HEALTH Neill O’Neill’s weight-loss diary – Week 8

Wagon steadied, new frontier crossed


Weight loss
Neill O'Neill

My weight-loss diary – Week 8

A week after the wagon jack-knifed and made an unholy mess, I returned to the Motivation Clinic in Westport having spent the intervening week balancing my life between some healthy living and engaging in some routine socialising.
This is how it is supposed to be done. You’re not supposed to put your life on hold. You learn to balance things. And to prove the point, I had lost a further three pounds last week, which was very satisfactory.
I might actually have lost more if I had drunk my water, ate at the correct intervals and done some exercise, but events of the week conspired against that, and it could not have been helped.
In eight weeks, I have lost just shy of two stone. Had I stuck to my self-imposed exile from the pub and non-programme foods, and been as religious about my plan in recent weeks as I had been for the first five, I’d probably be on a drip in a hospital somewhere looking like a stick insect. So, to have found that balance is no harm. The bottom line is I’m healthier, happier and thinner, and the simple truth is that you have to live your life too.
At my last consultation, some comparative measurements were taken, and they tell their own tale. I’ve lost six inches off my waist and three off my neck, which I can feel in my clothes. Closing the top buttons in my shirt is now a seamless process. It feels less like strangulation and more like the normal thing to do.
I have undertaken to return to the Motivation Clinic in January to have my measurements taken and see what toll a manic December, by even Mick Jagger’s standards, will have taken on me. The hardest part will be not to let myself slide in the meantime, but I have learnt enough to not let that happen. Control will now be the biggest issue.
The whole experience has been a real eye opener. I’ll be eating breakfast from now on. A poached egg on brown bread is a good option. I’ll be drinking copious amounts of water from now on too. Most importantly, I cannot allow myself to regularly go all day long without eating anything, turn hypoglycemic, and then go home and pig out completely. It is a recipe for bad health.
I have noticed that while I used to consume a vast quantity of sweets and fizzy drinks, I have not, despite weaning myself off the strict regime, seen any of those old habits creeping back in. Similarly, I have no cravings for such items. I may allow some indulgence at Christmas, but it’s doubtful I’ll ever go back to the way I was. They told me it takes 21 days to break a habit. Hopefully I’ve broken a few in the last two months, and gained some good ones.
This is not the end for this column, but it is going into hibernation for the rest of the winter. I have to thank the team at the Motivation Clinic in Westport, and in particular Imelda, for her patience and perseverance. If they could keep me on the straight and narrow, they can sort anybody! I was a bit like the little girl with the little curl in the nursery rhyme over the past two months. When I was good I was very, very good, but when I was bad I was….