At 5' 4" and 10 st 11 lbs I was one and half stone over the recommended weight for my height. I decided that was enough and took myself off to the nearest Rosemary Conley class.
A few years earlier I'd joined Slimming World and followed quite successfully the red and green day diet but the idea of an exercise class combined with a weigh-in struck me as a good one so I signed up.
By February 2011, about nine months after starting, I was receiving my Two Stone badge and at 8 st 11 lbs weighed less than I had since being a teenager. And people had noticed. Men especially. Who told me to 'stop losing weight!' 'Women are supposed to have curves.'
Today I look like this.
At 10 st 6 lb (body fat 34.3%) I know I'm not enormous. I can still get into size 12 clothes (just about) and I'm comparatively fit (if you compare me to an unfit woman of my age), but I hate the sight of the flab around my belly and on my hips. What I should do, of course, is show you a photo of it but there are limits.
The Rosemary Conley class has ceased to be but I have all the books and know how much of what I should eat so, in theory, I should be able to go it alone. Which is what I've been saying each week over the last five years as my weight has very gradually edged up and up. The rate of increase has speeded up and I suspect that there isn't a maximum at which it will settle but that, one day, unless I do something now I'll realise that I'm 20 st and rising.
So, to the point of this blog. The incentive about going to a class is the public humiliation if you fail to lose or - horror - put on. Now I know it's all done privately and no-one is embarrassed by the teacher but you inevitably get into conversation comparing weight change with other members of the class so it is vaguely public. Or as public as you'll let it be. Doing it for yourself lacks that vital aspect.
So I came up with the idea of this blog. A flab and all expose of my progress as well as a look at my bad - and good - habits and how I can change my way of thinking. And a mini eating diary.
You'll notice that for dinner today I ate macaroni cheese. Now I know that's not a good way to start a diet but I've been craving it since reading about it in where the elite meet to eat and, also, we didn't have any other food in the house.
Food Diary
2 weetabix, semi-skimmed milk, 1 teaspoon sugar
1 glacier fruit (20 cals - I just checked)
2 boiled eggs, 2 ryvita liberally spread with butter
5 cherry tomatoes
6 raspberries, some cheese when grating
Macaroni cheese and salad
I'll probably - almost certainly - have a banana when watching Wallander later.
(If you read that diary carefully you may get an idea of some of my bad habits that I'll write about more fully in future.)
FitBit (at 20.35)
10,154 steps
4.25 miles
1,724 calories burned
