The sweet stuff

There are guidelines, GDAs or more recently known as Recommended Intakes (RI) about the make-up of calorific intake.

MFP set up default levels but I noticed that I seemed to be reaching the sugar level very quickly despite not having added sugar, fruit juices or syrups - the things you expect. This got me thinking about what my intake of sugar should be and, more scarily, how much it has been in the past.

MFP was set at 43g of sugar. But that didn't take into account whether they were natural sugars or added sugars. There doesn't seem to be a way to break this down (without paying a shedload for MFP premium, which I'm not up for). The GDA or RI for women is 90g TOTAL sugar. So although I was above the threshold it had arbitrarily chosen for me that was ALL sugar in my diet. Surely even a saint couldn't keep it below 43g? I have changed it to 90g and intend to keep below that.

Quite possibly, up until just a few days ago, I could well have been topping 90g on a daily basis and probably doubling that or even more. Maybe this is the wake-up call I need. I realised that as I was walking around Tesco this afternoon I was thinking about the sugar content of virtually everything and remembering my brother saying that he never buys grapes because they are just balls of sugar. I scoffed at this because I thought that purely being a natural fruit trumped any bad sugar content. I was wrong; it's all important.

I have also considered the calcium, potassium and sodium content of my diet as MFP was consistently advising me that my potassium and calcium were low. I'm quite chuffed that there was no such alert about sodium being high - I have hypertension and so am quite aware of salt and processed foods etc. So I have adjusted the amounts according to RI and have considered where I might best obtain potassium and calcium in my diet. This is made a helluver lot easier by the fact I can now eat more natural sugars. I knew my calcium intake wasn't great, but the cap on my sugar wouldn't allow me to have a glass of milk without going way over. Hopefully there will be a bit of a better balance now. The same with goes for nuts and seeds giving me extra nutrients (calcium among them) or yoghurt, bananas and dried fruit for potassium; it all has sugar in too but now I have more sugar to play with!

This all makes me feel quite accomplished and like I'm on the right track to change my lifestyle. I never considered it as an academic process before, WeightWatchers and the like have always done the science bit for me and I've just taken their word for it. I hate WW. It works while you're on it, adhering to their strict rules (no matter how flexible they want you to think it is) but mostly because they peddle horrible low fat alternatives, rubbish recipes that never taste as good as when they're laden with fat and sugar. I'm miserable when I'm on a 'diet'.

I want to drink whole milk, eat full fat cheese and full fat yoghurt. I want to eat fresh, unprocessed foods as much as I can. But most of all, I want to be able to enjoy a healthy diet without feeling guilty, fat or deprived. I know I'm counting and measuring a lot at the moment and it takes precious time to put that extra effort in. But it will eventually be worth it. I will have changed my habits, changed my lifestyle and it will no longer be a chore. 

The beginning of a journey

I think I have reached an epiphany.

I am an intelligent person with a Master's degree and I have been overweight to some degree for all of my adult life. I know that this is basically because my equation doesn't balance. It is a fundamental question of input and output and, the input is consistently more than the output. This consistency means that apart from within my (many) bouts of dieting I have put weight on or maintained my weight (at overweight).

So today, after a declaration of intent and failure within 12 hours I have decided to investigate, explore and analyse not only my own self but how I can improve that self. I would like to consider what makes me do what I do and synthesise that data into good and bad behaviours, that is, what is useful to help me with my desired outcomes and what is unhelpful. 

In addition, I would like to compile and define nutritional needs in order to create a template of input. Similarly, research-based recommendations regarding required amounts of physical activity and how they are best performed will be investigated. I will consider various types of weight control, diet and eating regime and attempt to incorporate the most useful and practical aspects into my own, personalised plan.

Having recently completed my Master's dissertation, it occurred to me that approaching my problem from an academic perspective is novel, but appropriate and may throw more light on a topic that has intrigued, baffled and eluded me for many years. I will in effect, be conducting a piece of auto-research with aspects of both autoethnography as I explore the self, but also qualitative and quantitative as I analyse theories, concepts and comparative data.

