Friday 17 July 2026: A small milestone

I reached the next milestone in my weight loss journey yesterday: 5% of my body weight lost. Actually, I lost a further half a pound too, so I was very happy with that.

My first goal was to start losing weight. My next goal was to get below 200lb. My next goal was to get below 14 stone/196lb. My next goal was to lose half a stone, 7lb. My next goal was to lose 5% of my body weight. Every time I hit a goal, I award myself a star on my record sheet and I share a biggish goal on social media in a medal graphic. The first one I shared was the half a stone one. The 5% one was the one I shared yesterday.

I have no idea why this time it seems to be working and, of course, it may yet stop working. But for now, I’m enjoying it and celebrating every single fraction of a pound I lose. Why? Because I’m not paying the slimming industry a single bean. They’ve had enough off me over the years, all to no avail. I’m not funding them anymore, and haven’t done for a few years.

So why am I losing weight?

It could be one of any number of things, or it could be a combination.

For example, we’ve been doing the 16:8 diet since February, but while the poet has lost more than 2 stone (28lb), actually 30lb I think, I started to lose a few pounds then put them all on again, and some, until I reached my highest weight ever, in April.

Then I discovered Leah Hope, the American woman who lost more than 200lb without any surgery. One of the things she cites is her change to a much more positive attitude. I’ve been watching her story with interest, and now she has had quite a lot of surgery to remove her loose skin. But she lost the weight before she had the first of about seven, I think, operations to remove the loose skin.

She lost a whole ‘me’ in weight, without any help other than will power and by re-educating herself and increasing her activity gradually. In fact, she says we should always start small and, say, change just one small thing every day, like eat an apple or go for a short walk. And I couldn’t help but wonder why if she could do it and lose hundreds of pounds when I couldn’t even lose a few pounds and keep them off.

I started to walk the dog every day. I started at around 10 minutes, then 15 minutes, then 20 minutes, then 30 minutes. And now we do a 30-minute walk every weekday. It works out at around a mile, sometimes the poet comes with us and sometimes we go without him. At the weekends, we’ve gradually increased the walks to 2 miles, or about an hour. I think that probably has a lot to do with it, especially as it’s when we’re out walking that the poet says he can see where I’ve lost the weight.

We’ve cut out all of the supplements we were taking too and replaced them with just one, collagen gummies. I still like a garlic pearlie every day too. I’d already started to shift towards not replacing all the supplements when they ran out when I saw an article asking ‘are your supplements making you fat?’ They don’t make you fat per se, they just affect how the body reacts. So we started to drop them all off.

Yesterday morning I read an article about how collagen can contribute towards weight loss by doing things like increasing satiety or metabolism, or changing how activity affects muscle. Our gummies also contain lots of Vitamin C and Calcium, two supplements we could stop taking. The poet tried a collagen powder for about a day, instead of the gummies, as he’s a MAN (cue deep voice). But he didn’t like the powder and was back on with the gummies faster than a speeding bullet.

I try to choose a piece of fruit over a cake or a biscuit now, if I’m feeling peckins. And, finally, I’ve reduced the size of the meals I eat, without cutting anything out. We’ve always eaten a freshly made, cooked-from-scratch, well-balanced diet, but the poet was giving me the same size serving he was having. Since we cut that down by about a sixth, initially, and then possibly a third, I’ve been losing weight.

So it could be any or all or a combination of the above. Or, of course, I could just be ill! But that’s apparently unlikely, which is handy.

It’s not just the weight that’s changed, though. My skin is also better. A lot better.

We’ve cut back on the aspartame in our diet. Most fizzy pops (soda), even the full-fat versions, contained aspartame, so we hunted out fizzy pop that didn’t. Now all of the fizzy pop makers seem to have caught up and they’ve all pretty much replaced aspartame. I think aspartame may have been the big change for my skin.

I also used to eat a banana a day, and now I might eat one once a week or less. My mom used to be allergic to bananas, so I suppose it’s possible I could be too.

When we emptied the last house, the bedroom was full of black or grey mould, behind the bedhead and next to the wardrobes. My skin started to complain about something long before we moved there. But now, with all the other changes we’re making, I’m wondering if that has something to do with it too, the skin at least.

Again, with the extra walking, we are out of the house a lot more, and the poet also thinks the fresh air and sunshine might have a lot to do with the improvement with the skin.

Who knows? I could just be at the end of a 7-year life cycle. Or I could just be getting old. Whatever, my next milestone is to lose a stone (14lb), and that’s only 3¼lb away…

As we no longer have a dishwasher, the poet has been washing the dishes last thing at night and (finally!) been leaving them on the draining board to dry. If he hasn’t done the washing up, I’ll do it the next morning. But if he has done it, I’ll put it all away. It’s a bit like the emptying the dishwasher chore, and that was the first thing I did yesterday morning after exhausting the weight loss milestone. And I put a washload through the washing machine.

I did some more reading, I posted and shared yesterday’s blog post, and I started today’s. When the washing machine cycle was done, I hung the washing out. Already the sun was boiling hot and quite dry on my face. But it’s a good ten degrees cooler than of late, peaking at around 26℃ (80℉).

Apparently it’s going to start getting cooler still from today. Yay! It doesn’t look like the rain we were promised today is coming, though. Boo!

Before I started work for the day, I rearranged the junk room slightly. I consolidated a few bags. I moved a set of wicker baskets to beneath a coffee table we’re storing in there. I folded up the chair I use for the pop-up office, as it’s too low for me to work on a monitor. Then I tidied up a corner, retrieved one of the wheelie chairs, and moved the pop-up desk so it’s against a wall instead of bang in the middle of the room.

With my back to the window before, I was struggling with glare on the screen. I knew I needed to turn everything around at a right-angle, but there wasn’t a lot of room in which to do that. Having a bit of a tidy up gave me more floor space and more wall space. And when I finally started to work, I felt as though I was cocooned in a corner. I didn’t need any cushions on the chair, and I didn’t have any glare on the screen. It’s actually quite pleasant to work in here now.

I’m still trying to identify a trigger that will set me off writing instead of faffing, but rearranging the office part of the room at least is a step in the right direction. I have the daylight floor lamp my dad bought us for a Christmas present one year strategically placed so it can illuminate my work area if necessary.

Do you have any triggers to start writing? A special cup to have your coffee in? Opening a certain document or notebook? Wind chimes hanging in the window? Answers below!

Once I was settled, I went back to the editing for the rest of the day. It’s actually proofreading the editing I did before, but I’m also consolidating my amendments with the author’s and the proofreader’s.

While I was doing that, the poet came home from work and almost immediately started to remove the old hob in the kitchen, plus the worktop and the plinth at the bottom of the units, and fit the new oven. We were having a mixed bean casserole with dumplings and I jokingly suggested that he fitted the new oven so we could have oven baked dumplings – much nicer than hob boiled dumplings. Crispier, for a start.

I had two 50-minute Pomodoros on the client edit, with a 10-minute break in between, also classed as two hours, before calling it a day and finishing today’s blog post. I brought the washing in and settled down for the evening.

I have a hair appointment today and we’ll be picking up next week’s meat while we’re in that village. I’ll carry on with the proofreading where I can, in between everything.

Whatever you’re up to at the weekend, I hope it’s a good one!

This post appears on Words Worth Writing, Medium and Patreon.