I was a desk potato rather than the couch variety and had used children, work and too many commitments for many years as excuses for my expanding waistline.
One day I finally accepted the fact that I was old and fat-at least that's the way I looked. Forty-five, 5'6'' and 200 lbs; I hadn't planned it; the double chin, the big thighs, bingo wings and the Buddha belly, they had crept up, slowly and stealthily over the years.
For many, something happens when they hit their mid-forties, things that never ached before, do. Then there's the need for glasses, we begin to feel less invincible, becoming uncannily aware of conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure and raised cholesterol.
I was annoyed with myself and the way I looked, the way I felt, my gluttony was killing me, aching joints, breathlessness, lethargy, embarrassment and flagging confidence-surely there was a better life than this. You've heard of a padded cell? Well all my cells were well and truly padded, it was like being terminal incarcerated in a cage of flab. This wasn't living, it was dying; slowly.
Something had to be done, I could see history repeating itself, my obese mother had died aged 63 from type two diabetes and I was terrified that I would go the same way.
I was on a mission but where to begin? Over the years I had tried various diets, programmes and products with varying degrees of success, the one common feature was that nothing had worked long term.
Sometimes I'd lost a few pounds, sometimes as much as a stone but it always found it's way back on. I'd read success stories, women who had lost half their original body weight and kept it off; why couldn't I? Determined to find a solution I spent weeks researching; eventually uncovering the secret to successful
You want to know this secret? Of course you do well, it's simply this; there is no one secret, there are several essential aspects to a successful
The global
When starting a