The one where I stop moaning and start doing

I’m FAT.  I hate it and have been moan­ing and hav­ing a good old pity party for a while now.  WHY-HIIIII-HIIIIIIIIIIII am I fAAAAAAt (as I shove a piece of toast in my mouth)??  I’m a stay at home mom w/ loads of oppor­tu­ni­ties to graze.  I some­times take a moment to think of all I’ve eaten and think WOW ok so I haven’t actu­ally had a meal but I’ve had toast, some fruit, fin­ished off Squidges meals, licked spoons, tasted bits of this and that and THEN at the end of the day I sit down and have a proper meal w/ my man.  Usu­ally keep­ing up w/ him bite for bite. I also do very lit­tle phys­i­cal activ­ity.  Now granted I prob­a­bly do more than some­one who works a desk job but I also graze more than some­one work­ing at a desk job!

After my trip to the US I knew I needed to change.  While home I real­ize that most of the peo­ple I know are doing/moving/running (marathons FFS!!) and I was hav­ing a hard time walk­ing around the park.  Here I am with all this time on my hands and all I do is moan.  I used to work out a lot. Prior to  my move to the UK I was a reg­u­lar at the gym.   Since mov­ing my weight con­tin­ues to creep up.  I have gone up 3 sizes since May 2005.  I blame it on the move over and hav­ing a baby.  Well my baby is now 3 and they DO have gyms  here in Eng­land– shock­ing.  I joined a gym when I first arrived then pro­ceeded to get knocked up and felt like crap for the first 4 months and then just couldn’t be both­ered.  I was preg­gers– time to eat ICE CREAM not work out!!  When Squidge was about a year old I joined another gym.  When I say I joined I really mean I paid £45 a month for an entire year and didn’t step foot inside the build­ing after the first 2 months.  My excuse?  The creche was hor­ri­ble.  I joined this par­tic­u­lar gym because I could drop Squidge there while I worked out.  Only thing was you needed to book in advance (not men­tioned prior to join­ing) and if you didn’t man­age to go you still had to pay.  Now Wal trav­els for work.  He some­times leaves at short notice (or thinks he’s told me when in fact he just thought about telling me) and Squidge was only 1.  Any­one with a new baby knows that sched­ul­ing things can be tricky, espe­cially things you don’t really want to do– like work out.

Excuses, every last thing I’ve told myself  and oth­ers.  If I really wanted to work out I would and could.  Wal is home A LOT and I could make the time if I really wanted.  I spoke to Wal about what I wanted and where I wanted to be.  I told friends of my secret desire to run a 10K. I told them this while laugh­ing because I’m not a run­ner.  I never have been. I’m asth­matic and that has ALWAYS been my excuse for not run­ning.  I get winded eas­ily. I get light headed.  I don’t run.  But Ooooh I so badly want to be a run­ner.  I want to have the free­dom to throw on some run­ning shoes and go.  No gym. No sched­ule. Noth­ing to restrain me.  I tell Wal I want to have a per­sonal trainer. Some­one that will tell me off.  Get me going.  Not some­one I know who will hurt my feel­ing or that I can tell to eff off.  I looked around.  I sent emails.  I left mes­sages.  No one called me back.  Odd see­ing at per­sonal train­ers are EXPENSIVE and you would have thought they’d be on you like a fly on shit to get your money.  So I looked around some more and found some­thing called British Mil­i­tary Fit­ness.  I read.  I got fright­ened.  I’m intrigued.  I read some more.  I signed up for the free trial.  I almost died. I dis­cov­ered a deep deeeeeply hid­den masochis­tic streak which lead me to sign up and pay for unlim­ited ses­sions. I spend 10 min­utes try­ing to put on this new bondage inspired sports bra. I per­se­vered and got to my sec­ond class safe in the knowl­edge that by boobages are locked down tight!  I might die  but the pup­pies aren’t going any­where– bring on the running!!

So there you have it.  I’m now doing boot camp.  It’s fan­tas­tic. It’s painful.  It totally blows chunks.  I hate it.  I love it.  I am the slow­est, fat­test, most unco­or­di­nated per­son there.  When we run I am ALWAYS last.  I huff and puff my way through press ups, and scor­pi­ons and weird jumpy uppy lunge things that both frighten and amuse me. I crawl on my tummy while the instruc­tor shouts at me to get my ass down or it will be shot off.  I chase balls and won­der what the eff I’m doing.  I may not be good at it but I’m there.  I like that no mat­ter how much I think it’s going to kill me it will be over soon.  I like that the peo­ple there will hang back and make sure I’m OK.  I like that we laugh and grunt and groan together.  I espe­cially like that it’s get­ting my ass out of the house and doing something.

Please keep me in your thoughts– I really do think it is going to kill me.  Please keep me in your thoughts that I stick to it.  I love it and need to do it.  I have a new goal .  That I am actu­ally think­ing about doing this is scary but thrilling at the same time.  I hope and pray that this time… this goal…

PS: Those of you that have lost a lot of weight, did you take a nekkid (actu­ally semi nekkid) pic­ture of your­selves for a before/after thingie??  I’m think­ing about doing this but the thought just turns my stomach…