The planning and execution

Every journey begins with a plan right? Something well thought out, detailed on paper, gearing of the mind and senses for the journey ahead, stocking up or rather stock-piling to ensure a smooth trip.

My journey began with reading up on every conceivable (or so I thought) diet information that has been published (some unpublished works too!) and tried and tested. My book ownership was expanding and my pocket dwindling, but I had to find the secret to the successes that were out there for the taking and I was hoping that I would be right up there in the success stakes. My "research" revealed a commonality among all diets, nothing earth-shattering, no bottled magic conconction nor Nobel or Pulitzer prize winning stuff, just common sense, you simply had to eat the right stuff,and in smaller quantities to shed those extra pounds. Well that immediately set alarm bells ringing for me, who generally had breakfast, lunch and dinner in one sitting and three times a day too!

Literature spewed forth information on exercise, making my daily fridge to the couch routine sound so small in comparison to a stroll around my garden. Knowledge is power right? So I started considering myself becoming empowered and in my zelousness to overcome this battle of the bulge, I believe I may have become over-zelous. But then that proved a good thing in the long run I believe.

So armed with all the "correct" information, and re-thinking what I was doing to my body, I consulted with my physician on the week of the eve of 2006. He put me through a rigourous routine on the treadmill after subjecting me to parting with vials of my precious blood and announced that I was basically a walking time-bomb, the tickings of which were getting louder and closer to going off with each step I took. He hooked me up with a dietician, who analysed his recommendations, subjected me to a long question and answer session, prodding more than a shrink would, and devised a "scientific" eating plan to get me all healthy and spritely again. Promising to assess me after a week, she set me off on my first week of eating "clean".

Analysing the eating and exercise plan among the mounds of material that I had armed myself with, I realised that this was loosely modelled around a low glycemic index weightloss routine and she'd endeavoured her best to include regular food types that my family enjoyed as well. I followed the plan to the letter and in my first week I lost a handsome total of 3.8kgs...it was the turning point for me, I was hooked and after a month lost over 8kgs. At that stage, even though I was sharing my success on online forums, that provided tremendous encouragement and support, I found I was lacking "something". The "something" for me was regular physical contact with like-challenged individuals. This led me to join a weightloss support group (at a monthly fee of course!). This was the niche I craved and in a year and a half had almost halved my body weight. The shackles that medically bound me in diabetes and high cholestrol medication had come off too...for the first time in three years I was free of my three times a day insulin injections and I didn't require pill popping to keep my cholestrol levels even!

It was the beginning of a new me. I could walk into a regular womens' clothing store and pick anything of the racks in my new size and voila! it would be a perfect fit...I started loving the new me, changed my hairstyle as a reward for the loss, got treated to an overseas vacation by my closest confidant and best friend, my mom. It was on this trip I believe that the complacency began and my old eating habits and downward spiral returned.

I've basically taken almost a year off and at the same time put on half the weight that I'd lost but I'm at the point now where I want to feel good again, be able to fit into the numeorus smaller and sexy numbers in my closets and also enjoy the fruits of my hard work.

So it's taking a bit longer for the planning to come to fruition this time around due to numerous variables, but I'm glad I got my groove back a week ago tomorrow and this morning the scale revealed a further 500g down from yesterday....so it's a total of 4.4kgs in 6 days!!!

I can do this and I want to zhoosh up my blog as well, to include logging in all that I consume and expend daily.

So it's up and over time....and I do believe that I am getting closer to discovering this "weightloss Uptopia" place...