WHAT WENT WRONG?

6^th September 2020

Back in 2014 I lost just over a hundred pounds, I achieved what I wanted to do, I put the work in and I felt great. I kept it off for about six months, I think, but it started to creep back on. What really went wrong? I put the weight back on at about half a stone a month. I knew it was happening so why didn't I do something about it. It would have been so easy just to lose an excess half stone and keep a check on my weight but no. I had started to be in a lot of pain at that time with my knee but that was no excuse, putting on weight was not going to make the pain go away only make it worse, so what was I thinking?

I was in denial big time. I had lost weight, I had done it before but what I hadn't learnt was what happens next.

Yes, it's great to lose weight, a lot of us do it, but so many of us put it back on and we yo-yo weight loss all our lives. This is not good if it's a stone or two but when it's seven, eight stone like I have done it needs addressing big time. How I could do that to myself, I have no idea, but I did. To watch and know the weight was going back on to my body and not do something about it was so wrong but it's all part of the condition. I want to say illness but I don't really like to look at obesity as a illness so I will say condition. Your mind knows you are trying to lose weight and with a little fight it lets you do it but where the problem comes is when that weight is lost and you have reached a target there seems to be no plan going forward as to what you do next. When I lost that last lot of weight I was doing it through a NHS group called Change For Life. I can't remember now if you went for six weeks or ten but you went every week and got weighed and then there was a talk about healthy eating. After that you could go back just to get weighed but otherwise you were on your own. Losing weight is not only to do with what you eat it's also to do with what's in your head but at no time was that addressed. It's like telling you the direction to where you want to go but not what you do when you get there.

If this is not addressed, the chances are you will go back to what you know and it starts all over again. Until weight loss is looked at in a different way to the “calories in, exercise out” equation many are always going to struggle - including me . Hopefully this time I have learnt so much more but it's been mostly on my own, through my own research and some people are not able to do this for whatever reason. The diet industry does not always look at what is going on in the individual's mind. The process for whatever reason is generic as if we are all the same even though we are not. Things are changing and there's a lot more now that think about treating the whole person in the same way as I do, so hopefully things will change. As I have said before I don't know what will happen with me going forward but once I have reached my ideal weight I hope my knowledge will kick in and help me stay there. Who knows, but I have a way to go yet so my journey carrys on.

Jackie

xx