I'm still here

When I started this blog it was because I had hit /was just about to hit 14 stone. All my life, I had never dieted until 3 to 4 years before. Many years before that, when I was 31, I had gone on a strict exercise regime and ended up losing weight with just a little control over what I was eating.
On my first ever diet, at about the age of 42, I went on the L-er life diet and ended up losing 2 1/2 stone before I panicked at 14 stone one pound. Over the next two years, and with minimal or no exercise, I found myself at 16 stone and one pound and decided I had to do something about it... Enter the Dukan diet.
I started at the end of July and by the end of November, I was at 13 1/2 stone. I noticed that I started to sabotage and so I started this blog. Christmas was coming and that added to my anxiety. You see on my first diet, I had come to the conclusion or the realisation that in addition to my 'food addictions' (- chocolate, bread, butter, etc.)I was an emotional eater.
As Christmas approached, I didn't gain but neither did I lose...exercising took care if that. I survived until Boxing Day, having had a little indulgence on Christmas Day. That non-Dukan ice cream was my downfall. It did not help that I entertained on Boxing Day and a few days later, with the final entertainment day being New Year's Eve.
It started with a view "tastes".  Like streams which converge to form rivers and rivers converge to forms seas and seas converge  to form oceans… My "tastes" became greater portions and meals...and some wine!!!.
By the beginning of January I was back over 14 stone.
Of course I had good intentions, but I had given myself a greater chance for that "fear" to take hold. I made excuses to myself, work pressures, lack of time to exercise or prepare my Dukan 'treats!' and not heeding my promise at the beginning of the Dukan diet – to at least observe one day of protein only in order to remind my body to keep the weight off.
I plodded on and though I now knew that for me, exercise was a MUST in order to shift fat, I let it grind to a halt! Before you knew it, another Christmas had come and gone leaving me with rapid weight gain.... But now I kept my secrets… The weight had crept back on!
So here's another truth for me...
This journey, this fight is an ongoing struggle and I think I am more prepared for it.
I am fully convinced of the benefits of the Dukan diet. I am committed to it. It is the way I will lose this weight but I must combine it with exercise, as he recommends.
Here's one way to think about it... If I add up all the way I have lost over the last six years, it will add up to about 80 lbs. Imagine if I had never gone on my weight loss journey! I would have been close to 300lbs by now. Conversely, imagine if I had kept it all off....I would have hit my initial goal weight and exceeded it.
IT IS POSSIBLE. Why am I making things hard for me?
I now have a weighing in partner at work. It means I have to weigh myself with my clothes on. ..all previous weights were with clothes off.
As of yesterday, I was 15 stone and six pounds– 216lbs with clothes on. I baked my Dukan chocolate cake for the first time in a long time yesterday!
I Am Back!
My goal is 11 stone and five pounds.
Wish me luck! (and watch this space.)