It’s been 6 weeks today since I took my first jab. The time has gone really quickly. Things are starting to feel more normal now. I am less obsessed and enjoying the new feeling.
In total I have lost 1 stone 8.4 lb or 22.4 lbs. I thought it was time for a review of feelings, symptoms, and learnings.
The single biggest change is in my head. I don’t know how this drug has done this, but I no longer live with my focus and attention on food. I do not wake up on a Saturday morning and think that maybe tonight we should ‘treat’ ourselves to a takeaway. Neither do I wake up, remember that I am ‘on a diet’ so that having a takeaway is not allowed, not an option, so really there is nothing to look forward to today.
I do not even start each morning with a ‘clean slate’ feeling. I am aware that what I want to eat today does have some bearing on what I ate the day before. Previously I would always berate myself for whatever I ate the day before and it would form part of the ‘do I don’t I get on the scales’ calculation. But that was it. Then I would draw a line and today was a new day with 3 new opportunities to eat. I would never think that because I ate a lot yesterday, I probably would be less hungry today. But then food never really was about hunger. And now it is.
A couple of days last week I ate very little. And then on Wednesday felt quite hungry in the afternoon and ended up eating my dinner at 5pm. I didn’t eat anything after my meal, which is still totally weird, but true. Thursday morning I realised I fancied my smoothie a bit earlier than normal. I usually have it about 11am or so, but I was ready for it at 10am. I then realised that I had eaten my meal really early the day before so this made sense.
How ridiculous is it that, for the first time in my life, my feelings of hunger and desire to eat are actually based on when I last ate, how much I ate and how much activity I have done!
It is as though I have finally switched on the correct setting in my brain or my stomach that should have been active all my life.
I have been a mindset coach for about 20 years. I was utterly convinced that overeating was symptom of some psychological need, some replacement for love, comfort, warmth, security, something that meant that I was doing something wrong. Something that could be ‘fixed’ by coaching, meditation, positive thinking, goal setting. The problem, the error, was definitely in my own head. I was choosing to overeat. I was doing this to myself, and if I could only unlock the reason, learn the positive intention of my actions and make a change then the problem would be solved.
Having lived in this different version of my head for 6 weeks now I know that this is all wrong. That what overweight people have been saying for years is true. That there is a genetic element. That it is likely that if your parents and grandparents were overweight then the reason you are struggling is not just because you grew up in an environment of over feeding. But that you are likely to have the genetic and hormonal make up that makes you this way.
Over the years I have had many close friends who were very slim. People I have lived with and cooked and shopped and eaten meals together with. Friends who were size 6 or 8, and if they put on 4lbs their skirts would be tight. While I have been every size from 14 to 22. I would notice how they would be enthusiastic about a meal then stop eating halfway through it. How they would skip meals entirely. How they would eat half a chocolate bar and put the rest in the fridge. Only for me to come home from work and inhale it while thinking about what to cook for dinner. They seemed to have a totally different attitude and relationship to food. And now I feel as if I am approaching food in the same way that they did.
In the past week I have chosen to not eat my dinner because I didn’t fancy it. Then later on really want some marmite on toast. I would then notice that I had eaten about half of the 2 slices of toast I had made and put my plate to one side. I could not honestly tell you if I stopped eating it because I was too full, or I stopped enjoying it, all I know is I stopped.
I have eaten a meal that I didn’t really want at 3pm because I knew that I was going to aerobics at 7pm and that I would need some food inside me before I went and that I would not want to eat at 8.30pm when I got home. This has to be how I am supposed to think about and plan and eat food, isn’t it?
Oh, and as for symptoms. Nothing to report. I mentioned last week that I had a couple of days of feeling queasy, but that has gone away. I had a very normal bowel movement this morning, so that problem seems to have gone too. I am still taking Fibrogel but only every couple of days.
So that is my analysis of the impact of this drug. In my opinion it has activated something that should have already been working all my life. My ‘food intake’ switch has been turned to ‘normal mode’.
Have a Google of a book called The Last Diet by Shahroo Izadi