Dear LPG, 

I would not say that I am massive, but I have always been a bit bigger than I should be and, like many people with this problem, it has always upset me a bit.   

I cannot tell you how many evenings I have spent at slimming club meetings over the years.  Sometimes I have even made progress for a while but then, at others, I have decided to accept things as they are.   

I think that many smaller people think that being one of the world’s larger individuals always makes for a sad life, but I really cannot complain about mine.   There are many other aspects of life that can make you feel just as bad, but trying not to eat all the things that are so bad for me but good to the taste have left me struggling every day when I come across them; and often giving in.  

For anyone who is a bit larger, I am sure that I have not said anything that has not been said, thought or felt before, and now that I am in my seventies it should not really matter as much but if I am truly honest, it still does. I know that many older people suddenly start to lose weight which comes with its own problems, but we are all aware of some of the adverse effects that being overweight can have on our bodies as we get older.  I took a look at a website which really made me feel even more negative about my size recently because it was really sobering to see those symptoms listed together.  The even more worrying thing is that, as I have become a little older, more of them are beginning to kick in.

I have tried eating sensibly, but that also means not eating any of the things you like if you are like me.  I am the sort of person that you can leave a closed packet of biscuits or crisps with for as long as you like, but if the packet is open my ‘one won’t do any harm’ philosophy will take over until there is not another one to have.

I even have one of those watches where how much exercise, sleep and all those other day to day health habits can be monitored, but it is so much easier to eat the wrong thing than measure and weigh it first and the, ‘I’ll weigh and monitor that later’ promise that I always make is so often superseded by whatever I was doing, or going to do, before I caught sight of the very naughty but nice nibble that I popped in my mouth.   

But I have discovered a new weapon in my fat-busting arsenal, the camera app on my mobile phone.  You do have to learn how to get the pictures off the camera, because they really mount up, but taking a picture of everything you eat is relatively quick and easy to do and it might be the answer for some.  

There is no lengthy calorie measuring involved and your camera will record the date time and place that the tasty morsel was consumed leaving you with a pictorial diary to review as you ask yourself the question.  ‘Did I really need to eat that?’

Another advantage is that for those of us who have learned to hate taking pictures of ourselves, a day’s collection of those pictures can be equally as conscience jogging. And logging everything on those food-logging apps is a much quicker process if you do it once and for all at the end of the day… 

I wouldn’t say that I have attained my ideal weight, but after a month of checking pictures of everything I have eaten each day, there are times when I get the food, go for the camera and think again with the result that the dial on my scales is showing slightly lower readings now even though the mirror and my friends have not noticed anything yet…

FL. Penge

FL shares what she found online … 

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