Dubai stone? Are you joking? Are you actually sitting there and talking about the Dubai stone in the singular? Try two, possibly three stone, and then we’ll talk. Then we can kick back with a chocomilk and discuss the creeping weight gain over the last three years, the endless brunches, the constant driving, how a boxset addiction has merrily replaced the gym and why you can’t buy Muller Light raspberry-cranberry yoghurt.
But today we’re making a change. Recognising the countless experts, services and facilities in our fair emirate that are on hand to help us shed the pounds.
Admitting you have a problem is the first step, apparently, and after a recent doctor’s appointment there was no denying that the number showing on the scale was a problem. A big one. Vanity prevents me from sharing the exact figure but it was a curvaceous one, voluptuous and straining at the seams. I will, however, make a commitment to share the results of my mission to lose weight this year, in the form of a monthly column in What’s On magazine and this ongoing blog, telling how many kilos are lost, the highs, lows and those moments when you blame your genes and give up hope altogether while inhaling Doritos. In short, I need to lose 25kg in a year so need all the help I can get.
Each month will focus on a different gym, exercise, diet, so-called wonder treatment and all manner of weird and wonderful techniques that promise to shift the inches. Yes, I’ll be your guinea pig. Less of the pig jokes please.
I have enlisted the help of Stephanie Karl, the nutrionalist at the Dubai London Clinic who will be monitoring progress with weekly weigh-ins, setting targets, providing recipes, sending encouraging emails and generally being the go-to girl for all things health related.
So, armed with Stephanie’s advice, recipe for low-carb quiche, a plan to eat no more than 1500 calories a day and a goal to lose 2kg in the next month, it was Nicola Falconer’s number I called. Life coach, NLP practitioner and hypnotherapist, Nicola can help with sleep problems, giving up smoking and, of course, weight loss.
Our first meeting was emotional. It was a Sunday morning after a heavy weekend and I cried. In Starbucks. It wasn’t poor Nicola’s fault – she needed to get to the bottom of the issues in order to devise a treatment programme – but I would have fully understood if she was reluctant to arrange our next session. We met at her apartment the following week where we went through some SMART goals (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely) and created a Wheel of Life to figure which areas I should be focusing on, before she put me into a trance. Nowhere as strange or ‘you think you’re a chicken’ as you’d imagine, it involved getting into a highly relaxed state while (I think) Nicola spoke to me about visualizing the size I’d like to be. I also recall a story about a man building a house. Hope that wasn’t a reference to me…
So, the next step is to start listening to a CD that Nicola has recorded for me, crack on with some of Stephanie’s recipes and get down the trainers on.
Stay tuned – next month you’ll find out how many kilos I’ve lost (or gained – cripes) and I’ll share the joys of weight-loss pilates at the Real Pilates studio. Hope that’s more fun than it sounds.
Stephanie Karl, Dubai London Clinic, Festival City, Dubai. Tel: (04) 3446663. nutritiondubailondonclinic@gmail.com
Nicola Falconer, Matrix Training Solutions & Coaching Consultants. Tel: (050) 1439648. nicola@matrix-training.com
Dubai Diet Diary 