Weigh in Wednesday: How it began

There comes a point in everyone's life where they're not happy with the state of things. It might be that you realise you hate your job, you might come to the conclusion that your relationship needs more effort or you might decide it's time to do something about your health. Usually, it's one thing at a time but I'm one of those people who likes to go ALL IN on life and so since July last year I have been working on a Grande Overhaul of my life. 

It all started when I was visiting the UK by myself to see my family. It was a typical British summer where the days of rain and cloud were vastly outnumbering the days of sunshine but that didn't matter to me. I was in my hometown, surrounded by people I love, in the midst of the Diamond Jubilee and pre-Olympics fever and I was happy. So happy. Happier than I had been in quite a long time, in fact. And realising this gave me pause - shouldn't I be more happy more often? I mean, sure, life isn't a bed of roses and you've got to take the rough with the smooth but life isn't supposed to weigh you down. Especially not at this age. 

I thought back to a few years before when life had been a joyous thing, filled with energy, fun, friends and laughter. Sure, my life in Taiwan had plenty of these things but there was one key thing weighing me down, that was sucking the vast majority of my energy and zest for life right out of my being: my marriage wasn't working. It hadn't been for a really long time, despite my best efforts and protestations, and it was wearing me down to the point where I felt constantly tired and was starting to look a lot older than I really was. We're not just talking a few grey hairs here, we're talking tufts of grey, say nothing of the bags under my eyes. I finally acknowledged the long-standing niggle deep down in my gut that something had to change, even if I didn't get the results I wanted. This is not the life I had planned. 

Well, as you're likely able to tell from the blog tagline, this push for change didn't really end well. This isn't a tell-all, nor is it one of those bitter and twisted "my ex is a complete dick" blogs. Things were said and done that were far below optimal standards for adult behaviour in the lead up to the Big Decision but then again amazing kindness and generosity was shown in the aftermath. Break ups are awful, gut-wrenching things that affect both parties regardless of whose decision it is or who wants out. Although it's a work in progress, I'm hopeful that eventually we will have something resembling a normal friendship. But I know that the only way to arrive at that result is to walk the journey of recovery and healing. There are no fast-forward buttons and no shortcuts available. You've just got to go through it.

So to recap, in the last four months, I have: quit a job I loved; gone through a divorce; moved countries; started the search for a new job to love, and decided to lose weight. Because why do things by halves, right? I figured my life was in so much flux and alteration already that this might just be the perfect time to get rid of the excess weight I had carried around for far too long.

Weight loss isn't exactly a new journey for me and that's pretty typical for a lot of us I think. I've always been overweight - my first memory of becoming aware that my weight was a problem was when I was 7 years old and I weighed in at 50kg. Yes. I know. Healthy eating and portion control were not exactly familiar concepts in our household when I was growing up. To make a bad situation worse, I had to learn the hard way about calories in versus calories out in my early twenties when I finished university, started my first desk job and promptly ballooned 20 kilograms in six months. It took about 2 years to fight it back off again and I've basically been there ever since - which is good to have maintained that loss - but the problem is that my current weight is 14 kilos heavier than my BMI says I should be. So that is my new target: be a in the normal weight range for my height for the first time in my adult life. And I really think following the Weight Watchers programme is going to help me achieve this.

Starting weight (30/01/2013): 86.2kg
First week weigh in (05/02/13): 85.3kg
Second week weigh in (13/02/13): 84.4kg

So far, in two weeks, I'm down 1.8kg and feeling pretty chuffed about it. The biggest barrier in my head is breaking through the 80kg mark and weighing in the 70's. I haven't managed that so far in any attempt to lose weight so that's the first major goal on the way to the Ultimate Goal of weighing 70kg. It's one week at a time, kilo by kilo. Watch this space for more scales success stories!