The Fatslayer Chronicles

I’ve got 26 weeks to shift as much of my excess blubber as possible, because K and I have decided to go on vacation to Rome for a week - but, insanely, we’re going in July, for Chrissakes!

There’s a good reason Romans desert the city en masse in July and August and head for the coast and hills – because it’s bloody sweltering, that’s why! And as fat folks everywhere can testify, sweltering temperatures and excess poundage don’t exactly constitute a match made in Heaven.

But due to work commitments I can’t take vacation from April 1^st until the middle of July, and K doesn’t want to go in March or October because he thinks it’ll be too cold. Yeah, right. Oh, and hotels in September are horrendously expensive. So July it is, and I’ve got to shed as much weight as possible before we go because I categorically refuse to lumber around on those unforgiving Rome cobblestones under a blazing sun carrying fifty or so excess pounds of fat.

Rome is a sight-seers paradise, but in order to see those sights properly you have to trek around on foot. Ergo, I need to get into training so that I’m as twinkle-toed and nippy as possible.

Even if I don’t lose another pound, at least I’ll be smaller than when we went to Rhodes and I thought I was going to die of heatstroke hauling my fat arse up the hill to the Acropolis in Lindos. These ancient places of worship and revelry weren’t designed for modern lard-arses – you need to be part mountain-goat to scramble up some of the slopes to the hilltop temples, and I’m more fatted calf than mountain goat at the moment.

But at least I have 26 weeks to get fitter and skinnier. I won’t be at goal by July, but I can be well on the way there. If I’m able to walk around barelegged in a summer dress without the dreaded thigh-chafe I’ll be a happy, happy woman.

It’s at times like these that I’m so glad that I got my arse in gear and started doing something positive about my size, and didn’t let the scale of the problem overwhelm me and put me off from even starting. It’ll be so much more pleasant going to a hot country when I’m only 20lbs overweight, than in would be if I was still 100lbs overweight.

In the past, I always wanted instant results, and the long-term timescale of getting to goal was too depressing to contemplate. Instead of thinking of healthy living as a work in progress – with benefits evident almost immediately – I had the mindset that I wouldn’t be fit and skinny until I actually got to goal – and that seemed like an impossibly long distance away. I’d start dieting madly a few weeks before I was due to go on holiday, but of course I’d always left it way too late to make a real difference. So I’d still be obese when we left to go on vacation, and then I’d come home and promptly abandon my weight loss attempts because there was no longer a pressing incentive (getting into a bathing suit!) to keep me motivated.…until the time came to book the next holiday and I was in the same miserable fat state as I’d been in the previous year.

When I started this journey last March, I tried hard to take a longer-term view of the situation. I knew I wouldn’t be skinny for summer ’05, but I thought I had a decent shot of being skinny by summer ’06..or summer ’07…or however long it took. What I tried to keep in mind was that I might not be skinny any time soon, but I sure as hell could be skinnier. That was good enough for me!

And lo and behold, 10 months later I’m over half way, and I have a real fighting chance of spending my first ever summer vacation NOT hot, NOT sweaty, NOT fractious, NOT miserable, NOT unfit, NOT mad at myself, and NOT swaddled in layers of clothes in a futile attempt to deflect attention from all my blubber. This time will be different. By the time we head for Rome I’ll have been eating healthily for 16 months. I’ll be at least 70lbs lighter than when I started back in March 05. I’ll be within shouting distance of the finish line.

The long term strategy is beginning to pay dividends, and I’m just so pleased! Its days like this, when I realise how far I’ve come and what positive effects this new lifestyle is bringing about, that make it all worthwhile…

If anyone out there is just contemplating whether to start on a healthy lifestyle, I have just one thing to say - YES, just do it! You'll never regret it!