Diet Sabotage, How To Mess Up Your Weight Loss

Sal is well and truly stuck. She is half a pound away from getting to her 1 stone award. But she can’t get over the line. 13½ pounds of weight loss is not a happy place to be. Her own diagnosis of the problem is that she is sabotaging her weight loss. Sal believes she is the cause of her own problem although I don’t think she knows precisely why. You can do it Sal, keep hanging on and doing the right things.

This got me to thinking about the ways I sabotage my own eating plan. As you will know, I am an expert at cheating on my diet having conjured up many convoluted ways of losing the plot. See Week Fourteen in my book ‘The World of Slimming’ to discover my top seven cheating methods. But there are other things that I do which are just as harmful.

Obviously, I haven’t actually tried all of these options, but I can see that theoretically, these self-sabotaging methods might cause me problems were I to involve myself with them. So here, in no particular order, are my…

12 Ways To Sabotage Your Weight Loss

1. Over Zealous Weighing Scales Regime

You get up and go to the bathroom and weigh yourself. Then you go to the toilet and weigh yourself again. Well done, you lost some ‘weight’. You consider the merits of skipping breakfast but are too hungry. Later in the day you go on a long walk. On returning you need a good shower. You whip your kit off and check the scales once more. Then at bedtime you go to the toilet yet again and then jump back on the scales.

The trouble is that all this weighing is messing with your head. You start obsessing about what you have eaten that could possibly have affected the scales in a negative way, or even a positive way. Instead of following the plan you get side-tracked by the scales. I think that we should have a Slimming World ‘Scales Amnesty’ where we all anonymously bring our scales to group and quietly hand them in without any further incrimination or punishment. Then we could get on with our lives with one less thing to fret about.

2. Cooking God/Goddess Syndrome

There is an element of competition where we all try to outdo each other with our prowess at creating the best possible Slimming World meal we can. I don’t take part in this futile exercise, safe in the knowledge that my meals are better than anyone else’s… We brag and boast about all the wonderful things we are cooking and eating and post them in the Facebook group.

All this furious kitchen activity ends up being so irksome that we give up being quite so angelic and order in takeaway food or go to the chippy. Give yourself a break and plan some easy days. If you find yourself with time on your hands then you can metamorphosise into a Michelin Star chef for the evening.

3. How Much Does It Weigh?

All my life I have cooked without measuring things. I use a bit of this and a bit of that and end up with something called dinner. But on Slimming World you must measure anything that is not free or speed food. If the recipe says 40 grams, guess how many grams you should use? It should be simple and straightforward but for some reason it isn’t.

4. Body Magic Folly

Body magic can remove all logic from your brain. You walk for miles or do a huge gym session and finish exhausted and feeling extremely virtuous. You suddenly believe that you can eat anything you like and it will not affect the scales. I am really into body magic but it can make your brain think that you are invincible when you swagger into the kitchen mooching around for a snack. ‘Look at me, I can have anything I like.’

5. Starving Before Weigh In

I still do not quite believe this one, but I am putting it in as I know many other Slimming World Friends who do this. You know that the following day you are getting weighed in group. The inevitable, auspicious weigh day, you can postpone it no longer.

With this in mind, you have a minimal breakfast of strawberries and grapes. Then you spread a single Ryvita with a slither of marmite safe in the knowledge that you will get a tasty ‘hit’ of momentary flavour which makes you think you are eating. Your evening meal is consumed by 16.30 and consists of a stick of celery dipped in salt. After this sort of day, one of two things will happen. A. You will go to bed early to forget everything about food. B. Late night supper consists of a huge food binge because you are so hungry.

6. Alcohol Numbness

There is not much good I can say about alcohol except that I like red wine, beer and cognac. Specifically, Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Erdinger dunkel weiss bier (Only on sale in Germany) and Hennessey XO (We have visited the factory in Cognac, France 6 times). I only mention this in case you don’t know what to order for me…

I have never been drunk but I have noticed a tendency for me other people to ignore common sense after a decent bevy. I suddenly You suddenly lose all restraint in regards to what I can you can eat. Pretty much anything becomes permissible with a good drink inside me you. As I said in the beginning, this is purely theoretical musings on my part about possible causes of weight loss sabotage.

7. Believing Food Labels

The supermarkets are quite brilliant at concealing the truth about their products. ‘Low fat!’ – how low is low. ‘Healthy Eating!’ – what do you mean by healthy? ‘One of your five a day’ – How does that work when there are added ingredients? ‘Only 150 calories per 25 grams’ but who eats only 25 grams? I don’t believe any of it without the Slimming World App to confirm it.

8. The Hare and The Tortoise

I am a tortoise at losing weight but I think that I am a hare. My brain thinks that I can lose weight easily. But my body has other ideas about this. The confusion caused by this misjudgement creates difficulties and frustration in my brain. The fury this creates can end up with a major food crash just because I have unrealistic expectations for myself.

9. Just One Little Lapse

Just as your hand places the cup-cake/chocolate/peanuts into your mouth you realise that you have blotted the day in terms of syns. You mull this over and think ‘Oh dear, what a pity!! I might as well give up today and start again tomorrow.’ Herald the onset of a complete disaster of a day. You could, however, just get back on it and count the syns.

10. ‘I’m Not In The Mood!’

‘No really, I just don’t want to know about healthy eating and diets, go away and leave me alone!’ (Throws nearest convenient object towards me). This happens to some of the ladies in our group at least once a month. I have not experienced this one…

11. ‘I’ll Just Have One, Thank You’

Yeah right! You try stopping once you have started eating that fabulous looking gourmet treat.

12. Tomorrow Is Another Day

Have you ever promised to yourself that tomorrow you are going to be totally focussed and back on your diet? I used to do this every day, but tomorrow never came. It was always the next day. Try changing what you are doing, starting now. You can’t escape the here and now. It’s a mindset thing.

Her Name In Lights

Last week Nigella was visibly put out by me telling her that I would not include her next week in my blog. She has been getting far too many mentions in recent times. This has completely backfired on me this week as she achieved her club 10 award and 1½ Stone award on the same day. Well done Nigella.