Phew it's hot, I looked at my weather app and thought if I didn't go out this morning then I wouldn't get a run in and poor Ferd wouldn't get his walk. I am sure it would have been cooler at 6am but alas at that time I was asleep and I haven't wanted to set my alarm as sleep does not come easy when it's hot and I do need my sleep. So this morning we we headed out at around 8.30 off on another zombie mission, I had the zombie chases turned on but I'd already made up my mind that I wasn't going to try and out run them, just throw stuff a them today to distract them and survive. Just over 6k today, with a bit of walking towards the end but not too much, I felt I could have done a bit more had I had water but I left my bottle at home. I seemed to collect lots of sports bras today and Ferd didn't try dragging me into the canal hurrah.
Now I know that's a boring picture but that's my weight loss over the last two years. Let's be clear I am not dieting, my goal isn't to lose weight but to be healthy if the weight goes down then that's a bonus. Why have I decided to not actively lose weight and have my goal as being healthy instead. Firstly I think if your goal is to lose as much as possible in a defined period this can be unhealthy and lead to the yoyo effect which is not healthy. But also I have polycystic ovary syndrome and part of this means weight can be really hard to shift. When I was in my mid 20s I thought I could do it - I was cycling 10 miles a day and watching what I ate and became obsessed with the scales weighing myself everyday to not see a pound dropped but my weight would actually fluctuate by up to 1/2 a stone over the course of a month. This is when I was told to ditch the scales by my doctor - water retention, hormones, pcos (not diagnosed at the time) etc mean the scales are not my friend and not even weekly weighing would give me any consistency.
Illness once again meant I had to give up excercise. Now I have not been a piling on the pounds person constantly increasing my waist line year after year, no in fact my size was static for years. But I am in the obese category.
So a couple of years ago saw illness and change and for the first time I braved some scales - I refuse to have scales in the house so I pop to boots and use the machine thingy.
In two years my weight has been steadily decreasing, I weigh myself every so often, no more than once a month and always after a period, the only blip was when I had food poisoning obviously this showed as a big drop then slight gain.
In that time I have lost 10lbs which I know might seem really little and I know people would be upset with that especially with all these diets and clubs trying to get you to lose 1lb at least a week. But for me it's fab and yes a few years ago I too would have been upset but I am trying to change my perception and be more forgiving. I am now on new medication - is a diabetes medication - to try and help control my pcos, I have been struggling with the side effects (tummy issues do not go hand in hand with exercise) but he doctors have agreed to fund the more expensive slow release tablets, so I am hoping my average 1lb a month weight loss will continue and if it doesn't well then I am working every day to love myself a little bit more and if anyone is mean or tries to judge to me just because I'm fat I remember I run, their only exercise is probably lifting a beer bottle and searching for the remote. I also remember I am disabled this is even harder for me but I am out there making healthy choices (and ironically for me a healthy choice was ditching low fat and no sugar products) and still enjoying my iced buns (and cake and occasional mars bar) but hey life would be boring without treats.