100 Pounds Lighter

I've fallen off the wagon again. I was ill from mid-November to New Year and put on loads of weight over Christmas. I lost a stone in January, then managed to put it on again in February. Careless. March was a yo-yo month, and again I haven't been well. I have been feeling stressed and have turned to food. I thought I had conquered my emotional eating, sadly this is not the case. Yet.

I will not be beaten. I made this before and after image to remind me how far I had come. I'm no longer 100lbs lighter, but I am still a lot lighter than I was. I am still running, albeit slower than last year. I'm still on my journey, hanging in there by my fingernails, determined not to slide back to poor health.

I'm starting (again) today. In a year from now, I'll be glad I did. Will you join me?

If I have inspired you to lose weight or take up running, please consider nominating me for a Brilliance In Blogging award. There is an Inspire category.

Thank you.

100 Pounds Lighter

How I Started Running

How do you start running?

Well, you just have to run.

I've always watched the London Marathon and thought that I'd love to be able to run. Being inactive and overweight pretty much my whole life meant that this was not a serious consideration. I'd call runners 'freaks' as I drove past them, one hand on the steering wheel, the other in a family bag of Maltesers.

In 2012 I had Cognitive Hypnotherapy and joined Slimming World. By September 2013 I'd lost around three stone, but was in a yo yo/plateau holding pattern. I was more active, choosing to walk short distances instead of taking the car, but hadn't taken that next big step: to exercise.

I mentioned to a school mum friend that I'd like to see if I could run. She suggested that I walk around the football field near the school and when I got to the short end I could try running - very gently - along that end. That was all, then I could walk back to the car.

I was nervous, in fact I was terrified. I had NEVER run anywhere ever.

I walked along the long edge of the football field. I turned the corner at the end of the field and started a gentle ambling jog. By the time I was half way along, I was out of breath This was hard work. I wondered if I'd make it to the end. I kept going. At three quarters of the way along I was struggling. I felt my whole body wobbling as I panted. The arms of my rain jacket rubbed rhythmically against my sides as my elbows pumped. Still I kept going. Somehow I made it to the next corner before I started walking again. Puffing and walking.

I had 'run' 100 metres.

I walked back to the car, triumphant.

What a buzz.

If I could do it once, I could do it again.

A couple of days later I went out for a walk with another school mum friend. She had a running app on her phone. I was going to try to run for 60 seconds, then walk for a few minutes, then run again. She was my personal trainer that day, encouraging me, cheering me on, keeping time. I managed almost 4 minutes of running that day.

I downloaded this Couch to 5k app onto my phone. This changed my life.

I followed the app religiously. After I dropped the boys at school, three mornings per week, I set off walking around the football field. I kept up with all the running segments. The sense of achievement from ticking off another run was huge. I went out rain or shine. I was hooked.

I sneaked a peak at later weeks on Couch to 5k. I thought I'd never EVER manage to run continuously for 3 minutes, or 5 minutes, or 8 minutes. The thought of running for 20 minutes seemed unattainable, but as the weeks went by I managed all of these. I soon left the football field behind and ran alone, or with a friend, around one of the smaller lakes nearby.

This is how I started running.

In December 2013 I ran my first 5k.

In April 2014 I ran my first 10k.

Maybe one day I'll run the London Marathon after all.



Blah blah never start an exercise programme without checking with your GP first blah blah

How I Started Running

Taking Control

'Before' and 'During', there is no 'After' yet...

As I continue on my weight loss journey, I realise that my focus has changed.

When I first met Dawn a couple of years ago, I was morbidly obese and desperate to lose weight. This desperation didn't stop me eating cakes, chocolate, biscuits and ice cream though. What I really wanted was a magic wand.

There is no magic wand. In addition to Cognitive Hypnotherapy (disclosure, some of it has been provided  free of charge) I have been going to Slimming World for sixteen months. Sometimes I have struggled to stick to the healthy eating plan, mostly when I saw it as being on a 'diet'. How I hate that word. I have stuck at it though, as I feared that if I stopped going to my weekly group I would put all the weight back on and then some, as I have done in the past.

Then something changed. This is all down to Dawn. She whispered something to my subconscious and it stuck. Without being consciously aware that I was doing it, I started to become more active. I started walking more, enjoying being out in the fresh air. In September I decided to try to run, just to see if I could. And I could. Since then I've been running three times a week. I've joined a gym, for icy mornings when the paths are slippy and for when it's tipping down.

This morning, as I ran my fastest 5k to date (42.48 minutes, if you must know), I started wondering what it is that keeps me running. I love running, but it's not easy. Some days are easier than others, some days it's hard work. What kept me focused today was how strong my legs felt, how there is less fat to wobble than there used to be, and how this is getting me closer to my next half stone award at Slimming World. I am on the cusp of moving from a BMI that labels me 'obese', to one that just calls me 'overweight'. I felt powerful.

