So i was on holiday last week, spending a few days in the lovely city of Carcassonne, in the south of France.  I had always wanted to visit after reading the book ‘Labyrinth’ by Kate Mosse, and having watched the recent TV adaptation, i was online and buying a cheap flight before you could say “that stick insect model wrote a book?! Never….”.  Then I completely forgot i’d booked it until someone else at work mentioned they were on leave at the end of the week.   Luckily the holiday talk jogged my memory, and before long I was jetting off to the sun.  Well, sun and rain and howling winds.  Anyway, I digress.  Being what feels like an eternal singleton at the mo, I was on my own, and just spent my days wandering around the old and new parts of the city, stopping along the way for coffees, little glasses of red wine and meals of the local cuisine.  I spent the first couple of days trying to find a little notebook to write in, as in my haste to pack I forgot to bring one.  When I finally found one though, I just couldn’t be bothered to write in it.  I started, and immediately got writers block.  When you’re trying to write a journal and you get writer’s block, you know you’re in a bad way – who can’t even write about their own real life?!  So that got me thinking.

I’ve toyed with the idea of writing a blog for a while, but then I wasn’t sure what to write about, and even whether anyone would be the slightest bit interested in what I have to say.  It was while I was on holiday that it started to dawn on me – write what you know, and who cares if no-one reads this.

So what do I know?  Well, I know that i’ve ALWAYS been overweight, and it has always bothered me.  I know I’ve spent most of my life doing no sport, although I started running a few years ago, and began taking part (I can’t say ‘racing’ without guffawing!) in triathlons too.  I even got as far as the start line of an Ironman race in Regensburg, Germany, in 2011.  However, I missed the bike cut-off time, so didn’t make it to the finish.  I do know that I loved that day soooo much though, and i’ve never felt so great being part of something so amazing.  I know that after that race, and having done months of hard training (even if it wasn’t quite enough!) that I wanted a break from it for a while.  But that break turned into well over a year of doing nothing except sitting on the sofa, eating and thinking to myself ‘yep, next week i’m going to start a new life and get back to healthy eating and training’.  Even I can’t help but roll my eyes as I type that.  I must have started a million new lives over the years….

So where am I now?  Well, it’s not all bad.  I’m  lucky enough to have started a great new job this year, which i love, and i’m settled into my new life, even though it took me away from a city I loved and the great friends I have that live there.  So that’s all great, but the downside is i’m still sitting on the sofa most nights, not doing much and certainly not getting any slimmer.  Now I should point out that i’m training for a marathon, but i’ve lost my mojo in the past couple of weeks, and i’m struggling with the running.  When I was on holiday, i’d been eating out every night, because I had nowhere to cook for myself.  After day 4, I was feeling sluggish and bloated, and caught a reflection of myself in the hotel mirror.  That was the tipping point, and I just thought ‘No. More‘. How did I let myself get back to being the heaviest i’ve ever been?!  I’m sick of being overweight, devoid of energy and lazy.  I want to shift the weight i’ve put on, get fit again (in fact fitter than i’ve ever been), and I want to get to the end of an Ironman race.  Life is too short, and frankly I don’t want to waste more time ‘doing nothing’. I want to get my mojo back.  I’ll be 40 in 2 years, 5 months and 16 days (but who is counting…), and I don’t want to get there with diabetes or some lingering weight-related disease that I could have easily prevented.  Okay, so we never know which number will come up, but I don’t want to load the dice.

So…….to make what could have been a fairly short story even longer, I’m writing this blog to be accountable.  Maybe no-one will read it, but that’s okay, because to me, writing this is my way of setting myself a challenge.  Once and for all.  I’ve been mulling over the short and long term goals, but that is for another post, when i’ve sussed out the details.  I just need to say i’m going to do something…..and do it.

In the immortal words of Barney Stinson, “Challenge accepted”.