The research will primarily be in the form of literature searches with a working hypothesis that by shifting the balance from input to output, weight, health and wellbeing will be improved. It is clear that although I consider what I am doing to be from an academic perspective, it would probably not stand up to critical analysis or conform to recognised referencing standards. Ultimately, my aim is to devise a template to assist in improving my own health and wellbeing. The local research ethics committee need not be concerned with what I am doing!

To start, some statistics might be helpful - the statistics are as follows. Showing a change in these will fulfil the quantitative aspect of the study. I have not measured my blood pressure as I'm too scared to do so at present. But one of my principal aims is to reduce my blood pressure as I suffer from hypertension, for which I take daily medication.

Date	09/06/17
age	44y 11m
height	160cm
weight	101.5kg
bust	119cm
waist	111cm
hips	118cm
thigh	70cm
calf	48cm
arm	42cm

Without question, there are also feelings and thoughts that reflect the qualitative side and I shall explore these briefly now.

Yesterday morning I had expressed a desire to make lifestyle changes because I was feeling the effects of putting on more weight; my clothes were becoming tighter, I was noticing I was more easily out of breath and (possibly TMI) I have been getting regular bouts of thrush, which I put down to a high sugar intake.

I had a very trying day at work, with lots of problems to sort, difficult and sensitive situations and a degree of professional arrogance and superiority that caused me to be an hour late leaving. On the way home, I bought a £1 Dairy Milk bar, a £1 bag of revels and a £1 bag of fruit pastilles. And I ate them. I had to stop myself from diving in before I had eaten my evening meal, which I managed. Just. But then I scoffed 95% (hubby had a bit) in double quick time. I wanted to feel good and they were going to do that. But the feeling lasts so briefly that all too soon, I just felt overfull and sick. Hubby found it particularly disturbing that despite consuming so much refined sugar not that long before bedtime, I had no difficulty getting off to sleep and apart from the initial euphoria as the chocolate was still melting my mouth, I did not experience a 'sugar rush' and was not bouncing off the ceiling as he felt he would be.

Why did I feel the need to not only buy sweets and chocolate, but so much of the stuff and consume it so quickly? I think it's to do with feeling I deserved it after the crap day I'd had. Sweets and sugar are the treats that I value. I feel minimal pleasure in buying clothes because of my size and I don't wear much make-up. I am wary of beauty products because I have quite sensitive skin and the above TMI. And there's no instant hit from those other things. I think my personality is about craving instant hits and I'm sure that if I had moved in the right (or wrong depending on your perspective) social circles, I could quite easily be addicted to illegal substances. I can't afford to be an alcoholic but in all honesty, I can take or leave alcohol; I don't get an instant hit - it's too much effort (and expense) to get comfortably squiffy and it's not worth the hangover.

How can I think about alcohol like that but not refined sugar?

Sugar isn't my only problem, just my main one. I also enjoy cheese, cream, butter, crisps and fried food but I control these better. Discussing things over the dining room table (which we hardly ever eat at - another bad habit) we agreed that out general grocery shopping isn't bad - we avoid processed stuff, ready meals and the like but we always buy extras and treats when we go shopping. There's that word again - treats! We both agree that if we don't buy it, we can't eat it but sometimes we want a treat just to get over the tortuous trip to the supermarket! It's a vicious circle!

I have come up with some ideas for what are helpful and unhelpful behaviours - see below

Helpful	Unhelpful
not buying crap	not eating at the table
not eating ready meals	requiring 'treats'
parking a distance away at work	lazing in bed – late start to day/knock on
using fitbit	ignorance of nutritional content/requirements
not taking money to work	not listening for ‘full’ signal
taking packed lunches	main meal in evening
eating breakfast	temptations at work
planning menu/meals	lack of self-esteem/worth
drinking water ++	eating too quickly
self awareness	stress
don’t have sugar in drinks/on cereal

I think it's time I did a bit of research now. 

To be continued...