Six Days & Seven Nights
Have been pretty useless recently at updating my blog but there comes a point when you really can't say much more about the taste of the foodpacks without it sounding really boring so........................have decided to take a more relaxed approach to blogging and write one when I have something interesting to say about this LL experience.

So, first things first............................today is day 16 and I have lost a total of 16lbs so far.

Also, by my calculations, I have lost 3 inches off my waist, 2.5 off my hips and 2 from my bust.

The diet itself does seem to be getting easier and last week I finally realised that I wasn't hungry anymore. Ok so I've still got a rumbling tummy every now & then but, generally, the physical symptoms of hunger have passed. The mental ones, however, are providing their own source of twisted torture.

For example: A drive past the KFC is the mental equivalent of a spell in an iron maiden - which were, rather pleasantly, designed not to kill but to inflict prolonged agony. This leads to some fairly intense negotiations:

One hot wing doesn't have that many calories so I could probably eat one and still lose weight.
But that would be cheating.
Yeah but no one would know.
I would know. And anyway, I want to lose this weight as soon as possible so.......................
etc etc etc

So far, reason seems to be winning but I am slightly worried about these inner arguments and where I didn't think I had a huge problem with my relationship with food before I think I might be developing one!! Which in itself is fairly ironic as the biggest part of the LL programme is the weekly meetings which are designed to resolve food/relationship issues.

In last weeks session we looked at the lessons we learn (right or wrong) about food from our parents and how we carry these with us in to adulthood. How many times were you told that you couldn't get down from the table until you'd cleared your plate? Or that you could have a 'treat' only if you were good? If you answered yes to either, now consider - do you still feel that you have to eat everything on your plate? Do you still consider certain food types as a treat only to be had when you'd been very good?

For my part I don't remember any sayings like that as a child but I did have an exceptionally healthy upbringing - long before organic food, non-processed, GI diets became a fad I was waking up every day to a menu of fruit & cereal smoothies, brown bread/rice/pasta, lean organic meat and 8 or 9 portions of fruit & vegetables. Followed by a plethora of vitamin & mineral tablets, all washed down with a spoonful of cod liver oil. This was the 70s and multivitamins weren't available so, if I remember correctly, the list went something like: 4 Brewers Yeast tablets (big brown things which caused massive gaseous burps and much hilarity), Vitamin A, C, B, D, zinc, kelp, iron, etc etc etc.

Every day my Dad would say "Nobody fart or you'll shoot the cat" and every day it was just as funny as the first time I'd heard it.

Of course I had 'grass is greener' issues and everyday would be desperate to swap my boring brown bread; tuna & cucumber; no butter; no mayonnaise; healthy sandwich for another girls white bread, butter & ham ones. And everyone's meals were always far more exciting than mine but when I mentioned this to my friend Sam the other day she said that she always loved coming to my house for dinner because the food was so lovely and always tasted really nice. I guess it's all a matter of perception isn't it.

So, bearing in mind my healthy upbringing, how did I end up overweight? My Mum gave me the answer to that one when we were talking yesterday. She told me about a time when I was 3 or 4 and we went to Butlins on holiday. At every meal, without fail, my brother and I would steal all the white bread off the table. And I do mean steal. Much to my parents horror and embarrassment we would literally take the bread off other diners plates and either shove it straight in our mouths or hide it in our pockets! That's so bad isn't it? God, the other diners must've thought we didn't get fed at home - how awful must my Mum have felt about that? Think I owe my parents an apology!!!!

Of course I don't steal food anymore but deep down I think I might still be that little girl who's got to have all the rubbish food because there's only good food to eat at home!