Progress

The bathroom scales is my friend this morning. It tells me that, after a week of trying hard, being dedicated to the exercise and careful with food, my weight has dropped to 68 kg (that's 10 stone 10 lbs). I am pretty happy about that. No, let's be completely honest here - I'm absolutely delighted!

This good news means that I am that little bit closer to my next mini goal, which is to weigh in at 66kg. Once I hit that weight (maybe by mid September, with luck, if I continue to be diligent) I will just squeeze myself into the 'normal' BMI band. For the first time in as long as I can recall, I won't be 'overweight' according to the charts.

Er, having pondered this for a while, I can't actually remember when that was! I just know it's been a long, long time. It probably held for just an all too brief interval too. Maybe immediately after the sheer hell of the dreaded Cambridge Diet Plan (do not get me started on that!) and shortly before I put all the weight back on again... plus a substantial chunk more. The really weird part to me, when I think about it, is that my darling lovely hubby has never seen me at this size/weight before, never mind 'normal'.

Of course, even hitting the 66kg mark doesn't mean that I'll be a skinny minny - I'll still be a fat lass. I still have a way to go, but this time I also have a realistic, workable plan to get me there. The final goal is to get to a place well within that 'normal' band, say somewhere in the region of 60 to 62kg, to be healthy and to damned well stay there!

Along the way, I want to reduce the blobby belly and flabby thighs - the part that still reminds me most visibly of the cumulative effects of all my past errors of judgement. Even if the fat bits never truly disappear, and I think it's too much to expect that they will, I can at least make them a little smaller and tone them up a bit.

There are other reminders of all those years I spent damaging myself with my obsessions with food - they mostly can't be seen, but I know they are there. Things like my wee problem, the damaged knees (one of which is playing up and swollen again after only one damn gym visit!) and a somewhat dodgy back! Every morning when I wake up the various joints conspire against me until I get moving and ease out the creaks. Lovely hubby listens with amazement and calls me 'crunchy bones'! A few stretches and a stint on the rower usually reduces their tantrums to a whisper though.

On a serious note, I've spent too much of my life doing myself and my health no favours at all. I really didn't see (or maybe want to see), at the time, what a huge impact the weight problems had on my physical and mental health. I wasted so many years deluding myself - seeing my weight as a temporary problem to be 'quick-fixed' and running around the almost constant dieter's cycle of loss and gain, with the occasional binge thrown in for good measure. I wish I could turn back the clock and undo the poor decisions I've made (both weight related and otherwise) but I can't.

What I can do is commit to eating nutritious, healthy food, not crap, and to using the body God gave me, however flawed, more wisely in the years to come. Having fought the good fight to change my ways, and adopt new healthier habits (aha! old dog + new trick = woof, woof "got it", woof), I never want to turn back into the depressed and unhappy fat lass I was when started this blog. I've said it before - I'll never be a supermodel, I'll never be eighteen again and I won't have the 'perfect' body. But I can, and will, try my best to appreciate the one I do have and work at treating it properly to keep it in some sort of decent shape.