When in doubt, count it out.

First, let me start by congratulating myself. After months of only managing to get to a lowest weight of 18 stone 5lbs I have finally broken through my weight loss plateau. I have now lost 77.5 lbs, that's 5 stone 7.5 lbs or 11 silver sevens gone. I want to quickly talk about how I have done this because plateaus, I feel, are the single biggest cause of giving up at weight loss. It makes sense doesn't it? You work effectively for weeks, months even, and then suddenly- zilch, nada, not an ounce. Try as you may, nothing happens. You get dragged into a 'diet', you start taking questionable weight loss tablets and when that doesn't help, bad habits start to sneak back in to your day to day life.

Pretty big plateau that.

So, after one too many nights of complaining to my parents and crying about how exhausting it is to have been losing weight for a year and a half but to not have moved in that last half, I did what I perhaps should have done all those months ago. I took to the internet, that font of knowledge, and typed in 'weight loss plateau'. And without fail, every single page asked 'are you eating enough?' Simple answer, as I said in my last post, was no. No I wasn't. Or when I was, I was eating too much. Basically, despite the fact that some very clever people designed the weight watchers ProPoints system with a precise daily allowance, I was ignoring that advice because, I knew better.

I've now been back to basics, actually eating my daily allowance- like I did in the beginning-for three weeks and after an initial week of stabilizing where I gained half a pound, I have lost 4lbs. Last week I was back at the lowest I'd ever been, this week I am now two pounds lighter. So this is the lowest weight I have been in, conservative estimate, 10 years? I now feel so much more in control and, for the first time ever, I can actually see the weight coming off as it happens. I'm stronger, and fitter, than I've ever been (I'm running the Milton Keynes Marathon in May), I finally fit into the dress options I bought for my brother's wedding in July and today as I was sorting my way through clothes that were too big, the first new look dress I bought all those months ago had to go because it just doesn't fit any more. I think, until I beat the plateau monster, I was reticent to get rid of my over sized clothes because I didn't really believe I wouldn't need them again. As a general update, I will be taking 4 more rubbish bags to the charity shop tomorrow and other than clothes for work, my closet is almost empty...I get to go shopping. YES!

An empty closet is a sad closet.

But perhaps, the best thing that has come out of the whole plateau thing is that I now know I CAN come out of it. That my body hasn't just decided, nope, sorry I'm going to stay at 18.5 forever and ever- you'll just have to get used to this weight as your baseline. So I'm definitely not done yet. Better than that, I now have the facility to help others. Before hand I could share my experiences and make people feel like they were not alone. That we're all in this together and that with the right positive mental attitude, we can achieve anything. Now, I can sit in a weight watchers meeting and not just share 'this week I lost X', 'this week I really struggled' or similar; I can tell the new members from experience that to lose weight, as counterproductive as it might seem, you need to eat and I was lucky to have one lady tell me that until last week she was at the end of her tether and then I said plainly, eat your points.

Go Wildcats!

The system works, it can just be difficult to trust in it. But you CAN trust in your comrades and colleagues because you have shared in their experiences. So, as long as I remember my old mantra 'when in doubt, count it out' -useful for everything from knitting to weight loss and beyond- I should manage to maintain this consistent weight loss. Let's do it to it!

OCD: Obsessive Compulsive Dieting

I have always thought, despite my size, that I haven't had that disordered an approach to food. I'm good at losing weight because, I believed, I didn't obsess over it. I have never been a picky eater (maybe that was the problem?), there are few things on this earth I won't try but I don't spend every minute of every day thinking about food and I do believe that people should be able to have a bit of what they fancy- regardless of beliefs of an afterlife, this is the ONE time we have to get this life right. So yes, I will be having the occasional bit of cheese with a biscuit. With all that said, I realised in the last few days that I have indeed been guilty of disordered eating.

I broke one of my cardinal rules. Whatever you do, do not weigh yourself between weigh ins. And when I say I broke my rule, I mean REALLY broke it. There were times in the last few weeks that I would weigh up to 18 times a day. I'd weigh in the morning, I'd see what I weighed in different items of clothing, pre-shower, post-shower. Before workouts, after workouts. Post pee, post...well, you know. Morning, noon and night I was on the bloody scale. And I began to hate myself for it. If I didn't weigh less than the night before I would scold myself and go obsessive compulsive dieter on myself. 'Right, you will only eat X amount tomorrow to make up for what you've done!' 'You won't eat on weight watchers days and you will become borderline dehydrated just so you can squeeze out at least one pound'- which when you think about it is not representative of how much you weigh at all. And then worse, after weigh in, ravenous I would run to the drive-thru McDonald's around the corner desperate for my big mac and mozzarella dippers. Bad start to what would, almost certainly, be a bad week.

