It’s the 7th of January and I just received my 6th press release about dieting or a weight loss tool to help “kick start” my weight loss for the New Year. Now, I make no bones that since I was 11 or 12 I’ve made a resolution every year to lose weight (and it’s horrendous, some of those years I was 100lbs and under, I was just developing breasts and beginning to menstruate, what did I need to lose weight for!? Oh right, I felt fat in comparison to those around me). There have been years I genuinely needed to lose weight because of medication weight gain and years where I managed to drop 4-5 stone (1 stone=14lbs=~7kg) and I felt amazing.
Slowly over the last year I’ve put a lot of weight back on. I’ve been incredibly ill and bedbound/housebound. I’ve been suffering severe dizzy spells and time lapses that might be seizures and a back injury that prevents me from standing and walking. You have to eat to survive…it doesn’t mean I’ve been eating quinoa and spinach, quite the contrary and with an inability to even walk around my neighbourhood all those pounds I shed have crept back on.
I’m 5’2 and I weight 80kg (approx 170lbs). I have some really important things happening this year and I want to look my best. I’m not making any resolutions this year. Together with my partner we’ve made some joint decisions. He and I have decided to shell out an extra £3 and get our groceries delivered to our front door so we can’t be tempted by cookies and ice cream (we have incurable sweet teeth!) and only order what we need and do less impulse shopping. He has rejoined our local gym and on good days I’m trying to walk to our local shopping centre with my e-reader (about a mile) so I can get to the local coffee shop, sit down and rest until I feel better (because right now this walk destroys me) and read for awhile (and sip on some chai tea!) and then walk back once I’ve recovered (and repeat the process at home). It’s not much but at the moment for someone who spent most of last year unable to do anything I’m trying so hard to do something this year if not just changing our eating habits and trying to go for a walk once a week and if I can’t walk a mile I will walk to the end of my street. It’s very frustrating and I’m frustrated with people understanding. I don’t want understanding for weight gain, I want someone to shake a stick in my face and say, “Sara! Enough is enough! I know you’re sick but time to live! Get out of the house and do your best!”
I just write this because I’ve been a year-round gym bunny when my health was better and seen the January influx who drop out by February. Don’t make a resolution to diet because it’s a new year. Don’t make a resolution to diet at all. Diets are fads and will never stick. You (and me too!) have to genuinely commit to a lifelong change. I am not 16 anymore where I could eat biscuits and rubbish food every day and not see the consequences (in my skin OR my body!). Sadly those days are over (sigh!). I get so sick of everyone saying “what you put into your body is reflected by your body”, mostly because it is soooo obvious…but also because I want to hit them over the head with a frying pan. Some days I am just going to eat a whole pack of biscuits because I’m having a bad day…I just have to try and remember to be extra extra good the rest of the month (the month!? Oy vey, the MONTH!).
Again I will work to change my life. Diets don’t stick because they are tough and we don’t want them to stick. We lack the conviction, the MONEY (let’s face it, eating organic and raw and blah blah…it’s EXPENSIVE and times are TOUGH! I worked 4 months last year I was so sick and I am struggling. Struggling.) to keep it going and you have to want it more than anything else. I still don’t know if I want that teenage figure more than I want this biscuit sitting next to me.
Have I mentioned I hate being a grown up!?
