Bleurgh...

Well, it's half-term this week. DD1 is away with my parents for a week, DD2 (actually my stepdaughter) was away with her mother for the first half of the holiday and my DS has been at nursery for the best part of the week, which is just as well as I've been ill for most of the week. I'm not sure it's really fair that over the last 6 months I've quit smoking, started taking up more exercise, have started to lose weight and yet I've been sick with cold/flu on at least 4 occasions now - I'm literally hmphing with indignation as I type.

It's tough to carry on when you try so hard to be better and things keep knocking you down. It's far easier to give up and promise yourself that you'll have another go when things are a bit better. That's why it's taken me so long to quit smoking (although I think I've now cracked it for good) and why, I think, I never managed to hit that target weight before. In the past, I've tried and tried (and having PCOS means that I have to work that much harder to be able to reverse the insulin resistance which comes with the condition) and after a couple of months of dieting and working out and getting 2-3 stones in, I'm frustrated that I still can't see the difference and so, at the first (not-so) major hurdle, I declare the whole thing a right-off and say I'll come back to it later. The thing is, will I be able to break the pattern this time around?

At the moment, things are going reasonably well - I've just signed up to complete a 26-mile trek in September, walked 8 miles this week and lost 3 1/2 lbs at weigh-in on Wednesday but I'm my own worst enemy so I'm glad I have this blog. In the months to come, I can look back over the entries and see how far I've come.

At the moment, I should be marking Year 9 exercise books - without a doubt my favourite class but absolutely the worst task in the world. My only saving grace is when one of them manages to write something accidentally hilarious, previous entries have included: 'I looked at him with my eye' and 'I held up my head'. These are just off the top of my head but I know there have been far more, I'll be sure to post some more down when I next come across them. I do love my job but the paperwork is a drag.

I think I've procrastinated enough and should probably make an effort to get back to my books, although I'm sure there's a cuppa I could be having and perhaps some veg to chop up for dinner...

No Limits

Despite being, undoubtedly, one of the worst songs of the 90s, I'm thinking a lot about the idea of 'No Limits' at the moment and the pressure that we bring upon ourselves. When I started this blog in January I had such high hopes that this was going to become such an intrinsic part of my life and that I would spend half an hour every day sitting at my laptop with a cup of coffee and a mountain of ideas and inspiration while my fingers flew over the keyboard. I told myself that I would be the only thing that would stop me from writing and that failure to complete my mission, therefore, would be my own fault. And I've realised that I do this a lot. A LOT. And it's not just the blog, it's everywhere: my 'failure' to finish my writing course; my 'failure' at work (not doing what I actually want to do, which is to work in Special Needs); my 'failure' to be thin.

What I've started to realise this week is that my life is nowhere near over. Okay, so I didn't manage to write a blog entry every day. Does that negate what I've written so far? Does it mean that I have to erase everything and start again, pretending to myself that I've only just started the blog? And I considered it! I mean, who am I actually trying to fool? So what if there isn't an entry for every day so far - I'm writing now, that's the important thing. I have a life. I have a job, friends, family, work, commitments. And if I manage to squeeze in a couple of lines now and then, then that has to be enough for me. I need to accept that it's not a failure if I don't write every day, it's a success that I'm even writing at all.

So what if I haven't finished the writing course - the beauty of the course is that I can write whenever I want and take as long as I want to complete it. I know what I want to write about and I have a rough idea when I want to start it. As long as I don't forget about it completely, then just starting it is still a great thing and the possible success of finishing it is still out there, and in the meantime, the blog will get me back into the habit of writing a little more often. So I'm not a Special Needs teacher yet. Six years ago I wasn't even a teacher! I have to look at how much I've accomplished already and still having the dream and working towards it, albeit in baby steps, is still a success.

 It's the same with the weight loss. So, I'm not thin. Yet. I've tried so many times to lose weight in the past and I've managed a couple of times to lose a few stones. But it doesn't make me a failure that I'm not at my target weight because I'm still alive and as long as I'm still on this planet, everything is possible. It's been so long since I've written that I haven't registered any weight loss yet but I'm 10lbs down already after 5 weeks and feeling better than I have in ages. It's bizarre that this is the heaviest I've been (non-pregnant) and yet I feel wonderful because I can see it moving down now  - s ix months ago when I was climbing UP to this weight I was miserable! Not being at target yet is not a failure, the success is that I keep trying.

There's nothing wrong with setting goals or having dreams but I think what I'm learning is to give myself a break. Just because there are 'No Limits' doesn't mean that it's our fault if we don't get there first time. As an English Teacher, I hate cliches but, now and then, I'm stuck for a better metaphor: life will occasionally throw you a curve ball. And you know what? It's okay to swing and miss. The real success is in running anyway and staying in the game.