Step away from the scale!

I've been trying the last few weeks to start fresh. I finally managed to banish the scales from my daily routine. But I won't lie, staying the same last week after managing to lose 9 lbs in two weeks was very annoying. So I looked back over my food diaries from the time I started to plateau- after all, I may have shifted some but I am still stuck in my plateau phase. This exercise showed me one, very obvious, thing. I am, and have always been, obsessed with my points. Those who are on weight watchers will know that we are given 49 weekly points. Spread them, save them or splurge them, they are there to make your life flexible. And my secret is I HATE using them. I feel like a failure when I use them, despite the fact that they are there for a very real, very valid reason. A reason that I constantly tell other people wanting to lose weight. This isn't about restricting what you can eat, this is about changing lifestyle. The weeks that I do use my weekly points, I found, were the weeks that I actually lost more successfully. Perhaps because I loosen my death grip on points. But in the last six months a pattern arises. Either, I use none of my weekly points and my average daily intake is actually a couple of points below my daily allowance OR I completely blow the bank and eat out of control way over my daily and weekly points. Obviously, not very healthy.

Now, I've been doing some reading about plateaus and everyone, everywhere says the same thing. Relax. Not every day, but now and then, And when I think about this it actually makes a good deal of sense. Our bodies are amazing things and will do all they can to use the least amount of energy possible. Cheeky beggar. Team that with your body's metabolic rate slowing down from weight loss and a plateau is bound to happen. It's like exercise. If you repeat the same activity at the same level of exertion week in week out, eventually it has less of a result. So to beat my plateau I have come up with a plan. It's still regimented (because I like regimented things) but I'm hoping it will give my body the kick it needs to progress further.

Stage 1a) For three out of every four weeks I will eat up to my points. This means actually up to, I'm not pissing about here- I want to do this properly and that means getting my mind into the space where I realise I've been set a certain number of points for a reason. The points will go down, enjoy the time that you still have a few more to play with for crying out loud.
Stage 1b) One of these three weeks will be what is called on weight watchers a 'Filling and Healthy' week. I need to get these good foods that nourish and fuel your body re-integrated into my daily life and I feel that this is an excellent way of doing so.
Stage 2) For one week of every four I will make a concerted effort to eat my weekly points. Now that's not saying I'm going to force food down my gullet just to do so but I will relax a bit and enjoy everything in moderation- including moderation.

To cheat or not to cheat..?What the hell are double dough pizzas?

This exact plan of attack may indeed need some work. Jemma (my awesome PT who everyone should hire, but shouldn't cus she's mine...) suggested having a day or two a week of eating a bit more rather than one week a month so I will certainly be trying both methods to see what works best for me.

Regardless of which works best, I know for certain that this re-invigoration of planning and preparation will at least get me fully back into the positive head space I have always needed to lose weight successfully.

Until then, I haven't watched Run, Fatboy, Run in forever. So I think I'm gunna go do that.

I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.

Three weeks ago my brother and I went to the opening ceremony of the inaugural Invictus Games. For those of you who are not in the know, this is a sporting event where injured and ill servicemen and women from all over the world compete in a format very similar to the Paralympic Games. Those of you that know me will know that I have an enormous soft spot for our armed forces and as such I jumped at the chance to buy tickets to go and be apart of these games. What I hadn't anticipated is just how inspired I would feel.

Those of you who were regular readers of this blog, I apologise for not writing in over four months. I also apologise to any one who I have inspired for seemingly giving up after a first year undergraduate called me fat whilst we were on excavation together. If this made anyone feel alone or frustrated or worried that I fell unceremoniously off the bandwagon, I'm here to tell you that I didn't. But I very, VERY nearly did. The final weeks of university were hard. I took every opportunity to spend time with people that I could and as such I struggled to lose any weight. Over the months that followed I had a wedding to go to, birthday parties to attend and more than one barbecue to contend with. Every time I fell down I'd pull myself back up by the bootstraps and recommit but unfortunately this only really happened for a week and then I'd fall right back down again. Finding out that I hadn't got onto the postgrad program I wanted, severe tendonitis and plantar fasciitis resulted in my having to pull out of the Great North Run and then the death of my beloved (albeit ancient) cat caused me to slip further and further into the hole I was digging for myself.

