Sunday 28 December 2014

HOW I LOST 3 STONE IN 3 MONTHS AND YOU CAN TOO!

At my fattest and looking like a lumberjack!


December 2014 - the New Me
On New Year's Day, I will be publishing my account of how I lost over 3 stone in 3 months, and how my life changes have cured by Type II Diabetes and brought my blood pressure and cholesterol back within the normal range.  I have gone from a size 22 to a 12 and am doing more now than I ever did when I was younger. 

My diet plan is the easiest one you will ever do, and will last you a lifetime.  I urge you to please buy my book, its a good giggle (I hope) and full of useful information in less than 100 pages!  The changes I made can be achieved by anyone.  Best of all, it won't cost you a thing, apart from £1.99 on Amazon! 

If you like my book, and I hope that you, please take a moment to comment and share.  My writing career ended because of my opinions on a high profile case and my books come under savage attack. This book is a (largely) politics free zone, my only hope is that I can get the message out there that losing weight and keeping if off is easy!

 
FOREWORD

I’m not the result of a laboratory experiment or a year spent with a formidable personal trainer and a cupboard full of goji berries, simply a middle aged fat woman who took control of my life, lost over 3 stone, and got my mojo back within 3 months. It wasn’t painful, I never went hungry and I will never return to eating the harmful addictive food I ate before.

Best of all, I took myself out of the fat belly danger zone and brought my high blood pressure and high cholesterol back within the normal range and my Type II Diabetes has gone. 

High Blood Pressure, High Cholesterol and Diabetes Type II, make up the huge variety of symptoms that combine to form Metabolic Syndrome, that nasty killer condition that ensures we rarely see old fat people. Our bodies simply cannot cope with carrying all that excess weight around and we are not aware that we have got it until we drop down dead. Alternately, when we haven’t got it anymore, we can see just how ill we were.   

At the age of 57 I had pretty much resigned myself to being overweight and unwell for evermore. It was all part of the ageing process wasn’t it? With middle age comes middle aged spread and acceptance that all the dreams I once had now lay in my children. I had written myself off.

There was no such thing as a successful diet, because as soon you return to ‘normal’ eating the weight piles back on. As far as I could see there were two choices, an extended miserable life of lettuce leaves or a shortened life of eating the food I enjoyed. There had to be a better way and I was determined to find it. 

And find it I did, and I want to share it with everyone who has ever failed at dieting, or even succeeded, because the very gentle diet and exercise routine I suggest YOU create, will be manageable, but more importantly, sustainable for life. Unfortunately, the diets drawn up by other people (experts) consist of foods we can’t afford and aren’t available in our local shop. If you are planning the menus, you make the choices.

When I bit the bullet and started my diet and exercise program, I fully expected it to go on for a very long time before seeing any results. The startling fact is, the opposite was true. The effects were almost immediate (within days), even with my ‘I really don’t want to do this’ half arsed approach, it worked. I leapt with joy at discovering how easy and pain free losing weight was going to be, but with a tinge of regret - if only I had known I could shift 3 stone within 3 months, painlessly and with minimal effort, I would have done it years ago! 

As cheesy as ‘if I can do it, anyone can’, might be, it applies. I’m an a stereotypical, post-menopausal Fat Fifty Female, who has tried every diet, failed and sought solace in a sausage roll. The only exercise I got was the short walk between the living room and the kitchen, with the occasional trip to the supermarket to stock up on double cream and packets of BOGOF sweet things. That I was anti exercise was a given.  

I lost the weight without any treadmills, without any humiliation and without ever going hungry. That losing weight is hard is a myth, it’s not, it’s easy. That doing exercise is painful and unpleasant is also a myth, it’s not, it’s easy and indeed fun and it doesn’t need anywhere near the amount of time and dedication that is implied.

Most of us are put off dieting and exercise because we are always being told how hard it is and we have horrible memories of diets that banned things. We are put off before we begin, because the results they are selling us are out of our reach. Much as we would like to run around the local park in lycra, or swim ten miles before breakfast, we can’t because we’ve got laundry to put on, kids to get to school and some explaining to do to our boss about the report we didn’t finish yesterday - and probably why we are late - again.   

Alternately, if we have spent the last ten years moving gently from bed to sofa to comfy chair (via the fridge), a couple of hours on a treadmill would probably kill us. We need to take baby steps, and every little helps. 

The diet and exercise plan I suggest, will be the easiest and most effective you will ever do, because you will fit it around your own lifestyle. If you are eating with the family, you simply need to up the veg and decrease the proteins and fats. You wont need to go out and buy anything special. If you are lucky, and your family are learning about food with you, they will accept the brown bread and loss of coco pops without complaint. 

