And so February begins

And now here I am at the beginning of February and I've lost another 5lb+ and weigh in at 17 stone 5lb. I have now got hope that I can reach 15 stone by this summer which will be great. It should make a big difference to how much I am able to do. If we get some nice weather I should be able to go for walks. It had been very difficult walking as my knees would hurt and I'd get cramps and pains down my shins. Since losing some weight that has eased off and I am more active even though I'm still dramatically overweight.

If I can make it to 15 stone for this summer I can actually forsee getting down to 12 and a half stone for next Christmas and then maybe 10 stone for the following summer.

I know at one time I actually weighed 8 and a half stone and I can remember the shock and horror when I realised I'd gone up to 12 and a half. How that managed to get up to 15 I do not know, but I remember I was 15 stone when I met Peter and somehow in the years since then I gained over 5 more stones!

Now the idea of ever getting back to 8 and a half stone seems an impossible dream, especially as I will have lots of loose skin which is bound to weigh heavy too - but if I set myself reachable targets I really think I can get there and watching it go down is so encouraging.

I've set myself mini goals and by the end of February I want to be no more than 17 stone. If I can then lose half a stone a month I can be at 15 stone by the end of June which means I could come back from the summer weighing 14 stone. That gives me a bit of lee-way for Christmas.

Losing is good

New Beginnings

For years I have been trying to lose weight one way or another but getting nowhere fast. I'd tried calorie counting, gimmicky ideas, smaller portions, Paul McKenna - very effective in the short term. But I always seemed to regain everything I lost and then some. At times I wondered if I'd ever get slim again and year after year passed with me yo-yo-ing up and down or giving it up as a bad job. But I hate being fat.

Last Summer I was determined that this could not go on and when I met someone in Blackburn selling Herbalife I thought it was my cue to try again. I knew Herbalife worked, although it was expensive.

As Em also wanted to lose some weight we could support each other during our summer stay in the caravan, with no-one else around to tempt us. We could have our Herbalife for 2 meals a day and that should give us both a kick start during the month of August.

At the beginning of August I weighed in at over 20 stone which for my height of 5'2" was absolutely ludicrous. I knew it was affecting my health. My blood pressure was up and I'd been put on medication but also now detected as diabetic, and on top of that my ankles were permanently swollen and my knees creaked. Everything I did was an effort and I was constantly tired.

Summer Start

It was a bit of a struggle for the first couple of days but then we quickly fell into it, milk shake for breakfast and one for lunch with a cooked meal or a visit to a cafe for tea. The only time we deviated from that was when we went up to Scotland with Geoff and Myrra and for a couple of days we had B&B.

At the end of the summer we were both chuffed to bits to discover we'd lost weight and determined to stick with it once we were home.

The New Routine

Back at home it proved easier to have the milkshake for breakfast and tea because Em couldn't take one to school but she could have her main meal at lunchtime at school so I did it the same way round too.

Melaleuca do a similar meal replacement shake so I began to get those instead as I do a regular monthly order anyway. Unfortunately they only do one flavour, vanilla, but it does actually taste better to me and they have bars too which adds variety. Some of the products are geared up to activating metabolism.

Christmas was a bit of a set back but we didn't go too mad with the eating (no cake, no pudding or anything) so the end of year weigh in wasn't too dreadful. I weighed in at just over 17stone 10lb which was over all a loss of about two and a half stone since the summer. It may not have gone very quickly but at least it has been going down, slowly but steadily.