It's getting tough out there. Feeling the pinch?

KxMx

I totally agree about less takeaways and more unprocessed food, going back to considering many things as treats not for every day. 

The NHS itself has a lot to answer for in terms of diabetes. Most people at risk get a few leaflets on healthy eating and a lecture from GP. Those with diabetes get a vastly different standard of care which varies from surgery to surgery.
Were the NHS to spend money in the short term on individual comprehensive weight loss support and therapy, they would save vast amounts of money in the long term. 

Organisations like councils have a role to play as well- a local seaside town which is already classed as deprived and over saturated with takeaways, approved another recently with the absolutely pathetic justification of "increased social interaction". 

But, I do wonder about those rose tinted glasses. 

My Mum is 65, obese after a lifetime of issues with food due to her parents putting her on a diet age 5. My grandparents believed in all their children clearing their plates at every meal. 
Her sister is also obese as was her late brother.
She came from a farming family where food may have been homecooked but very much focused on pastry, bread, stodge and veg with the odd piece of fruit. Not a healthy balanced diet.
They were all active as children but that came to a halt as they grew up.
Grandad retired as a farm labourer and Nan carried on cooking and serving him the same amounts of food.
He developed diabetes as did my Mum but not her siblings (she did have undiagnosed, pre existing AI issues).

That was the background I was raised in, guess what I ended up obese too! Not wanting to end up with diabetes myself, I turned things around 5 years ago by making small changes gradually and improvements towards what I eat.

I've lost 4 stone 5lbs (1 stone 7lbs in last 10 months). I have non weight related health problems which complicate things, but I'm getting there.
My BMI has gone from just under morbidly obese to the top end of overweight. I'm aiming for another 2 stone 5lbs off which would put me 4kg under the top end of a healthy weight.
I did discover a form of exercise I love which after carefully building up (it took years) I can manage twice weekly.
But I do genuinely believe what I am now eating has been the biggest contributior to my weight loss.

Toonie

DP and I had a proper treat this morning, we went to the local cafe and had a cooked breakfast. It was fantastic, the food in there is always top notch and you can build your own breakfast (egg, bacon, grilled tomatoes and toast for me; Eggs Bendict, mediterranean sausage and haloumi for DP). We were celebrating a little as DP got some money from the sale of his late parents house, so that has meant we could pay off our debts and we'll be able to buy ourselves the white goods we need which have all been failing over the last year or so.

Rather than do a full weekly shop we decided to pop into the little Lidl near to the cafe and we got a few things to keep us going, and we'll use up some bits from the freezer and cupboard. One extra I did buy was some antihistamines as I've started to get itchy eyes of an evening and I'm feeling a bit sneezy when outside, so must be time for hayfever season for me.

in_my_wellies

In the late 60s I had a best friend, one of three sisters. If I went to their house after school it was normal to have 2 or 3 pieces of toast and jam. A real treat for me. Just before bedtime they had cheese and biscuits and or hot chocolate. Their fridge was always full.

One day I told my mum my friend didn't have to ask what she could have to eat from the fridge and that she had snacks and could I do the same. Mum came straight back with, 'Well that's why they're all fat'. I'd never noticed before but they were. A real eye opener for me aged about 9

All three sisters are dead now, one from a heart attack at 53, one from obesity (24 stone) at 51 and the third committed suicide as she thought she would go the same way as her sisters. Their mother is still alive, was a SRN nurse, fit as a fiddle and thin as a stick as she always was. No idea why she let her daughters eat like that. 

Today I've been sorting and planting vegetable seeds. I aim to eat something from the garden every day. Today it's fresh parsnips and kale. I stewed 2lbs of cooking apples, nearly the last which have been stored all winter, for next weeks breakfasts. 

YorksLass

We had yet another covering of snow last night but today's rain has dealt with that and it's almost all gone now.  I was surprised at how mild it felt when I went to the bin this morning - hopefully, that the last of the white stuff for this year.     

@KxMx - Well done on the weight loss.  I'm also a T2 diabetic so know it isn't easy and fully agree that eating differently makes a big difference.  I've ditched just over 2 st and am within sniffing distance (4-5 lbs) of being a healthy weight for my age/height so will plod on until it comes off.

@Auntycaz - Good luck for Friday.  Shame they couldn't give you a later time for your appointment so you could use your bus pass - I have the same problem - but I suppose, given the current state of the NHS, we have to take whatever's available.

