Yes, I know I said I wasn’t going to do weight loss or weight management programmes anymore, after the last one fucked my mental health over, but I did that one for 18 months. This has only been a 6-month programme., because I refuse to pay the full monthly price. I got some sort of deal through Hello Fresh.
Actually, that’s a good point; Hello Fresh leads people to the WW website if you choose one of their WW Personal Points meals. Clearly they have some sort of partnership and benefit from driving consumers from their respective websites to each other. It’s somewhat sick that they take advantage of people like that. I was just looking for something good in my discounted meals.
I decided to turn the experience into an experiment. I’m going to take things month-by-month and write a bit each month. There will be an explanation in the September 2022 section.
September 2022 (written 8th October 2022)
I have been at a bit of a low ebb, mentally, because I’ve had a busy month and I’m exhausted. Firstly, work has been busy, on multiple projects; secondly, I went to FantasyCon; and finally, I hadn’t recovered from the hell of summer. I was feeling bad in myself and mentally. I think I was close to burnout. When I feel bad, I take it out on my body. I restrict, I scratch, I over-exercise.
Since the picking scabs wasn’t helping and I was having physical problems so that I couldn’t over-exercise, I restricted and signed up for a new diet late in the month. I’ve done WW several times in the past. In 2012 I had a really bad do with my hiatus hernia after eating the wrong thing and spent a week vomiting. I lost 12lb. At the next WW meeting, everyone cheered. I had to point out that I was sick for a week, had damaged my abdominal muscles and couldn’t eat before they shut up. People were actually jealous! That’s the sort of damage these organisations do to people’s sense of proportion.
It took me five days to realise what I was doing. It sort of helped that I was struggling to walk when I went to Games Group and bumped into my former support worker, who asked what was up when one of the lads said I was in pain and struggling to breathe. I broke down and told her about everything. I was and probably still am a bit burnt-out. We decided that I was going to have some proper time off in the new year, but I also had to start slowing down and give myself a break.
I did. But that didn’t help with the physical problems that were stopping me from being able to exercise. Why?
Well, at the same time I was recruited into the last weight management programme, I got prescribed a membership at the local leisure centre. 24 free sessions. In March 2020. Anyway, I used up my vouchers and got the reduced-price membership, which meant I could use the pool, gym and wellbeing centre. Great, I was going swimming, when the pool was open twice a week for almost two hours each time, and swimming a mile each time, easily, by August 2021. I was walking there and back each time, sometimes carrying shopping.
Then I got an infection. Don’t know what it was, probably a cold. I ended up on antibiotics because of a secondary bacterial infection. I couldn’t swim and I couldn’t walk for weeks. By the time I was well enough to leave the house, I was struggling to breathe. I put it down to residual damage from the infection – I’m asthmatic – and lack of exercise. Cardio fitness drops off quickly if I don’t keep up my regimen. So I started again, as though I hadn’t spent over a year working on my fitness. Gentle exercise, small increments until I was back up to battle speed.
Except I never got there. I was reduced to one one-hour session a week and had to get a taxi there, although sometimes I was able to walk back. Then I got another cold. Well, that stopped everything for another month. When I was finally feeling better, in early 2022, I went to the Wellbeing Centre and explained the situation. I started going to a ‘chairs’ session once a week on a Monday and swimming for an hour on a Friday. A ‘chairs’ session is using Shapemaster power-assisted exercise equipment in a circuit. You spend 6 minutes on each of the eight machines and can work with the machines or use them passively. They really helped and after a few months I found them too easy and moved on to the adapted gym. I really liked using the treadmill and the weights in the adapted gym. I was still going swimming once a week and was up to 90 minutes to two hours each time.
Then I got another cold. Then summer hit.
My lungs started to object to everything, and my feet and ankles started swelling at the slightest thing. Too hot – I can’t breathe and my ankles have inflated like a balloon. Walk more than 100 yards – can’t breathe. Too humid – can’t breathe, legs feel like lead. Swim for more than half an hour – asthma starts playing up. If the swimming pool air is too hot and humid, I don’t even manage half an hour. I would force myself to do an hour, and be coughing and struggling to breathe when I got out.
Then I got another cold, with a secondary bacterial infection.
