And I am back.....apparently.
Forgive me blogger but I have sinned, it has been about four years since my last post! I am glad it is actually still here. Makes things easier I guess, no need to start anew.
Anyway, I feel the need to unload about things and thought here was as good a place as any. Nameless, faceless and safe enough to pour my heart out without feeling embarrassed and having to see you all in the morning.
Four years ago I joined slimming world and so far I have, at my lightest, lost nine stone. I went from just a hair under 22 stone to 13 stone. That was about six months ago and it's fair to say my journey since then has been difficult to say the least. Don't get me wrong the journey has never been easy really, I have had many issues with the weight loss. The losing process itself is the easy part, I know what I should be eating to lose weight and I know if I follow the plan it will work. Why then am I having so much trouble following the plan? I keep making excuses to eat the things I know I shouldn't in quantities that I know is too much.
An easy excuse has been marathon training. About four months ago some running buddies of mine started training for London Marathon and I decided to train with them. Mainly to see if I could do it and partially because I knew it would help with my fitness. So fast forward four months and the Sunday morning run has become 18 miles with four hours of running. I found I really could eat what I wanted and somehow was getting away with it. Weigh in on Monday was going well and I was maintaining it if I gained a little I blamed it on the run the day before. On the 2nd April I did it, I ran 26.2 miles, completing my first marathon. It wasn't an actual race, I just ran the distance mostly with a friend, around Gloucester. I am still incredibly proud of the fact that in two short years since I started running I have completed a marathon. However, the poor eating habits I gained in training for it have not stopped. In fact if anything they have gotten worse. I am really just eating chocolate and sweet things for the sake of eating. I don't even enjoy eating them at the time and I am finding justifying eating it impossible but that's still not stopping me!
In the last four months I have gained back a stone and a half with half of a stone being gained in the last three weeks. What on earth am I doing to myself? Why do I feel so powerless to stop it? I feel out of control and I hate it.
I hate the way I am feeling physically at the moment, my jeans are getting tight, I wake up in the morning feeling like I am groggy and have no energy. I jiggle when I run again, this bothers me because sometimes it actually hurts to run. I am physically slower when I run and it is harder to keep up with my previous pace because of the extra I am carrying.
I hate the way I am feeling mentally at the moment, I am embarrassed to have gained back the weight. I had a friend tell me the other day that my weight loss and health had spurred him into doing something about his own weight. He had lost a lot and was so grateful to have been inspired by what I had done. The whole time he is saying this I am feeling more and more like a fraud as I had eaten an Easter egg and two huge pieces of toast for breakfast that morning without a hint of thinking about being healthy. I know he was praising me and I know he meant it in the sincerest way but it made me feel crap about my current attitude. I feel like crying and it's getting me down.
I have sat down and done another for and against losing weight list, to be honest they are ridiculous as what on earth could be more important than your health? What concern about excess skin or not being able to eat freely negates the need to just be alive? I know that if I carry on the way I am going I am going to end up putting back on all of the weight I have worked hard to lose but am failing quite badly at getting the determination and motivation to start losing again. How on earth do I do it?
So I know what I need to do, I am just struggling massively with the process of doing it. I don't want to go back to class as I know I have gained again but I also know that I need to draw a line and stop this silly behavior. I am away this week anyway so as from tomorrow I am going to make a conscious effort not to eat junk. Go back to week one and write everything down again. Try to get some of this gain off before I go back next week. I need to refocus and decide what my new long term goal is. Getting the stone and a half off is one!