I'm just waiting for 4 large chicken thighs to cool down so I can strip the meat off, some of which I'll use for tomorrow's Thai green curry.  Depending on how much is left, I'll be making either a chicken & leek bake or chicken & ham pasties.  Other than that, tonight will be chill out time, although I should make the effort to sew up a jumper I've been knitting.  

sarahj1986

My aunt was severely overweight and had been most of her life. She had high blood pressure and then developed diabetes. The NHS funded weight loss surgery for her. She first had to lost some weight I think 3 or 4 stone. Since then I think she’s lost something like 8 stone. Her diabetes is in “remission” and I think her blood pressure is normal. 

-taff

Harking back to how things used to be is all fine and dandy, but we do not live like that now. No one can turn a clock back and wipe out 70 or 80 years of history. No one wil ever persuade society as whole now to live like the war years. And losing weight is not as easy as saying eat less excercise more otherwise we'd all be doing it and have no need of dieting clubs or organisations or of fat shaming. Yes, we can be healthy and be overweight, not everyone who is overweight will get type 2 diabetes, just as not everyone who smokes will get lung cancer. Of course it would be easier if no one was overweight but we don't have magic wands, and listening to people tell us stories of the good old days does not help. I'm a bit annoyed really because at the base of a lot of fat shaming is the belief that fat people are lazy, stupid or dumb, greedy, unworthy or shameful. Really think about how you feel about overweight people and examine your attitudes about how they got that way and see if any of those descriptors figure in your thinking, and I'll bet there is. I bet it's even easier to just say, oh but I didnt mean any of that, I meant this, or that.

As a total aside, what I love about young girls who are not a slender size 10 and are a larger size is that they are confident, they wear short dresses that show off their knees and larger legs, they don't care about what other people think of them, they will wear less clothing and not wander round in sackcloth and ashes to hide their fatness away from judgemental people.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/04/question-being-fat-battling-better-healthcare

timehastoldme

👏👏👏

Yes to less thinly veiled fatphobia as 'health concerns'. 

Floss

I agree Taff, being overweight is not always simply solved, and it's great to see young women dressing as young women & not hiding their voluptuous figures away under shapeless baggy clothes.

I do sometimes wonder if those who hark back to "the good old days" of war & postwar times actually ran a household then, or just saw the benefits of a ration diet & not the difficulties. Life was very different, and it is like comparing apples with pineapples - both are fruit but are grown in very different ways. Likewise the UK population was hugely less in 1950s by approx. 16 million, we live, work & play in completely different ways and while there may not have been as much T2 diabetes there were things that have been eradicated such as polio, smallpox & TB plus regular epidemics of measles, mumps, whooping cough & german measles. Heart disease & strokes (now much more managed & understood) were the top causes of death post war, which have been replaced by dementia / Alzheimers (and Covid in 2020).

tooldle

Agreement from me to an extent. I am in my early 50's and readily remember body size being considerably smaller in the 70's and 80's. This was before the idea came along of exercise being something to do in a gym. People move a lot less than in previous decades and weight bearing exercise has also lessened. 
As a nation we seem somewhat in denial as to what we are doing to ourselves. The NHS does offer specialised advice on healthy eating and weight loss. Of those i know who have engaged with the service, all were sceptical at the outset, yet all managed to make changes (to one degree or another) suitable to their individual circumstances, resulting in losing weight or reversing a Type2 Diabetes diagnosis or both. Myself i know of many others invited to use the service, who refuse to do so. 
For some the 'build it and they will come' approach works. For others, something different is needed. 

Nelliegrace

My complaint is against the all powerful food industry which has caused the obesity epidemic and the pharmaceutical industry which profits from it. 
The only way to solve the problem will be to go back to the real foods and portions and habits we used to have. 
Nobody says the 40’s and 50’s were good, but the diet they had out of necessity, improved the health of the population. There was a huge, prolonged campaign to educate people about making the best use of the food and avoiding waste. The modern diet is destroying people’s health. It is not about vanity, it is about morbidity. A lot of people are not aware that they have type 2 diabetes until their eyesight is damaged.

It does not help to say that obesity is healthy, to call it fat-shaming when a doctor expresses serious concern, and it does not help to blame the fat person. The cause is in the food which is manipulated to make people crave more of it and lose the triggers which tell them that they are full. An example if this is the fizzy drink which is so sweet with sugar or chemical sweeteners, it makes people more thirsty instead of quenching thirst, and the portion sizes (sales) have been increasing year on year. Make food cheap, full of cheap fillers, and you have to make people buy a lot of it to make a profit, so you tell them it is healthy, that it has whole grain or vitamins, that it is low in fat. The low fat, high sugar diet has caused obesity, and the medical profession and dieticians, influenced by the food and pharmaceutical industry, have endorsed it.