Doctor recommended. That was the big scary wake up call. My health has been declining for years and now I have to do it. The weird part is there are some days where I look at myself and I don’t see the weight I put on straight away, sometimes I don’t recognise myself at all. The joys of dysmorphia. “Is that what I really look like?” my sense of self, what I expect to see in the mirror is wildly inconsistent.

Yes and no about being mad about the first go to response of the Doctor. I guess. Yes I am mad about it being the first solution and step. No because I understand why. With the flare ups in my health, pain and mental health I understand I have massively put on weight, I am ashamed to say.

But I have to do something about it, I can’t keep how I was living up, my body will crap out completely. So now I am fighting tooth and nail.

There are days where I look back at the body I had in my twenties and think “how the F did I think I was fat?” I would love to have that body now. It’s like that smaller version of me is still here trapped inside my body and it changed and altered, I had a kid, I don’t recognise my body at all now. I don’t suddenly expect to loose my mum pooch from walking a bit more and drinking more water, but it is a step in the right direction to building some stamina and energy.

The biggest motivation for loosing weight? I want to be a good mum, I want to be able to run around and play with my kid, I want her to have good memories. I want to build a better relationship with food to have a good example. I’m not asking to change the world, just maybe mine, and hers.

I want to be a good example, no longer eating to self harm. I want to not be the leading path for her to see first hand the disordered eating, I’ve never had a good relationship with food but it feels more important than ever to work on that. We both deserve that.

So, while I reconcile that I won’t have the body I had say ten years ago, I don’t even have all the organs I had, so it would be wildly unrealistic. It does feel like sometimes I can feel that shadow of myself yelling to get out.

I just have to keep reminding myself to take my time.

For myself? HAHAHAHAHA …. no.

I want to, I wish I did. It is something I am working on. I am no pro at the old self discipline.

In other words, at the start of April I started a diet. It took less than two months to fall off the wagon and hide from it. I had lost about 4 kilos, as of right now I put back on 3 of those in the 3 weeks I have been hiding from the wagon.

I realise my error now was trying to be all or nothing, but completely perfect at it and not at all nothing. Perfectionism… or is it self sabotage?

I don’t know.

So now what?

Perhaps I should be working on reframing the idea of the diet. If just being on a diet feels restrictive, low energy and depressing what else can I reframe it as? Could it be building new habits, a lifestyle change. Rather than saying “sorry I can’t I am on a diet” what would actually feel better to say? “I’m working on some lifestyle changes” or ” I am creating new habits and I want to work to support that”? They feel more positively inclined so maybe I will test those out today.

I think the next two weeks my main focus is going to fall off of dieting, still trying to move and exercise and be careful due to how much this caused flare ups of my health. Instead my focus for two weeks will be consistently hydrating. I will count coffee as 125ml as it has diuretic qualities, but otherwise my hydration is going to be the first thing to increase and maintain consistently. I think my goal might be around 2 litres a day minimum so that I can find a baseline hydration.

The second habit I think I will introduce is meeting an absolute minimum step count each day. I know they say the minimum should be 4000 steps to count as a sedentary lifestyle. I think at least hitting that a day might be a step in the right direction. Health and flare ups likely to be my biggest obstacles. Sadly medical conditions are a massive obstacle I am working with at the moment.

What other habits could I introduce? Planning meals with nutrition in mind? Consciously eat and be present? So far the baby steps are hydrating more, moving a bit more. Stamina takes time to build, Rome wasn’t built in a day, neither was this waistline.

Honestly it’s a hard question.

Of course family and friends are missed, but technology helps with the distance, in some cases, with some people it has actually brought some real positive change and brought us closer together. Others, not so much, some things became harder to ignore.

Someone asked if we feel more isolated up here, its a yes and no answer. Sure parcels and post take a bit of time, but ultimately it works for my home body self anyway. There have been a few things where I turn to hubs and we just have to remind each other “that’s island life” and we get over it. I know I feel further from friends and family and I can’t just arrange a quick catch up or cuppa.

In terms of restaurants and dining, the food up here is often so much better in quality, though I disagree with local satisfaction provided by cakes heavily laced in sugar or cream. We do ultimately miss chicken shops, who would have thought? We just need our favourite chicken shop from down south to relocate up here and we would be over the moon (and looking like one with a massive waistline).

Ok another thing, while I didn’t much take advantage the last few years I do miss having the theatre district a short train ride away, I’m missing my show tunes delivered live.

Honestly so far there is no doubts in my mind, probably speaking for both of us when I say, that this was the best move and choice for our family over all.

Well I tried another one.

Ok this one, as psychotic and bizarre as it was was actually a really pleasant read surprisingly.

I don’t know if I am just warming up to this series or if it is a fluke.

I really enjoyed how the wizard of oz had a very different take in this book. Still just as murder-y as the others but it actually fit the plot quite well. Less of a strain on the brain to jump into the world.

I admit I still struggle with these books, they are hard for me to get along with, and there is no way they will have an obvious spot on my bookshelf because… mum life.

Hi to those of you new here and those of you wanting to know who I am?

I started writing at 19 instead of getting the therapy I really needed and I found myself falling in love with it. I never expected I would become a writer it’s not something planned or I anticipated. I wish I could say I would always have wanted to be a writer. Honestly, my delusional self wanted to do musical theatre because I loved the story telling. I lost the confidence I needed.

See at 19 I thought writing instead of therapy would help me with what I was struggling with. It turns out truth is stranger than fiction because if I were to write what’s happened in my life without censoring anything? I feel like no one would believe it. There are times I wish I hadn’t lived some of it. But it’s made me who I am. Flaws and all.

So write it right. Write what you know. In some ways I have. Small glimpses here and there.

That very first story I titled Breathing Smog. It’s not my best work. But it never would be.

But through that I discovered that I loved writing, I hate editing, but love writing. I spent my childhood either in a book or daydreaming about other worlds or lives and lived through that.

Now here I am. A thirty something writer who has spent the last 14 years (with a maternity break and pandemic break) writing and plotting and planning.

So here I am getting ready to really start querying agents for the book I’ve edited over and over until I’m now at a point where I am ready to be brave and try to be somewhat traditional in my approach.

It’s the first in a series of what will be 9. I’m going to be starting to stare at the blank pages for book two soon and start pushing forward for that as I query for book one.

I’ll let you know how that goes.

But for now, I’m getting used to the idea of having a little bit of faith in myself.