Why do we do it?  Why do we set dates to start something potentially life changing when living with an illness that doesn’t have a schedule and is incredibly unpredictable?

Aaaaarggghhh it’s so frustrating!!!  I planned to blog about my illness, about the struggles I have with weight and about a weight loss plan where I was my own Guinea pig in the attempt to see if I could improve my illness.

Did I manage it?        Did I even get started?

OF COURSE NOT!!!!!!!   My good friend, Fibromyalgia (she remarks in an extremely sarcastic tone) had very different plans!  It would seem that due to some other of my wonderful new life long companions (please see previous closed brackets); fasting triggered a 2 day migraine,  which in turn, triggered a week long fibro flare.  “Woo hoo” said I, NOT!!!!

Since then, I’ve been so preoccupied with hospital appointments, court cases and life in general, that it was all put on the back burners, until now.

During summer I’ve become acquainted with and now, friends with our new vicar.  We seem to get along really well, finding the same things funny (don’t know why, but it feels so naughty to be giggling with her in public, so naturally, I want to do it more and more 😜) and happily discuss our different views on life.  Through one of our many chats, we came upon the subject of weight loss (unsurprising as we are both women, it has to be a subject all female friends discuss).  We both decided that to support each other, we would start attending a well known plans’ weekly group meeting.

At the time, I was still battling for disability benefits and couldn’t guarantee I would be able to afford to go, so again, it was left until I knew I was getting them or would have to sell myself to make ends meet and that in itself was a massive risk as with the ‘weight’ issue, it was likely I’d be out of pocket and potentially in debt if I did!

Finally, the news I’d wanted to hear came (after 2 previously failed attempts and one extremely painful and humiliating court case) and I was awarded permanent disability benefits.  Not a lot of money, but acknowledgement of my impaired life due to my friend Fibro and enough to buy food for the family and this little, health benefitting extra.  ‘Woo hoo’ for real this time!

So came the fateful day when we attended our first meeting.  This is one of the worst meetings in many ways as you are having to swallow your pride and admit that you can’t do it on your own and you get to see your ‘fighting in’ weight and try to visualise the length of the journey to goal.  I was going to say length of the journey ahead, but really, once you begin a journey like this, you need to be changing your mind set to ‘this is for the rest of my life’ or you are starting by failing in attitude (and I’ve done just that before now!).

I got on the scales and did one of those ‘I’m going to joke around so you don’t know how excruciatingly shameful I am of myself’ statements and out came ‘no coach parties please ha ha’ to which I was met with silence and then a hug from the group leader whom I’d known for a long time and who knew my real feelings as she’d seen me through deciding to become a midwife, my uni years and my qualification and she knew what it meant to have had it taken from me.

The meeting went well and I felt relief and excitement on leaving.  It’s been a couple of weeks and I’m losing weight!!

Im no longer going to make promises that my ‘F’ friends disable me from keeping, however, I will try to achieve all that I set out to do.  I will try to blog more frequently, but can’t commit to how often or on specific days.  I can’t guarantee I will lose all the weight I want to, as I am human and I make mistakes (commonly known as chocolate), but I’m going to do what I can, when I can and accept my limitations.

I still believe, from research I have done, that fasting is of great benefit to people, not only as a healing method for varying illnesses, but in general as a healthy way of living.  However, for those who, like me who find it triggers a negative health issue, it may not be an advisable course to take.

see you later x