This isn’t a dieting book per se, I’m not a health food guru and I have much yet to learn. Its simply an account of how I did it, and the hurdles and pitfalls I faced along the way. If anything it is ‘The Reluctant Dieter’s’ Guide to fitness and weight loss, because if my half arsed approach to healthy eating and exercise worked, I am sure there are others out there who will do much, much, better!

 
CONTENTS
 
Foreward                                                                                                                       
Anyone Can Lose Weight                                   
Obesity and Depression            
How Depression Takes Hold            
Reasons to Live                    
I Must Create My Own System          
Because Your Worth It             
The importance of your own space         
I absolve you of guilt              
Reasons our waists expand and our
Health deteriorates              
Your Doctor Won’t Save You           
Understand your body              
The technical bit                
Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS)            
Make a Plan                
Learn about food and nutrition             
How to create your own diet            
Choose Good food, not Bad           
Get the legwarmers out              
What I buy and eat               
How to keep the weight off            
 













17 comments:

  1. Well done your looking much more confident and self-assured in the 2 pictures above the biggest compliment i can pay u is to say i certainly would if your looking for a toyboy give me a call have a happy and slim 2015

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    Replies
    1. You foolish person! One of the "2 pictures above" is before and the other is after.

      My question is, why publish a book for sale on Amazon, why not blog the information?

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    2. I could indeed blog the information, but I have a living to earn like everyone else! What you see in my book is the result of a lot of hard work and the £1.99 I'm asking is not too much I hope, for something that will entertain and hopefully prove life changing :)

      Delete
    3. Fair enough, can't argue with that!

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  2. How long ago did this happen?

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  3. Over the last year, in August I was over 12 stone, by the end of October I was just over 9 stone. I have kept all the tickets from Boots weighing machine and my GP has records too. The picture on the right was taken today!

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    Replies
    1. So the lumberjack photo is August 2014 is it?

      It is just strange that you didn't put a date on the "before" photo, but you did on the "after".

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    2. The lumberjack picture is last year 04:58, of all my gruesome pics, that was probably the worst, I have several more including some horrors from last Christmas. As a target of the McCanns, I know full well I will come under scrutiny. Happily everyone who knows me has watched me shrink THIS year, including my GP who has a detailed record.

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  4. You look fab Cristobell! The only thing I worry about with losing weight so quickly is maybe the need to have any excess skin removed by surgery? It's a bit like letting a balloon down. I don't fancy having any wrinkly bits hanging around afterwards lol.
    Does your book have any tips on how you can overcome this problem?

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  5. I didn't really have problems with loose skin 17:33, I suppose it depends on how much you have to lose, the exercise I do each day seems to keep things roughly where they should be. I have now acquired a bit of 'turkey' neck lol, but I much prefer it to all the chins!

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  6. Hi, you look fantastic! What is the name of your book on Amazon?

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  7. "and how my life changes have cured by Type II Diabetes"

    There is no cure for Type 2 diabetes - it can be controlled through diet/exercise and/or medication - but there is no cure.

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    Replies
    1. Cure was probably the wrong word, thanks for pointing that out. My diabetes is now 'non existent' in the words of my GP and that was brought about my life changes.

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  8. Cristobell, thank you for your reply. I'm also a type two diabetic, and after numerous visits to my GP with the various symptoms associated with it they finally got the diagnosis right, but unlike you I'm stuck with problems caused by it!! I'll look forward to your book being published, as although I've lost a lot of weight myself I'm doing it much more slowly than you. It will be interesting to read how you cured yourself of such a debilitating illness.

    PS, Thanks for sharing your own experience it offers some hope to other sufferers.

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  9. Cristobell, I think you look FAB-U-LOUS. Well done on your personal achievement, a great start to 2015.

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  10. You look fab, Cristobell, well done, what a fantastic achievement.

    There is something wrong with my math.

    3 stone = 42 lbs x 3500 calories each (3500 calories = 1lb) divided by 92 days = a whopping 1598 calories that were burned per day less the daily required intake to maintain your body metabolism (1900 ish) = 302 calories per day to exist on.

    A one hour moderate walk = 300 calories that wouldn't even cover a sandwich, wow, what kind of exercise did you do and how did your body sustain it on such a restricted diet and especially with no protein.

    Perhaps I need a new calculator...

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  11. You certainly do, because your calculator is not tallying with the results. I actually lost well over 4 stone, but the quickest loss came when I added daily exercise to my routine. And no, I wasn't running marathons or doing anything more strenuous than 10 minutes aerobics and walking.

    I know that I have a lot of enemies out there furiously tapping away at their calculators and studying pictures to try and prove that I am somehow making up my weight loss. Well it couldn't be more real, lol, as everyone who knows me, including my GP, can confirm.

    I am publishing my book on New Year's Day, it gives a full account of how I lost the weight and the exercise I did. I really think you need to read it before you start fretting about your calculations, the truth is in the fact that I am now size 12 and not size 22.

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