Land Ahoy!!!

It’s been a little while since I wrote a blog post, but in that time the Easter holidays have happened, and I took nearly three weeks off work for the kids school break, during which time the family and I spent a week in our favourite spot in the UK, my Mum’s chalet at Caswell Bay on the Gower Coast near Swansea. Before I go into that, I’d better quickly update on my weight loss progress so far…. It has now been 45 weeks since I first started on  Cambridge Weight Plan and I have lost a total of  11stones and 5lbs. That works out at an average of around 3 and a half pounds a week, or a stone a month. Not bad going eh? My BMI has dropped from 52.6 to 27.7.  I have lost 15 inches off my waist, 17 inches off my hips and 13inches off my bust. Instead of squeezing into size 26 clothes, I am now comfortably slipping into size 14s (I don’t think I have worn this size since I was a teenager!). And that is just the statistics! Beyond the numbers lie the true benefits…the increased confidence…the extra energy…the sense of achievement…These are the true trophies of my journey so far….and land is finally in sight...!!! I have yet to decide exactly where I want to set my target at, my original plan was to get to 12st 5lb (actually my original, original plan was just to lose some weight!!). This was a figure I remember aspiring to in a previous weight loss attempt in my early 20s. However, now that number is just four pounds away, I have decided that I want to go a little further… If I want to achieve a “normal” BMI of a 25, I will need to lose an additional 16lbs and get down to 11.5st. This is a possibility, and I may just go for it, however, I am now frequently being beset by well-intentioned family members and friends who give me “the concerned look” and say something along the lines of “..Now you aren’t going to lose any more weight are you..??”  This is then often followed by ‘worries’ that I may start to look ‘gaunt;’ or ‘get too thin’ or ‘affect my health…’

Please don’t get me wrong, I am incredibly grateful for the interest in my health and I do appreciate that such observations are done purely with love and affection. Another thing  I am also fortunate for, however, is that I seem to carry my weight very well these days. So when I receive these remarks, I have to carefully explain that I am still, technically, “Overweight” when it comes to my BMI. Of course, how much credence still should be held to BMI is up for debate, but the bottom line is that I don’t quite feel that I am at the weight that I am happy to settle on quite yet. So the figure is up for review…. I have decided that when I reach 12stone exactly then I will see how I feel. 
That figure, for me, will be quite the milestone as I would have officially EXACTLY HALVED MY BODY WEIGHT!!! And that milestone is just 9lbs away!!Incredible!! 
Sometimes I truly have to pinch myself..and there is a lot less of me to pinch now…. (As an aside, I do get a distinct thrill feeling up my newly protruding bones – collar, hip and ribs are frequently fondled…). So, let us see how I get on. 
Watch this space…..
Curiously, if I do lose any more than 12 stone, I’ll then be “in the negative” – the amount of weight I would have lost would be more than I actually weigh!! Mind blowing!!!

So, back to my Easter Break… I would be telling a great big, huge stinky lie if I claimed to have stuck to plan 100% during my time off work. In fact, of the 18 days that I had off, only 10 of those were what I would call “sticking to plan”. 

The other eight…? Well, there was curry, there was a Lindt Bunny Easter egg…there was pasta ...champagne…burger lunches with the girls…dinner provided by family members…and even some ice cream (as I mentioned previously, we visited Swansea. It is the law there that all visitors there must check in to a Joe’s Ice Cream parlour and sample the wares at least once. The Key Lime Pie flavour is to die for… Being a law abiding citizen, I duly obliged..).
I am very fortunate that at my post-holiday weigh-in, I still managed to register a 2lb loss. 

This may have something to do with the fact that during my time off I started on the Couch to 5K programme and began running and every morning, before breakfast, took myself on a wee jog. There were also a couple of family cliff top walks which  helped to burn off those additional calories.

 An added bonus was that I was able to do my runs on my favourite beach, when the tide was out and there was hardly a soul to share my morning with. There is nothing quite as uplifting as jogging beside the surf, sea-breeze in your face and the morning sun on your back, knowing that with every step you are striving towards a healthier, fitter you. I think that running, along with zumba, may well be my new addiction, there is definitely something addictive about it!! 

My favourite “running moment” by far was the morning I spotted my uncle (who I hadn’t seen for around a year) as I walked down to the beach. I waved enthusiastically at him and was puzzled to not receive the customary acknowledgement back. It was only as I approached him closer and saw the recognition slowly register on his face that I realised that he simply had not recognized me. He was used to seeing a 24 stone woman lumbering towards him, not the nearly half-sized, energetic niece in lycra and running shoes that stood before him. I will not deny that it was a moment I relished!

I had several of these “Wow” moments during our stay in Wales, as we spent some of our time visiting relatives, all of whom I had last seen before I embarked on this weight loss effort. It was very gratifying.

