Day 1 of a fresh start

Today's the day. I'm starting out, again. I've weighed this morning and I've surprisingly lost 4lb in the past week. We've been away to Butlins and had the dining plan so breakfast and dinner all included but I did try and be sensible and we walked a lot, Mon-Fri I hit 69k steps. Plus we went swimming and on a bike ride.

I've got half a lb short of 7 stone to lose. 7 stone. It's almost unimaginable and really I'm rather disappointed in myself but I can't live a life of guilt and blame, I just need to move forward as best I can and do something about it.

There are only two things that have ever really worked for me - slimming world and calorie counting. I've been faffing about on SW the past 10 months since we went on holiday (regaining the weight I lost before holiday) so I'm coming back to CC. I did it very successfully around the time I met my husband 8 years ago. I lost 3.5/4 stone, was motivated by a healthy diet and exercise and was at a point where I was feeling really good in myself. Then we moved in together, kids, all that and life somehow has taken over. But it's time to do this.

So I'm going to set myself 1400 calories a day and will be using My Fitness Pal to track everything. Even on a bad day, I'm going to challenge myself to track it all. I've got my fitbit and am going to try and consistently hit 10k steps a day. Family walk at the weekends. Try to do some form of exercise 3 times a week, even if it's just a walk on my lunch break. No food is off limits, it's all just going to be about burn more than I take in. No pressure. No weekly targets. Just take it day by day and do the best I can.

When I think about the reasons not to do this properly, it's really only because I bloody love food. But that feeling is short term. Any stress relief, any enjoyment, it lasts a couple of minutes. My reasons to lose weight, they last a life time and that's what I need to focus on.

I'm really going to try and focus on what those reasons are:

My children.
To be the role model they need
To be a mum they can be proud of
To be free to do anything they ever want me to do with them
My health.
To be free from worrying about the future
To never be held back from anything I want to do because of my weight.
My confidence and self esteem.
My clothes, my choice of clothes.
My marriage, my relationships with other people, my social life.
Ultimately, my happiness.

I've learnt to try and be happy as I am (although I wouldn't say I've managed that) because I can't spend my life waiting to be a magic number before I be happy but I want to just live the life I want, how I want and not dictated to by my weight, without fear of anything.

So that's me. I know this is a long post so if you've made it this far, I'm impressed. Writing this was more for me, about making it concrete. If that makes sense! So now I've rambled enough, I'll shut up 🙈