Carol Sarler finally accepted the need to lose weight after a health check showed blood sugar levels close to tipping her into diabetes. Although she had tried diets in the past, this time she decided to lose weight - but nor using a diet. She needed to lose three stones, and aimed to lose 1 pound a week to reach her target weight. So how did she do it?
While she cannot properly tell anybody else how to do it, here are her rules for herself. She didn't count calories or weigh any foods, but relied on more, less and sometimes none. If the pound refused to budge, she would revise the more to less. The none was pragmatism. While some pleasures remained in her eating plan (e.g. butter, Yorkshire pudding, red wine), others were so difficult to restrict that she cut them out entirely (e.g. cheese, beer, sugar). She accepted that food might be dull and repetitive. Breakfasts were usually yoghurt with seeds, nuts and fruit, lunches a small sandwich and dinner a piece of meat of chicken with lots of vegetables. If you try Carol's way, you'll have your own non-negotiables and banishments.
The weight loss is slow, and she as she was doing it for health reasons, she kept track of progress on a BMI chart. Even better was the realisation every now and again that she could do something again that the excess weight had prevented. And clothes started fitting better, then not at all, while her shoe size dropped, her ankles stopped swelling and her puffing stopped.
And having achieved her target weight after 42 weeks, she stopped trying to lose weight. Not a pound has gone back on, as she has retrained her eating habits to a healthier way of eating.
Carol Sarler in Good Housekeeping, April 2014
