What about this non-dieting trip you are on, Sara?

This is a very good question. For me, dieting was about a) being frequently hungry and b) eating food that I thought was good for me, even if I didn’t like it. My approach to ‘non-dieting’ has reversed this. If I am truly hungry, I eat, even if that means that my calorie level for the day is higher than it theoretically should be for fatloss. I only eat food I like and I’ve put quite a bit of effort into experimenting with recipes and learning how to cook ‘gourmet healthfood’. I also ditched the ‘forbidden foods’ mindset to make room for a few little treats. As a consequence I now have consistent and controllable eating habits and am shedding fat slowly but steadily. Contrast this with just under a year ago when every week was a 'groundhog day' of meticulously designing an ‘almost perfect’ nutrition plan and then suffering demoralising feelings of self-disgust and failure when I could never stick with it for more than a few days. It’s a very long story, in fact I’m writing an article about it which I will post here when it is finished. I’m sure that my journey is similar to what most women go through when breaking out of the dieting and bingeing cycle. I didn’t want to stop dieting but I knew I had to because it was leading me to binges which were wrecking my physical and mental health. Now my thing is living a fit lifestyle, focusing on positive action rather than carrying around a mental self-berating stick of ‘don’ts’… ‘don’t eat sugar/chocolate/too much fruit, don’t skip a workout, don’t stay up late’..
I think that victory over food obsession is being able to add a blob of chutney to my morning omelette. It has sugar you know?

The exam was.. well, it wasn’t what I expected! It was a complete departure from the structure of previous years exam papers, which I had been studying to get a feel for how they might go about testing the contents of my head. The main problem was that my back ached and the chairs were typical, wooden old schoolroom jobbies. After the exam I got myself into a hot, hot bath and the muscles have loosened up considerably. I will wait until the pain has subsided then start back with the Pilates. This time I’ll rehabilitate that thing good. :)