Every day I would put more shit into my mouth and every day I felt physically unwell. My skin was sallow and greying, the rest I had been prescribed for my ankle left me weaker than I'd been in months and restless to the point of distraction and I have never wanted to track less than in those few weeks. I thought about giving up every. Single. Day. And then I went to the Invictus Games. And I saw individuals who had had limbs blown off, been shot through both hemispheres of the brain and had even been put in a body bag before the weakest, tiniest signs of life were noticed. These, truly extraordinary, individuals were competing at the highest level of athleticism and the fact that they stood their before us, proudly displaying their injuries and turning their disabilities into capabilities shocked me to my core. Here I am, in the prime of life and I'm giving up because it's 'too hard'.

Don't get me wrong, losing weight is incredibly hard. At this point in my life losing weight, or rather maintaining the commitment to lose weight, is the hardest thing I have ever EVER done. And yet, I know that this mission CAN be accomplished. The GB team captain David Henson, a double amputee and the gold medal winner of the 200m sprint, said in the BBC documentary prior to the opening ceremony that real legs are great things. And here I was bitching and moaning about a sore ankle. I resolved that I would return home and make a change because if these titans could return from such tremendous adversity and be winning gold medals and setting new records then I could certainly bounce back from all that I was struggling with at the time.

The time since then has been difficult, I cried in the kitchen to my mum because I was so frustrated to have been where I was months ago and no amount of motivational speeches gave me the confidence back that I had at the beginning of the journey, and yet I plodded on. I'm 9 lbs back on track but I know that it is still early days. However, as painful as it may feel and as frustrating as it certainly can be, the only failure will come when I turn off my scales forever and stop caring all together.

What I do know is this:

'I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul'  Invictus William Ernest Henley

And it is MY fate to succeed. This fight is not yet over.

Hello. I'm fat.

I'm going to talk about something that I've mentioned before but that came back down on me like a tonne of bricks today. It can, of course, only be random people choosing to make your day rubbish by commenting upon your weight. It's obviously happened to me before but I had gone a good long time since it has happened. Or at least since I've noticed it.

The story...allow me to set the scene if you will.

Every year my university runs a training excavation as a part of my degree. This is two weeks out of the year where my only job is to dig- to find stuff. Because I've been struggling with the idea of letting go, I volunteered myself to conduct a project on site during one of my off weeks. I just wanted a little more time with my friends. We've had our moments of being grumpy buggers on site- especially today when the heavens opened and there was thunder and lightening (all very frightening)- but in general this week has done what I would have hoped. I have gotten an extra week with the people I love. So, flash forward to about 4:45 this afternoon when some arse wipe of a first year decided to burst my happy little bubble with one, little comment.
*gestures to my car as I'm packing away* 'I feel sorry for her car'
He should- I have a lead foot that I like to use. It's genetic, I got that from my mum.

But anyway. I wasn't all that fussed with his comment. My friends, however, were most certainly NOT okay with his comment. When I told my friend Lucy she could only stare at me gaping mouthed because she couldn't believe that someone would say anything about my weight. Would I have enjoyed watching him get a punch on the nose- absolutely...I'm only human.

It doesn't matter. I kept saying to myself. This dude, let's call him Matty, is SO inconsequential to my life that it doesn't matter what he says. Not even slightly. You've lost 75 lbs- you have accomplished so much. And then it hit me in the car. I've lost 75 lbs and I'm still not good enough. When will I EVER be good enough. Now, I own that this 'will you ever be good enough' bullshit is not just about Monsieur douche's comment. I had already been in a position of feeling like my vulnerable 15 year old self since Friday but Sir shithead (I got annoyed- can you tell?) just proved to the insecure part of my psyche that it was right to feel that way. Great.

And so, I did something bad. Something I have not done since I was 16. I binged and then I stuffed my fingers down my throat and purged the hell out of my dinner. I did. The strong one. The confident one. I allowed myself to be squashed down by a fresher with pubes for a beard. I'm not saying this to get attention or to put people in a bad mood, I'm doing it to remind everyone that we all experience moments of weakness and that that is okay. I started thinking about this blog post when I was in the car and it was meant to be something entirely different. It was meant to be a declaration of my power, my ability and my achievements. And I am so sorry that it isn't that. I really wish I could hold my head in pride and proclaim to the world that I would not be beaten by insecurities about my weight. But what I CAN be proud about is this. I am not alone. I am not the only person in the world who feels the way that I feel right now. Even the most beautiful women (and men!) I know struggle with insecurities about their bodies. But we will not be beaten. I am NOT fat, I HAVE fat. I am not losing weight for Signor buttmunch, I am losing it for myself. And to quote Conchita, 'we are unstoppable'. 

