Suddenly Starving?

Funny how things can take such a dramatic change in so few days. The last time I posted here I was lamenting the fact that I'd inhaled two quarter-pounders with cheese and now here I sit, not having consumed anything solid since Friday morning. The weird thing is, is hasn't been an intentional attempt at not eating, it just sort of happened without me realising or even trying. It's surprised me just how easy it is, not to actually eat properly. Yes, I know it's only been a couple of days but it's as if my appetite has just disappeared overnight. Now you can see what the title of this post is actually referring to!

On Friday morning I got up and pottered about telling myself I needed to eat something, but the thought of consuming anything really substantial made me feel really nauseated. So I ransacked my way through the cupboards and refrigerator looking for anything that looked remotely appealing, but it wasn't until I sat back down on the sofa and saw my 'chocolate stash' that I found something to eat that didn't make me want to hurl!

Eating chocolate every day is supposed to be the premise upon which my diet is based. It's kind of a gimmick, but as any seasoned dieter knows, the quirkier and unusual an eating plan is, the more appealing it seems to be. It's as if that idiosyncratic little requirement is going to be the magic bullet that will make THIS one actually work and be something you can stick to. That was partly behind my thinking in creating the 'Eat Chocolate Every Day And Still Lose Weight Diet'. (The other reasoning being that I love chocolate so much, I just cannot imagine denying it to myself in the pursuit of a smaller dress size; so by not only allowing it but making it mandatory, I was less likely to cave in and go nutso on a Dairy Milk binge!)

Anyway, on Friday chocolate seemed like the only thing I could possibly even try to consume and the thought of it melting, slipping down my oesophagus and coating the inside of my icky feeling stomach seemed just perfect. So I ate a Wispa Duo that came in at 280 calories. And I was right. As soon as I ate it, I felt better. Not like I'd satisfied a hunger or a craving, because I'd had neither. More like I'd taken some medicine and made my upset stomach feel better. Now that's a thought – chocolate as medicine; prescribed, not proscribed!

For the remainder of the day I pretty much just chugged back water; about 3 litres. But later on in the day as I made dinner for my other half, I had to at least try to make an effort to be seen to be eating something, so as not to worry him more than anything else. But I also needed to take my vitamins and they cannot just be taken on an empty stomach or with a glug of water as a lot of vitamins (A, D, E, K etc) are fat soluble vitamins that need to be taken in the presence of fat, in order for the body to absorb them. So I settled on a Slim Fast Rich Chocolate Shake, which whilst not particularly high in fat, does contain enough to metabolise the vitamins not only fortified within the shake, but those which I take every day in supplement form. That came in at 230 calories and was the only other thing, other than water that I consumed that day.

Yesterday, I woke up feeling not remotely hungry again. I had no desire to eat anything at all. So I just didn't bother. Me and himself had to head into town to pick up some shopping and he suggested picking up the newspapers and heading to Costa for a coffee and a bit of chill out time. I love Costa. I love all of the disgustingly fat-tastic cream-topped creations they come up with, despite the insane calorie counts they can rack up. I'm a sucker for a full fat Massimo Caramel Latte, with an extra shot of coffee, a shot of caramel syrup, whipped cream on top and a drizzel of caramel sauce. That was my drink of choice any time me and he would normally go hit Costa for a couple of afternoons. But just recently I discovered the one of the best online tools out there: the Costa Nutritional online calculator. www.costanutrition.co.uk.

You basically get to go through the whole ordering process choosing your drink, the size, the type of milk you want it made with and all the additional optional stuff like a cream topping, extra shot of coffee, shot of syrup, flake, chocolate dipper etc. At the end of it, you get a comprehensive breakdown of the nutritional values that make up that drink and when I ran my favourite beverage through the calculator, I was quite shocked to find that it came in at 454 calories. For a drink. And I would normally have two of those in a couple of hours, taking up 908 calories out of my entire daily intake. That's half of the amount of calories a woman is expected to need, just to allow her body to tick over every day. And I was knocking those back as drinks, not including the food I would inevitably consume there too. The muffins all came in at just over 400 calories a piece. The Tuna Melt I usually went for has 484 calories in it too. So if you take into consideration that on a normal jaunt off to our local Costa, I might have a couple of caramel lattes, a tuna melt and a chocolate muffin, I would be consuming about 1800 calories - which is around about the amount of calories I should be consuming in an entire day, just to maintain a normal healthy weight. Not that I've ever been anything close to a normal healthy weight!

I was pretty surprised though to find out that in just one visit to Costa, which would in no way constitute my entire day's food intake, I was consuming an entire day's worth of calories. I guess if you're not paying attention to what you're eating and drinking, you can easily find yourself going well over what is an acceptable amount of calories by anyone's standards. Which is one of the reasons I've gotten to this size. I come from one of those families where junk food was never on the menu, everything was cooked from scratch, but portion sizes were astronomical. There was always a hearty main course and a mouth watering dessert, both of which I would be served up in portions fitting a man doing a hard day's physical work. I grew up thinking it was not only acceptable but normal to eat like a horse. I was always told to “clear my plate, because there are starving children in Africa who would never get to see a meal like that.” Nothing like a good old guilt trip to make you pile on the pounds right?

I guess the point of this massive ramble is that I'm having to relearn a whole new way of being aware and accountable when it comes to eating. And that really is the only way to attack something like weight loss. I was so grateful to have found that Costa Nutritional site because it was a real opener and it also allowed me to play around with the options to find an alternative to my previously favourite drink. Instead of the calorie laden full fat, cream-topped latte of before, I found that by choosing a Medio Skimmed Milk Cappuccino with an extra shot of coffee and a shot of Sugar Free Caramel Syrup, the calorie count would come in at a much more respectable 118 calories. And it really didn't taste much different to the full fat alternative.

So that's what I had yesterday afternoon as me and t'other half sat down to read the papers and mull over the crossword. I felt quite saintly, as I swanned past all the comestibles and ordered our drinks (although, I did notice, for future reference, that out of all the foodstuffs there, Costa do now do an English Breakfast Muffin With Bacon which comes in a 275 calories, should I ever be in there, insanely ravenous and in serious need of a bite to eat!). We were there for about two and a half hours (that cryptic crossword had the two of us scratching our heads the whole time) and when I finished my skinny cappuccino I whipped out my phone to log onto the Costa Calculator again and checked how much damage a small black coffee with two Sweet 'n Low added in would do. Turned out it was only 22 calories, so I happily ordered one of those which I nursed for a while and then sipped on the walk home.

That evening I just about managed a glass of grapefruit juice, but food was out of the question. Absolutely no appetite. The entire day's count came in at 370 calories, all in fluid form.

And so that brings us dear reader to today. Sunday. Still not feeling hungry, still not really eating. Not unless you count three individual tiny Bitsa Wispa bites at 19 calories each and the Slim Fast Café Latte I'm struggling to consume at a rate of about two sips every ten to fifteen minutes. I'm not sure what's going on with my stomach to be honest. But I'm certainly not complaining this current lack of appetite as it makes the restriction of calorie consumption a whole lot easier. And of course, the longer I go on consuming less, the more my stomach will become accustomed to receiving less and hopefully should shrink a little. And that in itself will hopefully affect my appetite too in future.

Today's calorie count currently stands at a rather low 287 and I shouldn't imagine it will climb any higher if my lack of appetite remains. I just hope I can wake up tomorrow feeling the same disinclination toward food and continue on this mission towards a smaller me.

So for now I shall sign off, say goodbye and wish you all the will and won't power you need to stay the path of elective starvation!

Until next time

x