Wednesday, October 31, 2012

babblingbandit.me does Droptober: It was all about the food

One of the best things about registering for Droptober - Just lose 2kg has been the return of my cooking mojo (for pictures see here). When I came home from London five years ago I lost it. I wrote about it back in 2010 so this has clearly been a long term issue. My cooking mojo has come and gone since 2007 but mostly I have been a lazy eater. Especially this year.

Back when I was working the usual Monday to Friday I always spent half my afternoon (if not more) thinking about what I would cook in the evening for dinner. I looked for recipes online or in my many cookbooks and then I picked up anything I needed from the supermarket on the way home. Preparing and cooking food was a way to wind down after a big day at the office. I loved it.

Post my break down in 2007, as my interest in food waned my waistline expanded - weird, right? You'd think I should have lost weight if I didn't care about food any more. But I replaced my drug and alcohol addictions with chocolate, lollies and cake. I ate whatever was easiest: cheese and crackers for dinner, or pizza delivery or greesy Chinese takeaway or coffee and biscuits. Lots of high fat and sugar loaded, low nutrition food.

I tried Lite n Easy, Jenny Craig and Weight Watchers. None of them inspired me to feel any love for fresh fruit and veggies. I even discussed it with my old psychiatrist: Why don't I care about cooking and eating well when it used to be such a part of my daily routine? She thought I might have an association with the whole preparing/cooking/eating ritual with having a glass of wine or four. But I didn't think that was it. Before I lived in London, I never drank during the week and I was cooking most nights then. There had to be more to it.

Now most of my family are watching their weight in the lead up to summer. Even my parents have a plan to get back on the weight loss bandwagon starting from 1 November. Yolanda was trying to give our mum a pep talk the other day to get her psyched. Yo told mum all she had to do was the following, for just one month to see what happens:
  1. Quit all sugar
  2. Stop eating butter and cheese
  3. Eat red meat only once a week
  4. Walk every day
That shouldn't be too hard. Yo didn't say she had to count calories or write down what she ate and calculate points or go to the gym. But our mum, the retired chef, exclaimed: "I'll just have to lose interest in food!". Now that is a weird theory, for sure. It makes the assumption that if you want to lose weight you can only eat boring food not worth having an interest in. I know, and I bet you know, that is so not the truth!

Personally, I believe the opposite and participating in Droptober has helped me realise:

When I feel good and care about myself, when I 'heart my body' and want to treat it right, my love affair with cooking and eating good food is reignited. 
The colour and vibrancy, the smells, textures and tastes of fresh fruit and vegetables, meat and nuts, seeds and legumes and grains... become alive again!


How good does this look? YUM!



So here I am, on the evening of the last day of Droptober. As of this morning I am DOWN 3.5kg since the beginning of the month, far exceeding the Droptober goal of losing just 2kg but 2.5kg short of personal goal of 6kg.

But I have achieved a HUGE amount:


I have gone 40 DAYS without a single bit of chocolate

I have been (almost) sugar free for 40 days

My mood has been stable for the whole month (minus 48 hours last weekend)

My energy levels have been high

The headaches I've been suffering from for YEARS have completely disappeared

And, last but by no means least, I have raised $330 (as of this evening)
for the Droptober charities Variety - The Children's Charity and Kid's for Life.


How good is all that!

Rather than singing yeehah and gorging on the nearest bit of chocolate I'm on to the next challenge: Sarah Wilson's "I quit sugar pre-Christmas program" and the BB sugar experiment continues. Plenty more on that to come.


V.






6 comments:

Sarah said...

That's fantastic, well done!!!! I'm really impressed at how much you've raised and lost in just one month! And who would have thought it could have had such an impact on your mood and headaches too. All good.

Laney Galligan said...

What brilliant results! When I quit sugar earlier this year I felt bloody amazing and lost 6kg. I'm annoyed that I've slipped back in to eating sugar, but here we go again!

The Babbling Bandit said...

Hi Laney. I knew I was eating way too much sugar before but I'm really surprised at just what an impact quitting has had on my general well being. Thanks for the comment. V.

The Babbling Bandit said...

Thank you! It has been an awesome experience.

Rachel @ TheKidsAreAllRight said...

Wow, that's brilliant. I was interested in doing Droptober but chickened out in case I couldn't achieve it. How lame is that? You should be very pleased with yourself :)

kyl21z said...

Wow, that is awesome work! I want to quit sugar, I really do, it's just a little hard when I don't do the cooking and have a husband who does do the cooking and has no interest in it. I am still working on him though. We'll see what happens.

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