New Month, No Monthly Review

I've got to the end of Month

And for months 1-6 I wrote long and comprehensive reviews, looking back at what I had achieved and setting formal goals for the next month. Month 7 I was away on holiday and a review didn't feel appropriate.

I thought I needed it to stay on track. I don't think I do.

I am as focused, as determined as I have ever been. I am on track, on plan.

Mentally I am moving away from the idea that this is a "diet plan", a temporary fixture in my life. I no longer see it as a period of time I need to count and formalise.

I AM looking forward with great excitement to being at goal, wearing goal size clothes and living like that but I feel I am on an eating plan for life. I might eat more and different things at goal, but not THAT much more nor THAT different and the plan.....a plan is for life. I don't want it to end, it's not going to end.

I feel like what started as some hard challenge that I needed to count the days and months to be able to achieve has become normal, ordinary and easily managed. It's stopped being a different thing and become my normal.

I do want however, at the 8 month point to thank you all, as I have done every month for your continued support and encouragement. I love the challenges you give me. I've been looking at wearing coloured clothes and will do that now, I love your suggestions and take them all in.

Size 16 Photo

I've only just taken a size 16 photo.

I'm wearing one of my Ebay shirts, a girl's one! Its still black but that's progress from menswear. maybe by size 14 I'll feel brave enough to wear a colour?

I didn't much like the larger size photographs of myself at the time, but I'm glad I took them - its nice to be able to compare for yourself, to see progress. This was my size 18 Photo from 12th June.

A size I'm comfortable with

I've reached a UK Size 16, (US 12) and I've finally reached a size I am comfortable with. I like being this size. I don't feel like a large or overweight person any more. I feel normal. I can wear normal clothes, fit in normal chairs, shop in normal shops...walk around all day not thinking anyone is looking at me.

I am a size I am comfortable with. I have reached my comfort zone

Blogging is great isn't it....because without it - let me tell you what I might have done. I might have slacked off a bit, because I'm comfortable. I might have eaten a bit more here and there. I might have found myself eating bigger portions. I might have said "Yes" to snacking where I ought to have said "No"

I might have found that when I was comfortable with myself, the desire to lose the weight reduces. I have seen SO MANY bloggers struggle with the last sizes. I have seen so many people find the last pounds so much harder than the first.

I don't want to do all this work and end up COMFORTABLE with myself. I want to lose all the way to my goal and be THRILLED with myself. I don't want to wear clothes I am COMFORTABLE about wearing. I want to look at myself in the mirror and say "WOW Dawn...LOOK AT YOU"

Now I am a size 16 and I want to be the bottom end of a size 14 I am going to double my efforts, no slacking, really work at it and learn from so many bloggers that this bit of a long term diet is actually quite hard and I need to approach it with determination and willpower.

Today Dawn is a Sweet Sixteen!

I KNEW coming home from a 'Maintenance" diet plan on holiday and back full on my way was really having results - I could see it and feel it. For a few months now the losses felt painfully slow. Seems mixing it about a bit without gaining was a good plan!

I am IN my UK size 16 Jeans (US Size 12!) ...with a very happy smile on my face!

Telling it like it is

The men I work with them.....they tell it like it is. I don't know if its an 'all men together' thing because they are essentially an all male workforce, or its just that kind of group of men.

Someone has a 'different' haircut - a group of women would say...Hey I love your new hair!!! and then when you're not there say...What HAS she done to her hair?

This group of men - would say...You've changed your hair, I liked it better before. They would tell you.

Last night at work the men shared cooking a meal together. They do this quite regularly and sit down together for the meal at a large table. I had soup. My team are very used to me doing this now and really very lovely and supportive. A man from one of the other teams was with us and he said..."Dawn...are you not eating with us? and I said...No, I was happy to have soup instead.

They all know I'm on a diet now, there has been no hiding the weight loss for a while

He seemed surprised and said to me

When are you stopping? You can't have any weight to lose now? And I said that I did still and would be a few more months.

He said...I looked like I didn't have weight to lose. He wasn't flattering. They don't do that. He perceived I was fine as I am. He clearly thinks an extra 1-2 sizes looks OK. After all this work, I want to get right down and be the size I want to be and I will.  After my self image post yesterday it has made me smile all day that the way I view myself ISN'T the way others do.

Someone thinks I'm a good size just the way I am today and NO-ONE would have said that at a size 28. I have smiled all day.

Describe Yourself in One Word

Do it...now...without thinking too much

One word

The first word that comes to mind

Snap decision?

Describe yourself in one word.

My word would be

and yes, I'd likely say it 4 times too!

Would I say, quickly, the first word that came to mind - one of the other words I might say? No  I doubt it

Back on plan is going great! I can feel I'm losing weight. I have changed, my whole life is different. I'm doing things I haven't done for years, I'm planning to do all kinds of things

If I don't deal with the self image - I won't get anywhere long term and I have been.

