewells – eek, that’s bad for a 3 yer old isn’t it? But I didnt, and for the first time in months and months, not a single cake went in the trolley. All week, I’ve eaten what I wanted and stopped when I was full, I’ve made healthier food choices than I’ve made for years without being prompted and I’ve lost 3.5lbs and all without being on a ‘diet’.

For once, I’m listening to me, instead of nameless faces telling me what to do and do you know what? I rather like it. I’m looking forward to the week ahead – watch this space.

Another new weight loss attempt begins!

Well I haven’t made the greatest start at blogging I have to say. Absolutely full of great intentions and then the dreaded January sickness bugs hit the household. I don’t think I’ve ever gone through so much hand sanitsier in such a short space of time to avoid becoming another casualty in the house – but it worked! I’ve managed to avoid succumbing to it thank goodness. If there’s one thing I hate about winter it’s the bugs. I’m glad it’s a decent smell, as it’s now firmly stuck up my nose for the foreseeable future.

So with that behind us, I’m about to start my weight loss journey – AGAIN! I am, at the moment, a Slimming World consultant and believe in the plan 100% or I wouldn’t do what I do, but unfortunately, my willpower doesn’t have the same belief. I have therefore resorted to alternative methods to get my subconscious to come around to my way of thinking and I am embarking on a 12 week journey of self discovery with the Slimpod from http://www.thinkingslimmer.com/ to see whether the old brain can be reprogrammed to do what it’s told for a change, so watch this space. My aims are to naturally make healthier choices, to increase my activity levels and to drop a dress size or 3! Day 1 will start tomorrow so wish me luck.