I used to be slim and vigorous, with a healthy interest in pasta and chocolate, but an even healthier interest in walking everywhere and going for a run every morning. I didn't think of it as "diet" or "exercise", I thought of it as "life".
Now I'm neither slim nor vigorous. I'm 3 stone over my ideal weight and 2 stone over my healthy weight. I got this way after I moved to Big Scary London, and comforted myself by joyfully patronising Pret and Starbucks during the working day, and engaging in competitive dinner portion sizes with boyfriend (who stands a good ten inches taller than me) in the evening.
Add to that a sedentary job, a disinclination to run on horrid London streets, being too self-conscious of my blobbiness to even contemplate joining a gym or exercise class, and an ankle injury which causes agony when I walk, is exacerbated my my weight gain, and has inspired my doctor to forbid me from walking so much as half a mile until I've shed the extra weight lest my ankles explode or snap off or something, and what you have is a vicious cycle, and a miserable person challenging the borders of cuddlydom.
Recently I've found myself gazing at slim young women enjoying life in nice clothes, and I've thought wistfully to myself: that used to be me. As though I'm a wizened crone sighing over her lost youth in the Crusades, or whatever. Thing is, I'm still young. And I deserve to be slim, wear nice clothes, and enjoy life.
Which brings us to Lighter Life. I've done my research, I've quizzed my friends, I've asked every medical person I know, and I've read all the scare stories. And I'm still motivated by the prospect of losing a stone a month, having healthyish ankles by Christmas, and some counselling to give me more insight into why I overeat.
When I started this I wasn't planning to do the 12 week Route to Management programme at the end of the 14 weeks, where you reintroduce food into your diet. But loads of people swear by it, so we'll see.
0 comments:
Post a Comment