My New Year's Resolution: 2013 will be the year I take back control of my body and start a healthy lifestyle that I can pass on to my children!
I recently had a conversation with a great girlfriend of mine, one that led to me deciding to blog about my diet. She and I are similar in many ways. One is how our vanity took a back seat as we entered the wonderful world of motherhood. Another is how we have grown up with something of a distorted body image, thinking we were overweight when we never really were, until today when we're busy mums, wives and business women, too busy taking care of our families and our businesses to also take care of ourselves... Something we share with millions of mothers all over the World.
This conversation was what initially gave me the idea to blog about my diet and to share my steps towards a healthy life on The Healthy Online. Because we are not the only ones out there that have real body issues, real weight problems and real life hard times. We are not celebrities with money for personal trainers and chefs, so crash diets or DVD deals will not help us. Like more than half of all women in the UK today, we are overweight and unhealthy and we need to do something real about it... no more, no less!
When the 1st of January 2013 comes along, my diet starts. I'm not enthusiastic about it... in fact, I'm really rather annoyed about it, but it's necessary that I set aside this time for myself if I want to continue to be there for my family!
So... why am I so unenthusiastic about this diet then? Because dieting and exercise is boring and really hard! I am SO tired of constantly being bombarded with diet tips and "brand new" diet solutions by super healthy people selling their diet by branding it "Easy" and "Quick" and (wait for it...) "Fun". FUN? Dieting is NOT easy. If you have as much to lose as I do, it will most certainly not be quick. And there is no way it will be fun in any way, shape or form! So there!
And also, if I come across another unrealistic celebrity diet "solution" or exercise DVD, I might just scream! You know the kind I mean... a diet or exercise DVD by a celebrity who have received a handsome payout for lending their celebrity to the project (and who will go back to their "Before" shape a year or so after they've cashed in on their "Easy Peasy Super Fast and Fun Celebrity Weight Loss" Christmas DVD)... ARGH! Seriously, Dear Media, GIVE US SOMETHING REAL!
The "Brand New" and "Proven" weight loss- and exercise systems don't do it for normal people. What I would find interesting and inspiring, and what I would want to read about, is how REAL PEOPLE with REAL LIVES diet. How they overcome the hunger, how they find time for the hours of exercise required and how they find the willpower to stay on the path to a good and healthy life. So no happy enthusiasm here, no trying to sell anybody anything, just honest sharing to anyone who cares to listen.
In the past 4-5 years, whenever I have looked at myself in a mirror, I have seen a face I don't recognize. When I have caught a fleeting glimpse of my body in a shop window (I try to stay away from full size mirrors these days), I can't believe that person is really me... and it upsets me.
So how did I become overweight, then? From when I was a child I was completely average. When I moved to London at 18, I walked everywhere and went to the gym daily (because my boyfriend went and he was my ride in the mornings) I was a size 8. In the years that followed, my weight fluctuated and I landed on a healthy size 12. In my mid twenties I started my own business, worked constantly by a computer and was always sitting down, I gained weight and became a size 16. Then I had three IVF cycles which added another two sizes. And then I was pregnant with twins and the last two sizes after the pregnancy have been SO hard to shift. Furthermore, I have a medical condition (PCOS - Poly Cystic Ovaries Syndrome) that makes losing weight a little harder and gaining weight a little easier for me than it is for most. That's that really... that's how I went from being completely normal to being very overweight... and I'm sure many overweight women share this or a very similar story of the weight having just crept up on them over a number of years.
I am writing this blog post on December 31st. Tonight my family and I are going celebrate New Year's Eve with some wonderful friends. We'll be in good company, good food will be served and I will enjoy it immensely and have no boring killjoy thoughts of diets and exercise. But next year (that's tomorrow, of course) the diet begins. I will take in less than 1200 calories daily and I will exercise for at least an hour 6 days a week. Oh, how boring!! I will cheat on the diet and the exercise occasionally (when life gets in the way), but when that happens, I will just get back on the horse again.
2013 WILL be the year I say Goodbye to Fatty and Hello to The Healthy Me. If you like, you can follow my progress on The Healthy Online.