How do I change how I see myself? I don't know the answer yet, I'm going to try to work it out.

What one word would you describe yourself as.....quickly, without thinking?

Sooo Hungry!

I'm Hungry...feeling hungry!

Since I returned from holiday and went back on with the diet plan - full on! I've been feeling really hungry.

I see this as really positive. Before, I was eating my quite limited range, I'd long since stopped feeling that hungry, I was used to the limited food.

A few good meals while away and now back on plan and I feel hungry. I am imagining my metabolism has been given a bit of a kick start and that hungry feeling is doing good and the pounds are coming off.

I'm not wanting to eat more than my plan though. It's true isn't it - what they say that no food tastes as good as slimmer feels....and I want to be slimmer!

Costa Light

I've missed my usual coffee shop coffee treats at my favourite UK coffee chop chain

but I've discovered they have introduce a new lighter coffee ..called 'Costa Light" It looks like this

They say of it....We’re very proud to introduce the Costa Light - a new and indulgent coffee that’s light on calories, but not on taste. Made with a single shot of espresso and fresh skimmed milk, our new creation is then aerated for a lighter, softer texture. It feels like a real, luxurious treat. And with less than 80 calories it’s one that you can enjoy more often too


I tried it today and its really VERY nice.

Feeling great to be back, I looked at the seats. The old fat me would have only gone in to the coffee shop if one of the big seats or sofas were available

I NEVER sat elsewhere as the small chairs had arms with sides and these were just too tight to sit on comfortably

Today I had my light coffee sitting easily in the previously tight chairs, oh and smiling my head off and planning to post about it because it felt soo good. I am NOT too fat for the ordinary chairs and that feels great!

Going out for a coffee shop treat just came back as a long term life option in my new life. A Costa Light every now and then is fine in my diet plan.There really isn't anything left from my old, fat life I want back. Increasingly in so many different ways I'm realising I get...really get for the first time - that a successful diet has to be based on a life change, a never-going-back change in the way you live.

I want to be slim, fit in ANY chairs and clothes that I want MORE than I want anything from my old fat life. The only thing I wish my local Costa had that it doesn't - is a coffee with my blogging friends! Wouldn't that be a fantastic treat.

Where did they go?

I've heard other bloggers say they hate it when people just stop blogging and leave and I've seen a few people whose blogs I have enjoyed go quiet or even worse go away.

Very luckily they have returned at some point and I've always been able to email or message to ask if things are ok.

Now it seems one blog friend has just quietly disappeared and I never got the chance to say goodbye or get in touch. The blog has just gone. I feel bad I should have supported more, I could have encourage more. I don't have an email address.

Lali from Project Skinny Jeans isn't around.

I just wondered if anyone else has a means to keep in touch and could pass on my hello and my good wishes for the future. I find myself wondering how she is and hoping things are going well for her. Lali was full of spirit and determination and I would love to have followed along whatever her journey.

I fear, when bloggers go away that it means there is no good news to post. I never like to assume this as really life could just have got busy and fun and no news is good news.

For the record, I promise if I ever do go away ...and at the moment I cannot imagine I will ever want to go away, I will say so. I really admire women like Lynn from Lynns Weigh who a blogging still years into successful maintenance. It really helps women like me to read about long LONG term success.

It does make me wonder where this community of bloggers is going. After all we are on a path to diet success. Even for women like me who had well over a hundred pounds to lose, there WILL come an end. Where does a weight loss blogger go after the weight is lost. I hope many, MANY of us stick around together helping each other along and joining Lynn in the long term maintenance blogworld.

For me, for sure - I've got here with a little help from my friends...a lot of help. I've learned so much from your blogs, I'm still learning so much. Don't go away x

A French Deviation

 French word for a detour in a road is a "déviation" 

The deviation I have been on was planned....in 3 stages.

1) Follow my diet right up to the day I went away.
2) Eat meals out with the family but don't just give up and go mad, be careful all the time
3) Get right back on as soon as I am home.

I'm happy that from the moment I woke up on the last day in France to come home and through today, my first full day at home, I am absolutely 100% not only back on plan but back on with a vengeance.

I'm going to redouble my efforts and make progress. I didn't take my size 18 Jeans on holiday but they fit as they did before I went so in my mind I don't feel I have any new weight to lose. I think I maintained for the 2 weeks.

My  déviation is a good description for it, it was a detour, not my usual route - just a change in direction prior to carrying safely on with the journey.

We can, for occasions like a holiday make a SENSIBLE plan for a deviation that doesn't have to mean we set ourselves back, give up, or fail. It makes me feel better that I now know I can do this. Its never been something I have ever managed to achieve before.

