This week I think I have reached half-way to the arbitrary number on the scale, that represents my goal weight*.

Six months ago I decided to sort out my body-mind relationship for the LAST time. Back then, it all felt impossible, exhausting and unfair; I just felt so helpless for having inherited this endomorphic shape that felt out of my control. I wanted the quick-fix easy option: the magic pill, the exercise machine that if used for two minutes a day would vibrate me to svelteness (without any icky sweating); I wanted the ‘expert’ to tell me what to do.

I have learnt that I already have the answer: eat mostly healthy stuff, try to move a few times a week, do this consistently until one dies.

The missing link has always been what happens after the first flush of enthusiasm: what to do when my willpower flags? How do I get past the white-knuckling, soul-sucking feelings of DEPRIVATION? How do I make peace between my inner-feminist who wants to protect my body from being objectified, and my inner-vixen who wants to reduce Science Guy to a wreck with the wearing of something small and lacy? What about when I just can’t. be. arsed?

I know now that is that this is a long, slow, sometimes quite boring process about learning how to connect my mind, body and spirit. What works for me is to be conscious of what, when and why I am eating. I need to measure progress (I keep a food diary, acknowledge the nutritional make-up of everything I eat, I have weight graphs and charts). I need support and encouragement and I have to be completely honest (no more secret binges, Science Guy knows exactly how much I weigh, what I eat). Sometimes I just need to do things that I don’t really want to do (every third run or so feels like this STILL).

And it seems, I also need to fall apart every now and then.

This was PMT week and I was away from home, work was fraught and I was completely out of my routine. Hotel breakfasts (the scrambled eggs never seem to contain anything that originated in a chicken), most days I didn’t eat lunch. On the train between one industrial estate in Newcastle to another in Manchester, I ate an entire bag of malteasers (a BIG bag) by myself. Tuesday night I ate pizza in bed while working till almost midnight.

The difference is that this week would have been enough to send me canceling the gym membership, donning elasticated pants and hating myself for yet another Catastrophic Body Failure. Now though, I can see it for what it is. I refuse to beat myself up for a few crappy days. I accept there is no such thing as perfect. The Numbers of Terror, the calories and kilos, just don’t have the power they once did. I know my life is not going miraculously improve just because I wear a different frock size, so this is good prep.

And since I came home, I have got right back on track.

I am absolutely chuffed to bits with how my body is changing. I am so proud of me for losing 15 kilos (thats 33 one pound packets of butter people!) and my feminist-vixen selves are slowly merging together: I feel so much stronger and energetic (I can run 3 miles in 40 minutes now). To my delight, this has become more about what my body can do than how much it weighs: any increased levels of ‘hotness’ are down to me feeling proud of my body and not how it looks (which is basically the same, just a bit smaller proportions and slightly less wobble). I am amazed at how much this is just NOT about food and weight and exercise: its all about my mental state.

The one constant lesson I am learning on this ‘matching outsides to insides journey’ is how be kind to myself.

*this is mostly related to the moment when I feel happy for photobird to take nudey polaroids. Oh and me and Lisa have a skinny-dipping date.

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