The (wet) day has dawned, it’s 1 year since I set out on this particular journey to lose weight and get fit. And as promised, I have dived into the gym for the sole purpose of weighing myself on the same scales that I have been keeping an eye on since leaving Slimming World. I have also whipped out my trusty tape measure and taken a fresh set of measurements, so here come the stats.

Weight: starting weight was 21st 3lbs. Today I weigh 14st 12lbs ( I was 5lb lighter at my doctors surgery earlier this week, but in the name of fairness and honestly I have to use today’s number!) Total loss is 6st 5lbs (or 89lbs)
I don’t know whether it is cheating to mention that my total loss since the very beginning of this blog is 8 stone, give or take a pound or so….)

Measurements: 9.5 inches from my bust, 7 inches round my ribcage, 9 inches from my waist and a staggering 14 inches from my hips.

So I didn’t make the 100lb target, which I am not surprised by because my eye has been well and truly off the ball over the summer holidays. There has been cake, ice cream, cold cider, and even caramel frappe latte (where have you been all my life?!) because that is what happens on sunny days out. But the fact that I have maintained my weight in spite of things like that is, to me, a triumph in it’s own right.

Although weight loss is the name of the game, it is important to recognise that it isn’t just about the numbers on the scale. More importantly, it is about health and fitness. 12 months ago I began all this by deciding to attempt Couch to 5k. I stopped talking about it because I stopped doing it. I was rescued from that torture when I met Ian, who trained me to my current level of fitness using mainly weights and suchlike. However when it dawned on me how close my anniversary was, I decided to give C25k another shot. I never even completed week 2 first time around. 90 second bursts of jogging. They were killing me. So I have been quietly adding some serious treadmill time into my gym sessions, and this time I have made much better progress. Yesterday I should have completed the final run of week 5. The second run of week 5 consists of 5 minutes walking to warm up, then 2 lots of 8 minutes running punctuated by a further 5 minute walk inbetween, and again to finish. I achieved that, much to my amazement. But I went into run 3 scared. Run 3 is a 20 minute run with no break. That is a big jump up from 8 minutes isn’t it? So even as I was consciously repeating to myself “I can do this, I can do this”, the little voice in my head was insisting that I can’t. And after 12 minutes running, I just stopped. I honestly believe my body could have kept on going if my mind hadn’t shouted it down. Never mind, I will do it this week, I promise!

I followed my treadmill “failure” with pretty much the worst training session I have ever done, presumably because I had just labelled myself a failure. I couldn’t lift the weights I have been chucking around quite happily for months. Literally, I couldn’t do it. My arms felt dead. And I was not fasting yesterday so can’t blame that. In fact the food I had eaten earlier on the day felt heavy in my stomach and I felt quite sick a lot of the time. I feel I am losing direction in the gym and I really really need a session with a trainer to bring some focus back. Roll on September when I can do something about that!

So, as much as I would have loved this particular post to be all jubilant and positive, life just isn’t playing along with that idea. But that’s ok too. Theres nothing to regret in any of this post. It’s what it is, and I am still happy, still doing my best 80% of the time, and come September, I will still be losing weight.

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