Now I know how good it feels to run, to get fit, to feel my body changing. I also cycle, row and use the cross trainer too, just for fun. I enjoy feeling my muscles getting toned on the machines at the gym. I feel in control of my body for the first time in my life. I enjoy eating healthily and am starting to see food as a fuel for my body, not as a treat, or comfort, or the enemy. I don't want to eat a load of sugary fatty rubbish. I will have that stuff occasionally, but I will eat well the rest of the time. I will eat like a 'normal' slim person. That is my plan to get to a healthy BMI - and to stay there.

I am taking control of my body and my life. I will be as fit and healthy as it is possible to be. I will see my children grow up.

Biscuits are not the boss of me.

I am taking control.


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Taking Control

Run, Fat Girl, Run

I hated cross country running at school. We used to shuffle out of sight of the school, sit in a field, and smoke, until we saw the fit girls heading back to school. We shuffled in after them, tucking our lighters in our knickers.

I'd always looked at runners as if they were from another planet. In my entire adult life I had never run for a bus. I had never run at all.

Then I met Dawn Walton, Cognitive Hypnotherapist.

Dawn has been helping me get my head in the right place, so that I could lose the excess weight I have carried all my life. It's working, I've lost 4 stone.

One entirely unexpected benefit of her Weight Loss Coaching is that I am far more active that ever before. I choose to walk over taking the car. I walk faster than ever before. I now run things up the stairs, instead of waiting until there's a huge pile of stuff to go up. I'm not scared of stairs. I no longer get out of breath running up them. I used to have to sit down to recover after any burst of activity.

Six weeks ago I thought I'd have a crack at the Couch to 5k training programme. I never expected to get past the first week, but I did. Every time I looked ahead on the app, to see what future weeks held, I thought I'd soon reach a point where I couldn't keep up.

Today I completed Week 5, Run 3.

Week 5, Run 3 is as follows:
Walk 5 mins
Run 20 mins
Walk 5 mins

Guess what? I did it. I ran for 20 minutes.

Unbelievable.

I think 20 minutes, non-stop, makes me a runner.

I get it now. I get why people love to run. There's something primal about it. It's just you and the path. I love the fresh air and I love the feeling of all those endorphins rushing around my body.

Three words I never thought I would write:

I love running.



Disclosure
Dawn let me try the Weight Loss Coaching programme for free, in exchange for a review on this blog. If I need Dawn now, I pay her. Just so we're clear.

Run, Fat Girl, Run

Morphine for Breakfast

Pain is a strange thing. Once it's gone you can't remember it, although you know it was unbearable at the time. If I'm in pain now, I always compare it with the pain of being in labour. Is it worse than being in labour? It can't be. Surely labour pain set the bar at an all time high? The pain of pneumonia and pleurisy was pretty awful. Added to this I was holding so much tension in my shoulders that I had muscle spasms. I certainly couldn't sleep because of the pain.

In hospital I was given morphine in A&E, but once on the ward I must have been marked down as only give pain relief if required. With hindsight this was a mistake. Pretty soon I needed all the pain killers, one after another, until I was left sitting in bed just blinking. The pain was still there, but I was so out of it I had drifted away and been replaced by Zombie Sandy. I'd stopped screaming and crying anyway.

I saw doctors and an amazing physio. The physio reminded me to how to breathe using my diaphragm - not my shoulders. I was given regular pain killers and the option of morphine at night, when the pain was unmanageable. I took it. The early hours of the morning were worst.

After five days in hospital my blood test results showed an improvement in the sepsis and pneumonia. During the day I was fairly mobile, once I'd come round. The doctors dangled the carrot of going home, but only if I could manage without morphine. I was desperate to see my children. Then I remembered a pain management technique I had been taught. Mind over matter was worth a try.

This was the point I contacted Dawn from Think It Change It. I was her guinea pig when she was training to become a Cognitive Hypnotherapist last year. I asked for a reminder of the technique that she had taught me to help with my slipped disc. She dropped what she was doing and rang me. I spent the rest of the day practising. I repeated this mantra and used it throughout the night:
My muscles are completely relaxed. My back and my shoulder are as comfortably numb as my leg.
Mumbo jumbo you may say, but it got me through the night. It wasn't easy, but I managed the pain without morphine. I slept for three hours too. In the morning I was able to text Andy "Fruit & Fibre for breakfast" and he knew I would be coming home that day.

I can't thank Dawn, or recommend her services, highly enough. She has also helped me to remove the mental barriers that were preventing me from losing weight. At some point I'll do a ta daa post, as I am a fair bit smaller than I was last year. Dawn works from her therapy room in Dundee, but also offers downloads and online support. Check out her website to see if she can help you with phobias, pain, weight, smoking and more. She has also written a book about her personal transformation, again details are on her website. I'm proud to call her my friend.

Morphine for Breakfast