# Fat, unfit & miserable!



## sparklestar (Nov 14, 2016)

So, I am currently at my heaviest weight ever (20st 9lb!! ) and cannot seem to get myself sorted to do anything about it! I have recently got good control of my HbA1c (it was 47 at review in September), but I am really struggling to find the motivation to get control of my eating habits and start losing weight. 

Does anyone have any useful tips on where to start?? I'm not a massive vegetable/salad eater and do not like any fruit at all, so my options are fairly limited with healthy stuff to eat instead of the chocolate, sweets and biscuits I eat at the moment.

I'm sure that the massive doses of insulin I take are partly to blame for my increasing size, but if I ate better, my doses would be lower and therefore I should be able to start shifting some of it??

Sorry for the rant, I think I just need somewhere to get it all off my chest and don't really feel I have anyone else I can talk to about this, they all say 'well you need to stop eating this that and the other and it will be fine'.  But they don't have diabetes and don't know the struggle!

Help!!!?  xx


----------



## Radders (Nov 14, 2016)

If you start gradually replacing the bad stuff with the healthy things that you do like, you might find that your tastes change. I never used to enjoy salad but as we experimented with different ingredients we found that it can actually be very tasty. 
Our salad this evening had shredded Romaine lettuce (sweeter and crunchier than other leaves), grated carrot &courgette,sliced pepper, sliced fennel, a little finely chopped fresh ginger, cucumber, cherry tomatoes marinated with oregano, lo-salt, lemon juice and olive oil, toasted pine kernels and mine was topped with cheese (my husband had sliced chicken and Florida salad on his). I always used to say that I would never finish a salad and want more, but that's not true now.
Try it- start small and when you start losing weight and getting better blood sugar results, that will motivate you to do more. 
It doesn't have to be salad either, there are lots of other ways of eating more healthily.


----------



## Redkite (Nov 14, 2016)

Unfortunately the only way to lose weight is to change your diet and/or increase physical activity (not trying to be unsympathetic).  Reducing carb intake is a good starting point.  Good luck


----------



## Owen (Nov 14, 2016)

As @Radders states, small changes. Dark chocolate for instance is more filling. I have natural yogurt, a bit of granola, a diced apple and cinnamon. It tastes like apple crumble. GL For Dummies will give you loads of tips and ideas, which will not leave you hungry and help lower your insulin requirements.
Don't punish yourself, just make steady improvements.


----------



## PinkGrapefruit (Nov 15, 2016)

It takes a long time to put the weight on, and so it comes off slowly too. Frustrating when we live in a world of instant fixes. But breaking up the journey into steps will help. Getting under 20st, fitting in those tight jeans, walking faster and not getting out of breath, less meds, being able to lift and carry heavy groceries for an old lady. This is the journey to being a happier healthier person. It's also a voyage of self re-discovery.

Try the healthy stuff. Give it 100% for a month, and see how you get on. It might suprise you how you get on! If you can cut the carbs I am sure you will feel healthier.


----------



## Martin Canty (Nov 15, 2016)

Set yourself small goals, make them achievable..... Sharing them with this group will also make yourself accountable.

Goals might be:

Lose 7lb
Walk 1/2 mile for 7 days
Not eating a particular food for 7 days

We will definitely encourage you on this journey


----------



## Stitch147 (Nov 16, 2016)

Losing weight is definatley not easy, I know ive been there. Set yourself small acheivable targets and take it one day at a time. Look at the portion sizes of what you are eating. Start to increase the amount of exercise that you can do. I lost 7 stone over 2 years and it wasnt easy. The only exercise that I do and enjoy is walking. I started off doing small distances then worked my way up from there.


----------



## ChrisSamsDad (Nov 16, 2016)

Redkite said:


> Unfortunately the only way to lose weight is to change your diet and/or increase physical activity (not trying to be unsympathetic).  Reducing carb intake is a good starting point.  Good luck


For whatever reason, you're a fussy eater. You probably wouldn't let your kids get away with saying that they don't like fruit and veg and won't eat it. It's a very sweeping statement that you say you 'don't like any fruit at all' - not a single fruit amongst the hundreds out there? However, you can and should avoid a lot of fruit - the whole 'fruit and veg' thing? For diabetics, it should be more of a 'veg and a bit of fruit'. 

You've really got to get past this - as I think you probably realise - and eat better. I was never a big fan of salads, but honestly, with decent amounts of dressing / mayonnaise on them, they're a completely different experience, tasty and filling. You really need to cut down on carbs, I and many people here are doing the low carb / high fat diet and seeing dramatic results, both in lowering HbA1c and losing weight (Mine went from 66 to 38 in 3 months and my weight from 106 to 96kg, 3 months later down to 89kg). You musn't eat too much protein either, so you've got to realise vegetables are your friend and increase the amount in your diet - they'll bulk out food so you don't feel hungry, provide nutrients and improve quite a few other things in your health. 

