Challenge Be Gone

I’m finally going to have to come clean. It’s amazing how guilty I feel about letting down a bunch of people I don’t know – you, my readers. But I have to admit, I don’t feel as though I’m letting myself down at all. So here it is… I am no longer PN-ing.

Instead, and I hang my head in shame, unworthy to look at all you PNers and BFLers, I decided to go back to xx*@!!@! (censored name of international weight loss organisation) for the time being, although I will still be blogging and charting my progress, so feel free to come visit, even if just to tut in a superior manner at my lack of staying power and so-last-century weight loss journey.

I have learned quite a bit through PN, and will incorporate aspects of it into my daily eating habits. Also, I quite expect to revisit PN in the future, but don’t feel it’s right for me at the moment.

Just before I went away, I bought a book about cognitive behavioural therapy for depression (Feeling Good, by David Burns) on the recommendation of another blogger, mainly out of curiosity. I have suffered with depression over the years, but have been relatively well for nearly 2 years now, without a major depressive episode.

There’s one of those ‘just how depressed are you?’ tests at the beginning. Scores can range from a tie-me-down-I’m-so-happy zero, to a don’t-move-were-sending-the-men-in-white-coats-round-to-your-house-right-now 100. I got hubby to do it and he scored 2. I was a 36. This came as a bit of a shock to me, but suddenly a lot of stuff fell into place: my struggles in the two to three weeks before my holiday, my moods, my self-destructive behaviours, particularly eating habits. By the time we got back from Kenya, I was a 5. I don’t think it was the holiday, I think it might have been the carbs.

So I have gone back to eating ‘normally’. I eat 3 main meals a day, but eat something every 2–3 hours. I am still working out loads and I have returned to my lowest (for a while) pre-holiday weight and dropped most of the body fat I gained. I am feeling really good about myself right now, very positive and healthful.

Thank you all for your support here and on the forum, and I do hope some of you will stay in touch. For everyone else, good luck with all of your challenges, PN or otherwise.