Anne wins her race

What our readers say...

"Hi Dr Amanda, I recently found a copy of your book 'Don't Go hungry For Life'. I had been doing well in my weight loss recently, & just like to keep an eye on the various theories etc from time to time. I had gained a lot of weight having my 5 children over 8 years (plus 4 miscarriages), & in the past, each time I had tried to lose weight...I got pregnant again! I am 157cms tall, & when I was younger, & dancing, right up to my mid-20s, I was generally around 50-55 kgs. Once I started having kids, I would go all the way up to 90+kgs. Anyway, February last year (2010), at 83 kgs, I got serious, started reading every idea, wacky or plausible, trying things on for size, so to speak. If something worked, & wasn't too painful, I'd keep it until I hit a plateau, then I'd change something - anything. I kept a written record of food, hunger, my cycle etc, & anything else I thought relevant. I was weighing myself very frequently as I hadn't bothered at all before. I had been suffering with the usual things that go with being heavy - lethargy, tiredness, mild depression, unexplained skin rashes at times. So it wasn't just my weight I was trying to fix. So, by June last year, I had lost a few kilos, felt a bit better, but wasn't going forward as well as I wanted. I joined an online challenge to give me a boost, & kept trying different theories. So, while I didn't 'yoyo' through this, I did try cutting out whole food groups, counting calories, sticking to set limits per day. Anything that I couldn't see myself holding onto long term I abandoned. I ended up winning third place on the online challenge - a nice bonus - & by the end of last month I had lost a total of 17 kilos in as many months. A great result, but not at my goal yet. So when I picked out your book, & another which kind of came close to your approach, but not quite as committed, I was pleasantly surprised to see on the pages, the science behind what I had arrived at. Not only that, it gave me incentive to get back to the written record, which I had stopped, & the clues regarding hunger & satiety as scales to learn helped tweak my approach, so that now, 3 weeks since I started reading, I have doubled my weight-loss rate, from an average of 1 kilo a month, to 1.5 in those 3 weeks! The exercise portion of your approach has been taken care of by the fact that last November, I started back in the workforce, after 15 years at home, home-schooling our family. I now work in a busy supermarket, where just getting to the office from my department (I counted) takes at least 120 steps, plus stairs. I do this trip & back at least 5 times every day, as well as heavy lifting of stock etc & general walking about the store. So I wanted to thank you for sharing your research & story, I tend to find if I understand the 'why' of something, I remember it better. Your book has definitely explained why what works, does, & why what didn't, doesn't! Have a great year. "