Ten Kilograms

Leaving a fairly active job (at least I had to go up and down lots of stairs each day!) and starting a new , potentially more sedentary lifestyle, got me thinking. I'm already hopelessly overweight. Do I want to be even worse? Do I want to get to the stage where I can't move around as I want to, be allowed to fly on an Air France plane without paying for 2 tickets, where I have to move my bed dowstairs because I can't climb the 2 flights of stairs each day?

So January saw a new resolution - lose weight, or else! When I was up in Mpumalanga, doing some work for UKZN, I met a girl who had lost an amazing amount of weight last year. She told me about Dianne Kress's book, "The Metabolism Miracle." Pete had some e-bucks, so I ordered it from Kalahari, but kept just talking about diet and exercise until the book arrived. On the first of March, after reading the first 3 chapters, we started phase one - NO CARBS! Now, for me, that was murder - no bread, no chocolate, no fruit, no potatoes. Fortunately, I was allowed to eat butter, bacon and cream and drink wine! (The body metabolises the sugar in wine the same way it metabolises fat!) You need to read the book - I'm not trying to sell the diet to you!

At the same time, we exercised - a walk most mornings, visits to the gym 3 times a week, some dancing and Wii Fit. I can walk to the top of Jesmond Road at quite a pace, and not have to stop for a rest. I can get around the circuit at Curves and feel at the end that my muscles have really worked. I am getting back on top of my records on Wii Fit. And my clothes are definitely looser - and so are the rings I recently paid a fortune to have made bigger!

We have started our second phase of the diet - adding carbs slowly so they don't cause blood sugar spikes - and I find I've lost the taste for bread - at least, the dead, dull boring brown bread that's allowed. I enjoyed my 1 and only Easter egg on Easter day, but not THAT much that I needed to go out and eat all the chocolate left in the house.

But now I get to the title of my blog - 10 kilograms! For the last week, my weight has kept dipping into the "10 kg lost" range, and now, 9 1/2 weeks into the diet, I can reliably say I have lost 10 kgs! Even with my running shoes on! The only down for me, is that Pete, who didn't need to lose so much weight, has lost nearly as much as me! It's just not fair!

I'm posting this here so that I HAVE to keep it up. A public declaration of an intent to keep losing weight - to be healthier and fitter. I plan to do a "tramp" in New Zealand at the end of the year. I'd like to do a "Fun Walk" before we leave. I'm saving up for new clothes (and the inevitable plastic surgery to fix all the bits of skin that won't go back into place because I've been fat for too long.)

10 kilograms is just the beginning!