 Un déviation n'a pas à dire un arrêt

Emptying the Cupboards

We're packed up ready to go home from a wonderful holiday.

I've been in the kitchen, clearing out and emptying them

The cupboard is bare - the holiday is over.

It's really a very good analogy of my life right now. I've emptied the cupboards, I've put all the foods away and there will be a new start.

I'm flying home in the morning and all holiday indulgences are over. I'm back "on plan" with a really strong frame of mind, wanting to get on and hit some more goals. My food cupboards are bare.

Being on holiday and doing so many nice things has really strengthened my desire to reach my goals. I have done so much with my part-way-there successes and I'm excited at what more my life has in store for me.

I have been away 14 days and I would guess 8 of them have been on my 'soup' plan and strict dieting days. Others I have been out for meals with family. I haven't gone mad but might have put some weight on, certainly not much. I flew out in a pair of crop trousers that were a nice fit, not loose but not too tight. I haven't worn them all holiday and today I tried them on and they are neither loose nor tight. I can't feel any difference so I don't think I have changed dramatically, but given all the extra meals I must have put some on.

I have no regrets - I'm glad I had some extras. I'm glad to have joined in all the family fun. I'm equally glad to be going strictly back on plan.

I want to see that size 16 number up on my blog and I know I have a way to go - but I will get there.

Starting tomorrow

Another Boating experience

I love being on the sea and have, for years felt too embarrassed to go on boats because of my size.  I've been to where boats are and watched them longingly but felt just too heavy and scared the boat owner would say I couldn't go.

Following a trip on a very solid and large ferry boat yesterday - we decided that today another boat trip of a very different sort was in order.

We drove to a beach where they hired Pedal Boats with a slide on - and we hired one for an hour

My girls and I pedaled and swam and slid on and off the boat and laughed at our struggles to get back on it from deep water. We had such fun.

I have really admired women here who are blogging and succeeding in their weight loss as young mums, with all their children's lives ahead of them. Today I felt so very pleased to be playing happily with my teenagers and enjoying happy days that will be shared memories to look back on. It isn't the same when you're very overweight because the weight prevents you from doing things you really want to do.

I'm determined to get to goal even more now, to have a few more years of all kinds of happy times with my girls. I won't look back with any regrets, just forward with a lot of excitement.

Its my Birthday!

It's my 48th Birthday, on holiday in the south of France.

To celebrate the day - and it feels like a celebratory occasion - I took the family for a "Zero List" celebration and went on a long boat trip. I wrote on my Zero List when I was slimmer I would go on a boat trip and me, my girls and my Mum and Dad did just that.

You have no idea how much I loved the feeling of freedom of being on a boat out at sea. I could have cried with the sheer pleasure of it.

After a fantastic day out, we all got dressed up and went out for a meal out, with champagne ( wearing a new ebay girl's shirt!)

I was so proud of being with my lovely family - and being in the pictures which I shall look back on with such happiness in the years to come. Here I am with my lovely girls and my Mum and Dad, who at 80 are doing brilliantly themselves.

I am 48 today and I can tell you I FEEL 48, I feel like a woman with life experience, with 48 years of skills and time. I neither feel older, nor younger than my years.

Last year, there are no photos. I was ashamed of myself. I was wearing size 28/ 5 XL clothing, I packed a collapsible walking stick in my luggage as my mobility was an issue and I didn't go on a boat on my birthday. I felt 57, 67  even 77  that birthday! I don't know how old, but OLD.

The BEST, the very best birthday present was the one I gave myself - life! A now 48 year old life. A life I enjoy.... a life I am proud of.

Thank you, THANK YOU for all your support and encouragement, I really couldn't have got here without you.

Love to you all


Dawn

Succeed or Succumb ...All or Nothing

My private fear for this whole process is my own history with an all or nothing attitude to dieting. I have yo-yo dieted what feels like forever and this time feels different mostly because I've somehow eliminated any binge eating.

However, my deep fear is that with me its all black/white, all/nothing, succeed/succumb. There are no shades of grey with me. Until this holiday I have been ruthlessly rigidly 'on plan'.

A bit like eliminating binging, rejecting this all or nothing cycle has been more intuitive than planned. I have had the last 4 days back on my soup life and I've been truly happier on it. I don't really want other foods.

Tonight, the kids, my Dad  and I went out for an evening drink. Just one. We sat in the local square and played cards together and after a great day dieting, I had a pint of lager. I had just one. The old me would have gone home and decided...that's it...rules have been broken so break a few more...break a LOAD more. I didn't. I had just the one pint and that was it before bed. I didn't want anything more.

It gives me such HOPE that the future will be ok for me. I can eat sensibly. I can add one luxury like a slim person would and I have NEVER achieved this. When I return to my home after the holiday is over I am going right back on determined food/exercise plan as its time to move the weight loss again, no more treats, no more luxuries. But somewhere in the future, I have hope that I can add the odd luxury item and not go mad.

