I mentioned a while ago that I have walked 2000 kilometres this year without my weight changing at all. This despite the fact that walking is frequently recommended as a good exercise for weight loss.
A different story with my eldest daughter Karen. She has been very overweight for some time. Before that she was bulimic for 12 years, but nobody knew about it because, in the nature of these things, she kept it secret.
Last year she trained for, and accomplished, a ten mile sponsored walk and the 60 mile
In March she was told by a doctor that if she did not lose a lot of weight she would, not could, become diabetic, with all the risks that entails.
Karen immediately got to grips with this. I am so proud of her achievement. She has lost 45 pounds since the beginning of April. She has shown immense willpower, because she is on a diet of 500 calories a day. You can probably use that up just brushing your teeth and going up and down stairs a couple of times. But she has continued to lead a normal life, although walking and cycling are out for the moment because there is just not enough energy available in her body for that (unless she gives up brushing her teeth).
She is doing all this under supervision and counselling from Lighter Life, who supply her with the sachet food which is all she has eaten for over two months.
Some people say it is not healthy to lose so much weight so quickly, and to live on powdered food. But the diet was suggested by her GP. She had to have a full medical before she started the diet and has to have a full medical every 28 days or else Lighter Life will not continue to supply her with the foodpacks, The counsellor and the doc are ensuring that she is healthy. As Karen says “It isn’t ideal, but it is most certainly more healthy than being 6 stone overweight. I was bulimic for 12 years and no diet, however harsh, could EVER do as much damage to my body (or my state of mind) than that did!!!!!!!! That’s why it’s great that the Lighter Life Programme combines dieting with counselling for eating disorders”
It isn’t easy. She says “I’m finding it SO hard – I haven’t eaten now for 10 weeks and I’m absolutely craving chicken and prawns and egg mayonnaise. Also, at the risk of sounding like a drunken sot, I could do with a glass of red!! I’m feeling pretty miserable and wish I could just stop the diet but I know I’ll beat myself up if I do that”.
When she gets to her target weight she will, under counselling, be gradually reintroduced to normal food and trained to maintain her newly trim figure.
As I said above, I am very proud of Karen’s achievement and think this company, and her doctor, should be commended for what they have done for her.
Karen was ambivalent about me telling this story in my blog. But after speaking with husband Kenny she decided it would be worth it if it helps one other person to lose some weight which is affecting their health, or to realise that there really IS life after bulimia. She has been joking recently that for the past 15 years she has had partial bulimia – she could master the eating but not the purging!!!!!
A really 'good' side effect of Lighter Life is that she has not suffered with her hiatus hernia or her IBS since she started it.
Attached are is a photo of Karen wearing the trousers which she wore for my first 'weigh in' at LL. She said that she was going to keep wearing them for the weigh-ins for as many weeks as she could. After 3 weeks they felt like they were falling down. Last Christmas she wore them to go out and she was really, really uncomfortable all night because they were digging in her waist. She can take them off without undoing them now!
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