Gingerjo’s Blog

I’m not a huge one for cravings. I sometimes get an overwhelming urge to eat tinned mackerel, but I think that might be my body telling me it needs some essential fatty acids. I don’t think it’s quite the same as craving chocolate really.

Anyway, last night Paul McKenna was telling us how to beat cravings by conditioning our minds (a bit like Pavlov and his dogs, but much less drastic). It has two stages.

First off you have to set up a way of inducing revulsion at the object of your cravings. Press your thumb and middle finger together on your LEFT hand and then imagine a food that you hate (eg anchovies, sprouts) and imagine a plate of them and that you take a fork, put some in your mouth and start chewing. Then add something really gross to the mix like hair off a barber’s shop floor or worms or my personal favourite some random guy’s jizz. Then imagine your eating that - hopefully you should start feeling really disgusted and maybe even nauseous. Then mix in your craving food aswell. That should put you off the food you’ve been craving. All the time you should keep your thumb and middle finger pressed tightly together. Your subconcious should then associate the sense of disgust with pressing together your left thumb and middle finger.

Then you need to replace the lost good feeling you get from satisfying your craving. You do this by pressing your thumb and middle finger together on your RIGHT hand and then remembering a time when you felt really happy or pleased with yourself. Work through a really good memory, savouring the joy or enjoyment you felt, then select more good memories and do the same. All the time keep your right thumb and middle finger firmly pressed together. Your subconcious will then associate feeling good with pressing together your right thumb and middle finger.

Next time you have a craving press your left thumb and middle finger together. Your craving should disappear. However, because something bad has probably happened to cause the craving in the first place you need to make yourself feel better so press your right thumb and middle finger together. Hopefully whatever has upset you (stress usually) won’t seem so bad now.

I tried doing this, but I haven’t any foods I crave particularly (although cheese rolls are a problem thinking about it). Perhaps I should wait until I have a craving and then try it. Apparently it can also help with stress, which I do suffer from so I think it’s worth a go.

Well Paul McKenna says that an American psychologist has developed a tapping routine that allows you to stop comfort eating. So I’ll give it a go.

First you tap the side of your cheak with your index and middle finger - maybe 10 times (doesn’t matter which side).
Then you tap your collar bone a few times (on the same side of your body)
Then you go back to tapping your cheak a few times (on the same side)
Then you tap the back of your hand (on the same side), and then the side of your hand below your little finger (on the same side).
Keep tapping the side of your hand and close your eyes for a moment, then open them again. Then you look down to the right, then down to the left, then take your eyes in a big circle all the way around keeping your head still. Then circle your eyes back around in the opposite direction.
Don’t forget to keep tapping the side of your hand all the time.
Then hum a little tune for a few moments, then count out loud from 1 to 5, then hum the tune again for a few moments. Then tap your cheak again for a few times.

You might have to repeat this sequence 7-10 times, but when you’ve finished you should be able to resist the urge to comfort eat.

I dunno if it’s works - I haven’t had the desire to comfort eat yet. Well possibly I have but I’ve been allowed whatever food it is within my WW points allowance for the day so I don’t regard it as comfort eating - simply as eating my daily quota.

Well I’ve been very naughty over Christmas and New Year. I’ve done nothing but eat cheese, salami and fruit cake, and sit on my bum - not a good combination for weight loss really. Consequently when I went to WW last night I was told I’d put on 5.5 lbs. Which I didn’t think was too bad - I was expecting it to be more! Apparently the national average weight gain is 5lbs each over Christmas. No wonder the class was swamped with newbies last night!

But, I’m back on the plan again now. A good girl all the way. I’m finding it difficult actually, particularly around chocolate and cakes. Mark’s been very good and hidden all the chocolate away, but there’s still quarter of a fruit cake in the kitchen that keeps eyeing me seductively. I wish Mark would hurry up and eat it!

