Hi Everyone,
Many of you know I've been on weight watchers before. It was years ago well, while Yasmine was a little younger then Joseph. I went for a couple of months.
I actually did okay with it at the time I lost maybe a stone and a half but then I had this excruciating pain in my tummy one week, it was awful, I stayed off work I ate nothing but crackers all week, weight loss wise I lost nine pounds that week! At the time the leader of the weightwatcher group seemed to minimise the pain factor and joked with me "at least you lost" and I know it was meant to motivate me, I know she was trying to help but seriously I would rather put on all the weight I just lost then deal with that sort of pain ever again.
It was the Monday after the meeting I went to the doctor, who diagnosed me with IBS.
And for weeks I struggled with what it was, with the pain with everything I struggled, and bless my team leader at work at the time recognised I was struggling and although knew I couldn't get the time off work I needed to sort it (sick notes are not all that easy to come by!) she did refer me on to the occupational health nurse within the company.
I went to the occupational health nurse and it just so happened the nurse has specialised in IBS and the treatment thereof. Honestly I don't know what I would have done at the time, I had got no help other then the drugs they gave me at the beginning which by this time were dwindling somewhat and the doctors were telling me "You just need more fibre in your diet." let me tell you at the time at weightwatchers they really focused on high fibre food and I told the occupational health nurse this I showed her my food diary from weight watchers at the time and she basically told me what she knew about IBS.
Yes, sometimes a lack of fibre can be a cause of IBS.
Sometimes a lack of liquid can be a cause of IBS.
Sometimes eating too much chocolate or drinking caffeine can cause IBS.
Sometimes eating too much fibre can cause IBS.
Sometimes eating too much fruit can cause IBS.
Sometimes eating high grained foods such as brown rice, wholemeal breads and wholegrain pasta can cause IBS.
Sometimes eating refined foods white pasta white rice and white bread can cause IBS
Sometimes the sweetners used in sugar free foods can trigger IBS.
Too much fat in the diet can trigger IBS.
Sometimes too much stress can trigger IBS.
Basically ANYTHING can trigger or "Cause" IBS.
Well, you can imagine this was not exactly welcome news. "Anything?" I asked.
"Yes, and what you've experienced with the doctor, is very typical because unless you study IBS directly you do just think people need more fiber in their diet but its so much more then that."
"Basically, anything can trigger it yes." she said "but there is something you can do about it.
She was glad I kept a food diary because it meant I was used to noting down what it was I was eating. So she asked me for two weeks to note down everything I ate and take notes as to the foods which I ate the day before any bad spouts of IBS. We could focus on trying to figure out what was causing it.
So, at the time I found that red onion (something I still pick out of my salads when I see it when I go out) peppers (Which is a bummer I loved stir frys, though I can now tolerate peppers in small quantities now) If I had more then 3 slices of brown bread in a 48 hour period (this is also why I don't eat sandwiches all that much!) But I gave up eating white pastas, breads and rices long before this point, I don't have them unless I'm out somewhere have takeout etc (Come on I'm not crazy!) and more then 3 slices of pizza in a 24 hour period, oh and All Bran. (the last one I actually love to eat but the little grains can get stuck in your gut triggering the pain, bad times man bad times!) this took months to work out but by the time we had figured out what my triggers were I hadn't been to weight watchers in weeks, lost all motivation because every pound I had lost had gone back on again. So I didn't go back.
I think it was maybe a month or two before I fell pregnant with Joseph I went back to the doctor explaining I had IBS and that I was constipated again, in a bit of pain and he prescribed me some drugs which were meant to help. Stayed on them three days, it only made it worse, so I've never gone back to the doctors with it since! That convinced me, they really can't help I have to do it all myself and I'll only ever go back if I'm in the pain I was the first time.
Why am I sharing this now?
Over the last month or so my stomach has been a little awful to me and where it is no where near the pain I felt back then, I know its my IBS playing up, so this epiphany has happened after a night of basically no sleep again...(!) My stomach has been growling and rolling around and around I've basically been ill all night not able enough to do much and you want to know something? Because I feel bad I just want to eat bad stuff. Its true, chocolate being the huge source of comfort and I know it doesn't help (Although it doesn't trigger my IBS it also doesn't really help when its happening!)
And I know....
But honestly, I'm bloated to high heaven, luckily my clothes still fit I've not put on in reality I think what I have put on will go straight back off again once the bloating and constipation goes away! and really I think I can still turn this around!
But, just for a couple of weeks I'm taking myself out of weigh ins. I'm cutting back on the "extra stresses" and being a mum at home, luckily now I don't have the same kind of stresses as I did working in a call centre and still being a mum (I'm not saying being a stay at home parent isn't stressful in its own way but its different to working) So I do have a plan of action.
1) I have been walking a lot lately, and while I think its doing my body overall good to walk, I think I'm going to lower my goal from 10k (just over 15,000 steps) to round about 11-12,000 steps. This will still mean I get t take part in my sponsored walk over three months and as I said I really think the walking has helped but I think it is taking up a lot of time which maybe is one thing which is stressing me out.
2) Where I'm cutting out the organised classes I'm taking, I think I'll stick on the old dance and Yoga DVDs this will keep up my fat burning and help calm my stresses and help stretch me out a little too... (We don't want my muscles stressing out do we?!)
3) Food diary needs to come back into play! Figure out what is causing the pain and cut it out of my diet again.
I don't want to do what I did last time and freak out and have a hard time and since I figured it out with IBS I've not had any serious triggering until now, so its obviously something I've started to do again recently and I've just not noticed which is easily done! (Or even something which didn't bother me before has started to bother me, because the fun thing with IBS is that something can trigger it one day and the next day be fine and something which has never triggered it before can set it off for the first times years after first diagnosis! Its like a gut roulette!
Hopefully having a plan will mean one thing... That I'll be able to get back into a regular sleep pattern again and my tummy will stop playing up at night, because lets face it I've never been a great sleeper but I NEED my sleep!
SO I didn't go to weightwatchers on Friday but I decided to focus on something good.
So, this is a t shirt which a friend got me some years ago now, but it never fit, I was too big to wear it! Stuffed it in the back of my wardrobe and forgot about it until I cleaned out my clothes of all the huge things on me now, where I found it, I have been wearing it for a few weeks because I'm kinda proud of the fact it fits, And where it's a little tight for my liking on a general term, it still fits and its giving me a little motivation to loose more so it can fit a little looser.... So yeah all good things.... Oh and the red trousers I have on here, mum gave them to me at the beginning of the summer, they only just fit.... they are now being wiggled up when I walk so they don't fall down they are loose on me!
So for a little while at least, my posts will be very non scale related.
But the good news is, I have no intention of coming off my diet, I just have to take a grasp of what I'm doing! So not weighing in for a couple of weeks but focusing on getting better....
