My STELLAR Slimming World Diary: Week, Er, Can We Start Over?

Here’s an unflattering bikini shot, because #StopTheShame

Okay, so here comes – the inevitable fall off the wagon. It’s a bump, rather than a total derailment (I hope), but for now I am in a state of delirious freefall. (This, folks, is why you should never agree to do a weightloss diary for your job. Never. Consider yourselves warned.)

Why it’s especially frustrating is because I was doing so well. So very well! I was Synning; I was exercising portion control; I was smugly losing weight to beat the band, and finding Slimming World, I’ll admit, a bit of a doddle. So, er, what went wrong?!

I missed a meeting

And then I missed another. I caught up on myself by going to a meeting that was on later in the week, but with unfamiliar faces and without the comfort of my own lovely leader, Emma (in the Tuesday evening group in Holles St), I had no one to sympathise with when I’d gained 2lbs (bringing my loss back to 5lbs, from the lovely 7lbs a fortnight previously). And I’d no one to get me back on the straight and narrow.

I dunno what it is about falling off the wagon – I saw a comparison that likened it to dropping your phone, then smashing it with a sledgehammer for good measure. But honestly? I dropped my phone, I sledgehammered it, I doused it in petrol and I set it alight. I went home from that bad-news meeting and I ate everything. I was in a shame spiral, and there was no getting out of it. Then…

I went on holiday

“Hurrah, we’re going to Ibiza!” I sang, as I flew to Cala Llonga with Falcon Holidays. The singing soon stopped, because my mouth was otherwise occupied eating food from the all-you-can-eat buffet at our hotel; testing out every single thing on the menu at the local Mexican restaurant; drinking cocktails by the beach…

One half of me was urging my brain to make the right choices – more speed foods! More melon! – while the other, clearly stronger, half of me was going back for seconds from the dessert cart. I’ve always been firmly of the idea that holidays are for relaxing – and not for dieting – but I’m sure that’s a week I’m going to live to regret 🙁

I got my period

I know, I know, this happens every month – why am I still surprised by it and, more importantly, why do I allow it to derail me so thoroughly? This weekend I found myself in a serious funk – I woke up on Saturday morning and felt like bawling my eyes out, and the feeling didn’t disperse until I woke up on Monday morning to a delightful visit from my Lady in Red (mooncup time!).

The worst thing? This happens every month – not just the menstruation itself, but the serious blues that drag me down into the deepest funk. And every month, I convince myself that it’s something else: I must be really stressed; I’m suffering a depression relapse (as any depression sufferer will tell you, there’s no such thing as being ‘cured’, and every heightened mood brings with it a serious panic that the blues are back); I have SERIOUS PROBLEMS.

So the fact that it was just my period was great – but in the meantime, I ate an entire tub of Ben & Jerry’s, 20 home-made protein balls (not the worst, but full of almonds and dates = v high fat = loadsa Syns).

Starting over

All that being said, tomorrow, as Scarlett O’Hara once quipped, is another day – and I’m determined to face the music at my Slimming World meeting and get firmly back on that horse.

Here’s what I hope will one day be my ‘before’ pic

The house will be stocked up with speed, meals will be planned, and with no holidays / weddings / hens on the immediate horizon, I’m giving it a good go for the next few weeks. Who’s with me?

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