What's another year?

There are a couple of bits of software that appeal to my geek-who-curates tendencies. They look back at your postings in linked social media accounts, and remind you of what was going on x years ago. Momento is one; Timehop is the other.

There are also my own records. It won't surprise anyone who knows me to hear that I have a complete spreadsheet of weight and fitness records, going back nearly twenty years, to 1996. How sad is that?

19 February, 2014. A very brief posting to Facebook reads thus:

"Shit. Officially medically obese. Not good. #cupcakesorvalium"

This was the day that I recorded a weight of thirteen-stone-one-pound. At 5'5" tall, this pushed me into the 'obese' category when looking at BMI charts. Yes, I know that these don't take build into account (or, in my case, large mammaries); but as a rule, they're a pretty good indication.

My beloved friends were encouraging, practical, sympathetic and supportive by turns, and temporarily I felt a bit better. Why on earth I didn't take that as my wake-up call right then, I have no idea; the journey didn't start until my visit to Obsidian, nearly four months later.

Having achieved the sub-eleven-stone marker around about the time that we moved house (October 2014), I was simply very happy to have maintained that sort of weight through the move, Christmas, New Year, a holiday, my birthday, and lots more life.

However, having got the festive season out of the way, I've very gently refocused with a view to getting down to my target of ten-stone-seven. I've increased my walks-to-the-beach frequency, taken the alcohol down to one or two glasses a week, upped the vegetables, increased the breakfast juices / smoothies, and decreased the carbohydrate. I've continued to take inspiration and practical assistance from my experiences at Obsidian, and also from the superb Karl at Mother Nature's Diet; and to benefit from the support and encouragement of countless friends.

So on 19 February 2015, I'm logging a weight of ten-stone-nine. That's thirty-four pounds down from my heaviest weight, thirty-two from the start of my Obsidian visit. I've spent a bit of time this morning kicking out the last of my size sixteens, as well as a few more fit-but-don't-flatter items.

I need to remind myself from time to time of how far I've come. Just as it's virtually impossible to imagine being too cold when you're too hot, and vice versa, it's extraordinary how soon we forget the pain of being uncomfortable in our own skin.

The photographs below aren't quite representative of those dates; the one in the green dress (heaven knows how it survived the cull) was taken in August 2013 (so, scarily, not quite at my heaviest), and the 'after' photo was New Year 2014. I intend to get my husband to photograph me on 4 March, which will be nine months since my first Obsidian photo, to celebrate the actual milestones. But this will do for now.

It's not been a diet that I've now finished. It's been a lifestyle change that I still continue, because what is 'normal' is now different. 

That's why I have no fear of throwing out the size sixteens.

There is another way

I haven't written in this blog since 2011. Somehow I could never bring myself to delete it, as I subconsciously knew that the issue - that of maintaining a level of health that allowed me to live my life - wasn't going to go away. Meanwhile, my injuries caused more trouble and my weight topped out at just over thirteen stone - bringing me into the 'medically obese' category.

I will write a more detailed post as soon as I can (the backlog of emails and laundry after nine days' absence is rather scary) but in the meantime I just wanted to say:

THANK YOU, OBSIDIAN

In eight days, I have lost seven pounds (that's represented by the yellow stuff I'm holding in the photo). I went from 12-13 to 12-6.

Much more importantly, I have gained a huge amount of friendship, knowledge, support, ideas and inspiration from the superb staff, from coaches to cooks to cleaners.

Obsidian is a health resort near Benissa, an hour from Alicante, in southern Spain.The experience was extraordinary, relaxing, exhausting and rewarding in equal measure.

More soon, but as a taster, please check out their website here; and feel free to view my photo album here.

And expect to see me back on this blog much more frequently in coming weeks and months.

Next post: The Obsidian Experience

Hiding from y'all - and from myself

Thank you to Thirkellgirl for caring enough to ask how things are going. My prolonged absence gives you the answer: not well.

My 'mindful eating', CBT approach worked beautifully for several months (not just a few days or weeks). I shed around ten pounds between August and Christmas of last year. It remained static for the next few months, and then it was Eastertide again.