Find which veggies you do like and focus on those, and then try to bring in things you don't particularly like but don't hate, try cooking things different ways: if it's the texture, different ways of cooking them will change that - over cooking makes them softer, undercooking more crunchy, blitzing them in a processor makes them indistinguishable. Honestly, if you try the LCHF diet for even a week, you'll be amazed at how much weight you lose and how little you suffer from hunger.


----------



## Owen (Nov 16, 2016)

See I disagree with this fruits are bad and Fats are fantastic for diabetics hype. A good balance of food, moderating items that cause blood sugar and replacing them with plenty of vegetables such as broccoli, Swede, carrots etc. Are all good and healthy, plenty of seafood. You cannot really go wrong. Reducing bread intake alone will have a big impact and anything that contains flour will help. Homemade casseroles and soups.
Weight loss is mathematics, eat less energy than you use and you will lose weight. How that energy is made up is the art. You will only sustain weight loss if you adapt to a new way of thinking.


----------



## grovesy (Nov 16, 2016)

I thought some of the more recent research is suggesting that it is not as easy as eat less and move more!


----------



## Marsbartoastie (Nov 16, 2016)

We all have a point where we know we've got to do something and you seem to have reached yours.  Feeling irresistibly compelled to eat sweet stuff is something I know well and I have no 'off' switch.  It makes me smile when people suggest eating just a couple of squares of chocolate because once I start it's game over...I'm going to eat the lot.  My secret to getting on track and losing weight was to cut out the sugary stuff completely.  This meant a few days of torture, but once it was out of my system the cravings went away.  I could then eat good food and almost immediately felt better for it...both physically and mentally.


----------



## grovesy (Nov 16, 2016)

Marsbartoastie said:


> We all have a point where we know we've got to do something and you seem to have reached yours.  Feeling irresistibly compelled to eat sweet stuff is something I know well and I have no 'off' switch.  It makes me smile when people suggest eating just a couple of squares of chocolate because once I start it's game over...I'm going to eat the lot.  My secret to getting on track and losing weight was to cut out the sugary stuff completely.  This meant a few days of torture, but once it was out of my system the cravings went away.  I could then eat good food and almost immediately felt better for it...both physically and mentally.


I too used be like you but have found if I 80% chocolate, I can mostly manage the 2 squares! Though still have mad moments!


----------



## ChrisSamsDad (Nov 16, 2016)

grovesy said:


> I thought some of the more recent research is suggesting that it is not as easy as eat less and move more!


Yeah, it's one of the more useless over-simplistic aphorisms out there - it's like saying "Surgery is simple, you cut the person open, fix the thing that's wrong and sew them back up"

The whole 'calories in vs calories out' might be literally true, but not all calories are equal: not all are digested for example, and re-appear unused out of the other end (otherwise dung-beetles wouldn't bother), and there's a limit to how many calories you can digest at one time, your gut simply can't digest everything you eat.

It's also about metabolism, larger people use up more calories, even when not moving, which is why a lot of diets fail - as you get thinner, you need progressively less food, but that's also good news if you are overweight and can still do some exercise: you'll get a lot more 'bang for your buck'. For example, If you weigh 70kg and do a 5k run, you'll use, say, 375kcal, but if you weigh 90kg, you'll use 500kcal (these are the figures the treadmill gives me anyway).

And finally you *have *to consider hunger in any diet otherwise you'll be fighting against your own body and millions of years of evolution urging you to eat. It's often over-simplistically framed as a matter of willpower, but at the end of the day, being hungry is dreadful and you can't put up with it for long. You have to, and can, eat in a way to keep you feeling satiated and full but with fewer calories. Your body has a whole sophisticated set of hormones to manage your eating and it's been 'designed' by evolution. However, we've had a fairly massive change in our diets and amount of exercise in the last few hundred years and that's no time at all in evolutionary terms. It looks like, as diabetics, we might be the genetic lottery losers, doomed to take those poorly-adapted genes out of the pool. On the bright side, as humans we (I say _we_, but we're living in a world where Brexit and Trump happened) can use our brains to combat forces that would in the post only have been solved by survival of the fittest. We need to find diets that make us feel full and are enjoyable but don't contain more calories than we use, and use more calories - walk, cycle, gym whatever.


----------



## Amal (Nov 17, 2016)

sparklestar said:


> So, I am currently at my heaviest weight ever (20st 9lb!! ) and cannot seem to get myself sorted to do anything about it! I have recently got good control of my HbA1c (it was 47 at review in September), but I am really struggling to find the motivation to get control of my eating habits and start losing weight.
> 
> Does anyone have any useful tips on where to start?? I'm not a massive vegetable/salad eater and do not like any fruit at all, so my options are fairly limited with healthy stuff to eat instead of the chocolate, sweets and biscuits I eat at the moment.
> 
> ...




