Post-fill progress report

Well, it's been three days now since my ninth fill of 0.2ml and things are going OK. I am far from convinced that this fill has made any real difference but am keeping an open mind as I begin to experiment with 'harder' foods. Today I ate Ryvita crispbread, cottage cheese and tuna for lunch together with crunchy salad vegetables (yellow pepper, cucumber, tomato, spinach and onion). This all went down without any problems, though I did feel quite full afterwards. After I had eaten about three or four mouthfuls I had to pause for ten minutes or so before I could continue. But once I re-started, I was able to continue to the end.

I am starting a new experiment today that I haven't mentioned before. I have decided that I rely too much on calorie counting to dictate how much I eat. From today I have decided to give my kitchen weighing scales a holiday! Having been weighing all my food for the past nine months I already have a pretty good idea of portion sizes and calories. So, from now on I am going to try to judge how much to eat from a combination of (a) how full I am after eating, and (b) using my side plate and small utensils.

This will mean that I'll have to try to be more disciplined about stopping eating when I am full. This is something I haven't really had to do before now because I have simply ploughed on beyond the 'full' point, knowing that the calorie count was OK. But now I will have to re-learn how to judge the 'stop eating' point based on the above. I am doing this because I'm conscious of the fact that although the end of the tunnel is still a long way off (more than two stones), I can start to see it shining in the distance. I need to adopt eating habits that are sustainable in the long run - and weighing everything is not something I want to have to do for the rest of my life!

Having said all of that, I am going to adopt a compromise position for a few weeks. I am certainly going to continue to keep my daily food and exercise diary. I'll write down what I eat and how much I eat - but no weighing, and no calories. However, at the end of the day (just before I go to bed - so it can't influence what I eat during the day), I will make an estimate of how many calories I have consumed. This is so that I can continue to make an estimate of my daily calorie deficit (based on calories burned during exercise).

One of the things we discussed at the Healthier Weight support group last weekend was the importance of keeping a food diary - and I have no plans to stop doing this valuable exercise in the near future. I'm just tweaking the way that I record in order to begin to adopt habits that hopefully, will be sustainable in the long run.