What is it about Easter? No, it's not the eggs, before you ask! Maybe it's the fact that the run-up to Holy Week, in a clerical household, is obviously frantic; perhaps it's the collapse-on-holiday that follows it each year; but it must be something more, as looking back over nearly three decades of struggle, every single time that things have gone horribly wrong once more, it's always been then. I have "got it sorted" with food, exercise, self-esteem and the rest; the effects have lasted anything from six months to two years; but the point of collapse has, somehow, always been that wretched moveable feast.

This year, we completed directing a show (wonderful, successful, a joy to work on) at our local theatre, at the end of February - but I jumped straight into rehearsing (or nearly immediately) for another one. My business activities (happily) moved up a gear. I travelled around the country, for business and pleasure. I didn't make it to the gym once in literally months. Even my regular walks-around-the-village ceased. Busy, busy, busy; excuses, excuses, excuses.

Tomorrow is the final performance of the present show (The Merry Wives of Windsor). I've been playing Mistress Page: lovely show, great part, excellent cast, huge fun. However, I have to 'fess up and say that it's been the worst time possible for self-image.

Tudor costume is not kind to many of us (a bum roll? Somebody of my figure does NOT need extra girth added...); and, because one is limited to what is available in the company's wardrobe, I've ended up in a costume that I hate. The colour, the fit, are all totally wrong. The wardrobe ladies have done their best, but they are working with unpromising material. It doesn't help that I'm back to my largest size, my nearly-a-sixteen once more; but in this get-up I look more like a twenty. When I comment on Falstaff's size ("There's no woman's gown big enough for him", the audience invariably laughs, and I am quite certain it's because they are thinking "well, yours is"). To be fair to myself, the front of the dress sits at least a couple of inches proud of my body, which makes me look even more enormous.

I am gritting my teeth and publishing a photograph here: it's about the worst image of myself ever, but it illustrates the problem. (I'm on the right, obviously: my fellow Wife, Chris, is a size-12 yoga teacher, so copes much better than I do with the fashions of the time.)

So I've spent the last couple of weeks making people laugh while I wander round the stage looking like a barge in full sail. I try to wear something more flattering to change into when I see my friends after the performance, but even that is a tough call at the moment, given the general flabbiness. My face (always the first place to show weight) is moon-like, and this is not helped by the Elizabethan requirement for hair-under-hat for married women; having a small head on a large body is even more unflattering.

All this puts me in the worst possible place. It should drive and motivate me to improvement, but right now I am so tired and defeated, and worn out by the effort of continually playing (a) the clown as my part requires, and (b) the strong woman as my life requires, that I can't find the strength.

Once the show comes down tomorrow, I have a few days to catch up; then a week with beloved friends visiting us; then a week's blessed break in a little self-catering place in Normandy. Finally, time to stop and think. And focus on myself once more.

I hope that, after that, I can respond to Thirkellgirl's kind enquiry "How's it going?" with "Brilliant, thank you".

Two books, one very useful chap

Another strand of notable help I've received during the last few weeks.

In browsing around for more help on plantar fasciitis, I came across this book:

As the reviews point out, the book is quite small in content for something relatively expensive. However, in terms of the simplicity of explanation and scientific backup, it's well worth it. I like Jim Johnson's style: treats you as an intelligent individual, while at the same time assuming you have minimum knowledge about the subject.

I've been doing the prescribed stretches for the last few weeks. While it certainly hasn't cured it, there is no doubt but that it helps considerably with the pain I usually have first thing in the morning, and who knows? - if I continue, it may in the long run ease matters.

I looked further into the books written by this chap. I found this:

Another pretty diddy little book (although less expensive); but it says all that needs to be said. Concise, intelligent, practical and sensible. There's little here I didn't know in some form already, but seeing it so clearly and rationally expressed is reassuring and encouraging. Put simply, it strips away all the nonsense put about by most 'diets' to the very simple matter: calories in and calories out, via controlled eating, sensible nutrition and achievable exercise, are the only possible routes to weight-loss. We might not like the fact that there is no magic wand, but that's the way it is.

Using some of the wise advice in both these little books, coupled with my sessions with Jason and the other related matters in my last post, there is no reason at all why I can't return my weight and shape to the way I would like it to be.

