Here’s the latest instalment in my weight loss diaries – I’m now up to 149 days and 30 lbs lost. There are a few of my diary updates from September and then I’ll bring you up to date with what’s been going on for the last month, and where I go from here.You can read the rest of my Fit by 40 posts here.

 

17^th September 2017 (Day 111)

I’m struggling at the moment. I just want to eat all the time, and I want to eat all the chocolate. I know it’s a downward spiral though and so far I’m resisting falling down that hole. I know I’m not hungry but I still want to eat. I guess my battle with emotional eating is going to be a life long struggle. Part of the problem is that I look and feel so much better now, having lost almost 2 stone, that it’s easy to think ‘that’ll do, I’ll stop here’. But I know from experience that if I stop before I really get down to the weight I want to be, I won’t be able to maintain my weight and before I know it I’ll be back where I started. And above all things that’s the thing I want to avoid. So I’ll carry on, and hopefully another good three or four weeks and I will be where I want to be.

21^st September 2017 (Day 115)

I’m definitely having a wobble. I didn’t lose any weight this week – I’m exactly the same as last week so at least I didn’t put any back on. I’ve just been picking all week though – mostly ‘helping’ the kids with their snacks, along with a couple of coffees and cakes too. So today, I sort of gave myself a day off. I’ve not eaten masses but more than I would do normally. I even joined the boys in their chicken dippers and potato waffles for tea! I’m hoping that today will help me reset and I can get back on track tomorrow. I’m away this weekend too – I’m not planning on going crazy but sticking entirely on plan might be a bit too much to ask.

I’ve not done my yoga for over a week now either – I’ve been busy with work in the evenings but I’m also just being a bit lazy. I started a new 31 day challenge but I don’t really like it for some reason that I can’t quite work out. So I think I’m just going to stop with that and either start something new, or back to the beginning of the last 30 day ‘Yoga camp’ that I did and start again. Whatever I do I need to get back to it, and soon.

I haven’t really got that much more weight that I want to lose, but I do want to lose it, and I want to do it before the end of October when we’ve booked to go away for half term. I’ve got quite a few social and blogging things coming up between now and then though so I think it might be easier said than done!

27^th September 2017 (Day 121)

I’m still wobbling here. I don’t know what’s wrong with me but I seem to have lost all my motivation and will power. I’m sure I must have put some weight on this week (I’ll find out tomorrow) but I just can’t seem to stop eating! It’s nothing catastrophic but I just keep picking at stuff. I wrote a couple of weeks ago about changing my attitude to food but it would seem that old habits die hard. I really want to just get back on plan properly for another few weeks and lose this last few pounds. I bought a load of new clothes at the weekend (size 12 jeans!) so I absolutely can’t start putting weight on again. I have to keep going. I will keep going. Tomorrow is a new day, so they say!

25^th October 2017 (Day 149)

I haven’t written a diary update since that one at the end of September. In the last month I’ve only lost 2lb, but I haven’t put any weight back on either. I’ve had a couple of nights away, including a night out with a fair amount of booze, and I’ve not been following the Shake That Weight plan anywhere near as strictly as I want. But do you know what? I’m quite happy with how things have gone in the last month. I’m getting to know how much, and what I can eat, without putting weight on, and that surely is the ultimate goal here.

I haven’t really done any yoga this month – I do still want to get back to it but I just don’t seem to have been able to find the time (or the motivation) lately. All the walking on the school runs is definitely helping though. On the three days that Gabe is a preschool I walk about 5km, and half that on the other two days. But when you consider that before Toby started school I was lucky if I did 1000 steps in a day it’s got to be making a difference!

So where do I go from here? I’d still like to lose a few more pounds. At the moment my BMI is sitting at 25.8, and although I know that BMI isn’t the be all and end all I would like to get safely into the healthy weight range. I have gone from a size 16/18 to a size 12 in the last five months, I have lost 30 lbs, 6.5″ from my waist, 7″ from my hips and 6″ from my bust.

I am proud of what I have achieved (and I promise next time I post I’ll put up some before and after pictures).  I need to give myself a bit of a buffer though because no doubt my weight will fluctuate slightly but I don’t want to get to a point where those size 12 jeans I just bought are getting uncomfortable tight again.

And so, I am going to carry on following my slightly relaxed version of Shake That Weight, and if it takes until Christmas to lose another 5lbs then I will be very happy with that. As I’ve said before, the big challenge comes after that, when I have to maintain my new weight for, well, for the rest of my life I suppose!

If any of you have lost a significant amount of weight and managed to keep it off then I would love to hear how you did it. Because I really really don’t want to be in a position where I need to lose two and a half stone again.

 

This is the twenty-fifth post in my #Blogtober series – you can read the rest of the posts here.