Change doesn't come naturally.

This blog post is going to be a tale of two halves.

First, let's get down to the numbers shall we? As I write this post I am now seventy five pounds lighter. This time last year I had only been on the plan for just over a month and even then I knew that reaching seventy five was going to be an incredibly significant goal. I started planning what I would do to mark the loss. Should I buy clothes? Get a tattoo? Get a dramatic hair cut to highlight my newly svelte (ish) physique? But despite the vigour I had at that point a year ago (I managed to lose my first stone in just over a month) I had not fully anticipated just how difficult the task ahead of me would be. When I stood on the scales this last week I knew it had to happen or else I would go bat shit cray. I was two pounds away and knew that losing only a pound would potentially be more irritating than a gain. To add to it all, my best friend Sarah came to visit this past week and I knew that if I got to 75 lbs that a super awesome spa day treat was awaiting me. So I did my ritual of stripping to just barely legal levels of dress and waited for the numbers to settle. 2 lbs. Hell yeah. I left the meeting and texted Sarah a picture of my record card with the total 75 highlighted and then beamed at passers by on my way home.

The aforementioned picture- Don't know why it's blue...

Things moved pretty darn quickly after this point. The spa day in Bath was planned for the next day, that tattoo that I mentioned up above was booked in, design handed over and deposit paid by 3pm on the day of my weigh in and I was inked the next evening. Pictures to follow, it's very difficult taking a picture of your right wrist when you are the least ambidextrous person on the planet.

I could not be happier with my weight loss and I have once again re-focused my mind to the next goals to keep me going. I am 8 lbs away from having lost a quarter of my initial body weight and a further pound to my next stone. I feel lucky at the moment that between now and 100 I have a fair number of smaller steps to make it all more manageable. So...onwards!

The second part of this post is about change in general. My body, my attitude and just about everything else has changed or is changing. I am in the final weeks of my university career and I had a farewell party last night before people start disappearing off to start the next stage of their lives. And here's something I haven't told anyone. I am fucking terrified. And I don't get scared. I'm not so much scared of not knowing where my life's going- during one of my crying moments last night I was told straight out 'where's the strong Florence who's going to be Prime Minister?', so I know what my general plan is. I am just so very aware, as a result of the journey that I've gone on this past year and a bit that I don't want to regret. I will make sure that I don't regret this journey because I am not going to give up like I did before. But I want so badly to make a promise to myself right now that I'll love a little harder, take more risks, have more fun so that I can fully utilise the opportunities change can give you. I keep being told that this isn't the end. And that's true, it's not THE end but it's an end. But just like I have had to adjust my goals from this point on weight loss wise, I must similarly adjust my mind to ensure that I DON'T let this be THE end because that I would very much regret.

The Perils of Alcohol

This week, has been one of celebration. Final pieces of university work fully submitted, size 18 dresses, birthdays and dinners and drinkies. Oh my! And I full on celebrated. I even (and this only happens about once a year) got full out drunk. Worse, I got full out drunk and had a kebab... Now, I don't food shame, but my god did I feel unwell the next day. I went out four days in a row, ate out several other times during the week and drank, a lot (at least for me). I worked it out today and I drank an estimated 72 points this week. That is 23 points over my weekly allowance which I hadn't accounted for because I couldn't bear to work it out. And I'm going to tell you a little secret. I lost FOUR POUNDS.

That's right, you hear me. I lost weight. I couldn't believe it as I stood on the scale tonight. I said to my leader that I knew I'd been good since Sunday to try and redress the balance of the previous nights but that a loss, any loss- let alone a loss of four pounds- was impossible. Her scales must be wrong. So I hopped off and tried the other scale. Nope, definitely lost 4 lbs. At this point I yelped and jumped around a bit and promised her that this was not going to be an excuse to be complacent. I've been bitten before- I am not going to allow myself to slip as a result of a good week when, let's be honest, I REALLY didn't deserve it.

May not have fully deserved it- but here are my jars anyway. First time they could actually be added to in weeks.

