Fad Diets and Pregnancy

So, I haven’t written in a few days, but a lot has happened. First things though, Office-Girl-Who-Sits-Next To-Me-Doing-South Beach Diet comes into work about 4 days after my 2nd post and goes “I’m off that diet. Who wants to live without carbs, I’d rather eat pasta.” My point exactly. Deprivation often leads to excessive eating of the very food we have deprived ourselves of. There are so many of us that do this. As if our suffering factor goes up, we will be bound to lose the weight. This morning she came into work and said, she’s back on track – calorie counting – she wondered if I knew how much a KFC Zinger Works Burger was – there’s just no helping some people. Calorie counting is the best way to lose weight, but you need to make sure you eat the right food groups and in the right quantity. A strict calorie controlled diet that is, say, high in carbohydrates and high in fat, may ensure eventual weight loss, but because there is no balance amongst the food groups, you will not end up feeling as full for long, develop potential water retention, have dangerously varying blood sugar levels. Balance is key.

The other major thing that has happened is that on Friday 15 May I weighed myself (like I do most weeks or fortnights) and I was 54.2kg, so it appears that I have gained about 1.2kgs. In addition to this key fact, I did a pregnancy test. It appears I’m also 6 weeks pregnant! This is great news, a surprise but a good one nonetheless. So as soon as I found this out, guess what I ‘googled’? “Pregnancy exercises’. The literature supports activities that do not require too much bouncing or ‘up and down’ activities. Normally I combine my elliptical trainer workout with skipping, so I ‘skipped’ the skipping and instead increased my arm weights and today I began a series of squats and butt lifts. This is the only modification I have made so far. Normally I do 20 minutes at 5:30am and then 30 minutes in the afternoon. After about 12 minutes this morning, I felt a slight cramp, so I cut the workout short. Apparently if it starts to feel uncomfortable – stop. It certainly explains the amount of food I’ve been eating in the past couple of weeks. However, today I am back on track. I had my usual Weetbix and Soy Milk, 2 mandarins, 1 banana, and some sweet slices for morning tea. I also ate a Chupa Chup lollipop. When I got home, my Mum had sent some chevda (this is an Indian savoury snack), so I had 1 cup of Indian tea with a rather generous serving of chevda. Then for dinner I had some rice, curried lamb, curried yoghurt and ¼ potato sakh and ½ an apple. And that’s pretty much it. I only had 2 cups of tea today. I am put off it at the moment.

The other thing I am going to do (from tomorrow) is to begin using this gadget that you keep on your body and it calculates the number of calories you burn. I will see how this goes. I have decided that I really cannot do much about the tummy factor at the moment, but I may as well use this preggy time to concentrate on keeping my arms and butt toned – safely. I might also take pregnancy vitamin supplements. Last time I had Elevit and I found they were great for my energy levels. So the next few months are going to be definite interesting ones.

Lemon Detox Diet, Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig and other Fad diets

In our office the girl who sits next to me has started doing the South Beach diet, she does it part time during the week and hardly ever over the weekend. She says she struggles because she 'loves her carbs' (don't a lot of us?). The lady across from me is doing a high protein diet, she comes in and has a shake every morning and then 'treats' herself to her morning coffee. My cousin has started the Lemon Detox diet - she thinks it might give her headaches. A close friend is such a true believer in Weight Watchers, she has decided to become a consultant. In the past I have also lost a lot of weight with both Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig however one word comes to mind when I hear of people going on diets such as these: DEPRIVATION.

Deprivation is a common element in all of these diets. Often the dieter is just focussing on what they are not 'allowed' to eat. This essentially has 2 flow-on effects:

1. They end up not sticking to the diet (either in the long term or the short term).

2. If they do end up losing some weight, once this weight has come off and they decide to 'indulge' over any particular weekend, they end up feeling bouts of guilt for 'veering off track'

As soon as we make a deliberate attempt to give up anything we like, be it alcohol, chocolate, butter, carbohydrates, desserts; it is human nature that we will become obsessed with these foods we have chosen to give up - simply because we are no longer 'allowed' them.

Any weight loss program one undertakes needs to be realistic. It needs to build in the foods you like. It needs to allow you the foods you like. They say that most dieters gain back their weight within 5 years of losing it. There are many reasons for diet failure but the top ones (in the past) for me were:

1. Failure at maintaining weight due to comfort, depression and/or emotional eating. The reasons used for this could be that I had suffered a loss of a loved one, we had a family wedding, an overseas trip, we had friends visiting from out of town. I guess what I am saying here is that it did not matter whether the reason was positive or negative - I always had an excuse for overeating.

2. Eating Binge,So Why Carry On? After a big blowout (which could last for anything from 1-7 days), I would think that because I had this massive blowout, I may as well carry on. It would be a steady downward spiral. The flow-on effects would be that I would carry on over-eating. And then I would think that exercising would be a waste of time because what would be the point with all the food I had begun to eat. I am sure you get the drift! The trick is that now if I over eat, I do feel a bit of guilt, but I get over it. I might forgo a planned snack or dessert or I might take the baby out in the stroller in addition to my regular workout.

3. Loss of control over amount of weight gain: In the past, if I gained say 1-2kgs, I would feel disheartened and then before I knew it, I had gained 10kgs. Now, if I gain 500g-1.5kg (which I did over Christmas), then I 'nip it in the bud' before it gets over the +2kg amount.

4. Pregnancy: This is a huge one. It seems as if everyone around me thought it was ok for me to be about 37kg overweight. Some of the comments I got were: "you've just had a baby, it's ok", "you had a Caesarean, you can't exercise", "you are a Mum now, so don't worry about what you look like, you have a wonderful baby!". I could not believe this. What about things such as self pride, self awareness - these things do not necesssarily disappear simply because one has entered parenthood!

5. Inconsistent Exercising: If I got a falling NZ dollar for everytime I made an excuse to not exercise, I truly would be that elusive billionaire that I have always wanted to be. Today I have no excuse. I do not even look for them. If something occurs during my day that does not enable me to do it at the designated time then I MAKE UP FOR IT. For example, I normally hop on the Elliptical Trainer between 3:10pm-3:40pm. Sometimes I might have to go to the airport, shopping, my daughter is sick. If this happens, you will still find me on the treadmill later on the evening. I have been known to sit on the Elliptical Trainer and do my regular 30 minutes even after 9pm!

I guess what I am trying to say, is to MAINTAIN WEIGHT one must seek balance and practice weight maintainence with MODERATION. The yo-yo dieters out there are known to have a massive blowout, starve and exercise for a week, then they are back on track, only for 1 'event' to trigger off a binge and the circle goes around and around.