When I started my last blog ‘I want … x75’ I had every intention of commenting on some of the things I had mentioned because I know some of them are at least partially achieved, but by the time I had finished the list ( remarkably quickly I have to say), I forgot all about it and posted the blog.

I purposely added things that were not really weight related but let’s be honest, when you are as big as I am, most things have the weight element factored in. No matter how much better I feel and no matter how much I tell myself it doesn’t make a difference, it does.

I am not saying it would stop me nearly as much as it would have once. What I am saying is that now I stop and, rather than make excuses, I think about how I could achieve it, and it is often in relation to who I am going to be with because I am very conscious of not holding them back … and I know I will be told that is silly and they are not, but it is still a factor in my head regardless.

The difference is that once it would have stopped me, whereas now I will work out a way to do it – take yesterday as an example; we were meeting to do the river walk (7kms) and then SSS (Super Saturday Session i.e. exercise). When I woke up it was raining and I seriously considered just turning up for SSS and saying I had slept in 🙂 I knew that probably most of the people there would be much fitter than I am and some would possibly want to run. I also knew that even if they walked, I couldn’t keep up – short stride = slow walker. So rather than do that, I decided  to walk the opposite direction and walk out about 30 minutes so then by the time I got back to the starting point it would be a similar time to the others. I had my music and I was happy and it all worked perfectly; I even decided to walk further and walked 40 minutes before turning around. The rain got harder and we decided to skip SSS and head straight to breakfast which meant if I had gone with my original plan I would not have done any exercise at all and not felt as good as I did – albeit a bit wet and very cold. 🙂

Going back to my last blog, I got a lot of feedback and it was all pretty much the same – that I need to acknowledge how far I have come (thanks girls). I know it was said with love and they are right – I am a work in progress and I should acknowledge each and every achievement, no matter how small (or big) it may be. What is the point of waiting until we are at our goal weight, (or as rich as we want to be, finish school or in the job or house that we want) before acknowledging we are doing well. We are a work in progress and every step – no matter what size – is significant and a step forward. Having said that we also have to acknowledge that sometimes there are steps back and while we might not like it at the time, I wouldn’t change most of what has happened; it had made me into the person I am. Of course I wish I had done so many things differently, but why waste time looking back when we can’t change anything? Like everyone there are good days and bad days and the day I wrote that blog was pretty good so it wasn’t written from a bad place – more to remind myself where I was and why I started doing all this in the first place. I am learning to love me but having been at a standstill recently I was finding it harder, hence the list to remind me of my reasons.

I am learning to like and even love myself – not every day, but I don’t think there are many people, no matter how they look, that do and I am much more comfortable in my skin and now dress like that; no more wearing the old badly-fitting clothes around the house because I deserve better than that! Why should I ‘dress up’ for other people and not for myself?

I am feeling healthier and fitter, not as much as I was but getting back there. I am putting less pressure on myself, but I have to admit, it’s a fine line between not too much pressure and making excuses.

I know my kids are already proud of me; they may not often say the words but I see it. I also know my friends are proud of what I have achieved, because they tell me. That was hard for me to accept at first; after so many years of not liking who I was and not thinking anything I did had merit, it was strange to hear people say this but I am learning to embrace and acknowledge it and admit that yes, I am doing good.

Perhaps most importantly, I am learning to ‘re-label’ myself; not as the ‘fat girl’, ‘boring’ or ‘the biggest one’ but simply as ‘Shirley – the one making some better choices’ and for me that is a huge step. Talking to Emazon I realised how much I had let labels define me, starting when I was very young with my father, but I also realised that I didn’t need to listen to those labels! The only labels I needed to believe were those that strengthened and freed me from conditional beliefs. I needed to look at each label and ask ‘where is the beauty?’ and if there is none, it has no place in my life. That was incredibly freeing; to be able to look at myself in a whole new way and realise I could actually redefine who and what I was 🙂

So yes, that list I wrote still applies, but in varying degrees. I still want to lose weight and enjoy some of the benefits that result, but I also still want to live in Paris and be a good role model and stop nursing and about a million other things but I know that everything will come in the right time – for me – and until then I will keep moving forward, acknowledging the good, moving on from the not-so-good and living my life to the fullest.