Here Goes ......!!

I guess it's time I started writing!! It seems like it's going to be such a mammoth task you see - covering 33 years of yo-yo-ing - that I've kept putting it off. But doing that is defeating the whole object so I'll just have to get on with it ;o).

I was your typical fat child - teased mercilessly at school, laughed at, picked last for any teams - when I could be dragged out of the toilets to join in with any of these horrendous ordeals that is. In fact I must have had more periods than any female in the history of civilisation and I managed to get about a year off PE after I had my appendix out when I was 14.

I've never really understood exactly why I was fat. Mum always had a weight 'problem'. My sister was overweight too (although memory tells me she lost all hers once and has kept it off ever since - B***H! ;o) - her recollection may be different but that's how it seemed to me). One of my mother's sisters watched her weight but I never remember her being HUGE, though now both of her daughters struggle as I have. Mum's other sister actually died of Anorexia before anybody knew what it was - in the 50's. So actually I guess that says a lot.

I've never been aware of anyone on my father's side having any particular weight issues.

I DO know that to be a 'good girl' I had to clear my plate. To have any afters I had to clear my plate. To not get the rest of this meal as a starter for the next one I had to clear my plate. To not be made to feel guilty about all those poor starving children in Africa I had to clear my plate .... catching the drift here?

I didn't realise it then but I think we had big portions too. I remember noticing how little we got if we ate at anyone else's house. One time in particular sticks in my mind when we all went home and had another meal thinking how mean our hostess had been with the food. Funny how that family were all slim though - and still are.

My mother still sees it as a mortal sin to put food in the bin and that has nothing to do with the cost - it's only about the 'waste'. I'm sure this is a throwback to the war and as such understandable but not particularly helpful to those of us who really want to learn to leave what we don't need with a sense of achievement, not guilt.

As I left school and started work my weight levelled off a bit. I have no idea what I actually weighed but I don't remember 'dieting'. I met my 1st husband when I was 17 and I know when I got married at 19 I was about 10st. For my 5'6" this wasn't too bad. However I've always been the victim (in my opinion) of a strange phenomenon. That is that my weight & height and the way I look don't tally with the actual size I am - never have. That wedding dress was a size 16. I know people now who are 5'2" 14st and in a size 10/12 .... I have NEVER been able to work that one out. Like lots of other things, it's taken me an awful of years to accept that's the way I am ... and what does it matter??

I'm currently still 5'6" (as far as I know) Around 10st 4lbs and generally in a 14.

I believe my slippery slope - the day I 'condemned myself' to the yo-yo was the day I first joined a slimming club. Not that I'm knocking slimming clubs per se - don't get me wrong. In fact I think they're great. No - what I'm knocking is my decision to join one THEN. It must have been a big deal for me because I can remember every single detail - even what I was wearing, and that was 33 years ago when I was 21.

I could really kick myself because if I'd only been able to see and accept then what I now believe, I could have saved all these years of heartache. If only I could have seen that actually the weight I was was reasonable for my height. I think I got hung up on the 'size' issue I mentioned earlier. Because when I joined that slimming club I was 10st 8lbs. It'd be laughable if it wasn't so sad. I'll be quite happy if I can maintain around that weight now ....... ****BIG SIGH****

Well that was the start for me. I won't bore you with all the details of the ups and downs. Suffice to say at one time or another in those 33 years I have belonged to EVERY slimming club known to man at least once, with the notable exception of Rosemary Conley and I bet you can guess why ..... they use the dreaded 'e' word .... exercise that is. Ooooo no - the thought of prancing around for part of the class was enough to put me off ever trying that particular regime.

I have belonged to gyms - even though I'm gymphobic. I've had several of the video/dvds which I've watched and even tried to follow now and again. I did have some success with one of them actually. They're just like diets - they all work, all you have to do is be focussed and determined and stick to them ..... simple :oP

I put on 2, 3 & 4 stones with each of my 3 children respectively - never quite getting it all off of course before adding to it with the next one.

I've been up as high as 15st 9.5lbs and down as low as 8st 9lbs - this with the Cambridge diet in 1986.

In March 2000 I gave up smoking - and you think I'm going to say put loads of weight on don't you?? Well I didn't - in fact I was attending Slimming World (again!) at the time and I continued to lose weight - mind you I was running as well which helped. I did the Race for Life in the June but then a few weeks later I got pain in my hip whilst running and had to stop. Despite seeing my GP and then a private physiotherapist it took sooo long to get right I'd gone off the idea - lost all my fitness and of course started to gain again.

I DID go through a stage when I felt I was banging my head against a brick wall. I felt I really was trying but getting nowhere. I think this was when menopause was setting in - I therefore needed less calories than I used to, so it would have been true that doing what once would have led to weight loss didn't have the same effect any more and I found that truly depressing.

I didn't know then that with each new decade we should eat less and exercise more as apparently we need less calories to survive and therefore maintain. Our 60s has the most marked drop they say - oh joy - I still have that to look forward to then :o{

There's more to come but that'll do for now. I'll bring us up to date next time. xx