Literally, struggled to breathe, to walk, to climb the stairs, to get out of my chair. I made myself move around the house, slowly, and I went to the pool as often as I was able to, but I cut back on the gym. I went swimming while I was at FantasyCon; I managed an hour one day and half an hour a couple of days later; I haven’t been swimming since. I was too busy after I got home with work, although I did manage to walk a bit on the Tuesday and Sunday after.
On Thursday 22nd September I signed up for WW Digital.
Sunday 25th September: although it took me from Friday to persuade myself to leave the house I went for a walk with the dogs. That’s how I know I wasn’t in a good place mentally – it shouldn’t have taken from Friday midday to Sunday midday for me to find the mental strength to leave the house. I enjoy walking in the autumn and winter. It’s refreshing and I hate that the heat of summer stops me going for a walk. Plus, I won’t take the dogs out when it’s more than 20 degrees, it’s not good for them. We went out for 40 minutes, it was a bit of a puff at times, but it wasn’t too bad. There’s an old industrial site that has been landscaped into a park with an artificial lake and paths through trees. In thirty years, it’ll be a lovely little woodland, if the council don’t sell it to housing developers. Anyway, it’s a bit up and down. I managed okay, although not as well as I would have liked. I felt unsteady on the uneven areas, but again, I managed. Dogs enjoyed the walk too. It was finally a comfortable temperature for them.
Monday 26th September. I missed the bus to games group. I decided to walk. It’s a half hour walk. Or it used to be. It took me 45 minutes. I kept having to stop to rest and breathe. At one point, as I got into town and closer to Neurospace, I was managing 50 yards between stops. My legs ached, feeling heavy and tired, like they were recovering for cramp at the same time as being coated in sandbags as I walked through sludge. And I couldn’t breathe. Inhalers didn’t help.
I eventually got to Neurospace and had to rest. That’s when I saw my former support worker and we had a chat. I realised that I was burnt-out, and my body was telling me I needed to rest. And that signing up for WW was a self-harming method, a way of restricting.
So, I had a think about it. I clearly have something wrong with my lungs. I got sick, before which my cardio was good, and now I’m struggling to breathe going for a little walk. My weight is stable and has been for a few years. I don’t weigh myself, but my clothes haven’t got tighter or looser. My waist measurement fluctuates by a few centimetres over a month, which is expected, but is generally stable. My blood pressure is fine, normal, or slightly high-normal. I keep records of these things. I have a spreadsheet, with graphs. My blood pressure has improved since 2019, which was a very stressful year. Given that I was ill, and had a secondary infection requiring anti-biotics, in September 2021, and things started going downhill on the breathing front at that time, the infection must have done something to my lungs. I need to see a doctor about it.
However, past experience tells me that I’ll be disbelieved, despite the records I keep about my blood pressure, pulse rate and exercise regime, and I’ll be told to lose weight, rather than having any tests to find out what the hell is wrong with my lungs. So, experiment time. For six months I’ll use the WW app to record food and exercise, and I’ll keep updating my spreadsheets. In April 2023, I’ll go to the doctor and tell them about the infections and the damage it did, how I’m struggling with exercise I previously did easily and see what happens. I’ll present my medical history of colds and secondary bacterial infections requiring antibiotics and my spreadsheet as evidence that my blood pressure is fine and ask them to do tests or help me with my lungs and swollen ankles somehow.
If they insist it is my weight and that I need to go on a diet and do more exercise, I will present my WW app with the records of my diet and exercise for six months. I shall ask what more I am supposed to do, given that I have been on a diet for six months and have recorded my food and exercise. If they still refuse to do anything other than tell me to restrict more and exercise more, I shall know they are fatphobic and I need to change doctors because I won’t get the help I need there.
That’s the plan at least. I’d really like to hope that just by presenting the medical history and explaining that I went from being very active to barely being able to walk without struggling to breathe in less than a month, and that despite 18 months of trying, I was still struggling, the doctor would listen and try to find out what was going on with my lungs.
I know it’s unlikely. It took years (1998 – 2017) for me to get a prescription for the Pill because I was fat and it would only make me fatter, apparently. Never mind that I was in agony, and having three- or four-week periods, severely anaemic and passing massive blood clots. It took years for my mental health conditions to be taken seriously, because ‘I just needed to lose weight’ and I’d be fine (1993 – 2017 – I had a really great doctor in 2017!).
