Monday April 25th 2011

It has been 12 days since I updated this blog and that time has been a rollercoaster of emotions.  20 years ago today I lost my father to cancer and not a day goes by that I don't think about him or miss him.  Every April is a rollercoaster ride for me emotionally and despite trying to remain optimistic that I can  in fact stay on top of life, I end up falling into a heap and this year has been no exception.  Putting my back out was the beginning of every thing going down hill as it immediately brought back memories of my fathers tumor on his spine.   The Easter Holidays as you can imagine don't help when you are an emotional eater and so to top it all off I have infact put on weight again - no suprises there.

This time has however allowed me to reflect on my Yo-Yoing (for lack of a better word),  not only the emotional binging but also sadly the slipping back into my negative eating disorder patterns.  I have decided that it is time to STOP the Challenges and the Diets and to just live a Healthy BALANCED Lifestyle.  I still want to loose weight but I want to do it in a way that allows for me to splurge every now and then without me feeling that I need to get up at midnight and sneak out to the gym to burn off calories (after I have done 2+ hours already that day) or that I need to eat and purge or that I reduce my calories to half of what I should be eating. 

With regards to stopping doing Challenges, I am in no way saying that they aren't a good thing to do, in fact I think that they are an excellent way to boost motivational levels.  The thing is that I just take them too the extreme and as a result end up falling back into negative patterns of self abuse - which is not good for me!

So anyway, I just plan on taking each day as it comes - eating a healhty well balanced diet, exercising (without overtraining - another big part of the whole self abuse patterning) and enjoying the process - this I believe is achieveable and maintainable!!

I have approx 15kg to lose to be within my healthy weight range and  emotionally, mentally and physically it is a struggle and so I have decided that I am going to get more fluid in my band to help me a little.  One thing that I have come to terms with recently is the fact that it is not / was not the cheats way out - in fact making the decision to do something as drastic as getting surgery was an incredibly tough decision and one that I do not regret making.  I only have 15kg to go now and its a struggle - if it wasn't for the lapband I would be struggling to shed more than 50kg and the thought of that is just unbearable.  I am not saying that surgery is the right choice for everyone nor is it the answer to solve all your problems as I believe that you still need to work with it (proper nutrition and exercise), but it is certainly an option that I would recommend to those who are struggling with 'obesity'.

Thats enough from me for now, I have so much going around in this head of mine at the moment and not all of it is making sense so it is taking me ages to get this blog finished and I have housework that needs doing so until the next blog - be kind to you!