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6 Week Summer Countdown – Week One

This challenge is for those who are back on normal, textured foods and are struggling to stay on track. It’s basically designed to get back to the basics of healthy eating and help to form good habits that are sustainable long term. For those who aren’t managing much nutrition and are struggling with their dietary intake this would not be suitable. If that is the case, please speak to your bariatric provider

Summer is on the way and there’s no better time to re – focus on your weight loss in time for the holiday season. Whether you are going abroad or staycationing at home it will be nice to boost your weight loss ready for that summer wardrobe. There’s nothing worse than dreading summer because you feel uncomfortable or self-conscious at shedding those winter layers

So join us for our 6 week challenge and shape up for summer and shape up for summer.

Each week we will cover a specific topic - there will also be some little additional goals for you to work towards every week so over the course of the 6 weeks you will have made many positive changes that will help you live a healthier lifestyle and get to your goal weight. The 6 weeks will cover a variety of topics:

Week One – Getting Organised                        
Week Two – Focusing on Food
Week Three – Sorting snacking
Week Four – Getting active
Week Five – Keeping Motivated
Week six – Breaking Barriers

 

Week One: Getting Prepared

This week’s challenge – to plan your meals in advance for the week. Make sure you have all the food bought in and everything is defrosted and ready to cook when you need it. Try being creative – cook different meals which you might not normally go for. With the weather getting a kittle warmer try some fresh summer salads or healthy stir fry’s or fire up the BBQ and get grilling

Before you start though it’s important to get into the right mind-set to lose weight, planning how you are going to go about it then doing the preparation needed so it all falls into place. If you haven’t got your head around things it can be difficult to keep the momentum going and hence, achieve long term results

The Right Mind-set

The first step is thinking about why you want to lose weight in the first place – these are reasons that are important to you, not anybody else. This could be to improve your health, to be able to run around with the kids more, to be able to buy clothes in any shop. You may have a holiday coming up soon and want to achieve a good weight loss ready for pool or the beach

Write a list now what you want to achieve and refer to this when times get tough, or you are thinking about giving up!

Now start with Positive Thinking:

Thinking positively really can affect your results. If you think negatively, so more of a glass half empty kind of person, then it can be difficult to get the motivation you need to succeed. If you often think things like” I’m never going to reach my goal I’ve got way too much to lose” or “The surgery isn’t going to work for me” etc. then let’s challenge those negative thoughts. View each problem as a challenge and as your overcome each challenge you will get closer to your weight loss dreams. Having too much weight to lose for example can be overcome – break it down to smaller goals and as you achieve each one it gives you the motivation to continue – so if you have 6 stones to lose and it looks unlikely then just concentrate on that first half a stone goal and go from there. This weight loss challenge will help with this!

If you think the surgery just isn’t working for you then why do you think that. Are your expectation realistic – are you expecting to lose every single week or expecting to lose faster than your body can achieve – look at the big picture, how much have you lost altogether, stalls are normal. Most importantly don’t compare yourself to others – everybody loses at their own rate

So, try and think more positively about your whole weight loss journey and stay in your own lane. You will reach your goals even if that takes a little longer. And always a silver lining but remember the slower the weight loss, the more chance your skin has to adapt and snap back into place

Next try our little scoring system – on a scale of 1-10 what score would you give yourself for how confident you are going to be at losing weight this year? (10 is super confident, 1 is you don’t think you will be able to at all) Now try and think of ways to increase your score a little – so if you scored a 5 because you feel alone and have no support could using the BandBoozled Forum and Facebook group to provide you with extra help and support move you from a 5 to a 7? Or if you scored a 6 because you can’t stop snacking then maybe our snacking week will move you up to a 7 or an 8?? If you scored a 2 because diets don’t work then have faith in your surgery because will help because that will be a great help

The Next Step is setting a weight goal so you have something to work towards:
Our goal here is to lose a stone in 6 weeks. That is a guide and depending on your surgery type where you are in your surgery journey you could potentially lose more than that or a little less - goals should be achievable and realistic and this is a realistic goal for everybody but if you smash that goal then that’s a bonus! And if you aren’t quite there yet it won’t be much longer till you are

Log your weight at The Weigh in section of the site – we recommend you only Log this once a week, every Monday Morning at the start of each new week

We would also recommend you do your measurements and log these as well. Sometimes you may not see a loss on the scales, but your measurements could have decreased

Next look at past attempts at weight loss and why they haven’t worked for you. You have had your surgery now so you will have help to make weight loss easier, but you may still have some bad habits you want to break. For example:

• Are your weekends much less healthy than during the week?
• Do you drink too much alcohol?
• Are you eating small portions but of unhealthy food that is still high in calories?
• Are you drinking your calories – full sugar fizzy drinks (remember those who have had a bypass/ sleeve should not have fizzy drinks), luxury coffees, hot chocolates?
• Are you snacking too much?
• Are you relatively inactive?
• Do you eat when you aren’t hungry - for comfort, boredom, stress etc?