First week of using the app: feeling deprived and binging on chocolate and bread. Probably not good, but we’ve been here before, so just thinking about WW makes me anxious and that’s how I react. Itching to exercise but struggling to leave the house.
October 2022
8th October 2022 – first update
I have another cold! At least I think it’s a cold. The covid tests are negative. I have filled an entire page with the covid tests I’ve done since the rapid tests became available. I get terribly sick but each time I get a negative result. I’ve also had two bacterial infections since September 2021. It’s actually been quite rare for me to get bacterial rather than viral infections. The last time was when I got flu in 2015, took me several months to recover from that. Given that I was also severely anxious and depressed at the time, I don’t think it’s surprising that my immune system wasn’t functioning properly.
Anyway, since I started my experiment a week and a half ago (although I’ve been using the WW app for two weeks and two days), I’ve forced myself to rest. I have been trying to stick to my work hours (4 – 5 hours a week), have walked a little bit every day, mainly doing housework and pottering around, although Monday and Tuesday I had to go out, so I got a lot more steps/minutes in. I’m still over my target of 115 minutes a week (that’s the target the app set for me) by quite a bit. There’s still tomorrow to go for the week. If I can work myself up to it, I’m going to take the dogs to the park again. I am not particularly hungry at the moment; I’ve been eating two meals a day with the odd snack. I put that down to being ill. I lose my appetite but eat because not eating makes me feel worse. I haven’t drunk enough fluids today, my ankles have swollen slightly, but I’ve been walking around and drinking fluid to help with that.
I bought some WW branded biscuits and ‘treats’ so I’m going to include a mini review of the ones I’ve tried so far. I am not impressed with the biscuits. The ‘shortbread rounds’ remind me of Eucharist wafers, they’re about the same size and thickness. The ‘mini bourbons’ are a waste of space, and the ‘chocolate and cream rounds’ (knock-off Oreos) are tasteless. Honestly, you could eat the whole pack of any of them and not get the same level of satiety as you would from one piece of proper shortbread, or one real bourbon cream. The hazelnut wafers are good though. I like those. From the treat box, I’ve tried the popcorn – dry, flavourless – , and the chocolate caramel clusters. Th clusters were too hard and also flavourless. I think it would be better to get multipacks of Butterkist Toffee popcorn and just have one small bag, at 4 Personal Points, rather than the bigger bag of the WW ‘sweet’ popcorn at 2 Personal Points. You might get more popcorn for your points, but it won’t taste nearly as good. I still have the protein bars to try. I’ll update when I’ve tried them. I’m considering keeping them as post-swimming/gym snacks. I like to take a Graze snack and piece of fruit usually but variety is the spice of life.
I want to go back to swimming next Friday, if I’m well enough. I think I’m going to try to go to the adapted gym for half an hour after games group on a Monday afternoon if I have the energy. It all depends on the infection going away.
I haven’t measured my waist this week, I’m going to leave it until the end of the month. I have a measurement from June to compare it to. I have a blood pressure reading from early September to compare my October reading to.
The plan is to record, at the end of each month, how I’ve been feeling over the month, any positive or negative changes, and my waist and blood pressure results. After I finish my six months, I’ll reassess my lung situation. If it hasn’t changed, I’ll go to the doctor. This post may be a long one, several months in the making.
December 2022
WW decided to change back to their old points system, where everyone gets the same ZeroPoints list. They’ve made a few other changes. Weight loss companies do this regularly with their programmes; they have to keep changing it and saying that they are improving their programmes to keep your attention. If they don’t, when it stops working for you they won’t have an excuse for their failures.
31st January 2023
I went to a new doctor in November and December last year. The appointment in December was with a respiratory nurse. I’ve got my asthma under control and she referred me to a dietician. I saw the dietician 10th January. She was lovely and we talked for over an hour. She did weigh me, I asked her to. I thought I should make the concession.
I’ve lost 5kg since I got weighed at my new patient appointment in November. I don’t know if that’s because of the way my brain reacted to semi-tracking my food or to my increased exercise between Ezzie dying 30th December and Gyfa dying 20th January.
