#ThinThursday: What Will I Gain When I Lose

Wow! Thursday already! Isn’t it? This week has been a bit of a haze so I’m not entirely certain of the days at this stage… Feels like it should be next Thursday at this stage if I’m being honest!

Anyway… First things first – I want to say thanks to everyone for the feedback on last weeks #ThinThursday post. I wrote from the heart and it seemed to work so I’m going to do the same this week. If it starts to get ramble-y please just tell me to stop and go back and read what I have written!

Secondly, yay to all the other girls for their posts and for the massive goodwill and support that is being shared as a result of #ThinThursday on Twitter. It’s great to see so many girls supporting each other and accepting that we are all doing different things for different reason all with the hope of effecting some positive change in our lives.

And that, my darlings,  segways beautifully into this weeks #ThinThursday post…

“What will you gain when you lose?” 

That Special K ad! You all know the one, it’s everywhere these days so if you have missed it please let me know if I can hide out wherever you’ve been! 😉 While it may all seem very cliché, this for me is a reality. By losing the excess weight I am carrying I am hoping to gain something – my health! I think this postive way of looking at weight loss can be beneficial. For some I know the campaign reeks of ‘If you’re fat you must be miserable’ as all the examples I am aware of are about fitting into smaller sized clothes and gaining joy and that bit I don’t agree with. Each of us is different. I know people my size and bigger who are happy how they are and love their bodies. I know people significantly smaller than me who hate their bodies even more than I hate mine if that is possible! Each person is different. I can’t say it often enough.

I am not happy with my weight and I haven’t been for a very long time. I am seriously worried about my health and whether I like it or not there is a correlation between my health status and my weight issues. In the last two weeks I have had two serious wake up calls in relation to my weight.

Wake up Call One was holding my friends beautiful six month old baby and feeling his weight in my arms… I was struggling to hold him at times and had to move him from arm to arm in order to manage more easily… My lack of strength wasn’t the shock (before you think it was!) – it was the fact that he weighed 1/2lb LESS than I had lost! I couldn’t imagine having him strapped to me full time but up to last August I was carrying that extra weight and wasn’t conscious of it.

The second wake up call was the earth shattering phonecall I received on Tuesday that a 28 year old neighbour of mine, a lad that I had gone to school with, had passed away. He had died suddenly of a suspected heart attack. As far as I am aware he was considered healthy. He went to the gym and had an active job. I can’t get my head around it but what I am painfully aware of is that I am not healthy, I am not active – my life is at risk each day I continue as I am. I have high cholesterol and high blood pressure. I come from a family where heart disease is prevalent. There but for the grace of God go I! Losing weight reduces the risk and that is what I want to gain. I won’t be eating Special K to achieve it mind you!

Other things I am hoping to gain/re-gain include my self-confidence, faith in my own ability (instead of feeling like the fat person that no one likes and is useless) and an entire wardrobe of clothes bought from high-street stores so that I can feel confident, sexy and glamorous going out whether to work or socially!

What are your views on this ad campaign? Is there something that you would like to ‘gain’ from losing weight?