HEALTH Neill O’Neill’s weight-loss diary – Week 1

Taking on the Motivation Weight Loss Programme


Weight loss
Neill O'Neill

Dieting is like studying. People don’t like doing it, it is easy to get sidetracked from it, and you think it is going to take forever to make progress. Like having your head in the books however, the long term benefits of sticking to a diet plan can leave you feeling proud, content and with plenty to look forward to.
Several weeks ago I tasked myself with interviewing the proprietors of Mayo’s two Motivation Weight Management Clinics, Robin and Imelda Smith, at their Westport Clinic in Market Lane. It was all pretty interesting, as they explained the origins, the concepts and the processes of what Motivation is about. However, I was then challenged onto their complex looking weighing scales/machine to obtain a clear understanding of some of the aspects of Motivation! My readings weren’t outrageous, but some were the bad side of heading in the wrong direction, so I was asked to consider taking on a Motivation plan and documenting it in The Mayo News. What the heck I thought, no harm to change the bad habits for a few weeks.
I postponed starting until after a friend’s stag weekend in Carrick-on-Shannon (good idea!) and began on Thursday, October 2, with Imelda introducing me to first week of the plan and offering some well-placed advice.
Motivation is a confidential, and from what I can see, highly effective weight loss programme, but it also seeks to address the bad habits people have which may lead to overeating, eating at the wrong times or eating the wrong foods. I was a connoisseur of all three!
It is too difficult to explain here and now the multi-faceted approach of Motivation to losing weight, but by just sticking to their plan, without doing any extra exercise at all, I shifted one pound of weight per day in the first week, which, with no play on words intended, was Motivation enough to continue.
I know there are some things I am not doing to help myself, such as fully embracing the non-food aspects, like the literature and audio supports, so my pledge to myself for week two is that I will pay daily attention to these, and drink more water. If you want to break habits and understand more about food and weight loss, they are a must.
The small food guide is a fascinating little booklet I browse every morning at breakfast. On that subject, the last time I ate a daily breakfast before last week was when I was in school and my mother had five bowls of Ready Brek on the counter for me and my siblings every morning.
I’m keeping out of the pub for a while. To think every pint of beer was the equivalent of three slices of bread, means I was consuming half a bread van some weekends, and I am already wiser to sugars in food, including the naturally occurring ones.
What I wasn’t expecting was to find myself stirring a pot of home made soup at midnight last week, and to be making various batches of sin-free, but delicious soup, something I had never even thought of before, never mind attempted.
After week one I’m already lighter, happier and certainly feeling Motivated.

MORE next week.