The dietician took a life history of eating, my experience of weight loss programmes, and a daily menu. She asked about my psychological support, especially with ABL. ABL are a specialist ‘weight management programme’ who tout their psychological support. I explained that the psychologist rang me five or six times for less than an hour each time and basically checked to see if I had an active eating disorder and if I want to go through bariatric surgery. It takes me so much more that a few half hour phone appointments with a stranger to break through my trauma around food. I told her that the information that the group leader used in the group sessions was often incorrect and that I found it triggering. A lot of the people were going through stuff and testified that they were often fitter and metabolically healthier than they were expected to be but we’re still being told to lose weight. One person was being denied gender confirmation surgery until they lost weight. When I left the programme I explained that I couldn’t be part of an organisation that used inaccurate information and gatekept medical care.
The main areas my dietician identified that I need to work on are:
- Routine and planning for the week for main meals
- I order my Gousto box (a two-person box of three meals) four weeks in advance so I know what I’m eating 6 out of 7 days a week, the last day is always a bit iffy, but it also gives me a bit of flexibility
- Removing snacks or reducing the overall amount
- I don’t night eat anymore because I don’t go down to the bathroom at night. I have an incontinence issue anyway due to poor interoception, so I got a commode for my bedroom!
- I have had less snacks in the house although I am still snaking during the day.
- 4-6 weekly weights
- I refuse to be weighed more frequently than every 4 to 6 weeks because it triggers my obsessiveness and brings up past trauma from WW, Slimming World, ABL and generally being bullied for my weight since I was 6 years old.
- Reducing portion sizes especially the days you have double
- I’ve been dividing my cooked meals equally between my plate and a storage bowl for the fridge to save for the next day.
- Keeping those walks up and any activity you are able to do
- I was doing well until Gyfa died; I’ve barely left the house since. It’s too painful to go out without her, too anxiety inducing to face the world without dogs between me and everything else. I’m really missing them. Everything is harder, just getting out of bed in the morning doesn’t always seem worth it.
- Trying to do chair based exercise videos at home, but it takes me all day to gather the energy.
- I want to go to the pool and adapted gym, but I’m too far gone at the moment to leave the house.
1st April 2023
February and March went fast, in a mess of grief and illness. I’m still I’ll. I’ve had this dratted infection since 18th February. Cough and sore throat, ear infection for a while. Amoxicillin twice, which knocked it back for a few days then it came back again. I’ve had one video appointment with a doctor, one in person appointment with a nurse practitioner, a phone appointment with another nurse practitioner, and an in person appointment with a doctor at the acute respiratory hub. My hypothesis, backed by the last doctor was that I’ve got a reservoir of a bacteria in my respiratory system that attacks when I get a cold or an otherwise weakened immune system (stress, lack of food, lack of sleep etc. can cause this) and the doses of amoxicillin knocked off the weaker bacteria, allowing the symptoms to reduce, and then it comes back, more resistant. Right now, I’m coping by taking paracetamol, drinking honey laced cold and flu powders, and sleeping as much as I need to. I also can’t go into work while I’m still infectious, so I’m working from home.
What has this to do with the whole weight loss programme? Not much, just thought I’d do an update. I eat too many sweets and I’m only managing two of three proper meals a day most days, because I’ve been sleeping most mornings and only getting up at eleven or later, so I’ve been eating breakfast and tea. I haven’t done much exercise, although the week after I got a seven day course of amoxicillin I was well enough to ‘get back to normal’, for four days at least, and then the cough and sore throat came back. I went to the adapted gym, walked there and back too, on the Monday (last day of antibiotics) and went swimming on the Wednesday, walked there and most of the way back, I swam a mile in the pool (22nd March – first day of the Swim22 challenge I’m doing to raise money for Diabetes UK. I went to work on the Thursday, where I fell off a chair, bashed my hip and elbow, and then later in the day my ear infection made itself known. Other than a trip to the doctors on Tuesday and another on Wednesday this week to take a sputum sample for culture, I’ve been at home.
I haven’t been tracking, food or exercise, for most of the time I’ve been ill. And I haven’t been snacking much, until today. I needed some shopping yesterday so I did two Whoosh orders, and the second one was for a couple of things I’d forgotten off the first one, and they charge extra for small orders, so I ordered some chocolate. I haven’t eaten all of it, just most of it. Don’t know why, I’m not hungry particularly. Actually, yesterday I was working after I got up and then I was doing some surveys on Prolific, and it was half two before I realised I needed food. Probably why I forgot stuff on my first order and why I bought so much chocolate on my second order. Never shop when you’re hungry or have low blood sugar.
