I’ve lost and gained more kilos than I care to remember and should therefore be considered an expert in both!  However, the point I find myself in now is that I’ve gained the weight I lost last year and depressingly, have to start again.  AGAIN!

I did learn lessons though from this horrible year:

• Carbs are my enemy - my body has a sniff of some carbs or sugar and it holds onto a heap of water and drops my energy levels dramatically.  This then creates a pattern that results in a downward spiral.
• Stress and time pressures lead me to make choices usually based on carbs or sugar.
• Not being true to myself and avoiding doing things that I know I’ve got to do, but part of me is scared to do …. well, that leads to a degree of emptiness that food attempts to fill (not consciously).  I have ideas for about 6 books floating around in my head, but I find things to do to avoid writing because putting yourself out there in written form is opening yourself to other people’s judgement and I obviously felt vulnerable to that.
• I can’t do this alone all the time as it is too isolating.

So, I’ve got to kick start this process again.

Last year I had support through my medical herbalist, Dr Kitty Campion (Perth Natural Medical Clinic) and she was absolutely fantastic at directing me towards foods that supported my weight loss efforts, as well as providing guidance on what to take to support my liver and kidneys while losing weight (yep, they get a hammering) and numerous other strategies to help me on my way to healing and health.  In hindsight though, when Kitty attempted to help me deal with the emotional aspects behind my weight, well that was when I started to pull away.  And when the weight started coming back on!

So to change things up and try and deal with this head on, I am going to initiate some new things:

1.  Call an Emotional Eating Counsellor whose name has ‘coincidentally’ come across my path twice recently.  I looked her up on the net and once I make contact with her I’ll write more about it.

2.  Start going to Yoga on a Monday morning – yep,  Jennie, I’ll be there ready for 9.30!  Again, listening to my intuition and the fact that Yoga has been in my face a lot recently says I need to do it.

One of the things that has helped in the past that are strategies that I am going to resurrect are:

• Keeping a food and emotion journal
• Putting up my ‘star’ chart on the fridge to help keep me on track (read more about it at Star Chart for Mum)

So, if anyone wants to join me on this, or simply be someone cheering me on from the stands, well that would be great!

And so now, the first step …. weigh in and measurements ….done!