But it's probably a good time that I discuss my approach to alcohol anyway. Since I started Weight Watchers I have all but given up alcoholic beverages. I didn't drink very much before hand so this wasn't exactly hard, but I had the approach of 'I'd rather chew my calories'. And this, I think, is fair. I mean, look at that. SEVENTY TWO points just on alcohol! And it happens so easily. I was saying to my housemate Andy today that it's no wonder first year University students gain the 'freshers 15', it's just so easy to underestimate how much of an impact alcohol can have on your daily caloric intake- Something I had forgotten until this week.

In the short term, I've been really lucky. Or all of my good work from the last few weeks has finally caught up with me- I won't lie, I was a bit pissed off that I only lost one pound last week because I had been regimented to a whole other level. But I cannot let this give me false hope. I'm going home this weekend, I WILL be having my Chinese take away with my mum for Eurovision but I'm also going to try and squeeze in some training time with Jemma (who's going to shout at me because I've been so lazy this last week- though I DID run up Park Street...that counts for something. Unless you don't live in Bristol, in which case that means nothing but here's a video that kind of sums up just how enormous this hill is) and will use this weekend as an opportunity to kick start the rest of the week with lots of fresh fruit and vegetables and home cooking. So I'm hoping (really really hoping) that I'll finally get across that bloody 75 lb mark that has been such an important milestone in the back (front) of my head for the entire 400 days that I've been doing this.

Until then.

Success comes in many sizes.

Dear all,

I have finished university. Well, not finished as such but dissertation is in, final pieces of work are done and I have two weeks of excavation work with my friends. So I'm considering it done. And I won't lie, that has been very weird. The process leading to this moment has also been EXTREMELY stressful and, as such, here is a late offering.

First, let's talk numbers. I am back averaging two pounds off per week (yay!) though I highly doubt that will happen this week because I have let my hair down and had a lot of fun in celebration of all of the hard work coming to an end. However, I'm not going to dwell on that because I have another success to discuss.

This is an open apology to Next about the quality/quantity of their plus size stuff. I was pleasantly surprised.

Yes friends. That is a next top in a size 18. Whilst this is hardly a golden ticket that enables me to buy stuff anywhere- I still can't exactly walk in pick anything off a shelf and buy it- this was a moment of success for me that literally had me crying in the changing room. Now, I won't lie, it's quite possible that the overall feeling of nostalgia and sentimentality over the last few weeks of my university career got to me (borderline breakdown on the M5 may or may not have happened) but regardless, size 18 is an enormous deal to me. 

I don't exactly remember the last time I could walk into a normal shop (read: not plus sized specific) and buy an item of clothing that was not held in their plus sized section. But one moment in particular comes to my memory but we have to go back a LONG time. As in, 14 years. 

I was with my friend Annabelle in Tunbridge Wells (I think) and I needed something to wear to our end of school party (this was in year six...which should just about sum up how long my weight has been an issue) and had already started to hate shopping. Nothing was in my size, I needed to go to a 'special' shop and hope that they had something that would fit my petite (read: 4 foot 9 size 14) frame. This was a nightmare, because I'm sure you can see that a 10 year old should not be wearing size 14. At this point I was not overly concerned with my weight for any health reasons. I just wanted to look nice. I had crushes on boys who would not (still don't...grumble grumble) fancy the fat girl and I wanted to prove them wrong. Anyhoo, back to Tunbridge Wells. I tried on a pair of jeans, I think in New Look- can't remember exact details, except that they were acid wash jeans and I thought I was such a boss. They were size 12 and when they did up (and I could sit down!) I cried in the changing room (apparently this is a theme for my life). I realised then that being 'normal' (at least where size was concerned) was important to me because I could already see how marginalised I was becoming. 

Anyway, I rocked those jeans at the end of year party. But Jack Brewer* still paid no attention to me. . . I won a CD for my dancing though, so swings and roundabouts. 

I'm not telling you this because I had some kind of dramatic flashback the other day in the changing room. It's just something I realised/remembered as I was typing. Hope you enjoyed that little story!

So yes, back to success. That was a success for me. But unlike my 10 year old self I'm not going to take that feeling and go and buy myself some milkybar choos (Oh My GOD did I love those) and complain about boys after spending hours imagining what my name would sound like if we got married. . .Instead, this is a mark to myself to keep going. Another size down and I CAN buy clothes from just about anyone. I'll probably cry in the changing room again. I'm sure you can't wait for that!

I'm still doing my daily selfies so remember to #followtheselfie if you're on twitter. And finally, to the people I've been running into the last few days from my time at university. It means SO much that you've been following my progress. I hope I can continue to make you proud. 

*Names have been changed to protect anonymity...Not that he'd read it.