When the Going Gets Tough

Last week I found out that “Slinky By Tuesday” had made the shortlist for the UK Blog Awards and as I wrote last week, this seemed to act as a kick up the behind. I have felt so much more focused this week; my eyes have quite literally been on the prize. Although I haven’t decided what I’m wearing my aim is to be in a dress a size less than I am now. I’ve even created a new workout playlist on my iPod, which is imaginatively titled “KT’s New Dress Workout” it contains such classic hits as Alice Cooper’s “Poison”, Brother Beyond’s “The Harder I Try” and a medley of Bon Jovi and Bros songs, because every playlist I create has a bit of Bon Jovi and Bros on!  I never said I had GOOD taste in music, I just said I’d made a playlist of stuff I like!

  I’ve been getting to the gym for 7am. Even yesterday I got up and defrosted my car, so I could go. Every fibre of my being was screaming “go back to bed you idiot, it’s freezing”, but  I didn’t, I went and I worked hard, I'm actually really enjoying that time because it feels like mine!

  Every single morsel I have eaten or drunk this week has been accounted for, I’ve even been typing it into my planner as I’ve been eating it! I've even made a point of measuring myself so I could keep a track of the inches I was losing too; I am a woman on a mission!

  So this morning, as I strutted towards the scales (yes it was a strut) I felt fairly confident that I had lost somewhere in the region of 2 to 3 pounds. The words “I have been good this week” tumbled from my mouth as I stepped proudly onto the scales. Imagine my horror when the scales laughed in my face, flipped me the bird and showed that I had gained a pound! A Pound! I nearly cried right there and then!

  I’m the first to admit that occasionally I cheat, but genuinely this year I have been an angel, so to say I feel a little bit gutted is an understatement. It just feels like nothing I do is really working, it's half a pound here, a pound there, then a gain and it's driving me insane! I can accept a weight gain if I've cheated and had a Saturday night takeaway or eaten chocolate, but I have really been trying! I've been trying to improve my culinary skills, so I've been making healthy meals from scratch and even trying new things, I even bought quark this week! I don't even know what quark is or really what to do with it, but I've bought some! At the weekend, I even got out the steamer that’s been lurking in the back of my cupboards since I moved out of parents house 10 years ago. For some reason, my Mum thought it was a good idea I bought one. To this day I don’t know why, she didn’t have one herself, maybe she’d secretly always wanted one and was living vicariously through me!

  For the first time since I started my diet, I really wanted to give up. Despite being given some good advice by my leader, I couldn’t help, but feel as I walked out of class “what’s the point?”. 

   Lucy had put half a pound on this week and was feeling the same. We nipped into Morrison’s after the class to pick up a few bits and as we wandered by the deli counter, Lucy said “I could just eat a scotch egg, I never eat scotch eggs anymore and I’m still putting bloody weight on” 

   As she said that, I thought, well if she’s having that I’m definitely having chocolate. Just as we about to give up, something and I don’t know what stopped us. We didn’t buy a scotch egg and we didn’t buy chocolate instead we went for a cup of tea and moaned, we moaned a lot. It was a bit like we managed to purge the things that had been bothering us for the last few weeks and I think that’s what was needed. 

  Somehow we’ve become so emotional about losing weight that we’ve started to focus too much on what we were trying to lose as opposed to what we are trying to gain! (Cliche, but a cliche's only a cliche because it's true!)

    Lucy is so close to reaching goal and I still have such a long way to go, that I think sometimes the thought of it all gets overwhelming. Deep down I've become so focused on proving wrong the people who think that I'll fail, that I've forgotten that it's not about anyone else, but me. Me losing weight won't benefit anyone else, but me, me staying fat won't hurt anyone else, but me, I'm the important one in this and this is about me putting myself first.

   So I’m glad now I didn’t pick up that chocolate in the supermarket and I’m going to carry on getting up and going to the gym and tracking and pointing and doing all the stuff I should, because eventually it has to work. I know it works and I know I can do it.

 One of my favourite quotes is this.

And just for good measure, I added this to my "KT's New Dress" Playlist