Health & Happiness: Your Self-Image
When Katie and I seriously began to look for the answer to our weight problems, we sat down and had a heart-to-heart chat about what we wanted and why we wanted it...
We also had to consider what we were prepared to change in our lives to achieve our goals.
What surprised both of us, was how SIMPLE our aspirations actually were...
Neither of us expected (or even wanted) to run a marathon, work as a model or appear on a magazine cover...
Katie wanted more energy to play with the kids, and not feel exhausted all the time.
And she didn't want to feel embarrassed in her swimsuit, or being undressed in front of me, her husband. Shopping was also no longer any fun for her - simply a reminder of what she used to be.
Mostly, I wanted to be able to buy clothes that fit me off the peg in any high street store - and not be limited to a rather small and uninspiring range of 'fat' clothes. Fat seemed to make everything more expensive as well!
I also wanted to be able to climb the stairs of our three storey home without my heart pounding at the top!
As part of the process, we discovered that as well as changing how we actually look, we had to consider our self-image. It's a sad fact that as a rule, the chubbier we get, the less we respect ourselves.
We stop seeing ourselves as bright and vibrant - so what's the point in bothering?
Click on the 'smiley' to continue...