After our third course, at breakfast, we looked at each other in mild disgust. We were both heavier than we had ever been. We were both unable to use the same tactics that had got us through looking quite good for years. We were both unhappy and out of control. We were both chubby and unable to fit into most of our clothes. We were both unable to enjoy events the way we had previously. We were to blame. We had become E.L.F.’s Expanding Late Forties.
Pregnancy and children could not be blamed, our youngest child was 10. Lifestyle was not to blame as it hadn’t changed much in the past fifteen years. A steady stream of drinks dinners, lunches and seasons of mad partying with the odd burst of abstinence in between. In previous existences the abstinences had balanced the scales but no longer. We had gained a couple of stone in a few short years with no mechanism to reverse the gain.
This was the start for us but let’s start at the end for you. You can try whatever you like when you become an E.L.F. but ultimately we found you have to find a way to restrict calories and exercise or move more. I can hear you muttering “no sh+t Sherlock” but what we will try to do for you in our blogs and social media is a simple guide to why you react the way you do and why you continue with certain habits. We try things for you. We try extreme dieting and gentle dieting. Through our very different lives, personalities and experiences we show you the reactions to various events and try and give you mechanisms to steer you through the boring world of calorie restrictions. We try to recreate triggers for you so that you do not feel out of control, useless, fed up, worthless, a failure. You probably already do feel some of these and certainly will do as you continue to expand or contract over the next few days, weeks, months and even years.
It is not all about the body, as we approach “mid life” for want of a worse expression, we begin to feel our lives and thoughts shrinking. We want to expand ourselves in mind too in our late forties and create a new way for achieving in our early fifties. The creativity and experience that we have bottled and nurtured over the past few decades through raising children or running our businesses or just living need to be harnessed, honed and highlighted. It all needs to be put into practise to achieve things we never thought we would at this age.
Days of restriction and exercise could be eliminated in one evening of an alcohol laden carb loading.
With the body, there is no quick fix, as each day loomed the mood would be set, either bringing ecstatic joy or deep depression depending on what the digital scale showed on its screen whilst we perched on it naked, having done a wee and sometimes ten star jumps. Days of restriction and exercise could be eliminated in one evening of an alcohol laden carb loading. The details of three years of restriction and excess from two very different metabolisms and personalities will be laid bare for you to pick and choose which mechanisms work for you and which sentiments are relatable and useful for you. Onwards and inwards was the motto that soon took over whether the scales had given good or bad news. It worked for both.
You can’t kid a kidder is what I say to my children constantly as they try and wriggle out of some misdemeanour with an elaborate excuse. The ultimate kidding takes place within your own psyche however when you make every excuse under the sun as to why your weight gain is not either your own fault or within your own power to be corrected. As we become E.L.F.’s we blame hormones, we blame lifestyle, we blame lack of sleep, we blame children, we blame slowing metabolism, we blame injuries and the list goes on and each of us has a different set of excuses for why our minds have shrunk and our bodies have expanded. We are only really being the ultimate kidders and kidding ourselves. Somehow this works. These blogs and our social media will try and help you to stop being the ultimate kidder and the most gullible chubbster. We will teach you to spot the kidding signs early and take accountability through small incremental changes to your thought patterns firstly and most importantly but ultimately your behaviour. You will never be and we don’t want you to be perfect you will be a better version of that E.L.F. self and hopefully be lither and happier. As long as you make an effort some of the time you will be a much better version of yourself than right now.
One of the major things that struck me whilst writing this blog was what a cliche the whole thing is and what a cliche my behaviour is. In fact what a cliche everybody’s behaviour is. Some people call these stereotypes but I think that is more about personality types rather than behaviour. When moderating the case studies, attending the health farms, meeting and communicating with tens and hundreds of people all with the same goal of trying to better themselves with no real realisation of how or what may work I uncovered every cliche known to me. It was fun, cliches are fun, cliches are what makes humans humans and not robots. Read these blogs discover your cliche and then try and improve your short term behaviours to make your long term goals come true and reinvent your cliche through knowing yourself.
Through this blog and our social media you will experience our ridiculous conversations and behaviours, we want you to laugh at us. We laughed a lot at ourselves. We want you to recognise yourself and your efforts through ours and relate to the experiences and feelings so that you too can morph from an E.L.F. Honesty is one of the first things that we worked on. We strongly believe and will show you that having a buddy is the best way to stay honest and to make this whole process workable but most importantly bearable. We can be your buddy to get the ball rolling… comment on our posts and website and we can start helping you improve your body and mind to expand through late forties in mind and shrink into early fifties in body!
We’d love to hear about your own experiences of Expanding Late Forties – your successes and failures of shrinking your waist and expanding your mind. Use the form below to get in touch and we might even post it on the site.
