This evening, I attended my introductory session at the local LighterLife office.
When I arrived, I found six other men of varying ages and sizes sitting in the corridor. There was a little bit of chat, but mostly they were quiet. It wasn't unfriendly, but as the new person, I would have appreciated some acknowledgement. I suppose this is just blokes for you, and I dare say that I might have been the same, put in their position.
After a few minutes, we went into the main room, which has chairs around three walls and a blackboard and flip chart along the other. We were instructed to grab pens and clipboards from the table and then we were given forms to fill out. Our leader, whom I shall call J, suggested I get assistance from one of the more experienced members. I looked at it and could see that it had various foods listed on it - vanilla, chocolate, chicken, mushroom, Thai chili etc.; clearly the Very Low Calorie food packs we would be purchasing. However, it wasn't clear how many I was supposed to choose.
The chap sitting next to me - typical men, we all had at least one spare seat between us - was busy filling out his form, but eventually looked up and told me that I could choose any combination of packs so long as it totalled 28. Additionally, there were some bars - toffee was one, peanut was another, but we couldn't have these for the first four days.
I duly picked a combination of packs; 7*vanilla, 7*vegetable soup, 7*Thai chili, 4*chocolate and some bars for the end of the week. My thought is to stick to vanilla for breakfast, veg soup for lunch, Thai chili for my evening meal, with the chocolate/ bars as a snack. One of the guys said his wife was on the programme, and she cut her bars into sweet-sized pieces and had them throughout the day.
J was out of the room while this was happening, and since we were talking, I admitted I was apprehensive about getting through the first few days without finding myself chewing off my own arm come ten o'clock at night. They told me that it was hard, but that the fear of failing was worse than actually getting on with getting through it.
While this was going on, J came back in and the other chaps were taken into a corner of the room where they were weighed and measured. When it came to my turn, I discovered I'm 124.7 kg. She also measured round my moobs, waist and hips, but she didn't record those in my book, so I don't have a record. I'll attempt to rectify that.
Once we'd all being measured, J handed out work books that would take us through the next four weeks. As it was my first week, I couldn't do quite the exercise everyone else worked on but I did something similar. I was asked to divide my page in to two and note down "where I am now" with my weight, and secondly, "where you want to be".
Now, at this point, I want to note that a part of me really wanted to reject this exercise. I'm a reasonably well-educated and intelligent person and this exercise just seemed to be a bit basic, a bit beneath me, perhaps. And then I thought about the weeks I'd spent continuing to stuff my face because I lack the self-control to eat sensibly waiting to start on the LighterLife programme, and I thought, no, this is not beneath me. Maybe it should be, but actually, every day I demonstrate that I'm not capable of exercising the self-restraint necessary to ensure I won't end up dying in my forties, or have my quality of life drastically reduced. So, I had to tell myself that actually I do have to do this and I have to do this properly and uncynically if I'm going to make the changes I want to see, and I have to do it honestly too.
So, here's what I noted down:
Where I am now:
When I arrived, I found six other men of varying ages and sizes sitting in the corridor. There was a little bit of chat, but mostly they were quiet. It wasn't unfriendly, but as the new person, I would have appreciated some acknowledgement. I suppose this is just blokes for you, and I dare say that I might have been the same, put in their position.
After a few minutes, we went into the main room, which has chairs around three walls and a blackboard and flip chart along the other. We were instructed to grab pens and clipboards from the table and then we were given forms to fill out. Our leader, whom I shall call J, suggested I get assistance from one of the more experienced members. I looked at it and could see that it had various foods listed on it - vanilla, chocolate, chicken, mushroom, Thai chili etc.; clearly the Very Low Calorie food packs we would be purchasing. However, it wasn't clear how many I was supposed to choose.
The chap sitting next to me - typical men, we all had at least one spare seat between us - was busy filling out his form, but eventually looked up and told me that I could choose any combination of packs so long as it totalled 28. Additionally, there were some bars - toffee was one, peanut was another, but we couldn't have these for the first four days.
