Anna Seaman
Two months ago I wrote a blog post called The Dubai Stone. It was an account of the fact that since moving to the UAE I had put on ten kilos or just over a stone in weight. My old favourite jeans were too tight and, to add insult to injury, I had run into a friend who claimed to have not recognised me because of my weight gain.
It was a horrible moment and one that inspired me to get off my speedily growing behind and do something about it. I began a strict regime of healthy eating and exercise. I cut out carbs after midday (except for the occasional blow out of toast and Marmite at weekends) and became a regular at my local health club. I even bought some electric weighing scales to chart my progress.
The first two weeks were easy. I was enthusiastic about my new routine, pored over the gym class timetable and no doubt annoyed everyone around me with unnecessary chirpiness regarding exercise. But like anything, the honeymoon period eventually wore thin. Eating salads for lunch and dinner got really boring and despite all my efforts I only managed to shift half a kilo.
It was then that I had to persevere. I began to research the workings of the body and found that fat weighs less than muscle so, even if I wasn’t losing weight, I still might be losing inches. I also discovered that it can take a few weeks for a new healthy regime to start to work so I forced myself to continue.
Another couple of weeks later and I was amazed. People started commenting on my weight. They said my face looked thinner and I had a healthier glow. I also noticed a difference with my exercise. My stamina had improved and some of the classes, especially RPM, had become easier.
For those of you who don’t know, RPM is a gruelling 45 minutes of pure cycling with varied speeds and resistance. It is made slightly more bearable by disco lights and loud music but in general it is seriously tough and certainly not for the faint-hearted. After the first class I didn’t think I would survive another but after a month I was stunned to find myself keen to go straight into the following class — one hour of resistance training otherwise known as body pump. So in short it was working. The scales (which I was hopping onto at least once a day) had finally started to show my efforts too. I had lost five kilos and was well on the way to my target weight.
But then I reached a plateau. For the next couple of weeks I continued to eat well and exercise (albeit with a little less enthusiasm) but the scales would not shift in my favour. Until Ramadan.
I decided to fast for the whole month, cut out all alcohol and try to curb my behaviour in line with religious traditions. Actually, I did not have weight loss on my mind. I was happy to have shifted the excess fat and I had settled into my routine. I was however very wary about piling the pounds back on. I had heard that due to the fasting during Ramadan the metabolism slows down and so it is easier to gain weight during the evenings. Therefore I was very careful about what I chose to eat after iftar. I made a vegetable soup and had a bowl of that with some dates to break my fast. Then apart from the odd suhoor celebration with friends, I stuck to non-carbohydrate meals at night.
I kept an eye on my weight and I am happy to report that half way through the month I had lost another five kilos. My ‘Dubai Stone’ was gone — yipee!
Friends from home who saw pictures of me on Facebook said they could really see the difference and I was very pleased to hear it.
I also ran into my friend’s brother in a shisha cafe and he noticed straight away. He laughed when he remembered my face as his brother had told me he didn’t recognise me because I was so fat and congratulated me on my new look.
“It’s the old Anna back again,” he said.
I have to admit that I did lapse a little over Eid. I went to Egypt with friends and ate and drank as I pleased. I was on holiday after all. However I also kept myself very busy scuba diving and mountain climbing so I was burning some of the extra calories.
This week I weighed myself again and I have gained three kilos. But it’s not such a bad thing. I am still very happy with my new weight and what’s more, I fit back into my favourite jeans. Yay!
I ran into the original offender yesterday at the Middle East International Film Festival. Funnily enough he didn’t recognise me again. I’d like to think it was because I was a mere waif compared to the fat lump he saw two months ago but I think it was just a lapse in concentration.
After last time he was far too polite to risk offending me again by bringing up the subject of my weight so I asked him if I looked better. He laughed when he realised I wasn’t taking it too seriously and told me I had done well to lose the weight.
If truth be known, my friend is taking a little too much of the blame over this situation. I had realised already that I had grown in size since moving out here and I was planning to do something about it. He just gave me that extra push. And for that I thank him. Sometimes in life you just need the encouragement to do what you’ve been meaning to do all along.