all about me

Hello. I'm Bekki, aka Pig Wot Flies (There's an explanation in this old post). I'm also Debs' sister and Elly's daughter. I've been on the large side (tall and overweight) for most of my life. I've wanted to lose weight for years, but never really felt like I could. Then when Debs and Elly started South Beach back in 2006, and it seemed to be working for them, I thought I'd give it a try. I started in January 2007, weighing 200lb and over the next 10 months or so lost nearly 40lb. My lowest was 163lb, just before my birthday (13 October). I even started going to the gym and enjoying it. However, this year, life started to fall apart. I injured my back in January, which kept me out of the gym. Then in March/April, I had a flu-type virus from which I never recovered. It left me exhausted, depressed and not able to do much. Eventually I went to the doctor and was diagnosed with post-viral fatigue. I was pretty depressed for most of the summer and comfort-eating. I stopped weighing myself because I just didn't want to know.

I think lots of the reasons for being depressed had been building for years. At some level I'd thought losing weight would make me happy, but it didn't. Nothing did. I was covering up the sadness by being very busy. I left my job to start an MA in English in September 2007, which I think was the right thing to do at the time, but by the end of 2007, I was just busy busy busy all the time, with very little time to stop and think and pray and actually think about being happy. Happiness was always delayed, to be found when I'd handed in the next essay or finished whatever was making my life hectic at that moment.

I'm getting better, gradually, with the help of friends, prayer, anti-depressants and counselling. I still get tired easily, but I'm mentally more positive. I'm taking a break from my course. My essays are done, but I've got a dissertation to write which I can't face at the moment. I'm looking for a part-time job; something to pay the bills and give my week some structure without wearing me out.

This morning I weighed 183.4lb. Clearly the comfort eating and inability to do anything have had the obvious effect. But I'm getting back on the weight-loss wagon. I want to take things very slowly, make little changes and not beat myself up for the failures. I still dream of vintage dresses, Tami! I've got a couple I fitted into last year that now don't fit and I'd love to get back into them again. I also have a lot of thinking and praying and sorting out to do. Being ill has left me questioning a lot of my plans for the future and wondering if the things I thought would make me happy are really so good. But, not being able to do anything made me cry out to God more and He's my hope that my life does have a purpose and I will be whole again.

Here's a recent photo of me, with DebbieBoo in Cambridge last Friday. I may not be as slim as I was last summer, but I'm still slimmer than I was when I began this weight loss journey. I've got some way to go, but I've learnt that losing weight doesn't fix me or make me happy, God does.