Referring back to the area my dietician wanted me to work on:
- Routine and planning for the week for main meals
- I’ve been getting my Gousto boxes but it’s getting difficult at times, with other expenses, and I’ve had to cancel a few orders because I can’t afford it. I’m currently eating through my freezer, plus some bits I bought at Lidl on Wednesday. I’ve had salmon tonight, with new potatoes and salad. Yesterday I had wholemeal noodles and mackerel, and salad. Thursday I had a chicken, bacon and leek pie from Lidl with new potatoes and steamed veg. I’ve got sausages, salmon and smoked basa defrosting in the fridge, plus a bit of left over chicken and veg stew, so I’m fine for a few days. I’ve got bread and milk in, some fruit, although I need yogurts, but it’ll have to wait until I get my pay in the week.
- Removing snacks or reducing the overall amount
- I ate most of my snacks and replaced some but I’ve been eating less, until my tiny binge today. I have stuff in, I’m just not fussed by it now. I got on a bit of a cinnamon roll kick during the week, but I think that’s passed now.
- 4-6 weekly weights
- Hasn’t happened, but I’ve been updating my dietician by email, and I asked for an appointment last week. It’s booked for 14th April. We shall see what we shall see.
- Reducing portion sizes especially the days you have double
- Some times this works great but on other days I’m hungry still, so I eat the second portion a bit later in the day. This usually happens on days when I have only two meals rather than three. However, if I eat the second portion about an hour after the first portion I then don’t snack later on.
- Keeping those walks up and any activity you are able to do
- I managed to leave the house a few times in February and March, a little at first but then I missed a bus and had to walk to work. I went back to the adapted gym and pool a couple of times in early February before getting ill and I’ve done a little bit since. I’ve been getting out of breath due to the lung infection, which makes it a bit hard to exercise. Going to try again next week and take it slowly. Hoping that the infection gets treated soon is also on my list.
Now, about the WW online subscription. I tried to cancel it in February, so they gave me two months free subscription. I’m going to try to cancel it again this month, because the repeated reminders to track and the pressure to keep note of everything is stressing me out. Because I need more stress, obviously *insert eye-roll here*.
I’ve just cancelled it, but my membership is until 20th May. Because I tried to cancel in February I had one payment ‘commitment’ left so I have to pay another tenner later this month. *sigh* Fine. Whatever. It’s not like I’ve had much for the money I’ve paid. The exercise videos were good, the best part of it, but everything else was just same old, same old, from WW and every other diet and weight management scheme I’ve done – food and exercise diary, points and calorie restriction. And they changed the programme part way through, so obviously their ‘Personal Points’ programme didn’t work and this new one is basically the one I did 12 or 14 years ago, but now with an app instead of a book you have to buy and fill in. If it actually worked they wouldn’t have to keep changing things every year.
23rd May 2023
I saw my dietitian in April and surprise, surprise I’d put on weight. I wasn’t in a good place for several months, what with losing Ezzie and Gyfa three weeks apart. I saw my dietitian a week ago and I’ve lost all that weight again. And I’m starting to feel better, mentally. I’ve been back at working on my projects and reading.
I got my appointment date two weeks before I had it, so I spent two weeks writing down my meals. I’d tried using the WW app again but the numbers were messing with my head. It turns out that if I don’t write down numbers, I can manage to write down my meals without any issues with my mental health. So no app for me! The account has now been closed. I just need to delete the app from my phone. Going forward, I’m going to record my meals only in the weeks between getting my appointment and the date of the appointment with my dietician.
My conclusion: If you have a history of dieting or disordered eating, WW will not help you. They talk big but they aren’t any different form any other diet and never will be. If you want to improve your eating habits, see a dietitian. You can be referred to one on the NHS. Hopefully, you’ll get a supportive one who is more interested in helping you improve your relationship with food rather than encourage you to lose weight.
In other news, I’m doing a fundraising challenge to raise money for Diabetes UK by swimming 11 miles between 22nd March and 22nd June. So far I’ve managed 9.5 miles. If you want to help, the link is here.
Everything Is Better With Dragons 