Support group

I went to my first Healthier Weight support group meeting today, in Manchester. There were about 12 bandits (and two bypasses) there - mainly women but there were three men too. The first part of the two hours was a slightly more formal presentation led by the dietitian, Stuart. This was all about how to survive the Christmas period! The main two lessons from this were:

1. Keep a daily food and activity diary. I was quite impressed with a scientific study presented where two groups of bandits were monitored for about 10 weeks including the Christmas period. Both groups were told to continue with their eating as normal - not to do anything different. One group were also asked to keep a detailed diary of food intake and energy expenditure (walking etc) for the 10-week period - and the other group were not. The results showed that the group who kept a diary continued to lose weight over the Christmas period while the other group gained weight. Only two or three weeks post-Christmas, there was a 5lb difference between the two groups. It's amazing how effective the simple act of keeping a diary can be.

2. Plan ahead. Plan what you are going to eat and when. Think ahead about how you might deal with certain situations that might arise over Christmas. Examples include - how to deal with all the post-Christmas surplus of mince pies, cakes an chocolates? Well, you could simply buy less to start with; you could give it away; you could buy your own 'treats' (eg mini mince pies, low fat goodies). Also, how will you deal with relatives telling you "go on, eat some more, a little more won't hurt...." - you know the kind of thing. Well, we all know our own relatives and have our own ways of dealing with situations like this so it's not easy to prescribe a standard formula. However, the message was, the important thing is to have thought about this situation beforehand and have a solution at the ready.

The general message was that while we should enjoy Christmas like everyone else, and we are 'allowed' to have some treats - dont over do it, plan ahead and record everything we eat. The message was also given that even if Christmas is a dieting disaster - it is only one day out of 365 so don't get too despondent if things go wrong.

The second part of the support group session was a general discussion, question and answer time, an opportunity to obtain guidance from Dr Ashton, the Medical Director of HW. I found this part very useful. I'm not sure I really learnt much that I didn't already know, but I got a great deal of affirmation - that I'm generally doing things right. I was reminded about a couple of things that I should keep a check on. I was also reminded of the general philosophy, if you don't feel hungry, don't eat! So what were these gems? Here are a few.

1. Make sure high fat and sugar food are not left in tempting places. I came straight home and kindly reminded my husband to close the mince pie box and put it 'out of sight' in the cupboard! Most of the time I feel strong enough to resist the temptation, but sometimes I don't - and it's on those occasions I don't want to be faced with a nice juicy box of mince pies wating to be devoured!

2. Exercise is the key to successful weight loss. While it is difficult to fit in more than an hour a day to walk, go to the gym or similar, it is usually possible to fit in extra walks within the normal structure of my day. I've been doing this a bit but 'could do better'! For instance, I could park further away from work so I have further to walk to get into the building. I could also get into the habit of going for a short walk at lunchtime. I always make the excuse that I don't have time for this. But let's face it, if I die young because I'm obese, I'm not going to have time for anything, am I?

3. Not all solid food is the same, when it comes to giving a 'full' feeling. I asked about why it is that if we have to chew everything to death before swallowing, some things 'slip through' into our main stomach, while others sit there and give us a full feeling. The answer is, in layman's terms, because food like crisps, biscuits and crackers, although they are 'hard' food, have a lot of fat in them. When they are chewed, the fat separates and makes the chewed food essentially 'melt' so that it passes straight through the band - much like chocolate, ice cream or soft foods. Other hard foods such as Weetabix and crispbreads, have very little fat and so retain enough solid structure that they don't 'melt' and pass through - instead they sit in our pouch making us feel full.

4. Plan ahead. As you know, if you've been reading my blog, I've already done a lot of forward thinking about Christmas and some of the possible situations I may face because my family don't yet know I have been banded. I chatted to some of the people at the support group about this and they seem to be of the opinion that it might be best not to tell them yet - I may get a lot of hassle about what I am eating, why I am eating, how I am eating etc etc - and I don't think I'm ready for that yet. I've chatted to my husband about it again and I think I may just tell my brother and no-one else at this stage - I'll just tell them I'm on some sort of weird diet that requires me to eat slowly and chew everything to death!!

5. Keep a food and activity diary. I'm already doing this but have been reminded of how important it is. I'm going to produce a self-styled proforma that I fill in every day. Once I've produced it I'll make a copy available on this blog for anyone else that wants to use it.

I'm sure I'll think of other things but they'll have to be the subject of later postings as I need to start preparing some food for the evening!! Ta ta for now.