Last week saw a sad anniversary in our family, but also the anniversary of a life-changing decision. 
A year ago, my husband lost his mother after a brief illness. Naturally it was a very hard time for us all, and it was only compounded by the fact that his father passed away just five months later. However, it was these losses that spurred both my husband and I to look at our lifestyles and finally come to understand that something had to be done to change the unhealthy habits that we had developed and that led to both of us being obese. When you are a parent yourself, losing your own parent can bring into stark reality of your own mortality. When my mother in law died it hit us hard how devastating it would be, one day, to our own children when we leave them behind. What struck us both harder was the sudden understanding that we were doing nothing to prevent an accelerated march towards early graves, with the bad food and lifestyle choices that we were making. Something had to change. And change it did. Both my husband and I are now much slimmer, healthier people, looking forward to spending many more years, hopefully, in our dotage enjoying our children, and, maybe one day, grandchildren. If my In-Laws left one true legacy for us, it was the  jolt to our systems that we needed to make a positive change that might ultimately save and extend our lives. And for that I am grateful.

I was recently looking back at some of my old blog entries and re-read my “Wish List” one, which I wrote early on in my weight loss journey. In it I chronicled a number of goals that I wanted to achieve in the future. Reading through it again I realise that I have achieved many of these targets already. There are only a few left to reach and I’m pretty confident that I can tick these off very soon in the not too distant future. When I first wrote this list, strangely enough exactly nine months ago today, some of the ideas seem a little ambitious and I did wonder if I was deluding myself as to whether I would ever attain these dreams. But now, after this “nine month gestation period” I have “given birth” to a New Me!!! A Me with more hope, more positivity, more energy and a greater zest for life than I could have imagined. So I guess it’s time for a new Wish List…Here goes…. ·          I have already touched on, in previous blogs, that I am doing the Race For Life with my daughter this coming June. It is my ambition that I will run or jog at least part of the 5K route, maybe even all of it. Walking is just not good enough, anyone can walk. I’m going to RUN!!! Next year, I will sign up for the Breast Cancer Moonwalk in London. I will probably start with the 13 mile Half Moon, but, who knows, a year is a long time. Maybe I’ll be up for the full 26 miles…. ·          This next one is a biggie..I’m going to do the Rooftop Walk at the O2 Arena in London Why is it a biggie? Mainly two reasons, firstly, it’s a pretty steep climb and will need a certain level of fitness to complete without collapsing in a heap and requiring a winch-lift from a paramedic helicopter halfway through the effort. Secondly, and more importantly, I am utterly terrified of heights. And I need to conquer this. When I told my husband of this plan he baulked at my idea, knowing how many trips up towers and high monuments I have refused due to my crippling terror of anything above three floors high. But this is my logic…I was terrified of losing weight, the thought of it completely intimidated me. But I overcame that fear and have reaped the benefits. If I can do that with weight loss, then why not tackle my phobia of tall buildings? Apparently the view is fantastic from the top… ·          For the same reasons I am going to attempt Go Ape, swinging about on rope ladders amidst trees, safe in the knowledge that my weight is fully accommodated and I will not plunge rapidly to the ground when the ropes give way under my excess bulk. ·          I will walk to places that  cannot be accessed by car, starting with the Cinque Terre in Italy  when we go there on holiday in August . (Of course I shall have to convince the rest of the family to do that too..) ·          I will join my friends on a sponsored mountain walk. Some good pals have done Snowdon and Scafell Pike. The next time they do something similar I will join them. I have just realised that my new Wish List completely involves physical challenges. It is this increased energy and physicality that I find myself enjoying more than anything else. It is an incredible feeling, when you have been trapped in an unfit and unhealthy body that restricts you from doing so much, to realise that you have been released from those impositions. Just like when I ran on the beach, I feel free and more alive than I have done so for a very, very long time. And that is a feeling that I want to hang on to for as long as I can. I’ve pretty much caught up with my antics over the past few weeks now. One other thing that we did recently was to have a family photo shoot. My mother had bought us a voucher for a session including a free print, so, on the last day of March, myself, my husband and our two kids trooped to a local studio for a session of posing. When I say trooped, I am probably being misleading. I trooped, the rest of my brood had to almost be physically forced through the studio doors. Let’s just say they were a little reluctant….My husband is not fond of having his photo taken at the best of times, my 14 year old daughter was stressing about spots and the fact she hated her teeth, and our 10 year old boy just wanted to clown around , striking superhero poses. As for me, well, sporting my svelte new figure I was determined to preserve the moment for posterity: “Come on children, let’s do this while Mummy is thin and not too old…” We have yet to view the results of the session, so the jury will remain out until the photographs are viewed. Wish Me Luck…….