Exercise

I've been managing an average of two gym sessions each week, usually with Kim. However, I've also been walking, usually with my husband, round the village - we have four different routes. This usually happens about 3-4 times each week; each route is an average of 1.6 to 1.7 miles. Sometimes it's been grim weather, but occasionally we've been treated to some completely wonderful scenes around the Norfolk countryside, which lifts the spirits as well as the heartrate.

My foot still hurts. That's why I'm still not running. It's no more than mildly uncomfortable while I'm walking, but on my return it's generally unpleasant. But frankly, if it's going to hurt anyway (and it usually does), I might just as well get in whatever exercise I can.

... next post ...

Food

So how am I doing? Over the last five weeks:

• For several evenings in a row, my one glass of wine with my evening meal would be left half-drunk. My husband has now started pouring me a half-glass, and I'm quite happy with this. I can always have some more if I want it.
• I'm eating much, much more slowly. Most of the time, eating at home, yes, I usually do clear my plate still; but it takes much longer. Sometimes I'll leave some and come back to it ten minutes later.
• More than once in restaurants recently I have been faced with far more food than I want (or would have served myself) and have left the extra. [Just today, eating in a pub, I decided to treat myself to one of my favourites - an Eton Mess - and managed about three spoonfuls of the creamy concoction before I gave up and left it.]
• I've attended three different social or networking events where cakes were provided, and I haven't had one. These aren't just ordinary cake, but extremely delicious looking home-baked cupcakes or chocolate brownies. Anyone who knows me will realise that this last, particularly, is enough to prompt the question "Are you quite alright?".

... next post ...

I'm still here

I know it's been months since I wrote. That's because I had very little to report. Now; a little. But it is progress.

In that last couple of updates, last spring, I was taking comfort from the support of various friends, and that helped a lot. However, I didn't get any further with getting my head back into the right place; nor my body.

The steroid injection on my foot didn't have any lasting effect; maybe because (as I've read) the Plantar Fasciitis is more to do with damage than with inflammation, so it did no more good than an overdose of painkiller; maybe as a result of the onstage running around that I was doing in the farce I was acting in at the time (up and down stairs, across the stage, round the gallery - dear me. In heels. Not in trainers. Painful). Either way, we're now two years on from when it began, and I'm no better off than when it started.

I much enjoyed a yoga session with the beautiful Barbara Ives - and was planning to attend one of her classes; I then sustained a really nasty strain to my calf during the aforementioned play, and the class didn't happen. The rehearsals took up loads of time. We went on holiday. And so on, and so on.

We had a wonderful holiday in July/August, followed by a brief visit to some friends in the Midlands. Both wonderful experiences. However, the photographs of me on both occasions sent me back into the deepest state of panic.

OK, sitting next to one of my slimmest friends in the first photo wasn't a bright move; and the really short haircut in the second one was a bad mistake. But it wasn't good. I could have done without that many 'before' photos in one hit.

I returned from holiday at my heaviest ever: 12 stone 3. That's 171 lb. As is usually the case, took a few sessions back at the gym; panicked; tried cutting the food down; panicked some more.

***

I read a posting on FaceBook from a friend and local business colleague, Claire Bunton (who specialises in the appearance: she is an image consultant). Claire mentioned her recent very positive work on weight loss with a hypnotherapist: Jason Edwards. I read his website, including all the commentary about NLP techniques (which I've done some training in myself in the past). I was intrigued.

We had been lucky enough to have a small financial windfall over the summer (which paid for new glasses for my husband, among other things) and said husband was happy for me to invest a little more of it in this possibility. So off I went.

... next post ...

Lots to think about

That last post was written in a fit of the serious poor-mes. I was hugely touched and encouraged by the beautiful responses I had, on this blog, on Facebook and by email, from several people - both dear friends and complete strangers - and it gave me lots of food for thought.

The important conclusion to come out of this is not about whether or not I need to lose a little weight. I know that I do. At twelve stone, I'm mercifully not obese, but I am definitely overweight - from a medical, healthy point of view, it's too much weight for a woman of 5'5". I'm carrying around some twenty pounds' excess strain on the heart, the back and all other bits of my anatomy. My blood pressure isn't yet dangerously high, but it's high enough for the nurse to call me back for an extra check and to caution me that she's not happy with it.

