Pick Yourself Up, Dust Yourself Off, Start All Over Again

So, yes, it's been ages.  

2013 was officially the worst year of my life.  Turning 30, surprisingly, was the least traumatic event of the year.  Most of my pals know the main things that have happened to my family and I this past year, and just one of them would've been enough to send anyone over the edge - but the culmination of all the traumas ended up with me completely losing it in July and I've been too ill to work since.  

Not to mention the fact that the RSPCA have revoked my llama-keeping licence.  I sent the boys on holiday to Bolivia and apparently that makes me responsible for the veritable epidemic of llamas in Bolivia.  Trust me, nobody was more surprised than I was.  All this time I thought they were gay.  

Anyway.  Now it's 2014 and I haven't stopped thinking about the fact that I've hit the big Three-Oh and still not actually achieved anything I'd set out to achieve.  My twenties were mostly a dreadful waste of time and energy.  I don't even remember most of them, they were such a non-event.  And I'm buggered if I'll waste my thirties in the same way. I don't want to wake up one morning and suddenly realise I'm 40 and be at the same point in my life that I'm at now.

So that's sort of part of the reason I've decided to lose weight again.  For the last time.  I've really no intention of putting myself through this more than twice.  I haven't weighed myself yet but I'm pretty sure I've put all five stone and then some back on.  To be honest, the way last year panned out I'm amazed I haven't put twice as much back on.  But last year is over.  It's time to stop moping and wallowing and sort myself out once and for all.  And with everything else spinning horribly out of control - the one thing in my life I do have any say over is what I put into this colossal sphere with limbs known as my body.  Maybe if I can get one thing under control, other things might follow.  One thing at a time, and all that.

After having lost weight and put it on again, I am aware of a few things.  My size actually is important in the way I feel about myself, no matter how much I would like to believe otherwise.  I don't judge other people by their size or their looks, and most normal people don't - but I really don't need any excuse to find something to hate and judge myself over.  Although intrinsically I'm the same person I always have been, I do know that when I was a bit smaller I wasn't so terrified of going out in public.  I'm never going to think I'm in any way awesome, but I know I did get to the stage where I didn't feel like I was too fat and too ugly to live any more.  That was quite a nice feeling.  I never felt pretty, but I at least felt average-looking, which was a really huge leap for me.  Perhaps that's the ceiling.  I can't be proud of myself and I can't love myself or like myself - but I KNOW I managed to feel OK about myself.  I'd like to feel OK again.  

I am not going to rejoin Slimming World, however, I am going to try and stick to the principles of it as closely as I can.  It isn't a diet a person can realistically live with for the rest of their life, but there's no denying that their methods do work,  Also, I don't want to set myself a time-based target to lose weight by, because I know it took me years to get this gigantic and it's going to take a similar length of time to start looking like a person again.  So if by June I haven't lost three stone or whatever little goal I might have in mind, I don't want to freak out about it.  It'll happen eventually because I'm going to have to make it happen.  Sadly, nobody's gonna come along, wave a magic wand and transform me into Scarlett Johansson!!  I have a dress size in mind, rather than a weight.  It takes longer to lose a dress size than it does to lose a pound, so that's why I'll be weighing myself once a week.  Last time my big letdown was the fact I didn't really exercise, so I know I need to prioritise doing that.  Even if it does look like I'm gaining weight at first - someone please remind me that muscle weighs more than fat!!

I'm going to keep the blog going again as well.  It's good therapy for me and you never know, hopefully it might help other people too - especially people who've lost a significant amount of weight and then put it back on.  It happens.  I know I'm not the only one who's done it - and it's nice to know that other people feel the same way and have the same experiences.  Being fat is isolating enough without feeling like you're the only one who feels the way you feel.  Yes, you do feel ashamed of yourself for being weak enough to get yourself back to the very place you didn't want to be in - but you don't just have one go at weight-loss.  For some people it's not an issue, but for a lot of us it is truly a battle - and the one thing you need in a battle is support from your pals.  I know how much the support of all my friends meant to me and how much it genuinely helped me keep going when I thought I couldn't back in 2012, and I know I can't do it again without the same encouragement.

