I have been attending my personal training sessions at the Maryborough Club for around 6 weeks.

All was going so well. I was going to the gym, personal training and eating well. At a time when the sun was shining, I found myself happy to head into the club. I lost 8llbs in the first 4 weeks. Then, I went to Portugal for ten days. I started my holidays exercising, eating well and avoiding beer and cocktails. By the end of my trip I was eating all the Portuguese pastries I could get my hands on, and knocking back wine, cocktails and even better, a combination of both in Sangria.

I returned from my holidays wondering when my motivation would hit me again. Maybe you are like me in that you have this little switch in your head that goes on and off when it comes to eating well and exercising. Well I do, and I find when I am motivated, I train a lot, eat really clean and don’t crave ‘junk’ food. However, the second I go and ‘break’ or ‘treat’ myself in any way I end up going the total opposite way, eating constantly, making bad choices and this carries on until my motivation returns (God knows how long that will take).

So, having returned from my break, I have gone for three PT sessions, thinking they would get me motivated again. While they appear to help on the day, I find it decreases quickly again. I told Sinead in the club that this was how I was feeling and we agreed that maybe setting myself a goal or challenge other than weight loss might be just what I need. It will take the huge focus off the idea/feeling that I am almost punishing myself (dramatic yes, but that’s how I feel) by eating well and avoiding junk food in order to lose weight and hopefully it will give me something else to focus on and motivate me.

I have not yet decided what my challenge will be. When I was a few stone lighter, I loved to run. Doing the Paris Half Marathon still gives me the warm feeling and sense of pride for achieving my goal. I set myself a target of a marathon before I am 30, so I have just over a year and a half. All I know now is that I do want to start running again, but I don’t want my focus to be just on that, as I know with my current weight I get a lot of tightness and knee pains, so I have been considering doing a half Ironman in June 2019. I am still in the very early thought process, as I don’t want to commit and sign up and then bail out…… 1.5km swim, 90 km cycle and 21km run. I don’t do things by half. This morning I had a session and followed it up with a swim. Sitting here writing this, I am currently leaning towards taking the plunge and signing up………