Who feels like reading a long-winded ramble about how I regained 9.5 kilos, lost loads of blog readers and had to pop anxiety tabs for a while? Ya do? Sweet!
Edit: I clearly wasn't mucking about when I said this was long-winded so consider this PART 1!
Ahhh. What a year it's been! The past year has been one of the most challenging and rewarding years of my life. What it has not been is balanced - although I really tried to keep all the plates spinning. When Bridget Jones once declared, 'It is a truth universally acknowledged that when one part of your life starts going okay, another falls spectacularly to pieces,' I was like 'THAT IS ME. THAT IS MY LIFE.'
I recently had to face up to two (relatively) minor things but they forced me to re-examine everything in my life. The first thing - my clothes, er, stopped fitting me.
The part where I talk about weight - yay!
Alrighty, a little background info. I was the poster child for "awkward tween" but I was never really overweight as a kid. The first time I noticed I'd gained a little extra was after I'd returned from my first London holiday. No worries, I thought. I'll get it off. And I did. I signed up with a personal trainer for two months and whipped it off. BOOM.
I was happy, healthy and by no means underweight. NOT EVEN CLOSE. I was starting to feel strong for the first time in my life. One day, a couple of girls started, well, being a bit b*tchy and telling me I was 'becoming anorexic' which couldn't have been further from the truth. This whole saga made me go 'Sh*t, if I'm slim, people won't like me anymore, better go back to how I was.' THIS IS BEYOND RIDICULOUS when I look back at it now. I was young, foolish and clearly cared too much about what people thought - and these girls weren't even close friends of mine. Mental.
Then I got engaged and slimmed down a little.
Then I got married and put on A LOT of weight.
I wasn't entirely happy in this phase of my life but I didn't know why. I guess I turned to food for comfort which is connected to a million complex childhood reasons but that's for another day!
After getting divorced, I promised myself I would slim down and the first few kilos came off without me doing anything. At all. Oh, maybe it was because I was utterly SKINT and couldn't afford food. Lols. I struggled to get going properly but then suddenly, someone very dear to me had a heart attack. I went to visit him in hospital and he gently took my shaking hand and urged me to get a thorough check up. Soon after, I visited my doc who suggested I slim down to a healthier weight. Oh, there were tears and long *DMC's in that room.
I asked my boss if I could start leaving work on time to erm, work out and promised to return if I needed to pull an all-nighter.
THAT'S ANOTHER THING. Advertising is full of late nights, weekend work, extreme pressure and hectic deadlines. The adrenaline pumps all day when there are big projects on the go and I'm only finally learning how to properly deal with this. I know we're not saving lives (and I do my best to keep perspective) but there are real pressures in this line of work. My sweet mother who is brilliant at everything even suffered burn out in the ad biz.
Anyway, I started working out. Slowwwwly but steadily. I mostly walked, and jogged when I could. After the losing the first ten or so, I started lifting weights in the park with a mate and I'd dance in my flat if it rained. I'm sure I drove the neighbours bonkers.
I guess you could say I followed the 80/20 rule when it came to eating. I would eat sensibly for 80% of the time and tuck into treats when it was a friend's birthday or flippen Cupcake Friday at work. Oh, advertising is also treat central.
I didn't cut out carbs or anything really. I just ate less junk and moved more. Wait. I should probably mention that at some point during this, I was...well, heartbroken about something. Now, I've never been the sort of person who loses their appetite when sad. Rather, I'm the type to eat even more between tears. One night, my parents took me out to celebrate a little windfall I'd come into but I couldn't bring myself to spend one cent or eat one crumb. I couldn't even choose anything on the menu so I eventually ordered fish-paste toast and just pecked at it. I was THAT sad. In time, my appetite returned and I was proud of myself for keeping healthy, even though I was a sad panda.
Throughout this, I didn't pop pills, I didn't join a gym and "long story short," I got fifteen kilos off. I was aiming for seventeen but I figured a lower weight would be trickier to sustain.
My besties were amazingly supportive throughout all of this. In fact, everyone was. At some point, I must have filtered the b*tchy types out of my life! My friends' encouragement and support kept me going. I would like to give a special shout out to Taneal who was my rock towards the end.
I maintained my healthy weight for about four months or so but then my life radically switched gears! Stay tuned for the next instalment where I'll share more about what went down and where I'm headed to from here. It involves Tall One walking 5kms with me even though he had a sore shoulder and only slops to walk in. He's kind of the best.
*Deep Meaningful Conversations
PS: We didn't even get to the blog reader or anxiety tab bit! But give me time, give me time...x
PPS: Please excuse any typos and grammatical glitches. I wrote this after a night of broken sleep.
