Fitting Into Clothes Again while Shape Shifting instead of Losing Weight

Have you ever done that thing, where you lose bumps and lumps rather than weight. It's always the husband who notices first. Traditionally, the first place I would lose weight would be my stomach, and jeans would get loose, so I would normally notice it immediately.

This time, as I am not consciously or deliberately losing weight, it's come off my back of all places, and it means it's easier to hug me, which is one of the reasons hubby noticed. His pointing it out, meant I tried on an outfit from Primark that I bought this time last year.

Rewind: I was in the queue, in Primark, and the lady in front of me took it out of her basket and threw it on the queue barrier. I don't know WHAT mood I was in, but I picked it up, loved it, saw that it was a size 18, thought: "it'll fit" and shamelessly put it in my basket, with a smile to her - I think I said something to her, at the time, but for the life of me I cannot remember what.

Anyhow, I was very sad and surprised when I got home and could not fit into it. It's a playsuit/jumpsuit, which zips up at the back and is formal on top but only shorts down below. I could not even get one leg in. It wasn't a case of getting it on and not being able to zip it up. So I guess, it is not just my back that has lost "weight" but perhaps my legs/thighs too.

This is the moment, Sunday 12th April 2015, when I happened to try it on and discovered that it fits now:

The only thing I can attribute it to, is having dinner earlier, as a consequence of now being a school Mum. Aaron started school September 2014, and now Monday to Friday is a much stricter routine than we have ever had. He gets home starving marvin, so we have to have a proper dinner, and obviously it is at a reasonable time (though not always, as we are often in the park for hours after school). Yesterday I predicted this, so brought him roast chicken and potatoes in a Tupperware container, to eat after school, to tide him over till we got home. He ate "dinner" again when he got in, and still said he was hungry. Either he has hollow legs, or it's a growth spurt. Personally, being that he is 5 in a couple of weeks, I think he has entered that boy stage, where the price of your weekly shop goes up because they eat everything in sight. Well he is VERY active, so I have always seen this coming. Thankfully he likes "proper food" and not sweets, and that has had a knock on effect on me too. It kind of started with me though, to give myself some praise, as I have always audibly criticised sugar in his presence, as it aggravates my plantar fasciitis. For a snack I'd always encourage him to have hummus on toast rather than an unhealthy snack, although don't get me wrong we are both partial to crisps and other naughty things.

Anyway, the progress I have now made and recognised, in fitting into this playsuit has spurred me on, so as you have seen in my previous Dear So and So blog post, I wore the same outfit to Talk To Mums on 24th April.

I want to do something drastic now, in the coming weeks, like a detox, as I would love to get out of the "obesity" section on the BMI calculator and am just thankful that I am not in the severe obesity section. Before I had Aaron I was regularly on the Wii Fit and that used to show me my BMI. It's funny, but the last two videos I have posted on my You Tube channel are exactly a year apart, and I can see the progress on my face for example.

I know I can do even better and haven't had the get up and go to do so before now, but this progress and BritMums Live being on the horizon have certainly spurred me on. I have been to the conference at The Brewery every year since 2011, and this was the first year I could not afford to buy a ticket, and haven't taken the time to pitch to or secure a sponsor. So I was OVER THE MOON to be asked to be a Butterfly the day before yesterday, as it now means I can go. Hence my excitement to upload that Butterfly video that I recorded this time last year, when I last did it.

Now I need to work on hair and makeup, so that I look like this more often than once a year. I used to be quite vain in my 20s, and always made an effort. Once I got into yoga in my 30s, I wrongly thought that beauty was shallow. I'd go to Ireland, and my Mum would say "can't you at least put some lipstick on" or "straighten your hair" or "that doesn't suit you". I went through a brief phase in my days of working in Monsoon Accessorize, where I did make an effort, sometimes just so that my hair and makeup would look as good as the colourful clothes that I was wearing thanks to a VERY generous staff discount. However my career took a turn, with my next employer, that saw me doing 12, 14 and 16 hour days, and I put work first and health/wellbeing last, often going to Burger King on the way home and Pret on the way in. I then had Aaron and I could/should say that it changed to putting him first but sadly, work had me working in my maternity leave, and within 2 years of that we were going into administration, which was a shame, as by then I was contracted 3 days a week, yet working more like 6, thanks to my BlackBerry being surgically attached to my hand. My career thus ended July 2012, with redundancy, but the horrible statutory kind thanks to being the last one to leave, as I literally turned off the lights and closed the doors on the way out, having put everyone else first and myself last as usual. Staying on a sinking ship is a phrase for a reason.

I've gone off on a tangent but how this links to weight loss is that I did lose weight February/March 2012 and was feeling GREAT, but the minute the insolvency/administration process started in May, I saw myself often with beer in one hand and crisps in the other...

Astrologically this is the year of the divine feminine and as with Elsa in Frozen, it is now time to Let it Go, and take off the shackles of the past. There's a beautiful girl underneath my cloaks; I just need to let her shine.

Bye for now, Liska x