Starting Out

Okay - bear with me here. I'm a woman on a mission and that mission is to finally shed all the weight that is the result of almost a lifetime of dieting and having six beautiful children.



I can do it - I have done it in the past. About 12 years ago I lost a hell of a lot of weight to the point that I worried everyone - my mum would phone my work every day just to ask my colleagues if I was actually eating. The truth is that I basically lost my appetite for almost 6 months - if I wasn't hungry I wouldn't eat. Of course, once it came back, so did the weight - thankfully not as much as I'd lost so I could live with that. Until I got pregnant with my eldest son 10 years ago. The I made the ultimate mistake - eating for two. Six months after he was born, on his first Christmas day I weighed myself and nearly died when I hit the scales at 15stone. Tony had made a comment just before we discovered I was pregnant that if I got that big he'd leave me so the panic set in. Thankfully I got an engagement ring instead but the race was on - I had a wedding to plan afterall and that's when Dr Atkins became my bestest friend in the whole wide world.



Until February this year I'd spent nearly ten years living a low carb life and it was working great. Of course I stopped the minute I found out I was pregnant and then carry on again after their first birthday and it seemed to work. After each pregnancy I'd weigh myself and discover that I'd only put on half a stone more than what I'd weighed before the pregnancy and each time I'd get to at least a stone more than I'd lost before. But this time it's basically been a bitch.



My youngest and lastest baby Jessica was born in October 2009 and when I fell pregnant I was 11 and a half stone - the lightest I'd been in years. After she was born I went up to 12st and I was content with that - it had come off before and it would come off again! But life had other plans. In February 2010, my mother-in-law finally lost her battle with breast cancer and I couldn't go over to the funeral and tell my father-in-law that I couldn't eat what he'd cooked, now could I? So for a week I ate carb-rich food, all the time thinking I'd be fine when I got home. Another problem was the fact that Tony had bought me a bread machine for my birthday and, well, I'm from Belfast - we can't make anything without trying it now can we? But the crunch came in June 2010 - two things happened. We closed our business and my George Foreman grill that we got as an engagement present from his parents finally died a death. Suddenly I was at home all day with the kids and, whereas at work I could keep myself busy and not think about food, suddenly I was spending the summer holidays with bottomless pits and no healthy way to cook what I wanted. Tony tried his best to help but fried bacon or sausages every morning rather than grilled started to take their toll. And so I fell into the trap of eating the same food as the kids (who need the carbs) and picking through out the day.



And so we come to now. Today. I weighed myself last week for the first time since February 2010 and thankfully I've only put on half a stone but it's brought me to the heaviest I've been for over four years and I'm not happy. For some reason it's really affected me and I've decided enough is enough! It's all or nothing and time to get shot of it. For GOOD! So it's back on the wagon, once again adapting the Low-Carb Atkins diet to suit me. I will be smart about it, I refuse to deprive myself and if I feel like some bread or potatoes then I will have them but I need to stick to both it and my exercise routine - which is why I'm doing this. Think of this as my personal diary - I have to be perfectly honest and blunt here or it just won't work. Think of this first post as my Post of Shame - everyone after this can only be positive (even if it is a post full of my whinging and whining about how hard it is).



This is me, taking the first step on my journey to find the woman hiding inside the other one.