Dear Future Me...

I am currently participating in a Facebook "100 Day Challenge" to lose weight, and part of this is to move into different "rooms" which each offer a separate task to complete. These tasks involve examining and addressing various issues that manifest as we tackle weight loss. The activities so far have been varied, from taking photos to doing lip-sync videos, to confronting our fears and voicing our aspirations. All have been aimed at understanding and rectifying our motivation to lose weight.
This week we were assigned to write a letter to our Future Selves, to be read at least a year from now. This was my contribution.....

"Dear Future Me,

If you are reading this in a year’s time, you will have just turned 47 years of age, and will hopefully have enjoyed several months of maintaining after reaching the target of halving your weight from the 24stone that you started out at, back in May 2015.

As I write, you have already said Goodbye to 10 and a Half of those stones.

You should be comfortably fitting into Size 14 clothes, maybe a size 12, and will have continued along the fitness path and anticipating a much sprightlier foray into Middle Age.

You should have completed the Race for Life with your daughter in June, comfortably worked through the Couch to 5K, and signed up to do the Moonwalk Half Moon 13 mile trek (and already be in training).

You will have taken part in a number of activities with your children that were too much for you just a year or so ago.

 Do you remember the Rugby Mums End of Season Obstacle Course, where part of the course was to squeeze through a tractor tyre, and you had to get your daughter to do that on your behalf, for fear of getting stuck? Well, I hope that you dived and flew through that tyre this time. I also hope that you joined in the Parents’ Rounders Match and ran!!!

You would have returned to your favourite holiday spot in Italy in August, and I trust that you took lots of lovely family walks, unfazed by the heat and unburdened by your size. Plus, you would have fitted easily in the airline seat without having to humiliate yourself by asking for a seatbelt extender.

Remember to focus on all the wonderful opportunities that have been afforded to since you have lost weight and not to linger on the regret that you didn’t do it sooner. You just didn’t, there is nothing you can do about it, so look forward and enjoy the extended, healthy future that you have bought back for yourself.

 And take pride in the fact that YOU did this, nobody else did or could. YOU made this happen.

You have made some wonderful new friends in this journey, some of them online. I hope that you have finally managed to meet some, if not all, of them face to face, maybe at the 2016 Cambridge Weight Plan Conference.

I hope that you head has now caught up with your body and that it is less of a surprise when you catch your reflection in the mirror and see a slimmer, trimmer woman smiling back at you. I hope that you have stopped feeling self-conscious in clothing shops, wondering if everyone is looking at you, feeling judged and persecuted for your size. You can now hold up your head and feel “average”, in the best possible way. You can let the biggest and most noticeable part of you be the personality that shines from within, not the bulk that you allowed to define you.

I hope that you will have sustained your healthy relationship with vegetables, that you continue to make good, wholesome choices about what you nourish your body with. Sure, you can allow yourself treats from time to time, but these must be treats, not indulgences that become habit. It is the habits that were your downfall before.

If all of the above aspirations have been achieved you will also now be aware of one shining, but undeniably tough truth that has emerged from this journey you have been on.
There was, and never will be, a Magic Spell that will banish the weight for good.

 The quest to keep your health will be a lifelong task. You will have to work hard for the rest of your days if you want keep the body, the health and the longevity that you have attained so far.

You will never again, be able to “eat exactly what you like, whenever you like”. Because you know, deep down, what you like is all the food that made you fat, in large quantities, and all the time. You will have to take care to preserve what you have striven so hard for. You will have to keep working hard and staying aware from now on. This is the price you must pay if you want to keep what you have achieved.

Your body is like a vintage car that lay neglected, unloved and dilapidated for years hidden in a garage, now loving restored back to its former glory and taken out to show off with pride. You wouldn’t go tearing this car up on the motorway, or leaving it to rust in the rain. You would invest time and care into maintaining its peak condition so that it can be loved and enjoyed for many years to come.  You will have to pay out for parts, and replace bits that wear out from time to time. It will cost you more than your average run-around. You may have to make sacrifices to pay for costly maintenance. But, hey, won’t it be worth it when you hit the road, with the wind in your hair, attracting admiring glances from your fellow road users?
 Treat your body with the same respect, and accept that there is no resting on your laurels. This journey didn’t end at Target, it lasts for the rest of your life. A life, which, hopefully, you have extended.

 You were a food addict. You are still a food addict- you will always be, but hopefully you can remain “in recovery”. Just as the alcoholic is only one drink away from relapse, you are just one serious binge away from that slippery slope back to Fatness. Don’t let it happen. Some days it will be hard work. There will be temptations, there will be excuses, there will be celebrations, and there will be tough times. Some of these times will be inevitable. But at other times you will have the opportunity to make choices. And the choice that you will always have is whether to allow yourself to give in to temptation, “just the once”…. See these events for what they are – one-off occasions, not the beginning of a return to old habits.  Don’t let these events become the gateway back to ruin.

You will make mistakes, you will slip up, but don’t let these mistakes lead you further down the pathway to self-destruction. This path, although it may at first be strewn with woodland flowers and seem to be lit by beaming sunlight, soon leads into a dark and dangerous place, beset by thorns and haunted by beasts all too willing to devour you. And the deeper you go into the woods, the harder it is to return.

I hope that you are learning all this and nodding wisely at these words, and not wishing you had paid heed and having to think about undoing some bad decisions you made which have taken you back to a point you were at before I wrote this letter.

I believe in you, Future Me, I am putting my trust in you to continue this precious work I have done so far. You deserve this, but you must work for what you deserve. Don’t let me down. And Good Luck xxx"