Wednesday - Day 36 (64 to go)

Another hectic day - think everyone's trying to get loose ends sorted before Easter! Hope things calm down work-wise but I have a nasty suspicion things are going to get more hectic :-s Still, it's good to be busy and does keep my mind off other things!!

Weighed myself this morning as I always do the day following my weigh-in, and as no LL session last night thought I ought to keep it up. According to my scales I've lost 22lb in total (which is 2lb more than the LL scales reckoned on Saturday, so I don't think they're too far out). That's fab, and takes me over the 1 1/2 stone mark!! :-) I also measured myself, not too much change this week but the odd bit here and there, which as you know all adds up.

Had my vanilla in two lattes again today which I'm starting to enjoy. Anna the new LLC rang about lunchtime & we talked through some options. She is only able to do a session at 6pm on Wednesdays so really my only options are to either give up the riding whilst I'm on LL or go at 6 and get weighed & get my packs, stay for the first 1/2 hour then go. I'm not really sure I do want to give up the riding, after all it is a good thing (lots of exercise and fresh air) which I'm loathe to give up if I'm trying to make my lifestyle more healthy! But at the same time going to the sessions just for 1/2 hour or so isn't ideal either as I'd miss out on most of the counselling.

She did worry me slightly as she said she's putting us all into a Development group too as we're merging from different groups - this raises a few questions for me: a) how many are there going to be in the group and b) if we're in development, does this mean that we're not going to get the counselling? She can't give us the week by week sessions as we're all at differing weeks, so I'm concerned that even if I do give up my riding I won't benefit from it. Oh why did the counsellor in Lichfield have to quit on us?!? So, I'm thoroughly fed up with the whole thing right now. I'm going to stick with it, don't worry, at least for the time being, but I'm so annoyed with LL for putting us into this position in the first place.

I know it's not Anna's fault as she's just trying to help us all out, but it's not a good situation to be in. Anyway, Anna said it would be ok for me to come along next week on the Wed session, so I've cancelled my riding for that night to see how it works out. I think what I'm going to do is go along & see how it goes, see whether there's any counselling and if it's going to benefit me going along to the sessions. If it's not, then I'm really loathe to pay out all the cash for LL and not get the counselling, so I think I'll take a look at Cambridge at that point.

Riding this evening was great - it's strange but I didn't notice my fitness being particularly bad before I started LL (don't get me wrong, there's no way I was running a marathon or anything, but I wasn't getting out of breath whilst walking, and the riding was tiring but nothing I really connected to my lack of fitness or weight). I have to say though that tonight I felt absolutely fantastic!

It was a flatwork lesson and was quite energetic, lots of trotting and working on transitions (making the horse change paces smoothly, e.g. going from walk to trot to canter to trot to canter to trot to halt etc...) and I didn't feel in the slightest bit tired or lacking in energy, in fact I was positively buzzing by the end of it. It's made me realise just how much my body has changed in the 6 weeks I've been on LL - really it's got to have an impact not having to lug that extra 1 1/2 stone around already. I can't imagine what a difference losing another 1 1/2 stone is going to make to me, but I can't wait to find out!!

It has also made me realise that there were a lot of things I have been burying my head in the sand over, not acknowledging certain aspects of myself like the weight or the fitness as I didn't want to face the reality of the situation. I think that now I'm starting to feel a difference I'm beginning to realise that those things were always there in the background - and maybe because I didn't admit them even to myself and ended up hiding them, when I was feeling down they would sort of manifest themselves either by frustration or anger at myself.

One of the things I used to fear the most would be to have to get dressed up for a day / night out - the thought of how I looked would eat away at me (not literally, unfortunately) and I'd end up in a real panic about what to wear. I'd even sometimes end up going out to the shops to try to find something to wear, and end up in a sort of mad desperation picking something I would never in my right mind have worn, but being the only thing I could find in my size etc. When I came to actually get ready I'd inevitably end up going through my entire wardrobe getting increasingly frustrated and depressed, and then angry at myself. What was even more frustrating was I knew I was making us late (and believe me I hate being late!). My saint of a h2b would stay downstairs out of the way through all this, occasionally he'd pop back upstairs and give me a hug. I always felt so bad about the whole thing - the funny thing was that as soon as I got to wherever we were going I would be fine.

Anyway, not sure where all that deep & meaningful waffle came from, my apologies, this was supposed to be a quick post! I think that with everything that's happened over the past week, I've had to do some serious thinking about everything really, lighterlife, me losing weight, the counselling, where I am now and where I want to get to. It really is helping though, having a place to write these things down, and making the time to sit and do this. I think being able to rationalise some of my demons is definitely a sign of me changing my outlook even just a little, which has to be a good thing...