The Edge.

I'm at the edge. The edge of a place I'd rather not be.

Our Wii Fit tells me I'm dangerously close to the "Obese" line, which is interesting given the amount of people willing to tell me "You're not fat". The inanimate software is not afraid to tell me I'm almost obese, it has not rose coloured glasses to soften the blow.

I must say, I tend to agree more with the machine than the well meaning friends. I caught sight of myself in a shop window last week and it horrified me. I looked positively round. It is always confronting when I have one of those "slap in the face" moments. There is a part of my head that thinks I'm at the other end of the "ideal weight" range. It is where I was when I was 23 and I don't feel that much different in my head, mostly. Then I look a bit harder.

I was pretty much a control freak when I was younger. I think I have mellowed a fair bit as I got older. In some ways I like the more relaxed me, I'm not so uptight. The discipline could be better though. It seems like an obvious thing to say, but I think my lack of discipline spilling over into my attitude towards food has had a lot to to with my weight issues. I reactively became a lot more self indulgent when I learned I could be. When my life became less structured, it became *really* less structured.

Unsurprisingly, these changes mirror the time my weight started ballooning. There was also a dalliance with hormonal contraceptive in there too. That's a whole other story though.

So, I think discipline as much as the hand/mouth thing is key to working my way through this to a healthier weight. I have started Weight Watchers and even in few days since I've started things have changed a fair bit. Just the simple fact of knowing I have to write down what I eat makes me more inclined to think about it, let alone the scary prospect of having to assign a point value to it.

The programme itself only has a weekly weigh in so I'll see how that goes on Thursday. I did drag out the Wii Fit today though, and I think I'm in a good spot.

I was talking to a friend about my weight and proposed weight loss and life in general. They very confidently said "I don't doubt you can lose the weight you want, you gave up smoking." A statement that made me think about things completely differently, and much more positively. I was a smoker for pretty much 15 years before I managed to shake it, and I feel quite happy to be an ex-smoker this time round. I have no desire to get close to starting smoking again. The last time I quit was vastly different from any of the times previous - well for a start, I actually did stop and for about 3 years now, which is a pretty big difference really), but other than that, it was surprisingly easy. I didn't really struggle.

I have been overweight for about 10-12 years now, so that's less time, and I feel happy that this time is different. My head is in a different spot, and I really believe I will do this, and be able to make permanent changes to how I eat.

I am ready to walk away from the edge, and never get there again.

This post took about 3 days to write, so I apologise if there are inconsistencies in tense or I repeated too much!