annanotbob2's Diaryland Diary

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Day 131

I got a set of scales yesterday as part of my plan to lose weight. This morning I weighed myself first thing, then went to the health centre for my appointment with the nurse to have the dressing on my leg changed. It's not healing very quickly - now it's sloughing, another process too disgusting to go into - and when I expressed my fed up-ness, the nurse printed off and gave me a load of info about food and healing wounds, though I did tell her our diet is pretty good.

When I got home and read it, it was all about the need for more protein and more calories. Really?? More calories? It had lots of info and handy hints for boosting your calorific intake, like if you have porridge for breakfast, use whole milk, add sugar and have some lavishly buttered toast and marmalade afterwards. Published by the health authority. So within hours of starting to purposefully control my weight I'm being advised by medical experts to eat more fucking cake?

I was upset. I've never managed to get myself into a frame of mind for losing weight before, ever. In the past my weight has always ebbed and flowed without me doing anything about it, but this lot is sticking, presumably because at my age (66) my metabolism is slowing down. So I was pissed off. Then I thought I'd get more advice, so called the health centre, who said they'd get one of the doctors to call me back.

Oh man, I should never have been given that leaflet, of course I shouldn't. When people are underweight, their bodies don't have the resources to heal wounds. These days enough people are deliberately proper scrawny, as that's the shape we see most of on telly, to have to tell them to eat, to put some weight on to enable healing. Not me. My BMI is 32 - higher than it's ever been. I weigh 3 stone more than I used to, for years, which is 42 pounds, which is like carrying 21 bags of sugar around with me all the time. No wonder I'm tired and awkward and not remotely nimble. When the yoga teacher says to pop over onto your hands and knees, it's a massive bloody effort for me. I'm always puffed out by the time I get to the top of the stairs and I don't even smoke.

Those are the reasons I want to be thinner, not for the look of it. I was on the beach in a bikini yesterday, so I know this is true. I have no sense of shame about being fat, I'm just fed up with the impact on my energy. The doctor said to go for it, good for me etc. My intention is not a diet as such, but a plan I read about on Twitter from The Times - it's behind a paywall, though I get a free article a week - it may come up or not:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/53-steps-to-help-lose-weight-from-ditching-the-pasta-to-standing-while-you-watch-tv-0jdkzq3h0

The idea is to weight yourself every day - only if you don't have an eating disorder or other complicated relationship to food/weight - and to make some notes on how you feel about it. Every day. Then there's a list of 53 things that help a person lose weight, and you're to do at least one every day, preferably a few. They're things like use a smaller plate, drink a pint of water before a meal, eat nothing after 8pm - they don't necessarily make sense taken together but each will have a small impact. This all came from a study where people did lose much more this way. I started today. My weight was 95.2 kg, and I felt OK about it - it had been 97.5 last week when I was weighed at the health centre, but I'd had breakfast and lunch then and different scales. I don't really think I lost 2 kg in a week just by not eating as much as usual, but you never know.

As well as that I did yoga today and walked the dog on the beach at low tide where I spotted this jellyfish:

It was about the size of a dinner plate - a compass jellyfish - I've never seen one before.

Three good things today:

1. The doctor being cool and nice - remembering me and wanting to chat a bit, not just do the job and get on. I'm going to take photos of all my different skin lesions which she will show the dermatologist to let me know which, if any, are dodgy. And I'm having blood tests to be sure I'm not pre-diabetic.


2. The beach at low tide was just lush and Shirley was a good dog, mostly, only licking one sunbathing woman's face.


3. It was Bloke's birthday and the book I'd ordered for him turned out to be an Italian version - how did I not notice that? It arrived ages ago but I didn't open it till last night as I knew what it was. But the shop were happy to replace it and sent me a label to cover the cost of the return postage, which was good as I don't think I know any Italian speakers, let alone Italian speakers who are interested in Middle Eastern vegetarian cookery.

12:38 a.m. - 23.07.20

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