Being in diet mode

A few weeks ago I reluctantly stepped on the scales and discovered that I was at my heaviest weight ever, excluding pregnancy. I know I'm not overweight, but since having children and no longer any stomach muscles, any excess fat settles around my tummy and I can really feel it. I generally start to notice extra weight around this time of year, after the excesses of Christmas and a failure to successfully complete a New Year diet when it's cold, dark and I can't resist the biscuits.

I don't like to call it dieting, so I tend to refer to it as 'watching what I eat for a few weeks'. I don't use the word diet in front of the children and I don't draw attention to the fact that I'm cutting back, as I want to do my best to avoid them having any issues with weight as they grow up. Luckily I've lost extra weight in the past successfully, so I'm pretty clear on what I need to do without getting too obsessive over it.

When I'm watching my calories I find it quite easy to stay in 'diet mode' and it's a bit of an all or nothing approach. I can cope with being hungry, and if I know that I'll be consuming a lot of calories at some point during the day, I'll compensate for that by eating less earlier in the day or on the day before.

I've got a good idea of the calories in the food that I eat, and I tend to go with a small breakfast and lunch, no snacking during the day, finishing with my normal dinner. We eat dinner very early in the evening, and knowing that I've got a big dinner to look forward to keeps me going. I don't deprive myself too much - I'll still eat dessert if I go out to eat, and if I meet a friend for coffee I'll have a cake, I'll just have a small snack for lunch instead.

The trouble comes if I break the diet for some reason without planning. For example, if I buy a packet of biscuits for a play date, once everyone has gone I find it very difficult not to finish up what's left. One biscuit leads to another and before I know it the pack has gone. This demotivates me and I find it difficult to get back on track the next day so I'll open another pack, and so on.

I've lost a couple of kilograms so far this time, but I am finding that the older I get the harder it is to lose weight which is a little depressing. Often I don't lose anything at all for the first week, which definitely makes it harder to keep going. Once the weight starts going downwards though it's easier to carry on, and I can definitely feel my jeans getting looser which is a big plus!

Here's hoping that I'll be at my goal in just a few more weeks!

Photo credit Eaters Collective via Unsplash