Resolution for you to make for yourself

Have you made any New Year's Resolutions yet?

I'm not trying to put you off but if you do intend to lose weight you will need to acknowledge that the effort will come from you. I recommend the Dukan Diet and as I have said previously, it is remarkably easy to follow and is effective. It nevertheless requires some commitment.

A word about Willpower

            I considered the language of fat earlier. I explained why I avoid the word obese, how I believe it is part of the reason why so many people resign themselves to staying overweight or expect solutions to their body fat to come from health systems or social services. It is always reassuring to be able to put the blame somewhere else and reassure yourself that any bad outcome is not your fault.

            There are certainly medical conditions which can cause weight gain. There are also some drugs that have a side effect of causing weight to rise. I am not a doctor and I would recommend that if you have any reason to believe that you are over your desired weight because of a health issue, or due to the side-effect of a medication, then you should speak to your doctor and have your concerns thoroughly investigated.

            It is a good idea to see your doctor when considering losing a lot of weight in case there may be unforeseen issues with major changes in diet. I suspect that your doctor will be enthusiastic that you have decided to tackle your weight problem. Mine was. The long term advantages of maintaining a healthy body weight will be more important than other health concerns and in the longer run will make you healthier and fitter than you are as a fat person.

            The most likely reason that you  became fat is that you ate more than you needed. To change this you will need to eat less than you need so that your body will draw on those excess fat reserves to make up the difference. This is something you will have to do. You may need support. If you do not live entirely in isolation, you will have people around you who will encourage you. I will discuss support later on. You need to understand that other people can support you, but it will be you that has to make the effort to shed the extra pounds, kilos, stones or whatever other units you choose to use to measure your body weight.

            In order to commit to making the changes in your diet, and ultimately in your life to slim down and stay slim, you need to recognise that you have become fat by eating too much. 

Overeating could have become ingrained during your childhood when your parents were in charge of your eating. I told you earlier I am forty-seven years old. I was born in the early sixties. My parents were young children during the war, who lived with rationing until their late teens. My grandparents came from working class families who knew genuine hardship the like of which I find hard to even imagine. They lived through the early part of the twentieth century, knew what it was like to live at near subsistence level and survived through periods when the main breadwinner of the family had no work and there was no money coming in.

The working class has been the biggest group of society ever since Britain and the developed world industrialised and the bulk of the population moved off the land. The growth of the service sector has changed definitions of working class – in my mind at least – and rising general wealth means that the distinctions are less important now. Nevertheless the majority of people in the developed world, whatever social class they may see themselves in today, are descended from the working classes of the last century. My family experience is therefore common and people of my generation will have parents and grandparents of similar ages to mine who lived through the same things. This shaped attitudes to food.

As we moved into the second half of the twentieth century, food scarcity changed to abundance. Nevertheless, parents and grandparents who had been brought up never daring to waste a scrap, encouraged the youngsters of my generation to clear their plates, to eat all the main course or not get any pudding. At the same time they were very pleased they could easily afford to keep the biscuit barrel full and enjoyed watching the young children eat half a dozen chocolate treats instead of just one. This represented progress. The table was always fully stocked for Sunday tea.

All of this came about at the same time as industrial and economic progress filled our homes with labour-saving appliances and the physical effort of our grandparents’ youth was replaced by easier, warmer, safer lifestyles. Our lifestyles required less energy.

I started this section discussing taking responsibility. I am not blaming my family for this culture. It is all part of the background in which I and many others grew up. If you have approached the raising of your family in a similar way then you will need to think about all this as you take on your weight problem. Do you become uneasy if your own children do not clear their plates? Do you eat whatever they leave? Do you take second portions? Are you guilty of taking the last slice of cake, even if you are already full, rather than letting it go to waste? If you have answered yes to these questions or any similar versions, then you will need to change.

Successful weight loss requires will power and staying slim means changing the habits that have become ingrained over a lifetime. It is not that difficult. You need to think about what is on your plate and not what is on the table in front of your wife or husband. You need to leave your children to eat what they want. (As a parent, you need to make sure they eat properly and with young children this can be about finding ways to encourage them to eat a balanced range of foods that they may not always find appealing. Do not force them to over eat.)

I recommend you take these decisions in stages.