I've binned the chocolate.  I've knocked booze on the head.  Bread and I are no longer friends.  I am going to adopt my game face, I will have a cast-iron resolve and hey, eventually - I will have one hell of a wardrobe.  In the meantime, I've got work to do.  

Now then, where did I put my Skip-It?!?!

Here We Go, Then...

It's been ages since I had a blog.  I know, I know, I need to get more fibre in my diet.

That's kind of why I've started this blog.  Erm.  Nothing to do with the internal workings of my digestive system, you understand.  Oh, no.  Allow me to elucidate (me and my hobbies...!). 

It's 2012.  Which is ridiculous.  Last time I checked it was 2002 and I was an 18 year old brat with an attitude that would make Kevin the Teenager wince.  Somehow, without me noticing, ten years have slipped by and I am now staring the big Three-Oh right in the face.  In less than eighteen months, I will be thirty.  I admit to being a touch unnerved freaked out *completely petrified* by this fact.  What happened to the last decade?!  Was it so boring and inconsequential that I failed to realise how quickly time has passed me by?!

You probably aren't as big a fan of Christian Slater as I was when I was 14.  But in one of his films, Kuffs, there is a very poignant line:  "You're 21 years old.  30 comes along awful fast."  When you're 14 that sounds like an absolute nonsense.  Now that I'm twice that age I can completely testify to the truth in that statement.

There is a point.  I will get to it.

I don't really hold a great deal of store by the concept of the New Year Resolution, but I did promise myself two things this year.  Those two things are thus:

1. I will not be a morbidly obese 30-year-old.
2. I will do something positive and constructive with regard to pursuing my dream of having a book published.

Here then (at last!) are the reasons for me starting up this blog.  Firstly, I would like to make a diary of my progress through the year with regard to losing some serious weight.  I've decided to join Slimming World.  Heaven only knows how much I weigh so I don't know how many stones I want to lose, but I know I definitely want to lose five dress sizes.  I have no desire to look like a skeleton with hair.  My aim is to have curves rather than to be a continuous curve, i.e. a sphere with feet. 

I paint such a picture, don't I?!

I've made a start today.  I had breakfast and everything.  My plan is, not necessarily to document what I've eaten (although I'd like to take this opportunity to mention that I made epic salad boxes for myself and my big sister this morning!  I cannot wait till lunchtime!), but to just keep a track of how things are going.  It's all very well and good being full of the best of intentions on 3rd January, but if I get a bit stressed out and fancy trying to consume my body weight in chocolate by, say 26th February, I have a feeling it might be a bit of a healthier outlet to write a big rant rather than nosh for England and then feel rubbishy.  Twelve months.  Five dress sizes.  Not an impossible ask.  If Dawn French can drop six stone, so can I.  I'm quite sure I have all that and then some to get rid of!

My second reason for starting a blog is that I've started writing my first novel.  It's a spy romp/murder mystery type thing, provisionally called The Phantom Winger.  Quite a few up and coming novelists have blogs about their books and things, so I thought I'd give it a go.  Perhaps it will be a good idea, if I have the dreaded Writer's Block, to write a blog entry, rather than writing nothing at all and being annoyed at myself for not being dedicated enough.  I may occasionally share excerpts and ideas from my story, just so you all know how it's coming along - any feedback at all will be gratefully received.

My main character is an ex-copper turned private investigator named Alex Charnley.  He's 30 years old, is 5'8" and has red hair (think more Andre Villas-Boas than Chris Evans, though).  He lives in Deepdale and supports Preston North End.  He has a four-year-old son named Harry who lives with his ex-wife, Helen (aka Lady Deathstrike/Medusa/Cruella de Vil/whichever name comes to Alex's mind at the time of insult) and her idiot boyfriend, Scott, who is, in Alex's words, "a sort of human version of Action Man - all rippling muscles, perfect hair and no genitalia."  He gets caught up in a police investigation surrounding the mysterious murder of a man who is found decapitated in the Preston docklands.  I'm quite excited about just getting on and writing it. 

That's it for now, I reckon.  I've bored you enough.  The majority of my blog entries will likely be similarly lengthy and rambly.  My advice is to only start reading once you're settled down with a cup of tea and a biscuit!!