Warts and all!

Hi, welcome to my blog. I'm Sarah (just in case you didn't guess by the title!) and I'm hoping to not only share my story with you over the next few months but to shed a few kilos and unblock some mental issues that I seem to have with food. 2015 is my year I've decided. In a good way. 2014 seemed to be my year but for all things crap. With two major deaths in the family it was my annus horribilus. I don't think I've ever been so relieved to see the new calendar year flip over and look forward to the exciting possibilities it will bring with it.

As a 48 year old mother of three I decided to go back to school last year. I left in the beginning of form 5. This is year 11 for those who aren't as ancient as me. I worked for a while and spent my 20s pissed as a fart and smoking away my wages, sure that it was the way I was going to meet Mr Right. All I had ever wanted to do was be married with kids. Eventually I married a friend of the family, somebody I had known for years. I stopped pretending not to be the gutter mouth lover of farts woman that I really am and Paul loved me anyway. I was 30 when we married and by the time I finished having our kids I was 39. I found motherhood challenging to put it mildly. My oldest Beth has autism. She's a fabulous nearly 16 year old, very assured of her beauty and her brains which I love. Bill is 13 this month, a sensitive soul, he is entering puberty with an attitude but he is my rock and actually seems to give a shit if I'm having a crap day which there's been a few of lately. Bridie is 10 and, despite Beth's autism, my most challenging child. She has extremely high anxiety and is pretty full on but she's my loving child, still wanting to hold my hand and still calls me Mummy which I LOVE.

I went back to study last year after not being able to find work anywhere. They don't seem to want 48 year olds who haven't worked in paid employment for 16 years. I'm studying counselling. I run an autism support group and a friend suggested doing something along those lines. I wish I had gone back to study earlier, I am enjoying it so much.

As far as me personally, I have what I have termed an addictive personality. I do things to excess, unfortunately they're all bad for me. When I smoked I was a pack a day girl, that was unless I was going to the pub or out with friends, then it was usually two packs, even three at times. I even bought extras for the friends who didn't think ahead and thought it would be ok to bot off of me, the fear of running out was so big.

I was the same with drinking. Starting when I was 14 it was literally a 'hello old friend' moment. I loved to drink and I drank big. I would take three bottles of champagne for myself if I went out. I stopped drinking on my 40^th birthday when I got so pissed that I couldn't remember the party from the night before. At the end I was drinking 2 x 4 litre casks a week, plus beers during the day if I wasn't driving anywhere. I knew I had to stop but being a party girl didn't think I'd get through my 40^th dry. For me it was the best decision physically that I've ever made. I didn't want my kids seeing that alcohol was for getting pissed on all the time which was what I saw at parties we had as kids.

So that left food. And more food. I think I've been on diets most of my adult life. I look at photos of myself with my hand over my tummy, hiding my bulge, and think “seriously, you were tiny!” I'm sure many of us are guilty of that. But now it's out of control. I used to be at my heaviest around 80 kilos. I'm tall mind you. My “correct weight range” was between 68 and 76kgs, a fairly wide range. I'd lose weight then go right back up to 80 if I stopped trying. Or started drinking again. Last time I got down to 68 kilos. I looked fabulous. It was ridiculous. I became a lifetime member of the weight loss group that I was in at the time. As long as I didn't go 2 kilos over my goal weight I could go for free. I'm so stupid with things like that. I liken it to my relationship with credit cards. I don't see how much I owe, I see how much I have to spend still. So I thought “I can eat whatever the hell I like and as long as I'm back down under that 2 kilos before my next weigh in I'll be ok.” And of course then I wasn't. And I was embarrassed and ashamed and felt like I was a total idiot. And I binged and binged and binged. And now I'm over 100 kilos. I wake in the morning and my joints ache. I get more back pain than ever before. I get out of breath doing pretty much anything. I feel like shit. It's gone beyond wanting to just look good, I want to feel healthy. I think my problem is that when I was at 80 kilos and wanting to lose weight I would start to look different within a few weeks, it didn't take me long. I can commit to a healthy eating plan. Now I'm 20 kilos over that. This time around I'm not going to go for such a silly weight. Maybe if I always went back to 80, that's what I'm meant to be? I'd be happy with that now.

The plan I am doing is not for everybody but it is for me for now. It combines my love of a challenge and my need to lose weight. And the possibility of fame as you get to go on an ad if you win the challenge! I'm going to use weight loss shakes combined with a healthy eating plan. I know there are lots of opinions about shakes and I get that but I'm needing a big kick up the arse to get started. I write a blog about my daughter too, I love a little bit of fame and following so doing it this way is right for me. I'm using the Rapid Loss shakes as I've dabbled in using them before and I love the taste, and then really do keep me full.

So I hope you'll join me in my journey? My successes and my stuff ups of which I'm sure there'll be many. I'll post the embarrassing photos so I'll apologise in advance if they offend you but I promise you they will only get better. I figure this is who I am and I'm putting it all out there, warts and all!