12in12 2022 Challenge March/April Update

Well when I last left you I was in chronic pain and taking every painkiller opioid known to man which meant I was only really “conscious" a few hours a day… This stopped me raising a glass too often  but it didn’t stop my jaws chewing their way through every food known to man… comfort eating at its best… 

I won’t keep you in suspense, despite my self assurances that I would hit 154 by the end of March I have actually managed to top 160 again… yes another failure… you might think that I would have learnt by now or given up … but no ELFers I haven’t I have not learnt and I have not given up… I know I am way behind on the 12in12 challenge.. in fact I am a stone behind… I should be 146lbs in April if you go back to my original plan… but I have to keep picking myself up and starting again and trying… but how and why?  

How is a good question…. Let’s go back to the beginning of this piece… I am no longer in chronic pain, yes I do still have constant pain but it is much more manageable in the sense that I can actually function most of the time…I have learnt what I can and cannot do… 

I have seen many, many specialists whom I can’t YET get to agree with me that I do not need very serious neck surgery that would involve removing two discs and two weeks total bed rest followed by a further four weeks of very careful movement followed by an ensuing x months to see whether I can actually ever do anything ever again.. you understand my reticence… I will find that one person and he/she/they will mend me enough to carry on with my life without surgery… 

All the experts I have seen have agreed that I cannot run at the moment and so I have stopped which is, put simply, why I have put on all that weight as I am not balancing calories in and out… my mouth and restaurant ordering brain is still thinking that I am burning the calories which I was, but I am not… this is a very difficult mind shift for me as for the best part of the last three decades I have run to maintain a sensible weight.. and it has always worked and kept my weight down.. now the gloves are off (well the trainers really) and the weight is accumulating but I am still convinced that after a large meal, then seconds, I need “a little something sweet” which this lunchtime took the form of a slither (was it though?) of peanut butter, chocolate caramel tarte… god it was good… but I digress… so that behaviour has to be curtailed… again I have to try and get inside my own mind, where I have failed for the best part of 36 months now, it is that long that I have been putting on weight for, reprogram it to need and want less. 

So what’s the plan apart from changing the chat in my head?  Well, in the past week I have commandeered a new trainer who is totally inspiring and gets me to do exercises that don’t hurt my arm… no not cardio yet but I will get there… I have found a new physio who is convinced that with some brutal pummelling (you can hear the screams in Soho and her clinic is in Victoria!) she will get me to the point where I can actually move my head and resume some forms of exercise… hurrah..we love her.. so I will get the calories out bit back to a little more normality, but somehow I also need to summon a little more of the self control needed for the calories in side of the equation to be decreased… hmmm not sure about that one….

Why was the second part of that question…why do I keep trying and starting again… and the only answer I can really summon is - well what’s the alternative? What else am I going to do but keep trying?  I think it must be a personality  trait.. I just don’t give up.. I might never succeed but I don’t ever not bother anymore… the other answer to why is I can’t do my jeans up anymore and I’ve got a big party coming up that I want to look spectacular for!!

In my defence within the past 36 months we have all endured the mother of all pandemics which totally disrupted my way of life and the usual mechanisms that I had always employed to keep a balanced weight and a fit lifestyle…then with this severe injury for five months I haven’t been able to give it my usual attention,  but I have to stop defending this lifestyle and cope with it…. Move on and move with it…  12in12 here I come…. My new goal for May 9th is 154lbs….onwards and inwards as us ELFs say continuously….. I bet you can’t wait to hear what excuse I come up with next for missing this latest target!!

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