The actual numbers in my clothes sizes aren't that meaningful (let's face it, when I'm a size 14 in M&S, I'm a 12 in East and an Extra Large in Zara); but when I'm on the 12-14 racks, the whole bod feels better able to carry out its daily routine efficiently. And efficiency has always been important to me.

When, back in the summer of 2007, I had settled at roughly 10 stone 7, I was genuinely happy with my body, probably for the first time in my life - especially as it had been achieved by very little "dieting" and a lot of exercise, so was actually in far better shape than when I'd been even lighter in the past.

The trouble is that I was so thrilled to be bien dans ma peau, as the French so eloquently put it, that in my mind it meant that a very specific equation was formed: namely, ten-stone-seven = the right weight for me = attractive. Logically, therefore, twelve-stone = too heavy for me = unattractive.

The fear of getting dressed in the morning (faced with a wardrobe that is 75% useless) means that I might do two hours' work at the desk in my towelling robe before getting as far as the shower, unable to face the body and the wardrobe. I am likely to have a panic attack when "getting dressed up" because I'm limited to the two pairs of black trousers and one pair of jeans that I can wear with any comfort. And because my eighteen months in "the right place" was so happy, I had worked on the basis that I'd no longer need the 14-to-16 range... ach, we've all been there.

So where does this get me now? Trying, very hard, to think clearly. It is possible for me to be attractive at my present weight and size; it's just a different kind of sexy. It's not a place I especially want to stay, purely for reasons of health, but it will do, and is not by definition a place of ugliness. Wow - there's a concept.

So I've been to the gym twice this week, used the exercise bike three times, and been trying to eat sensibly. I'll have my steroid injection on Thursday, and see where it gets me. And I'll believe my lovely husband, and my dear friends, and those complete strangers who care enough to take time to send me good thoughts and best wishes. My thanks and love to them all.

***

I was supposed to be running the Norwich Race for Life today. My foot has been so bad that I can barely walk on it at the moment, much less run. What did I do instead? I went to see my lovely friend Kayla for a long-overdue waxing session (ouch) and back massage & facial (wonderful). A bit ironic, really, but I suppose I can live with that.

In the meantime, I am so proud of those friends of mine who have run or will run this race in aid of cancer research: Kinga, Tracy, Linda and my lovely friend Kim. I hope to be back with you next year.

Not good

I thought a bit of determination was going to help. I really did enjoy that Sports Mile. But (who knows why: wrong shoes? not enough training?) the heel took a turn for the worse afterwards. For the last month, instead of just being uncomfortable first thing and after a long walk or running attempt, it's hardly stopped hurting at all, with the result that I feel crocked and old.

I have done a few gym sessions, a few walk-runs; and then I went out with Kim and another friend of hers, Jan, for a walk-run. Lovely route, mostly on soft but even forest floor; lots of pauses to stretch; probably about 25% walking, rest running, but certainly not fast. I spent most of the session in some pain; by the time I drove home, I was literally in tears: both from the frustration of being unable to enjoy such a beautiful evening and an activity I loved, and from the pain of it.

That was a week ago, and I think I've got to admit that the Race for Life is just not going to happen. Running through pain, putting up with muscle aches, all that's fine; but this is more than that, and a really intense pain that isn't going away.

I've finally been to the doctor and booked to have a steroid injection on 6th May. I'm not looking forward to it; I've been warned that it will hurt, and that it may not even work; but I don't know what else to do.

To add insult to injury, this morning I weighed in at 12 stone exactly - the heaviest I've ever been in my life, and one pound above my starting weight back in 2007. I have three pairs of trousers that fit me; 75% of my wardrobe (at least) is unusable. I am fighting hard, the whole time, not to disappear into a black depression, because it's affecting every part of my life, and I am not a good person to be with right now.

I hope the injection works. Otherwise I just don't know what to do. And of course, as that physical feel-good factor is no longer possible, what's the replacement? Food, of course.

I am deeply ashamed and sorry for the lack of inspiration, as I was so proud of what I achieved, but right now I feel worthless and deeply unattractive. I just hope I find a way out of it.