·        Acknowledge that you are responsible for your weight

·        Decide what you want to achieve

·        Decide how you will achieve this

·        Stick to your plan

·        Find the help you will need to do this

Along with this you need to take note of the opposites. 

·         No-one else is responsible for the weight I gained

·         No-one else can decide what I need to do

·         No-one else can make me lose weight if I don’t want to

·         I may need encouragement and help, but my own willpower is the most important

Listing the decisions like this can sound daunting but it will encourage you to achieve your objective. Do not be put off by this. Consider other achievements in your life. What have you already done? Maybe you have learnt a foreign language, or studied for a qualification. How did you get your job, or your promotion? Have you already overcome something very difficult? Did you give up smoking? Did you recover from a divorce or from bereavement? All of these things are difficult and challenging. You may have had support to do this, but ultimately you had to make an effort in yourself to achieve the goal.

Life is about change. It is not usually easy to change things or to live with changes but the fact is nothing stays the same. If you go back over your life, you will see there have been all kinds of changes. You moved from education into work, perhaps from being single into a relationship, even marriage. Statistically a reasonable number of those who married have divorced and remarried. Unfortunately there will be those who have lost a loved one and have had to recover from that. You may have had children, who have gone through the same phases. You may have changed jobs or been promoted. Even if you have not, it is likely your working life has changed and you job has adapted as the economy has moved on. You could have moved house.

These things are all changes which you have gone through. You may have led change, developed it, brought it about. You may have had to cope with change brought to your life by others. You could have seen those changes as positive, but it is very likely you were apprehensive at first. Change brings stress and uncertainty and forces us out of ways of living which are known and comfortable and into the unknown.

If you have gone through change in the workplace it is likely you have been through change training, either as a manager or as an employee. There has been considerable study of how to lead an organisation through changes and restructuring to keep the business running smoothly and the employees reassured and ideally positive about the adaptations they are having to bring to their work. It is a pity that we do not always have the chance to consider change management when we decide to start a family or move house because we will be subjected to the same stresses that our employers accept they need to manage.

            Go back over those changes, and identify those that had the most positive outcomes. Think about how you took on the challenges and how you adapted to the change in your life. Losing weight will be one of the better ones. You will see later on my account of my experiences of life at the correct weight. It is harder to think about it than it is to actually do it. Once you embark on the diet you will find it easy to stick to the plan. The biggest motivation is the steady loss of weight you will see on the scales as you check your progress. It's a new year - a new decade - what better time to make a big positive change? No one can do this for you.

Appreciating what have I achieved

Every now and again something happens which brings home the magnitude of what I achieved when I lost weight.

We're back in our UK home for Christmas and New Year, so I try to get a few jobs done around the house. We ordered some mirrors and when they were delivered they have sat in their boxes waiting. We decided they should be put up.

The mirrors are from Laura Ashley and are known as Beth in their catalogue. Very elegant, ornate frames and very heavy. I had to ask my son to help me manhandle them to line them up on the wall and work out where to put the mounts. They really were difficult to carry on my own.

I checked on the packaging and the net weight of the mirrors was 18kg. That's how much weight I lost.

The shape of the mirrors doesn't make them easy to move about but when I think that I was lugging that much excess baggage around everywhere I went before it is no wonder I feel so much better today. 

New Year New Start

Happy New Year!

How many times have you made a resolution and not kept to it? Here is a real opportunity in 2011 for you. As I will start recounting my experience on the Dukan diet, why not start your diet journey yourself? A lot of those resolutions involve improving ourselves. Stop smoking, stop or cut down drinking, lose weight. All these things are positive steps to take. I'll just concentrate on the one which is most relevant to this blog. If you think you should lose weight, you probably should. We often find that coming off the end of the holidays, our weight is higher than ever, which makes us determined. 

I mentioned in earlier posts the incredible calorie consumption attributed to Brits on Christmas Day. Those in the US started the season earlier with Thanksgiving. I've seen the delicious spreads Americans enjoy at their unique celebration. I've never taken part, but I have watched cookery shows and seen enough US television to get a good idea. All over the world, there are important celebrations at this season, whether for religious reasons, or to mark the end of the calendar year. The common theme is indulgence and this is important and always has been. In the northern temperate regions we needed to eat well when the climate was harshest and food sources were at their lowest. We have a common human heritage of eating communally at the important moments of our lives or our beliefs and history. Now that in the developed world we eat well all the time, this indulgence has other consequences.

