Week 1 Day 7: 2nd LL meeting

The rest of Day 6 went well - I haven't yet experienced many of the OMG FABULOUS AND AMAZING!!!!!! ketosissy bags of energy loads of people on the forums report, but it's early days. And perhaps I'm just not a very OMG!!!! person.

I wasn't hungry at all though, and had to force my last pack (hot chocolate/vanilla - vanilla and I are parting ways now, blech) down myself at bedtime. Today has gone pretty well, too, energy/hunger-wise.

I tried the tomato soup at lunch. I won't be doing that again.

Today I had my second LL meeting. Our LLC was otherwise indisposed today, and when I arrived I could hear the locum in the next room, roundly scolding one of the ladies in my group. Apparently this lady had just turned up to 'pick up my packs and go', and the locum sent her away with a flea in her ear about the importance of attending the counselling sessions, doubting her commitment to Sparklemotion, and so on.

I just sat there, awkwardly flicking through one of the LL magazines and wondering what kind of hell the session would be.

But it was brilliant! Disappointingly, only 2 of the other ladies turned up, but having such a small group made for a really useful session. Today we learned more about ego states, and talked about what makes us eat when we're not hungry, and what is actually going on in our heads when we reach for extra food at the end of a stressful day, say.

Our locum was amazing. She had x-ray eyes! After about half an hour she looked at me and said:

"I think you know exactly what you want. I think you moved to London to do a number of things, but you're hiding from them behind your weight. You're eating instead, worrying about what other people think of you, and you're putting everything else first rather than taking care of yourself."

Which shut me up. She seemed to be spot-on about the other ladies, too.

Talking to her I also realised:

1. When I'm angry, I rebel by eating all the foods I'm not supposed to, because I'm not supposed to.
2. I rarely give myself non-food treats. Despite having 101 interests (my guitar, piano and fiction writing software are languishing under layers of dust), I always revert to food.

And she talked about crooked thinking - for example:

• An event - eg. someone asks you to host a party.
• Crooked thinking - you immediately think you can't do it because you're rubbish.
• Balanced questions - well, what evidence is that that you can't do it? How do you know if you haven't tried?
• Action - accepting the offer.
• Feeling - positive and excited, while being aware of feeling nervous about it too.

So it's not all mumbo-jumbo for fatties. It's about examining how you behave and, rather than beating yourself up for behaving that way (which is, apparently, what the Critical Parent ego state would do), thinking about what's behind that behaviour, and looking at healthier and more productive ways to solve the problem.

It was all really interesting really.

This week I also got a special green book full of info, advice about the diet, psychotherapy techniques and pretty pictures of smiling, sylph-like former heffalumps, and my bars. I have tried the peanut one. It was delicious and it made me hungry.

Which brings us to my weight loss.

Ladies and gentlemen, at my week 1 weigh-in I have lost the staggering....

POINT FOUR OF A POUND.

Yes.

I was feeling physically hungry, I'd just peed on a special stick and it went a bit peach. I wondered whether I'd somehow fallen out of ketosis by sleepwalking to MacDonalds and having a quarterpounder with cheese meal or something (oh my god quarterpounder with cheese meals... but you see, this is exactly the sort of 'treat' I would have maybe once a month when I was slim, and be ecstatic about.... but the sort of thing that in recent years I've had after every big night out. After a while they taste quite samey).

Anyway, no. My pop-in was only 4 days ago, I've stayed on the programme, had a period (sorry, men), an upset tummy (sorry everyone) and had to take Imodium twice (sorry again). The locum says that as long as I've stayed on track I'm losing, and small losses this week mean big losses next week.

Of course I am worried that I'm that one person in a billion trillion whose body gets ketosis wrong and loses no weight at all.

But it's probably more likely that all the factors above plus the fact that I've not settled into a foodpack rhythm just means that my body's holding onto more at the moment.

Ooh, I wanted to note that, although I've been gulping water like a good LLer throughout, yesterday I didn't start drinking until midday. It was purely because I'd left my water bottle upstairs (and I honestly can't think of a lamer excuse) and I had had two large black coffees, but all the same, it's all too easy to fall into the habit of not drinking so I will CUT THAT OUT NOW.

Altogether I'm feeling quite positive about it all. Provided that I haven't put on any weight next week.

Now I'm off to read more of my green book.