Back on the WW wagon

Hi everyone,

I'm back! Thank you all so much for your patience (and all the lovely comments and emails) during my absence. I had a few things to sort out in my head (and still do), but I'm finally feeling up to coming back here to share my various trials and tribulations (and, hopefully, successes!).

I went back to WW yesterday. After a week of even-worse-than-usual crazy and emotional eating that left me feeling bloated and miserable I finally snapped. I've been feeling so unmotivated over the last few months in regards to eating/exercise and knew I just needed to do something to get the fire started again. In desperation, I started researching the WW meeting options in the neighbourhood I work in (and where M and I are hoping to move to later this year), and discovered a Saturday morning under 35s meeting. Wooop! I've always liked the support and sense of community offered by WW meetings, but never felt as though I got much out of the discussions (which always seemed to be tailored for older people, families and stay at home mums), so thought an under 35s class sounded interesting. And it was!

On entering the meeting room I did a double take. Expecting to see a room full of women (as per every single WW meeting I've ever been to), I was really surprised to find that not only was the cashier/recorder a young bloke, but so was the leader! OMG!

Straight away I felt inspired and motivated by Andy (my leader; you can read a bit about him and see before and after pics here). I've always had leaders who have lost a relatively small amount of weight compared with what I have to lose, and while any amount of weight lost is a really significant achievement, I've always felt that they struggled to relate to and understand people with serious weight problems. Knowing that Andy has also been obese and managed to turn his life around is a real inspiration and comfort. Plus, he is friendly and funny to boot! :)

The class itself was fantastic. The discussion was about exercise, and it was so inspiring to hear young people who I could relate to talking about fitness classes, boxing, boot camp and the like. I actually felt proud to be sitting in the meeting among other young people wanting to take control of their health and wellbeing, whereas at meetings past I have sat right up the back feeling embarrassed and frumpy.

So, day 1 and the morning of day 2 are down and I have so far managed to stick to the plan - despite it being the weekend (my usual cue to slacken the reins a bit), and despite having a rotten cold at the moment and feeling a bit sorry for myself. I was quite hungry yesterday, and it really hit home just how much extra unneeded food I've been forcing through my gob hole lately in order to make myself feel better. I've been in the worst case of denial over the past few months, thinking I've been eating relatively healthily when I've probably been eating enough for two people most days. The final straw was getting on the scales yesterday and realising I've put on about 8kg of the weight I worked so hard to lose last year. I'm deliberately trying not to focus or calculate how many weeks of effort I've wasted (!) - I just want to use this as motivation to stop this nonsense and get back to treating myself well.

My main challenge is that work is still making me quite unhappy, and I'm a bit nervous about the impact that might have on my weight-loss efforts. If anyone else has been in a similar situation, I'd love to hear from you.

Anyway, my head is pounding so I'd better get back to my sick bed. I hope you're all well - looking forward to catching up on your worlds soon.

xxx