Six years ago I had a bit of a funny head moment, I developed a complete determination to do something that at the time seemed very difficult, almost impossible actually. I decided to fit in my debs dress. To our non Irish cousins that basically means I decided to become the size I was when I was 17. It was a strong determination, my head was just in "that place". This mysterious location we need to have our little brains in to successfully shun buns and chocolate of all kinds, chips and all!! That special place that allows you to force yourself to the gym after a mind alteringly stressful day at work.
Not one to do things by halves, I changed my lifestyle entirely. I don't believe in diets, except maybe as a springboard to start you off losing weight. I think in order to do it successfully you have to change everything. Cut out bad stuff, but allow yourself a treat now and then, dinners out, party food etc. Eat a proper balanced diet, lots of yummy healthy stuff, and move, a lot!! There's no secret to it really, we all know how to do it. It took time, but that was ok, I wanted to do it slowly, carefully, and properly.
Two years into it Rock God proposed and I got seriously serious, determined that my wedding dress would be the size of my debs dress, if not the colour (black - total goth!!) I think this was where it all started to go wrong however. Now I had a focus, a goal, a date by which I had to be skinny Minnie. And I did it!! Two weeks before the wedding I took down my debs dress, blew off the dust and slipped one leg, then the other into its satin folds. It may have been black but it was truly magnificent, I wish I could wear it every day. Rock God zipped me up and there it was, 17 year old me in all her glory. I walked down the aisle a fortnight later in the antithesis of that dress, ivory with gold threading, still with a corset, but without the many folds of satin, just a simple ivory skirt. I felt a million dollars, and I looked it if I do say so myself, which I do!! I had done it, I had beaten myself into a dress, to borrow a phrase from this brilliant blog of the same name.
That was it though, I had done it. It was done. Of course it wasn't really, yes I fit in the debs dress, yes I had a teeny wedding dress but I wouldn't forever.
The light had gone out, the switch in my brain just flipped itself off. Over the next 3 years between honeymoon, pregnancy, being stay at home mummy extrordinaire, not having time nor inclination to get the the gym, I put all or most of it back on.
In February Smarty Pants made her confirmation. I bought a lovely pair of trousers in the size I thought I was, in a mad rush I never tried them on. I brought them home and, no reader, not a bit of it. Tantalisingly close but no cigar. They point blank refused to close. The switch flipped back on. I had 3 weeks til the confirmation, I employed every tactic I knew, every trick in the book. I wore those trousers on the day, they looked great, albeit hidden at the waist by a nicely forgiving top. I was bet into them as we say in Dublin, but I was in them. Two months on and they're a bit loose to tell the truth.
No more deadlines, no more goals, no more doing things for the wrong reasons. My deadline now is the end of the road, the time for kicking buckets. I don't plan to ever let myself get back into this state again, my body is a temple, be it one with the odd offering of beer and cake!!
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