The thing I’m struggling with most is portion sizes. I still haven’t mastered them. I’m now watching Paul McKenna’s I Can Make You Thin on LivingTV to see if he can help. So far he has 4 golden rules:

1. Eat when you’re hungry.
2. Eat what you want (no chance mate - WW all the way for me!).
3. Eat consciously (no distractions, chew each mouthful 20 times, concentrate on the taste of the food).
4. Stop when you’re full (ah, there’s the catch!).

So far I’m not doing very well - I’m eating soup while typing on the computer which is a major distraction, but then I’m finding it difficult to chew soup 20 times before swallowing.

Since teatime is the bigger problem I’ve told Mark we’ll be eating at the table tonight with the telly turned off. Well, there’s no harm in trying. If Paul can help me hear my tummy saying it’s full then I’ll go for that.

4 months from now Mark and I will be sat on a plane to Vegas.

I can’t wait.

I’ve just realised - it’s week 15 of my diet so I’m half way there. Both in terms of time and even better in weight too.

Having tried my dress on recently I’ve been able to revise my necessary weight loss for the wedding. It’s much closer to fitting than I expected it to be so I don’t think I really need aim for 10 stone. I think somewhere between 10st 7lb and 10st 10lb will be just about right.

It has to be said I’m feeling great - mostly because I’m now a size 14/16 and everyone keeps telling me how fab I look. Certainly shopping is fun again! It’s a bit of a rush really.

In some ways I can understand how people become obsessed with achieving a really high level of control over their eating, but it’s not for me. I don’t want to become a rake, but I do think the health benefits of losing my blimphood are significant. I feel more energetic, and I haven’t had indigestion in months, and sometimes I even get the urge to run.

Perhaps now I can relax a bit and have a few chocolates over Christmas.

I’ve had a long weekend - how was it? It was glorious!

Saturday I spend chilling out in front of the telly while making a necklace and finishing off modifying the handbag I’ve bought to go with my wedding dress. I’m soo glad Sky 1, 2 and 3 are back on Virgin TV. I’ve really missed Stargate and Bones.

Sunday I confess I chilled out in a big way - I had a long lie in, a luxurious bath and then went and did the weekly shopping - well there had to be some semblance of the normal routine. Then I cooked Mark and I a yummy fillet steak dinner.

Today - well today I had a long list of things to do because I hadn’t done anything the whole weekend. I spent the morning catching up with Mum’s website - that took a good 3 hours. Then I did the ironing (no, honestly). Then I did the washing, well at least most of it. Then I did the washing up.

Then I took all the clothes that were too big for me to the charity shop, but I kept one big pair of trousers and a big top as evidence.

Then I went clothes shopping - I was supposed to go to Asda in search of cheap trousers, but I ended up in M&S in the Trafford Centre instead (for somewhat convoluted reasons) where I got distracted by Per Una and ended up buying a rather expensive but truly gorgeous Christmas skirt and top for going out in. I had to do it - the skirt is a size 14 - a size 14!! And it fits perfectly. The top is a size 16, and is probably a smidge tight but I’ll get away with it. Then, even better, I found a cheap pair of work trousers - also size 14, so I bought them too. Then I remembered that my belt was too big as well so I bought a spangly snakeskin belt from Next. I had real fun shopping for clothes for the first time in years. No longer am I a mishapen freak.

When I got home I made a curry from scratch - making the paste in my spice grinder and everything. Then it was off to Weight Watchers. Now after last week’s failure I’ve been super stringent this week. Basically I’ve done the points plan just eating core foods. I really wanted to loose 3lb because that would get me to my interim goal and exactly the weight I planned to be when I planned to be there. I am delighted because I lost - 3lb!!! Well done to me! Also this evening, they revealed the new plan - Discover - funnily enough it’s basically the points plan where you eat core foods - at least I know it works!!

This week I was supposed to be studing for the CIM exam on Thursday, but given everything that’s going on at work, plus all the pressure I’m piling on myself at home I decided to leave it till the summer. Come May/June I know I will regret it, but work have been very supportive and have let me book two weeks off work to study for the two exams I’ll have to do then. Turns out this was probably a good decision as Mark has got an Ofsted inspection at work this week and is really stressed. It would have been awful if we’d both been really grumpy and time starved this week.

