At the beginning of yet another weight loss journey (groan!)

So since my last post I have been on holiday, which I will eventually write about over at EuropeCrazy, although I'm struggling to find the blogging mojo at the moment, so it might be a while yet.  We have also had unusually high temperatures over the past few days which have turned even the simplest of tasks into a struggle.

Over the past two years I have gained three stones in weight, because I have struggled to deal with the loss of my mum, the general stresses of day-to-day life, and another major factor being that bloody menopause - which I didn't expect to have such a debilitating impact on my life - and which brought anxiety and panic attacks into the equation.

Anyway, back to my holiday.  I had to buy clothes in the biggest size I've ever been.  I now struggle to walk anywhere and need to wear knee supports all the time (thank you maxi dresses and wide-leg trousers for allowing me to do this!).  Right now I feel about 10 years older than my real age.

Putting all this down on a blog post just brings me to the conclusion:  I can't go on like this any more,

Of course I've been here a million times before with the dieting, and the way that has a negative impact on my mental health etc.  But do I want to carry on like this?  I think we know the answer.

I had decided to give myself a little bit of breathing space after the holiday to decide which way I'm going to do this.  I'm not rejoining a club, I'm not rejoining the gym, but I now need to focus on the longer game, with no silly targets or timescales, not putting pressure on myself and just build in more exercise and healthy eating, and not get too bothered about the numbers.  I had quit Slimming World (again) but please don't take that as any bad reflection on Slimming World as it's a great programme and it works very well if you stick to it.  I have all the Slimming World recipe books/syns directory etc so can do it on my own now anyway.

I did weigh myself today though: the good news is that I'm actually 6lbs lighter than I was at the time I wrote http://europecrazysrandomramblings.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/im-lost-cause-basically.html which was a pleasant surprise since I hadn't weighed myself since that time, nor had I really been watching my weight.

So there will be no more weigh-ins until Friday 30th June.  In the meantime I'll just get on with the healthy eating etc and I'll let you know at the end of June how it's going.  All together now, "things can only get better". :)

I'm a lost cause, basically.

Remember that 7lbs which I was so proud of losing over February and March?  It's back, and has brought some extra flabby friends with it.  I feel so angry with myself for falling into this slump yet again, trapping myself in this cycle of more weight gain which makes me more miserable, and so it goes on.

I think it was Kate Moss who made that stupid pathetic comment a few years ago, "nothing tastes as good as skinny feels"...well, during those weeks I was losing weight, nothing tasted as good as stepping on that scale over those weeks to discover that the weight was going down, and it was starting to show. It was the best kind of natural high, yet fast forward a few weeks and I am now back to the beginning, crying with frustration that 95% of the clothes in my wardrobe don't fit. (All very 'first world problems' I know, but my mental health and weight have been linked for so long that when one of them goes wrong, the other follows).

The same thing has happened as previously - I started a "diet", I did well for a few weeks then it all fell apart as I began to feel bitter about weighing myself every week and having to account for every single thing I ate, and the lead-up to the weigh-ins again began to fill me with dread.  I don't feel in control any more - "the dieting" becomes controlling and restrictive, controls me, messes with my mind and I stop enjoying life. But then those numbers begin to increase, the weight and inches pile back on and all the time I'm trying to follow this diet, and all the time it's getting me down, I go into this slump, turn to comfort/binge eating, and the cycle perpetuates.

I've been dieting, and failing at dieting, for more years than I can remember.  That happens to a lot of people.  If diets worked, then the diet companies would go bankrupt.  But in my own experience, they only work for a little while and then life gets in the way.  So where do I go from here?  I need a new approach, a lot of commitment and above all, the need to rediscover moderation - and I need to escape from the toxic obsession with the scales.  Here we go again .....!!

This past week...

...I lost 3lbs.

...I had a new cooker delivered and installed.

...the decluttering continued.

All in all, a pretty decent start to 2017, and we're halfway through January already.  The nights are getting lighter, slowly but surely, and I am enjoying some extra leave days from work this month as well.

Now all I need to do is finally publish those outstanding posts over at EuropeCrazy.  Over the next few days, I promise :)

Thoughts on self-destruction

I always view October as my 'new year'.  During my September holiday fortnight I always do a lot of mental/emotional stocktaking and look ahead to the forthcoming winter months.  Which usually includes attempting to start a diet and weekly weigh-ins after my birthday at the end of September.

Only this year, I'm not doing it any more.  Over the last couple of emotionally difficult years, I developed what you might call a 'disordered' relationship with food.  I gained a very large amount of weight through binge-eating, my way of dealing with depression, family illness and deeply painful losses, but there was still that part of me which hoped I could turn things round and get my weight down again.  For every pound or two lost, there would be some emotional trauma or another - even a bad day would be sufficient to plunge me back into binge-snacking, leading to even more weight gain and self-loathing, and spiralling into more depression.

And during all this I would be stepping on the scales, either at home or as part of a weight-loss thing going on at work, and I'd just feel like a failure.  One other negative aspect of gaining all that weight was the shocking decline in my fitness.  I struggled to walk anywhere and had no energy.  It was all self-inflicted, but I was in such a bad place that there was nothing I could do at that time.  Over the past year I often wondered if I'd really grieved properly for mum.  But looking back now, with a lot more clarity than I've had in a long time, I now realise that the grief was there but just manifesting itself in a different, self-destructive way.

That fortnight off in September finally allowed me some time and space to take stock of my life. Personal events of the past few months have shown just how precious life is and how it can be cruelly taken away from you when you least expect it.  I treasure being alive, and I've had enough of the self-destruction which has marked the past 2 years of my life.

Last weekend I bought a 'Fitbit' fitness tracker (pictured above).  This coincided with joining a 'step challenge' at work which has encouraged me to get moving again, more frequently.  For the first time in months I was back on the mini-stepper and the exercise bike, slowly building up my fitness and stamina.  The extra exercise combined with some reasonably sensible eating - and no bingeing - was a major turning point.  

The best thing about it all was that I didn't go near the scales.  The feeling and satisfaction of getting my fitness back is something that just can't be measured on a scale.  And the fitter I become, this will enable me to work towards losing that weight.  I learned a lot on Slimming World and have some favourite go-to meals which I will continue to enjoy.  But I also need to re-establish a healthy relationship with food, without the stress and worry about what the scales will say this week.   Because there will be no more weigh-ins - until such time when I feel that it will be a positive experience for me again.  I'm going to be in control from now on - the scales won't control me any more.

And how do I feel right now?  In a word.....liberated.