I'm completely in the same boat. I've struggled with diet and weight since my teens. My weight has been going up in the last year. I put on 16 kg in the past year alone. My HBA1C hasnt been great for the past year. About a year and a half ago my nurse reffered me to Cognitive Behavioural Therapy as I discovered I ate more so out of emotions I. E boredom, stress etc. Thus was mainly due to being unemployed for a year straight out of uni. It was there where I actually began making changes. I ended changing my eating habits completely and saw the weight shift. I lost interest for all the horrible foods I once ate as I had forgotten the taste and therefore didn't crave anymore. The first 2 weeks are the hardest, but after that I was fine. Having said that, I ended up slipping and began eating the bad stuff again. I thought just a small taste wouldn't hurt. That small taste ignited my forgotten love for those foods and it's been downhill ever since.  Might try and go back for some more therapy if possible as this really helped. 

I'd advice some CBT, as it really does help. Speaking to someone about your eating problems and them listening and also providing solutions really helped. Also the fact that you go back every week or two kind of motivates one to work hard at it. Also when you get your diet on check do all that you can to avoid even tasting any form of food that is bad, because they may just throw you off your game.


----------



## Marsbartoastie (Nov 17, 2016)

Amal said:


> I'm completely in the same boat...


What a long and honest reply Amal.  You describe a sort of addiction to sugar/carbs that many people will recognise...where eating just a little fuels the desire for more and more and more.  As I said in my previous post, if you can find the determination to stay away from the bad stuff you'll feel the benefits after just a few days.  It really is worth the effort.


----------



## Amal (Nov 17, 2016)

Marsbartoastie said:


> What a long and honest reply Amal.  You describe a sort of addiction to sugar/carbs that many people will recognise...where eating just a little fuels the desire for more and more and more.  As I said in my previous post, if you can find the determination to stay away from the bad stuff you'll feel the benefits after just a few days.  It really is worth the effort.



I think I need to take it by each day. I often overwhelm myself by assuming I can go cold turkey on everything and that never works. Joining this forming has really helped with support as well. I'll hopefully have a good Hba1c in a month or two.


----------



## Bubbsie (Nov 17, 2016)

sparklestar said:


> So, I am currently at my heaviest weight ever (20st 9lb!! ) and cannot seem to get myself sorted to do anything about it! I have recently got good control of my HbA1c (it was 47 at review in September), but I am really struggling to find the motivation to get control of my eating habits and start losing weight.
> 
> Does anyone have any useful tips on where to start?? I'm not a massive vegetable/salad eater and do not like any fruit at all, so my options are fairly limited with healthy stuff to eat instead of the chocolate, sweets and biscuits I eat at the moment.
> 
> ...


----------



## Chris Hobson (Nov 17, 2016)

I was only ever slightly overweight so I can't really identify with your problem. I can comment a little on changing diet. I was never too keen on fruit but I started eating apples, bananas and tangerines as part of my new regime after my diagnosis. Now I really enjoy fruit, my tastes have actually changed. I also started eating dark chocolate that has a high (70%) cocoa content and also the stuff that has chili in it. I now find regular milk chocolate to be nauseatingly sickly, just far too sweet. I can't seem to do anything about my fondness for beer though, I try to do some exercise first, so that I can pretend that I have earned it.


----------



## sparklestar (Nov 21, 2016)

Thanks everyone for your replies, I really appreciate them. I am starting small and trying to increase my veggies that I do like, in things like casseroles for dinner etc, I just need to do more planning so that I don't have to grab whatever I find in the local Tesco express at lunch time.

I'll let you know how I get on . . . .


----------



## Hazel (Nov 21, 2016)

Good luck with the weight loss.      I believe that you have to be in the right head space, or you waste good food and money.

I speak from experience

Would you consider a weight loss group, Weight Watchets, Slimming World, these kinds of things.     Perhaps you would benefit from the class and menbers support every week.

Whatever path you chose I wish you luck.


----------



## Radders (Nov 21, 2016)

Hazel said:


> Good luck with the weight loss.      I believe that you have to be in the right head space, or you waste good food and money.
> 
> Whatever path you chose I wish you luck.



I agree with this.


----------



## june357 (Dec 17, 2016)

Hello, I was really mad when I was told I had Diabetes and was put on Metaformin I decided I would deal with it myself, So I went on a low carb high fat diet, loss 20 Kgs came off the Metaformin and had a H1c of 34  every other reading was good my doctor told me I did not need any thing.

The LCHF diet is great so many people have got off their meds loss a lot of weight without counting calories. I do not understand why Diabetes groups do not push this way of eating it makes so much sense.


----------



## grovesy (Dec 17, 2016)

Welcome, there are reservations about this form of diet long term by many professionals.It does not suit everyone like an other diet.


----------



## HOBIE (Dec 17, 2016)

Good luck , Rome was not built in a day. Be as active as possible. It is a lot of will-power but worth it


----------

