Begin again at the beginning

Last week, a doctor told me she couldn't renew my prescription for birth control because I was too fat. She was also unable to take my blood pressure because the machine couldn't read me (though I'd had no problem before when I was heavier, but I was in the States then). She had me step on the scale, and looked a bit horrified and disgusted. Or maybe I just thought she did, because I was embarrassed and ashamed after what she'd already said.

The scale was metric, and she couldn't tell me what my weight was in pounds, but she did convert it to stone. I didn't actually find out until I plugged the numbers into a unit converter after I got home. She wanted me to schedule a "lifestyle" appointment (I'm assuming it's something to do with talking to a nurse about nutrition and exercise). I left the medical centre trying not to cry. I hadn't realized the problem had gotten that bad again.

I am now about 10 pounds below the only weight I can remember being recorded when I was at my heaviest six years ago. Since then I'd lost and gained and lost again, never breaking the 200 barrier. All of those times I was doing it on my own, and didn't have a system in place to keep me accountable. So I'd keep failing and reverting back to eating things I knew were bad for me, and eating when I was sad or bored or happy or just because I wanted the taste of something in my mouth (in many previous entries of her blog, Dietgirl mentions textures as well, and that's part of it too). I told my husband the other day that I seem to have an oral fixation in the way a smoker does. After the general HUR HUR ORAL was out of the way, he agreed. I graze a bit. I'm always eating something or drinking something unless I can distract myself.

We've already started eating more healthy food. More fruit and veg. I've switched to skimmed milk for my coffee (still semi-skimmed for drinking by itself and cereal). I was originally allowing myself a tiny amount of chocolate a day, but that has proven dangerous. So, as we're in the middle of moving house, I've decided that there will be no chocolate going into the new place. I'm giving it up until my birthday (February 16th). Which will be hard, but it needs to be done to help curb the addiction so that one day I'll be able to enjoy some quality chocolate and not want to eat a truck load.

My husband is being very supportive, and is in fact doing this along with me as he has a little bit of weight he'd like to shed. I think with his support (as well as writing everything down) I'll be able to make a real go at this and succeed.

As you can see, I've put my stats in the sidebar. Just starting numbers. I don't have a scale yet, so it might be a while until I update that (but I might see if the nurse will weigh me when I go in on Wednesday).

Here goes nothing!