Yesterday my husband and I were out for a walk, and there was a classic “hummingbird” moment. We were talking about needing to get more exercise and to make sure that when we go for walks, we actually get moving fast enough to raise the heart rate etc. I was in the middle of a sentence about the need to keep the pace up when I spotted a cat sitting under a car. I stopped in my tracks and exclaimed “kitty!”. Husband laughed. Writing about it now makes me think of this xkcd cartoon, but let’s not get distracted any further…

A little bit of history: in 2000, when I was in my final year of high school, I had pneumonia. Mycoplasma or “walking” pneumonia. One of the consequences was that I lost a bunch of weight. I’m not going to get into the exact figures, but as a rough guide my BMI at the time would have been around 19 – just within “normal weight”. It would have been around 23 before I got sick, I think. I put a little bit of weight on gradually over the next 3 years, eventually getting back to my pre-pneumonia state. This is a photo from the end of 2003 (in a “fallen angel” costume at a masquerade party…mask elsewhere when the photo was taken!)

But it didn’t stop there. I was living in shared accommodation near university, I wasn’t eating terribly well, and my exercise was purely the walking I did to get around between home and the campus. In 2005, I moved a little further from campus and stopped walking as much, and my diet became worse, and I put on more weight. In about 2007, my BMI went past the “normal weight” upper limit and has just crept up and up. I stabilised for a while in 2008-2009 but after my wedding in April 2010, I’ve gained another 5kg and my BMI is 27. There is just too much delicious food in this world, and insufficient exercise in my routine!

I should probably insert a disclaimer at this point. I’m still quite within the realm of not terribly fat, but I’m heavier/lumpier than I’ve ever been in my life and have been keen for years to make some serious changes to my lifestyle and habits so that I can get back to the “normal weight” range. I’m very lucky compared to many out there – I’ve never battled with an eating disorder and I don’t have a health problem which makes it even easier to gain weight/harder to lose it. I’m just bad at exercising regularly (and shouldn’t always blame my dodgy knees) and have little self-control. I’ll also add that I know BMI isn’t the be-all and end-all of measures when it comes to this sort of thing, but it’s a simple gauge most of us are familiar with.

So, here I am, in January 2012. I’ve recently returned from 6 weeks overseas holiday (which will feature in future posts) so while I was pretty determined to make some positive changes late last year, I was also realistic that while I was away I wouldn’t be able to stick to major diet. However, thanks to the combination of a relatively active holiday and a bout of gastroenteritis the day after I returned to the country, I don’t have any extra “holiday weight” to shake. My husband is also very keen to decrease his girth, so I have a diet and exercise partner right here.

I’m not sure I’ll ever get back to the kind of figure I had in 2003 – after all, I was 21 then and now I’m almost 30! Shape changes over time and that’s ok.

I guess you could say that this post is about making myself accountable. I’ve downloaded the “ShapeUp” app on my iPhone and I told it that I want to lose about 0.8kg a week – and it says I should reach my goal weight in 16 weeks if I manage that (and the app provides assistance with tracking kJ/calorie intake).

So now all my friends (…I’m not just sending this out into a black hole, right?) who read this blog also know that this is a priority for me. Please understand when I say “no” to the delicious dessert you’re offering me!

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Further to the above… having just read this LJ post (strong language warning if you follow that link), I feel like I need to come back and say something more on this weight related post.

I agree with what Naamah writes. I think society needs to stop idly judging others on the amount of flesh they carry around. And for most of us adults, we have the capacity to make an informed decision about what weight we are happy being.

I believe that the evidence is out there that there are many health benefits to be found from being within a “normal” weight range (but that what constitutes “normal” isn’t going to follow some magical formula). I’m not going to judge you if you decide not to do what you can to remain within a healthy weight range for your body – that is your choice and you are beautiful regardless. But if you walk into my clinic room, worried about cancer risk, once I’ve talked to you about what your genes are or are not going to do to your risk (and what we can do about that), if you then want to know what else you can do to reduce your risk – I AM going to tell you about the importance of a good diet and enough exercise to maintain a healthy weight. If you’re a women and you’re overweight, you are increasing your risk of uterine cancer, in particular. How you take my advice is, of course, up to you, but if you solicit it, I will give it.

So my choice, as an informed adult, is to work harder and get myself into a healthier weight for my body. I’m not doing it because of any pressure from society about what constitutes beautiful. I’m doing it because I work in a hospital where I see, time and again, the consequences of not looking after yourself (including being underweight). Since I’m lucky enough to have this element of my life in my control (and not in the control of medications I’m taking or hormonal imbalances etc) – I chose to do what I can.