We make our resolutions to start the year and it is a good time to start losing weight. If you see merit in the Dukan diet - and I will spell out the benefits I found in this plan - then now is a very good time to start. 



I just checked my diary. Easter is in late April this year. Good Friday is the 22nd. For readers who are not so attached to the Western festivals, my apologies. Unless you have a birthday or a wedding anniversary in between, there are no excuses in the calendar to throw you off course. Good Friday is 112 days away. I lost the weight I wanted to lose in 76 days. That was, to save you reviewing the older posts, 19kg or 40lbs or three stone (all rounded off, but you get the idea).

Take advantage of the season. If you get to Easter and you aren't at the target, that will be the time to think that there will be another Easter in 2012 and you will be able to enjoy that one guilt free if you don't go off plan in 2011!

I'll be posting again later today. In the mean time, I wish you all a wonderful 2011. I hope it brings you whatever you wish for.

The good and bad of statistics

I read the Independent yesterday. There was an article by Stephen King about a statistical report (A century of Change: Trends in UK Statistics since 1900) which had been published in 1999, but was overlooked at the time. Stephen King writes in the business pages. His main theme was that while we nostalgically imagine times were better in the past, the statistics prove otherwise. He refers to life expectancy and income figures. 


I was intrigued because the details bore out an earlier post of mine about the origins of excess weight in our society. ("Why do we get fat?" posted on 20 December). Here were the statistics about our improved wealth and more sedentary lives.

Stephen King only quoted extracts from the report. The important details for my point are that at the turn of the century there were still two million people employed on the land as well as two million in domestic service in the United Kingdom. Both these lines of work involved hard physical labour. Nowadays there are very few people in these professions - and those that are benefit from our modern labour-saving equipment. Far more people are engaged in service industries - not domestic service, but estate agents, insurance industry work etc. The kind of jobs which can be performed sitting down at a computer terminal or on the phone. 

Income figures are revealing, too. In 1900 per capita income (adjusted for inflation and so forth to modern equivalent values) was just £3,500 a year. By 1950 it had only reached about £5,000. It has been during the past fifty years that we have become so well off. There was a 191% increase in the next fifty years. 

All that wealth, combined with easier lives, less physical effort at work and at home, and easy access to processed foods have had many good effects on our general health and longevity. Unfortunately they have also had the side effect of increasing the rate of obesity or rather the number of people who weigh far more than they should. The danger is that an increasingly fat and inactive population might start to see life expectancy rates dropping again. 

I don't want to be a scaremonger, but is this the time to consider whether you need to take action to deal with a weight problem?  

My Dukan Attack Phase

I don't know if any of you chose to follow the Dukan Diet, but I can only recommend it. I will be posting over the next few days and possibly longer about my experience of the diet. This may help you decide whether this is something you want to do.

The diet plan is divided into stages and the first stage is called the Attack. It's intended as a short sharp shock to your system to get weightless going. It also gives you a boost because in those first few days you can lose quite a bit effortlessly. 

I lost 1.6kg in three days. That's three and a half pounds. 

The idea is that you go onto an exclusively lean protein diet. I say exclusively, during this phase you must also eat one and a half tablespoons of oat bran a day. The oat bran is crucial and a welcome break from the mainly meat and fish diet. 

On each of those days I made myself a "Dukan Galette", the recipe is in his book. It's a tasty savoury pancake based on oat bran. I had it with a slice of lean ham as my breakfast. I had some cold chicken breast or a tuna salad (no vegetables, other than a few bits of onion and herbs to season the tuna and some fat free fromage frais) as lunch, with a couple of hard-boiled eggs. Dinner was either a steak, or roast chicken, or lean beef burgers. My wife also made me a veal casserole.

The great thing is that there are no restrictions on the amount of food you can eat. You are just limited by the type of food as I have explained in previous posts. You eat until you are full. It is best to season your food and add as many herbs or other flavourings as you like to make it as interesting as possible to eat. You must enjoy your food. 

I drank a lot of water and weighed myself every day. I watched the weight fall off me.

