Last month, I wrote Weight Loss Wednesday, this month I’m not going to.  February was a bleak month in terms of looking at my own wellbeing.  By the middle of the month, I had sort of hit this spiral thing… it wasn’t exactly a downwards spiral more of a hamster wheel I couldn’t get off.  As a result, the plan to lose weight went nowhere and a conversation with a friend helped me realise that I want to lose weight for the wrong reasons. 

In January, I outlined the reasons I wanted to lose weight – Dating, Hernia, and Health.  The trouble was I didn’t FEEL any of these.  They looked good, they read good… but none of them become anything more than a superficial nod towards what I think I should say.  In addition, the first one, dating, became more about wanting someone to find me attractive than anything else.  Something’s screwy with that logic.

Following on from the conversation in which I came to this conclusion, we considered the possibility of stripping the weight loss of its importance.  After all, in 2019, I lost 4stone without starving myself, without watching every morsel I ate.  I lost it because I felt good about myself.  I lost it because my mental health was in the best state it had been in for a decade.  For the first time in a decade, I had started to align myself with my values. 

It perhaps comes as no surprise that lockdown came along and not so much undid everything I had achieved, but challenged it.  I have done the hard work of undoing all the good I did.  Mentally and physically.  To say that lockdown has been a challenge would be understating the effect it has had on me.  It’s only now, now that I can see the light at the end of the tunnel that I realise the full effect it has had on me. 

March will, for me, be less about the weight loss and more about the wellbeing.  I need to rebuild myself from the ground up.  With the return of the lighter evenings and, hopefully, the warmer weather things are looking up.  Sometime soon we’ll be able to spend more time outside than we have done for months.  

There are two things that would make March a success for me and these are:

• Hydration – Drinking enough water each day to ensure that I am well hydrated.  This impacts not only weight but the general health of my body.
• Daily self-focus – 30-60 minutes each day to do something that focuses on my own health, wellbeing, both mentally and physically.