Or rather an old hobby revisited…

I bought a handbag to go with my wedding dress covered in little silver crystals but I felt it could be brightened up with some little blue crystals so I went to Hobbycraft and bought a little pair of pliers and a mixed bag of crystals. I’ve been toying with the idea of taking up jewellery making again (haven’t done it since I was a teenager) and thought this would be a good time to dip my toes in the water.

I really enjoyed it - it’s painstaking work but I’ve always been good at concentrating on fiddly tasks and it keeps my fingers occupied. All the time they are manipulating little beads and stones they are not reaching for the fridge door.

So I went back and bought a necklace making kit - I thought the necklace in question would go well with my bellydancing skirt and top. I’ve never actually made a necklace before (I always used to make earrings) but after a bit of practice tying the knots I made a pretty decent job of it. I don’t think you can tell it’s home made. Indeed I was admiring a necklace in Dorothy Perkins this afternoon that used just the same techniques.

I think a visit to the jewellery making bits and bobs section of eBay may be in order - it might help keep me from raiding the fridge over the Christmas holiday!

Yesterday I was given two free last minute tickets to see The Venetian Twins at the Octagon Theatre in Bolton - it was a corporate hospitality event. So Mark and I went along, not knowing what it was about or what to expect.

We haven’t been to the theatre in ages and we haven’t been to the Octagon before so were we rather looking forward to it - something a bit different for a Thursday night anyway. And it was really good fun - I thoroughly enjoyed it. The play was mad - it was set in early 18th Century Italy and was about the chaos caused by twin brothers unwittingly turning up in the same town to get married unbeknowns to eachother. One was immensely stupid and that other rather clever. Yeah, yeah I hear you cry.

OK, it did have a lot of the Shakespearean farce about it - with one huge bonus - it was actually very funny (I have to confess I’ve never found Shakespearean farces even vaguely amusing). The performances were superb, especially the guy playing the twins, and the set really inventive. They had little trampolines all the way around the stage so they could bounce on and off and around and about for comedic effect. And the other actors were in full view making the sound effects etc when they weren’t ‘on stage’ themselves.

It really made me feel good. Apparently not everyone felt the same way though - one corporate guest went home during the interval saying it was the worst play he’d ever seen. Well if we all liked the same …

It’s costing me a fortune in clothes. The trousers I bought about 5 weeks ago are already hanging off me. I look like a kid playing dress up with her big sister’s wardrobe.

I’ve finally got in my last pair of ‘drawer under the bed’ trousers. They are a pair of beige cords I bought in M&S in Norwich shortly after I moved there. They were a bit tight but I figured I’d lose a few pounds and they’d fit great. I’ve had them nearly 5 years and never worn them yet! That was about the time I started piling weight on. They look good now though and I shall wear them this weekend. I’m really glad fashions haven’t changed much in the last decade.

It’s only a couple of weeks since I got in my other ‘diet target’ pair of trousers I bought shortly before I left Glasgow. I’d been on a diet after I’d finished writing up my thesis and everyone said how good they looked. I already need to wear them with a belt I’ve shrunk that much. God it feels good!

Work should watch out though - I can wear my navy blue interview suit again. They’d better not upset me or I’ll be off job hunting, confident in the knowledge that I’ll have something nice to wear when I get an interview. Actually, a really good marketing job came up this week at Salford uni. If I went for it I’m sure I’d be in with a good chance, but I’ve too much going on at the moment to apply for it, and, for the most part, I’m happy where I am. Besides I’ve got some interesting projects going on at work at the moment and I’d like to see the fruits of my labour. I’ve enough challenges to be getting on with for now.

Wow, I’m under 12 stone for the first time in years. Only just mind, but it’s a milestone and it feels great. Of course I have to drop a point - only 20 points for me to eat tomorrow unless I earn some by doing some exercise. I’ll see how I feel tomorrow. I’ve been really stiff after my bit of running the other day, but then no pain - no gain.

Whoo hoo! I’m 11 stone something!