Waisting Away

The journey towards a thinner, healthier me

[thefallofthesparrow-blog1]

The world’s newest gym bunny!

I joined a gym!

Now there is a phrase I never thought I would write.

I have managed to avoid even stepping inside a gym for nearly fifty years. - oo full of beautiful young things, skinny in fluorescent lycra or bulging with machismo.

However, as the nights draw in, I know I am not going to be able to keep up walking after work: it is just not safe out on the country lanes in the dark.  This would usually be an excuse for me to do less exercise.  So I had a little ponder and decided I needed to strengthen my resolve and actually join a gym.  At least  there would be lights and warmth.

Having done some research, I found a couple of gyms that are for women only.  What a result!  And there was one, situated on my drive home, which seemed to have been set up to cater for gym haters like me.  The giveaway clue was the name Gymophobics – yep, that sounds very like me.

They claim to be the UK’s premier inch and weight loss centre. And it takes 30 mins, three times a week,  on lovely gentle machines that are powered by air .   It’s a big claim  - but one that is very seductive.  

I booked an initial appointment.

I found a friendly, small organisation, reasonably quiet, but with women who all look like me – no unitards, no stretchy material that leaves you looking like you are wearing nothing. There’s as much chatter as there is huffing and puffing.  The machines are not that gentle – they provide a good programme of exercise - but there is no sweaty exhaustion at the end of it.  

I have been going now for three weeks and I am still motivated.

Blimey.  

I might be becoming a gym bunny.

There are no cardio machines there so I know that it isn’t going to massively effect my calorie expenditure.  It’s the inches that interest me and I won’t know those outcome until my first review.  However, I do feel that my body is changing shape even in these early days.

It’s different.  But good different.  And I am glad I am giving it go.

Weight loss so far: 15lbs 😊

[thefallofthesparrow-blog1]

Slave!

One of the first things I did when I decided to have another go at getting healthy was buy a Fitbit. I had one already but it was the cheapest version without a display and it didn’t inspire me to go any further than my usual 3-week attempt at improving my life.  

This time I splashed out a little more (£100) and got the Charge 2 HR.  Not sure why I wanted to know my heart rate but, for some arcane and unknown reason, it felt like the right thing to do.

It has worked.  I have finished week 8 and I am still going. But I think it is because I am too scared to defy the Fitbit.

It is brilliant for motivation.  It helps me understand that I have been a lazy cow all day and I should get up and do something.  It is giving me a schedule to live my life by.  But, it is also a bully.

It buzzes at me – every hour.  Those flashing figures accuse me of inactivity.  0/250 steps for this hour, and the next. 0 mins of activity.  And that trip to the toilet didn’t magically bring my step count up to my target.  

And that is just the watch itself. It is accompanied by this swish science-fiction like dashboard on my computer (couldn’t get it load on my phone).  This is an even bigger tyrant because now it looks at me dismally when I don’t get enough sleep, or reminds me of my failures at keeping my calorie count to something acceptable in glorious, hateful pink.

Yes, it celebrates my successes – with fireworks, and stars. And I was so proud when I got the Skyscraper badge (100 floors in one day – I climbed a local hill).  But it also highlights the failures.  It is amazing how disappointed a small piece of electronics can look.

Sometimes I try to defy it. There are days when I leave it on my chest of drawers, telling it that I don’t care -  that I will sit around as much as I like and eat as much as I like (this happens at least once a week – I might have been moving in the right direction but, like I have said before, it is still a real struggle).  

However, it always draws me back in, penitent and regretful, every time.

I find myself endlessly walking up and down the corridor in my flat because I am short of 1000 steps. I am obsessively counting out the calories so my green bar doesn’t turn into a pink bar.  I am going to bed earlier so I can get my star for sleeping.

The truth is I have become a slave.  A slave to a small piece of black plastic round my wrist.

But it’s working.  So maybe I should just suck up, and bend my neck quietly, submissively, willingly under the yoke of Fitbit’s mastery.

[thefallofthesparrow-blog1]

Introducing...

So, since the summer, and at the risk of sounding infinitely pretentious, I have embarked on a programme of self-improvement.  

I am rapidly approaching 50, and I feel at something of a turning point.  I am no longer so sure about who I am and what I doing with my life. And I am struggling with both physical and mental health problems.  So I decided that I needed to have another go at making the best of myself.

Unfortunately, previous attempts at this kind of scheme have never proved successful for me.  

I am the thee week wonder.

Doesn’t matter how many motivational quotes I read, how many inspirational stories from people who have gone before and who now look fabulous (why don’t they ever write about people who are in the middle of their journey), nothing has ever worked beyond the three weeks.  Not even being diagnosed with high blood pressure had any effect on my desire to shift the access baggage I permanently carry around with me.

Next year I turn fifty.

Back in the early summer, I was also diagnosed as a Type 2 diabetic.  There are some advantages to this – for example I no longer have to pay for my prescriptions.  But, generally, being suddenly so labelled has given me a bit of a fright, which along with the inexorable advancement towards old age, has led to a change in my thinking. I don’t want sympathy because I have brought this on myself, but I now acknowledge that the power to change rests with me, and me alone, and that the time has come to stop letting frustration and despondency affect my health.

It has now been eight weeks since I started my new attempt at getting healthy. I have joined a gym (yes, really), I have upped the amount of walking I am doing, and I am largely managing my diet.  I have lost 12lbs so far.  Slow and steady – my love and need for comfort food is slowing me down.

But, despite beating the three-week blues, it is still such a struggle and there is still a long way to go. I am 4 stone off my target weight (which is 2 stones off my ‘ideal’ weight), and the doctor still wants me to take medication for both my BP and the diabetes.

Journalling is something I do to help me manage my moods so I thought that, maybe, writing down my struggles, the joys, the weird and wonderful, the laughs might help keep me moving in the right direction.   It might also help others but regardless of whether anyone ever reads my ramblings, there is an element of accountability raised by putting it out into the wider public realm.

So here it is – the journey of an ordinary, overweight and middle-aged woman as she tries to ensure a healthy old age.  I am hoping this will be fun and that it doesn’t turn into pages of whinging and whining.