I duly picked a combination of packs; 7*vanilla, 7*vegetable soup, 7*Thai chili, 4*chocolate and some bars for the end of the week. My thought is to stick to vanilla for breakfast, veg soup for lunch, Thai chili for my evening meal, with the chocolate/ bars as a snack. One of the guys said his wife was on the programme, and she cut her bars into sweet-sized pieces and had them throughout the day.
J was out of the room while this was happening, and since we were talking, I admitted I was apprehensive about getting through the first few days without finding myself chewing off my own arm come ten o'clock at night. They told me that it was hard, but that the fear of failing was worse than actually getting on with getting through it.
While this was going on, J came back in and the other chaps were taken into a corner of the room where they were weighed and measured. When it came to my turn, I discovered I'm 124.7 kg. She also measured round my moobs, waist and hips, but she didn't record those in my book, so I don't have a record. I'll attempt to rectify that.
Once we'd all being measured, J handed out work books that would take us through the next four weeks. As it was my first week, I couldn't do quite the exercise everyone else worked on but I did something similar. I was asked to divide my page in to two and note down "where I am now" with my weight, and secondly, "where you want to be".
Now, at this point, I want to note that a part of me really wanted to reject this exercise. I'm a reasonably well-educated and intelligent person and this exercise just seemed to be a bit basic, a bit beneath me, perhaps. And then I thought about the weeks I'd spent continuing to stuff my face because I lack the self-control to eat sensibly waiting to start on the LighterLife programme, and I thought, no, this is not beneath me. Maybe it should be, but actually, every day I demonstrate that I'm not capable of exercising the self-restraint necessary to ensure I won't end up dying in my forties, or have my quality of life drastically reduced. So, I had to tell myself that actually I do have to do this and I have to do this properly and uncynically if I'm going to make the changes I want to see, and I have to do it honestly too.
So, here's what I noted down:
Where I am now:
- Fearful of dying and not seeing family grow up and widowing wife.
- While on holiday with my dad and brothers, had to wear a t-shirt swimming out of embarrasment.
- Fed up of aches and pains.
- Dislike of getting sweaty after fairly minimal exertion.
- Sense of disgust at lack of self-control.
- Feel unattractive for wife.
Where I will be:
- Chance to see family grow up
- Opportunity to take advantage of life
- Feel more attractive and confident
- Better able to handle work stress
- Have promised myself a skydive - currently wouldn't be allowed to take part
- Healthier and happier
- Better off!
J then asked each of the other men to introduce themselves and pass on one piece of advice. Much of this was fairly basic, along the lines of 'you can do it', but it was all encouraging.
After an hour, the rest went home and I had a short one to one with J. She asked me whether I had any concerns, and I reiterated my worry that I'd fail in the first couple of days. She sketched out a diagram of how the brain makes decisions and showed me the difference between a positive loop and a negative one. The negative loop is where you end up in a situation where you would eat but faced with not being able to, choose to see it as 'restrictive' and 'unfair'. This leads to anxiety and frustration and it's fairly obvious why this is negative. In the positive scenario, it's more about seeing not having food as a deliberate choice one has made, and this leads to a feeling of being in control.
I picked up my bag of food for the week from the office. It's less than I eat at work on a normal day (although obviously this is largely due to it being powders). Hmmm.
Tomorrow, I start to change my relationship with food, and resist the temptation to have one last blow out when I get home.
After an hour, the rest went home and I had a short one to one with J. She asked me whether I had any concerns, and I reiterated my worry that I'd fail in the first couple of days. She sketched out a diagram of how the brain makes decisions and showed me the difference between a positive loop and a negative one. The negative loop is where you end up in a situation where you would eat but faced with not being able to, choose to see it as 'restrictive' and 'unfair'. This leads to anxiety and frustration and it's fairly obvious why this is negative. In the positive scenario, it's more about seeing not having food as a deliberate choice one has made, and this leads to a feeling of being in control.
I picked up my bag of food for the week from the office. It's less than I eat at work on a normal day (although obviously this is largely due to it being powders). Hmmm.
Tomorrow, I start to change my relationship with food, and resist the temptation to have one last blow out when I get home.
* a quick note on the numbering; as I didn't start the diet until the day after my first meeting, I've decided that this first meeting is Day 000, Week 00. This will mean the following weeks are more logically named.
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