Well hello reader... how are you today? I hope you've got your reading glasses and a comfy chair cos here goes. People who know me may wonder why on earth have I decided to start a blog. So far, 2013 seems to be turning into what the Queen describes as an 'annus horribilis'. Basically for the uninitiated, a big pile of .... well you know. There just seems to be an awful lot of it about, and a lot of it seems to be landing on me and people that I care about.
Anyway, it has set me thinking. Lots of people have a bit of a reevaluation of things when they hit 40 - at 40 I was pregnant, so I missed out on a lot of that, and have the very lovely Jules to show for it. But, it did mean that I was also not in the market for a 40th birthday party (no way was I having a party to watch everyone else getting blathered on my behalf!), and the event passed by largely unnoticed. Then I wondered if I could maybe think about doing something special to mark 44, which, sadly, is the next milestone I will be facing come January 2014. Then, I realised that, by happy coincidence my 44th is almost exactly 44 weeks away, and by somewhat less happy coincidence I am at least 44 pounds overweight....
Something needs to be done, and fast, to stop the rot, and get me out of the cycle I am currently in - I'm getting no exercise, eating absolute junk, and have no energy to speak of. For a short while, everyone was saying to me, oh don't worry about it, you're surviving, you're having a hard time, go easy on yourself, and yes, I know all that and I have had a ridiculously hard start to the year which I will write about soon, and unfortunately I'm going to have to live with things being difficult for a long time to come - but a whole stone has gone on since the end of 2012, my wobbly bits are getting out of control and I seem to be hell bent on eating my own body weight in chocolate every week. So time to ban all chocolate (has to be banned, cutting down doesn't work for me), get the lycra out (sorry world), and resurrect my neglected Slimming World online subscription... and to set myself some interesting challenges along the way to the big 44. The biggest of these is being 44 pounds lighter by my 44th birthday. I don't expect it to be easy, but I'm hoping to find some challenging and fun ways to make it a bit more interesting than the standard diet and fitness programme. I hope that when I'm feeling brave enough to share this blog more widely that some people will join me for the ride.