The only thing I can attribute all this to is my changed self-esteem. I am a successful, strong determined person now and I think too much of myself to let her slide back. Self esteem is a very powerful tool and its loss leads to a vacuum that is filled somehow, for me it was by food. I don't need to do that any more. At 47 I think I've learned one of the most valuable lessons ever.

It doesn't have to be all or nothing.

....all I am going to say on the subject of French toilets

McDonalds on a Diet? the only way to succeed!

Food Heaven...and I'm in it!

I was pretty fed up with food by yesterday after 6 days away from home. I had eaten more than I usually did and felt fed up of food, fed up of eating and fed up of my choices despite having planned this would be the way on holiday,

Today I had some simple bread for breakfast, an apple for dinner and went into the nearest french supermarket and got a pack of asparagus soup and had SOUP for tea, just like at home.

How weird, how strange! Aren't diets supposed to be hard, and eating out supposed to be fun? I have eaten back on "My Plan" today and I'm sooooo happy today, today feels fantastic.

I've been praising myself for my stickability.. keeping to this diet all these months and the minute its gone, I miss it and want it back.

I want my soup, my fresh bread, my fruit and I'm really HAPPY on it.   My diet plan has turned into my treat, I'm in food heaven today and the best of it is, when I go home, I can do this every day!

Tomorrow we are going out to a restaurant, but when I'm at the holiday villa, I'm going to stick to soup....why not if it's what I want.

Healthy for Life!

I'm loving the sunshine

I'm loving the beach, the sea, swimming

I'm loving the pool, playing with the kids,

I'm loving the break from work and relaxing happy days!

I'm loving creating happy family memories.

Oh but I'm missing my soup, my food plan, my daily routine. I'm eating more than I really want to, I'm not going mad by any means but I'm eating more than I want and more of foods that I don't want to be eating.

I'm out of sorts with food. I miss knowing what I want and having what I want. I would like to still have my daily food routine.

However, I have it back as soon as I am home and the future stretches before me, happily.

The old me would never have missed being on a diet.

I think its because it's not really a diet is it? Its my future, and its the way I want to live.

I've heard it said so many times the only way to succeed at weight loss is to change forever the way you eat and I believe now that I really want this. I want my at home food plan. Maybe I needed a holiday to make me realize anew my diet isn't hard, it's what I want for life, my life. ...and I want it back...I want a healthy life, for life

Jumping out of my Comfort Zone

I had SUCH fun today.

We drove to a new beach and it was lovely and really very far off the beach was a platform like this one

I couldn't photograph the actual one as it looked like a tiny dot from the shore. There were only Dads and bigger teenage boys out on it

The 3 of us swam out, and dived off and climbed back on and dived off again for two hours. My youngest ( Age 14) is a good swimmer and she found it a LONG way to swim.


No WAY would I have shared a swimming platform with teenage boys last year - no way would I have got changed into a swimsuit on the beach, swam that far, climbed out of the water on a ladder.

I would have been the fat mom sitting on a towel on the beach reading my book while the kids played in the water. This year, the whole time the kids were playing in the water, so was I. They want to go back and do it all again another day, so do I.

Somewhere I lost 5 sizes and inside those sizes was also the fears that held me back, and the shame of being fat. I shed them along with the sizes. I don't ever want to be a fat mom ever again

The "Don't Photograph Mum" ban

I'm more than a little bit ashamed of my former self.

The old me lacked so much self-esteem I couldn't bear to see photos of myself and banned everyone in the family from taking any.

I've explained I'm sorry and they can take whatever they like now, and they're all checking with me asking " Are you sure?" and I'm ashamed how firmly they believed in it.... they did because I did. On my blog sidebar pictures, I covered my face both for anonymity and out of shame. I'm not going to "uncover" I'm leaving them as they are, a record of my journey.

This summer, I'm in all the photos you might expect and there are some I really like

and some that make me laugh - like this one, showing a pose you just would never have seen last summer

Why wouldn't I have been captured on photo like this last year - apart from the "Don't photograph Mum Ban? Well - I would NEVER have got on a sun bed in case it collapsed, I didn't own any shorts, this shows the first ever ladies vest shirt I have ever owned or worn and I would never have felt comfortable showing a "Less than perfect" shot of myself.

If I could offer one piece of advice it would be this, whether or not you feel up to posting photographs..take them, take loads. It matters not where you are in this journey from right at the very start to near the end and everywhere in between. Once day the photos are going to be a record of your achievements

One day you will look at a photo from the past and see yourself having made enormous progress. One day you will look at a today photo and say, I can see that I am en-route to reaching my goals.

Once day you are going to cast off the limitations on looking at your own photographs and being, for whatever reason it is for you.... proud of yourself.