So long fatty

Before I had children I was a serious gym bunny.

I owned Lycra. I actually looked kinda good in Lycra. I didn’t need to wear a massively baggy T-shirt over the top of everything to find the courage to work out in the gym among the heavily made up women and the shiny, muscle-bound men.

I thought high energy aerobics classes were sweaty heaven and I would skip into classes with names like Boxercise, Triple Challenge and Super Step.

Yes, I was that hugely annoying girl at the front of the class kicking her legs so high you thought I was deranged or just sad.

That all changed.

Lycra and I fell out big time and I haven’t allowed it anywhere near my house since 2002.
I had my children later in life. I was 34 when I had my first and the second followed 3 years later.

So did the weight gain.

I guess you can add this to my list of excuses for still carrying around my ‘baby weight’.

I have blamed everything from my mum’s defective genes (why couldn’t she give me the genetic code that meant I could snap back into shape?), to my husband killing me with kindness (“go on, have a chocolate HobNob with your cup of tea. Go one, just one. Maybe two . . . “). Even my children have been held responsible for making me love them more than going to the gym.

I mean who wants to go and sweat next to 16 other women when you could be playing tig or making dens on the bed with two munchkins? No contest.

These days it feels like I now have the ability to gain weight by osmosis. I have to run down the cake aisle in the supermarket for fear of having my cells expand just by breathing in too deeply near the chocolate muffins.

Somewhere between the pelvic tilts and the breastfeeding I developed a fatal attraction to sugar.
Of course I ate plenty of sugar before, but I never (whisper it) had my own secret stash around the house.

And let’s face it, when you’ve spent ages slaving over a roast dinner/plate of sandwiches/slice of toast you become some kind of food hoover because you can’t bear to see it go to waste.
Same with treats or biscuits or crisps or puddings or anything sweet for that matter.
I mean it’s rude to hand them out and not have one yourself. One, two, seven who’s counting?

The fabulous cake in the picture was actually baked for me by a very good friend and her two children to mark my 40th birthday this Friday.

It has now become a bit of a symbol for my weight loss.

I don’t want to give up the good stuff and make life dullsville by denying myself (and by default everyone around me). But I don’t want to be strolling out the other side of 40 with a serious hang up about my weight and my health.

So now this has got to stop.

It has got to stop for the sake of my health, my wardrobe and my sanity.

I want to lose 30 lbs as that is what I have gained since having babies.

Ok so it’s not a massive amount, but this is a want echoed among many many mothers out there who found that for every baby they had, 14lbs in weight just magically attached itself to their middle region.

I mean how does that work? I race around this house like a wind-up toy. I’m up and down the stairs at least 25 times in one evening. I should be lithe and athletic looking, not lumpy and wobbly like a comfy old sofa. I’m too darn young for that!

So, the buck stops here as they say.

Like Dave and Dave, I am going to shape up.

Diets are a total no no for me. If you tell me I can’t have chocolate fingers I want 6. Boxes of.

And so – and here is the most important thing for me - my weight loss goals are going to be manageable and not impinge on family life.

I started yesterday. Baby steps. I didn’t tell anyone things were changing. I didn’t make any grand announcements or declare that the fridge was out of bounds. Or make them eat a pound of lettuce and a single raisin.

I just made small changes. And I felt powerful.

I will reveal exactly what changes I am making next time.

And just for the record, yes I did have a slice of the cake and yes it was absolutely delicious and yes I did share it out! I fear it wouldn’t have survived a postal journey, so the two Daves missed out.

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There is no tomorrow

I’m killing myself.

Before you call the authorities, this isn’t a letter which will be found next to my cookie surrounded body in a few days. Instead, this is a confession of a murder I’ve been committing for the better part of two decades.

That’s how long I’ve been overeating, how long I’ve been fat, how long I’ve been saying I’ll do something to change it. It’s also how long I’ve been lying to myself.

I’m eating myself to death one unhealthy meal at a time. Fast food, cookies, ice cream and sugar-laden cereal are all staples of my regular diet. Standing at almost 6’4’’ and weighing in just shy of 350, I’m morbidly obese. What a fitting word, morbid. And if I don’t do something soon, I will die younger than I should. Worse, I’ll become debilitated by any number of obesity-related maladies. Diabetes, blindness, heart disease, amputation of body parts, kidney problems – a whole host of preventable health conditions which await me if I don’t change.

So, why haven’t I changed yet?

When it comes to eating, I’ve almost always chosen the path of least resistance. If it tastes yummy, eat it. Why delay satisfaction when you can have what you want when you want it?

There’s always tomorrow, right?

I’ll eat better tomorrow.

I’ll work out tomorrow.

I have a whole host of things that I will do… tomorrow.

But for today, I’m enjoying myself! And why not, I deserve it. I work hard, I’m a good husband and a good father. I should be able to enjoy a donut every now and then. I’ll eat better tomorrow.

But wouldn’t a good husband and father put the needs of his family before his own temporary satisfaction? A good husband and father would want to ensure that he will be around for a long time to not only provide for his family, but to be in their lives, also.

It will be rough to change my way of putting things off until tomorrow. But I must. Eventually, we run out of tomorrows.

So we must seize today. It’s all that we really have.

So I am going to bust my ass to lose 100 pounds within one year. I’ll do it by eating right and working out regularly. I know, novel concept, eh? It really is as simple as that, I believe. And as hard as that.

I’d like to invite you to join me on my journey. Every Monday I’m going to post my thoughts on weight loss right here at Blog To Fit. On Wednesdays, I’m going to weigh in along with my fellow bloggers, Tara and David, and hopefully you.

Let’s stop putting things off until tomorrow. We have today. Let’s use it and live it to its fullest.

(Note: There are two posts today, the other one is located here.)

Want a bit of humor and motivation delivered via email every weekday? Subscribe to get each BlogToFit post delivered for free! Email not your thing? That’s okay, you can also subscribe via RSS – like all the cool kids do. It’s also free. Unless you really WANT to pay us.