'Your arms feel thinner' or 'Why I love my personal trainer'

So, rather unsurprisingly given my previous lack of determination, exercise, tracking...yada yada yada, I gained this week. I sat in my weight watchers meeting twiddling my thumbs going over every 'mistake' I made last week. And there were many; an extra six points (which I didn't have) on a starter for my curry, pizza (the whole medium- rather than my usual half) and the garlic bread AND the jalepeno poppers. The biscuits...Oh god WHY the biscuits?! You name it, I probably ate it. And I knew why, and I knew it was happening. So this is not an issue of 'fat shaming' where I'm going to stare at myself in the mirror for the next week threatening myself with something or other that if I don't lose what I gained AND more that I'm a failure. That's not how I operate.

How I operate is as follows:
Whilst sitting in said weight watchers meeting and praying that Sue, my leader, wouldn't pick on me to talk I got out my phone. I used said communication device and texted Jemma my personal trainer (as background information, I'm at home- not at uni). I told her that I was going to be utter crap but that I was home and needed to get back in the swing of things. I then went back to my meeting. We were talking about how to cope with the Christmas season, all the food, the booze, the stretchy jumpers your Nan gave you that hide the extra Christmas weight (to keep out the cold, obviously) and then I managed to change the subject, as I so often do. 'We always talk about how to have a life when you're losing weight. What do you do when life kicks you in your (very bruised from the damaged coccyx) arse?' I was of course talking about my grandfather, and here's where I should stress that last Saturday I made it seem like everything was fine. So it never dawned on me fully until it was there on the scale how much of an impact it had had. The answer was, not caring about cooking healthy foods (thus all of my copious takeaways) and eating an entire packet of chocolate digestives, because why the hell not? The answer I received from the members of my meeting was: you have to forgive yourself. There is no point dwelling on what happened food wise after it had happened, you just need to go back to the beginning and track. And be accountable. Which I was. I knew the result wouldn't be the one I wanted but I stuck to my guns and went to that meeting because otherwise I would never know how much I had to do.

Once I got home I had received a text from Jemma. Bummed about the coccyx but looking forward to seeing me. She'd get the motivation back in me...or else. (I kid, I kid!) And so I went to bed and dreamed about not being able to lift even 5kg in a bench, gone would be my squat technique and you could forget about the pull-ups. It was going to be amateur hour, but it was going to happen. No matter how painful. And I should stress it was painful but that's mainly now because the muscles in my bum are rebelling against three weeks off anything and are irritating the same annoying coccyx. And then, an amazing thing happened. I wasn't a disaster. The fear that had held me back from going to the gym 'everyone will laugh at you cus you can't lift for shit' 'if you try running you'll explode your lungs or trip over your feet and go flying off the treadmill' 'if you move you'll injure yourself again you silly idiot' was gone. THIS is what I needed. I needed the trainer I trust, my friend to give me the (gentle) kicking. As we were finishing up she asked me, 'so what do you need to do to keep the motivation?', 'nothing' I said 'we just did it'. 'Awesome...Oh, and by the way, your arms feel thinner'.

It's amazing how it can be one thing, one day, one person that gives you back the motivation that is taking a day/week/month off. As E.L James would say; my 'inner goddess' [barf] is lounging in a chaise and will not be coming out to the gym. Well, my outer goddess has a sore bum, but it was so worth it.

For a love of life.

Dear readers,

It's been a very long time and I've struggled for weeks knowing what I was going to write. The answer was always, nothing. I've gone past the four stone mark but to be honest I've felt complacent recently. I damaged my coccyx a few weeks ago and this has, to some extent, made exercise harder and sometimes scary. I worry about injuring myself again and with the exercise slipping my tracking has got a little sloppy.

My grandfather passed away yesterday. I ate. I tracked, but I ate. I used food as my coping mechanism for the first time in months. But this is not why I am writing this. I realised from the knowledge of my PopPop passing and from a facebook comment on one of my mother's status that I had stopped doing things for the love of life. I'd lost that a little bit.

The aforementioned facebook status.

I didn't realise until I was scrolling back through my mum's facebook page that someone had said that they found my 'love of life inspiring' and until this point, I knew I inspired people to lose weight or achieve their goals but I never necessarily realised that it was also my love of life and the vivacity and vigour that losing weight had given me that was inspirational to people. And so, as I sat in church this morning to remember my grandad and his awesome faith (one that I respect but do not share) I remembered him for all of the things he did, the memories I'd had or the wishes he'd had for his family. I remembered that life is fickle and that there are only two days that you can do nothing, yesterday or someday. It has to be today, it has to be now because I don't know what life will hand me tomorrow.

I know as I write this that my absence in writing down how I feel, my struggles or my victories has contributed to my recent slipping (I stress, I haven't actually gained weight- I just haven't been as positive as I had been). So I'm making a promise, to myself, to my family who I hope to inspire, to my friends who I love to entertain and to absent friends who always wanted the best for me that tomorrow is a brand new day, and I never want to feel like I've wasted a day again.