We will cover some of this during the next 6 weeks but if you can highlight your own problem areas early on then you can start to address these earlier on and get better weight loss results.

The Planning Stage:

Now it’s time to start planning how you are going to go about losing weight. Planning is definitely the key to success:

We would recommend you start by planning your meals for the week and what you need. You then you have a chance to ensure you have all the foods ready and bought in and you can defrost what you need for the next day in advance. This takes away those times when you have nothing healthy in and pick up fish and chips on the way home or you have forgotten to defrost what you need and you end up putting a pizza in the oven.

If you struggle to eat healthily at lunchtime then pack your own – fill up a little lunchbox with fruit, healthy thins or mini wraps and veg sticks for example.

If you have lots of goodies in for the kids but you know you will be tempted then get rid of them all – stock up on healthy snacks instead or goodies that you don’t like

If you end up having a few tipples every night and that weakens your resolve then why not do a dry challenge or If that is a bit too much then just try and cut back a bit

Use the answers you came up with about your own specific problems and try and see what you can do to plan around them – every problem has a solution. If you are struggling, then post of the forum or our Facebook group – BandBoozled Bariatrics - for some extra help. Everybody can help offer solutions and support each other

Getting Prepared:

In order to lose weight, we would recommend you start with the following:

• Ensure you cook healthy meals - not much oil, cream, calorific salad dressings, mayo
• Limit snacking
• Do more exercise
• Get the portion sizes right – sue your BandBoozled plate to help with this (available in our online SHOP or Ebay for sale) 
• Base your meals around healthy protein foods – meat, fish, chicken, pulses
• Go easy on the alcohol and high calorie drinks. Alcohol may go to your head a lot quicker after surgery and it’s high in calories

Next is getting organised to get started

• Stock up your cupboards with healthy food
• Clear out the goodie cupboards – chocolate, biscuits, crisps – have a rest from these for a bit
• If alcohol is a problem – put it up the loft for now and really try for a dry 6 weeks
• Plan your activity for the week – gym, swimming, classes, walking, cycling. Alternatively try home based exercise such as DVD’s, YouTube videos, exercise bike etc
• Plan your first week’s meals and do a shop – be organised and you will reap the rewards

Sample Meal Plan:

Breakfast - Poached egg on a toasted bagel thin
or a No added sugar Granola with low fat yoghurt topped with raspberries

Lunch – Mini pitta stuffed with tuna and red onion – mixed with a little extra light mayo plus a satsuma
Or Crackers topped with lean ham and cherry tomatoes plus a kiwi

Dinner - Prawn stir fried with onions, peppers, courgette – add a dash of soy sauce and serve with some noodles or rice
Or grilled chicken breast marinated first in lemon juice, garlic, chilli powder and fresh, chopped parsley, serve with baby new potatoes and steamed broccoli

Snacks – fresh fruit, low fat yoghurt

Check out the BandBoozled website for more meal ideas/ recipes ready for your week of meal planning

Looking to try something new – try our new salad recipe – Summery Salad

There are always times when despite your best intentions you just haven’t been able to come home and cook a healthy, balanced meal. Rather than that throwing you off track you can be prepared for this by reading our little article from our website: Ready Made Meals 

 

Next week we will be focusing on food

Good Luck – Join our community Facebook group for more tips and advice and that much-needed support! We are all doing this together so let’s smash those weight loss goals

 

So lets get ready to make the change to move us to the place we want to be - You've got this!

 

BandBoozled LTD is registered in England and Wales under number 10769332 with its registered office: 10 Eden avenue, ST HELENS, MERSEYSIDE, WA11 8HT.

For any issues regarding your log in/membership please contact team@bandboozled.co.uk. If you have any questions regarding your band journey please submit your questions on the forum in 'The Cafe' thanks
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