Fair, fat and forty

That will not be me! Despite evidence to the contrary thus far....

I have to say, that despite feeling occasionally (or, okay, quite often) feeling depressed and/or desparate and/or thoroughly fed up and/or just plain knackered about my weight, I have never, not for one moment, considered giving up. I have a year to get slim. It sounds beguilingly easy when you say it like that, doesn't it? I know it won't be. My conundrum is that the saying "if you always do what you always did, you'll always get what you've always got" or something like that. I genuinely think that - short of wiring my jaws shut and joining a permanent boot camp - there's little more that I can do differently. To encapsulate my plan:
1) Cycle to and from work as often as possible (a minimum of 3x a week)
2) Have initiated a circuit of sit ups, lunges, arm weights etc of c20mins in the morning on the advice of friend with PhD in anti-fatter. She reckons more muscle will kick start my metabolism. It's got to be worth a try.
3) Calorie counting 1200-1350 cals Mon-Fri (depending on cycling etc). Evening meal on Saturday with bf - more relaxed. Sunday evening meal - something off plan like steak and salad but still low cal. Rest of weekend ultra cautious but no counting.

Am I missing something?

And Mrs Lard asked me what a slim life would look like. Well, I am under no delusion that life will suddenly become easy - I know that the struggle to stay slim is just as great as to get there. I know that every time I go away or go off plan that I'll put weight on and will then need to concentrate on getting it off again. But I do think it will be easier to start from that level - to know that you can get there, to know what you did that worked to enable you to get there. I would anticipate that special occasions like holidays, weddings, parties etc would no longer hold the same sort of terror/horror over what to wear, how to fade into the background, how to avoid photos etc. I know that if I were to get to this mythical state of slim-dom I'd still be dieting (although hopefully I could eat a little more) and still need to exercise - I can live with that. But I would hope that my whole life could stop being about food (or lack of), weight and flab. That would be good.

So, this weekend. I have eaten, but I have to say there's a contrast to last year where I got in my favourite toffee and fudge (by mail order!) and bought my favourite chocolate bars in anticipation. This year I have had treats but they've been part of meals. And I've done a reasonable amount of walking (Thu - 8 miles, Fri - 3 miles, Sat - 3 miles, Sun - 4.5 miles, Mon 6.8 miles) which I hope will go some way to balance everything out. I deliberately chose to build in as much walking as I could - weather permitting - for this reason. But I know I've put on weight and I'm too chicken to weigh myelf before Friday (when I hope to have cycled 4 times and done my little weights and floor work circuit 4 times too). I know that this holiday is going to be another one where I am constantly embarrassed by my size and I know that I'm not going to be fitting into last year's summer clothes for it so I'm just going to do the best I can and focus on not feeling like this next year.

Thanks for all your comments, I think it's a record number! It really does make a difference knowing there are people out there who understand how hard this can be - because they're living it too.