by now you all know that I am attempting to walk a million steps to raise cash for Diabetes UK and along the way help myself to fitness.  Well I cannot write any more before addressing the real motivation behind this crazy challenge.

I have managed to become incredibly fat. There, I have said it, the F word.  Fatter than I have ever been, fatter than when pregnant with twins, fat, fat, fat.  And with all the fatness I have also had aching limbs, clothes that don’t fit me and a struggle to tie my laces.  Really I don’t understand how this has occurred.  It is true that for the past four years walking has been difficult. Joint pain, previously diagnosed as Fibromyalgia, meant that some days any exercise was out of the question, but did I really have to spend the time sitting down eating??

Right, enough was enough and a couple of months ago I decided not to be fat anymore. Now I am not saying that being fat is wrong or bad, some people maybe happy and healthy. I am saying I was not.  A week of extreme dieting using shakes instead of meals broke all my bad habits, and when I went on to introduce food again I only chose the healthy options.   It was hard at times, and now two months in it is still difficult.  But, I am proud to say I am still doing it.  And I am less fat, a whole lot less fat.  My limbs are not aching anymore, I believe the Fibromyalgia was actually a reaction to wheat, since stopping eating tons of bread the pain that has blighted my life for four years is no more.

So, then walking became an option, and it is fast becoming a way of life.  I don’t ever leap out of bed declaring how much I am looking forward to a three mile walk before breakfast, but I do it anyway.  Some mornings I am tired, the rain is falling and bed is calling me back, even on such mornings  I have dressed, donned my faithful trainers and walked. Clocking up the steps is addictive.  Seeing the world before everyone else is awake is magical, knowing that with every step I am helping myself to fitness and health and raising much needed cash is my motivation.

Day four and at the end of the morning walk I called into my GP practice as they were opening for early morning surgery.  There is the scales, the very ones where I finally recognised just how fat I had become.  I don’t go there often, maybe once a month is enough.  Today I slipped my trainers off and popped on the scales.  I was very happy, my not fatness is really happening, the scales say so.