The trick is that the protein only diet is very satisfying, while not providing enough calories for your daily needs. Your body will draw on its energy savings bank: your fat. The protein only diet triggers a process known as ketosis, which encourages your body to rely on its own fat stores for energy. 

So in brief, by limiting my nutrition in this way I was always satisfied by my meals, always felt full. I never felt hungry and did not crave the carbs I was denying myself. This got me off to the best start I could to losing the weight I had to lose. 

Diet stocktake after Christmas

It's the 28th December. A bank holiday in England because Christmas fell at the weekend. We don't get as many holidays as our European neighbours, but we never lose them if they fall on the Weekend... So the holiday isn't over. I was away at Christmas and enjoyed the hospitality and the delicious and abundant cooking of my sister-in-law. I decided Christmas day would be the day I had my "Celebration Meal" this week - not unreasonable! Boxing Day I was more prudent, but indulged a little more than the Dukan Diet's Consolidation Phase would normally permit. I have been a little flexible throughout this phase and I am now in week eleven. I reach the halfway stage next week, when I am allowed some more indulgence. 

I couldn't weigh myself at my brother's. This morning was the first time I was able to check my weight since Christmas morning before we left. That morning I was 76.3kg. This morning 76.8kg. I'm quite pleased with this because my weight range since I reached target has been wider than this. I have found myself a little heavier on certain mornings without the Christmas temptations. 

Is this proof? I have enjoyed my Christmas and eaten well. I certainly didn't consume the excess that is apparently the choice of an average Briton: whether it's 6,000 or 9,000 calories or somewhere in between, it's to much! I did however eat more than usual. I have maintained control without depriving myself at all. The plan works.

Next I have to get past the New Year.

The longer I go staying withing the range I have set myself, the more confident and the happier I feel.

Merry Christmas, readers!  

A final post before the holiday

Christmas is coming - the goose is getting fat. 

First of all, if it's goose for dinner he's not getting fat any more! He'll already be hanging! Secondly, if you are still in phases 1-3 of the Dukan Diet, you won't be having goose any time soon. (Unless it's a Stage three Celebration Meal).

Goose and Duck are no-nos. This rich fatty meat is not a good enough source of lean protein for the Dukan Diet. Relax, if you're planning to have turkey. The traditional bird for the season is fine. 

The average Briton apparently consumes some 6,000 calories at Christmas. I mistakenly put this at 9,000 on an earlier post. Pretty much three days' worth of calories in one. Is that really possible? Don't forget that this is apparently the average. That must mean there will be a good number of people staying sensible and a similar number passing the 6,000 mark by mid-morning. That is a sobering thought. A statistical fact however. Whenever statistical reports tell you what an average person in our population does, this does not mean a typical person. In many samples no individual needs to comply with the type describes as average. The average is a mathematical calculation, identifying all the variables and working out what would be the, well, the average. It's not the same as the mid point, although that is close. The median is simply the middle point in a range, the average is the middle value. If calorie consumption were evenly distributed across a whole range, then the mid point and the average would be the same. This would effectively mean there would be as many people consuming fewer calories and an equal number eating far more. If the spread is less even, and there are a low number going absolutely mad and eating 10,000 calories on the big day, then the average could still be higher than the majority of the sample. Unfortunately, I expect there is a fairly even spread and the 6,000 is relatively typical of the mid range point. 

We all think of the turkey and the sprouts, but they aren't the source of those calories. If you start with a slice of melon, it won't be that either. The villains of the Christmas meal table will be the potatoes, the parsnips, the Yorkshire Pudding, the gravy, the Christmas Pudding, the cream, brandy butter and custard and also everything you eat and drink in between in during the day. 

How many Quality Street tins do you have? How many boxes of chocolates? Do you have nuts - especially those chocolate brazils? Mince pies? Christmas cake later on? 

How much will you drink to wash it down?

Please, enjoy your Christmas holiday. Eat whatever you want. If you are dieting, well please try to stay focused. If you recently completed a diet, think about what you went through to get where you are. 

Please, whatever else you do, please think about what you will do after Christmas to get yourself back into shape. I'm not talking about some vague New Year's resolution. I'm talking about action. follow my blog and find out in 2011 what I'm talking about.