However, something happened today and I felt the need to bore as many people as possible with it :)
A bit of background: In May 2011 I decided to change the future for me and my son, Alister. I abseiled off the Forth Rail Bridge in aid of Chest Heart and Stroke Scotland, saw photos of myself, and was so horrified at how big I looked that I weighed myself for the first time in a long time. The number on the scales terrified me: 19stone 8lbs. I was less than half a stone away from 20 stone, how did that even happen without me noticing?
Seriously, if you need some motivation to lose weight, get your arse in a safety harness, it's a real eye opener!!
My immediate thought was that I was essentially killing myself. Having lost my dad far too young, I couldn't willingly make that a possibility for my son. None of us can stop bad things happening, but we CAN stop making them more likely if we want to.
Over the next few years I lost about 3 stone through using the MyFitnessPal app to log all my food and exercise. I would go through spells of losing weight easily, then during holiday periods I would fall off the wagon and put a bit back on again. But at September 2014 I was at 17 stone 2lbs and had taken up running, using the C25K app (I'd definitely recommend this if you fancy giving running a go). I was also following the Fat Girl's Guide to Running (with Julie Creffield) on Facebook. I signed up to Julie's first monthly fitness challenge which included daily and weekly fitness and nutrition challenges. At the end of September I was thrilled to have lost 10lbs!!
In the meantime, an old friend of mine, Nikki Williamson, had trained as a Slimming World consultant and was going to be starting her classes in October. I'd gone to groups in the past (Rosemary Conley, Scottish Slimmers...) but was in the "I'm not paying someone to weigh me" camp. But as it was Nikki, I decided I would go to support her in her new venture. I even believed that I wasn't going for me for a bit :)
So I hopped on the scales on the first night and the 16stone 6lbs that showed on the screen wasn't a surprise. I set myself an interim target of 13stone and it felt like a mammoth, unreachable number right then.
Apologies, this has become a bit of self therapy, but hang in there, I will get to the thing that happened today!!
To cut a long story a bit shorter, on 16th June this year I reached that first target and set a new one of 11stone. 3stone 6lbs lost in 9 months, happy days! Slimming World just seems to fit in to my life easily, and I finally admitted that a group support network is exactly what I need. We have a walking group set up now on a Wednesday too, which is lovely! I've now lost 3stone 11lbs, and managed to not put weight on over my summer holiday period, a massive result for me. Shopping is weird, I can't remember when I last shopped for size 12 or 14 clothes, but it's nice trying stuff on. I absolutely can't remember when I last weight 12 stone anything, but I do now! I even won the Woman of the Year award in our Slimming World group. Me! Ha ha!! This is the same girl as in the first photo up there ^^
Anyway, today I went to Aldi. I have lots on this weekend and was planning to get a Tesco delivery but rejigged some stuff and went to Aldi today. It's about a 5km round trip walk for me and I needed lots. Now school and work are back to normal I'm determined to get back in the habit of planning the meals for the week and shopping for that. So I took Alister's big rucksack and another couple of bags and off I went with my list.
I put all the heavy stuff in the rucksack and carried the lighter stuff in bags. So in the rucksack I had bags of veg, frozen peas, frozen prawns, tins, masses of fruit, 6 litres of milk, bacon, mince, eggs...it absolutely weighed a tonne. I had to stop a couple of times on the walk home to take a rest but then plodded on. As I was walking I tried to guess how much the rucksack of stuff weighed. My estimate was about 4 stone. As I've lost 4.5 stone since last September I thought it would be interesting to weigh the bag when I got home to see how close it was.
2stone 2lbs. That was it. Nowhere even near 4 stone. This huge, rammed full bag weighed less than half the amount that I've lost in the past 11 months. A third of what I've lost since I was at my heaviest. I don't feel much different to how I did back then. I'm not smarter, or happier, or prettier, or funnier, or more caring, or less loving. I'm just smaller and weigh less. And healthier. The weight loss has been gradual so I don't really notice anything different. But I've said to a few people recently that if I was given a 7 stone bag to carry around with me I'd sure know about it! And I'm completely blown away by this thing today. Even half the weight of that rucksack is heavy! I know so many people in our group who have lost a stone or 2 stone and aren't blowing their own trumpets about it - GET BLOWING!!!!
Fill a bag with stuff, weigh it, get it to the weight you have lost, and I bet you completely underestimate the enormity of what you have done! Go on! Do it today!! Then give yourself an almighty pat on the back, and a big hug!!
