Another 4 pounds floats off into the ether

11.7 Pounds is the new weigh in. Will post it to the weigh in maps here soon. http://www.bethbarlow.com/completed_pages/scales_map.html

That is another 4 pounds lost since last time. Need to refocus somehow though on the other side of the coin, those starving. As I loose more weight I am getting a bit more self focused. My feet look like the feet of an old lady. See there I go again, self obsessed.

Summertime

I find that I can wear shorts this summer without squinting critically at my legs. Now I am just squinting critically at all the detritus which seems to be on my studio floor.

I need a Nurse

I need a nurse or some other qualified individual to tell me where the measuring points should be for the Choke and Rope Technique. Once they have marked them on I'm off to the tatoo parlor to have them marked on. If you are such a qualified person and want to help out please let me know either through a comment here or by e mailing me at bethbarlow@bethbarlow.com

The trouble with diets

The thing which prompts most of us to diet is a certain amount of self loathing. I hate my belly, my bum looks big in this, I'm such a fat cow. All common phrases which populate our thinking on the brink of a bout of dieting. So it is with this travel bag of negative thoughts that we set off on our journey of deprivation. And we carry on down the path for several steps, noting no difference, falling over and ending up with our face in a cheescake or stumbling mouth open into a bag of chips. Each time we fall down the bag of negative thoughts gets bigger and heavier until we say "sod it, I'm not that fat really, I'm giving up" or "I'll always be fat, whats the point."

How does the process I've been through recently differ a bit. I think I started with a realistic picture of myself, I wasn't bad or gross or weak willed just a bit too fat. The journey started with an idea to do good for others, that was my main focus for at least the first few months. I had a few blips where I got a little self obsessesed but mainly I didn't notice the weight loss or not. I did notice the money growing in the pot and that made me feel good about myself because I was doing good. All this got me over those first few months when ordinarily I would have been wondering about if it was worth it and no doubt giving up. Now that I have started to see changes I have the double motivation. I have a small pair of jeans I'm refusing to take back to the shop. I'm sure that one day they will be less tight.

Not seen you for a while

Its nice to see people you haven't seen in a while. It was doubly nice yesterday because two people I'd not seen for a few months completely unprompted (honest) commented on how much weight I'd lost. One said something like, "Its not like you were a fat bloater before but you look like you've lost loads". The other I tapped on the shoulder in a shop and had a moment where she didn't recognise me. She said that she hadn't known if it was me at first site and that now I had bone structure in my face which was hidden before. This was a person I spent two weeks sharing a barn with so no stranger. These people, seen less often can see the change more markedly than those who see one every day or every week. All this is really good for the old self esteem but more than that It allows me to show that this change of mind and attitude inherent in the process really does work. The loss is not just happening because I use different scales each time, am rubbish measuring in the choke and rope technique, or due to dress sizes suddenly getting more generous. I look in the mirror I see a difference but people noticing makes It more real. The amount of money growing in my just giving pot bears testimony to the fact that I have resisted over £170 worth of non needed food. Its at this point of a usual diet that you might think GOAL WEIGHT I'll have a cake now and another and another and before you know it end up at your past weight again. But somehow I don't think I can allow that to happen. Firstly because its still the same arguments, I don't need it but somebody else does. Secondly as I have set this up as such a public endeavour and experiment it would be impossible to let it slip without debasing the whole project. Thirdly, while I may well be at a goal weight I'm not yet at my £10,000 giving target, by my reckoning that will take until I'm about 80 years old.

E mail to Howies, top ethical funcky clothes company

Hi there,

Am in the middle of an life/art project called starvation diet where I resist junk food and give the money to the charity practical action. Art is the documentation through a blog, web site etc and the change in me too. After 5 months I've almost managed to slim down to a size 12 for the first time in years. I was going to invest in a pair of your skinny jeans but still have big child bearing hips so want them to sit on my waist. Cut to the quick now. How high up do your skinny jeans go?

Kind regards,

Beth Barlow

I got in a size 12 jeans

Well I got "in" the size twelve jeans, couldn't move or sit down in them or anything but they did up and as long as I didn't breath I was in them for the first time in many years. Felt pretty good and dropping nearly two sizes has been a lot less effort than on previous occasions.

Bigger Boobs

Now I truly have lost the point of the exercise. I'm feeling aggrieved by the scales. I found myself today thinking how unfair those charts which tell you if you are overweight must be.

I would say that I have a bigger than average bust (although after my obsessive research into it I find that M and S now say that a quarter of their bra sales are a d cup or over). I have had this bigger bust since before the days my Grandmother used to knit me too tight school jumpers and I had to run the gauntlet of the boys comments. So I got to thinking. How much does a double d cup weigh. The answer according to some comment on a questions site is 8Lb the pair. So if I had a naturally smaller bust (and I know it gets a bit smaller with weight loss but ignore that for a moment) I'd be an ideal weight. What complex arguments one produces just so that one can have a bit of cake.

Still So vain

I went to boots today to weigh myself. The machine does some mad jiggery pockery and checks your height and your weight then it says "Your Ticket is printed below". I pulled out a ticket and was agog that it read 10st 12lb, a loss of nearly 2 stones. Then just as I was picking up my bag to leave I saw another label stuck in the slot. This was my real print out. Still a loss but not as dramatic and unbelievable as the first. I felt a little disappointed and for a while as I walked around town I forgot the primary focus of the project, not to worry about losing weight but to contribute money to the pot of monies to go to those with less food choices. I still haven't quite readjusted my thoughts and am thinking, if I weighed that little I could feel ok on the beach, if I weighed that little I could wear a cat suit or something. I need to get my mind back on the point soon.

Getting further away from old normal

Realised that this is a project of comparison with the norm, asking, have I resisted this thing which I would normally have bought and eaten? The hard bit is starting to materialise in that, as you change your eating habits you find it hard to compare it with the original normal. You no longer eat a bar of chocolate a day, you no longer crave a pudding after your tea. So now do you compare with the changing norm or the pre project norm. I think for the sake of a scientific approach you have to compare to the pre project norm. Its interesting to note the psychological change in the norm though.

What happens if you put the word diet in your twitter posts

You get the diet lady popping up as a follower. A nice lady who will via her website lead you to a leaner body and all for only 47 dollars with a 30 day money day guarantee and the diet lady even wants to give you more, she wants to make it so you don't have to think. I doubt that the diet lady has any interest in my kind of diet, I shall look forwards to her comments.

Diets and weekends

The weekend is a time to relax, a time for a treat, a reward for the week. It is then a problem when you are on a diet. "Tonight" you say "I'll have a beer or a chocolate bar or a takeaway." At least that's what I say. This Friday I had soup and and a sandwich for my tea whilst my son had a takeaway. That was £3.50 in the starvation pot. On Saturday I had an Indian takeway but after only eating half I had some left over for my dinner on Sunday rather than buying more cheese for cheese toasties, so that's another £1.00 in the pot. My boyfriend was heading to the shop and, although I really wanted to say "Yes, go on buy me a chocolate bar, its Saturday and Strictly come dancing is on." I resisted, another 60p in the pot. £5.10's worth of food taken from my belly and put into the belly of somebody who needs it more. I could have saved more and had less of a dicky tummy if I hadn't had the curry, thats one to resist next weekend.