At one point, about 10 years ago, I almost reached my target of losing a hundredweight - 8 stone, or 112 pounds. I was literally less than one pound away, but it was a bit of a blip and then the weight started edging back up again.
Over a couple of years I went up to 14 stone, then came back down to around 13 and a bit, where I hovered for the best part of 6 years.
2 years ago I came down a stone and have since hovered around 12st 4lbs, give or take 5lbs.
But now, during isolation because of Covid-19, the weight has started dropping again. A combination of not being able to go for hot chocolates with clients at In House Chocolates, nor being able to eat too much bread from Earth's Crust Bakery, and the fact we deliberately didn't restock the store cupboards with sweet treats before we went into Lockdown (to completely disable my ability to self medicate that way), has had an effect.
And when the tension and mental overdrive of putting weekly live podcasts together is thrown in, I've been burning up more than I've been consuming.
This morning, when I weighed myself, I was surprised to see I'm now 11 stone 7.6 pounds (161.6lbs or 73.3kg).
I have crossed that hundredweight barrier, 15 years after I started this journey, and 10 years after I almost got there.
But I think what's really surprised me is the lack of elation.
For sure, I can find a certain level of quiet satisfaction, but not the air-punching, happy-dancing, whooping-with-joy I might have expected.
Perhaps if I had hit this threshold 10 years ago, that would have been the time for celebration, because then it was still something I was aiming for.
However, for the last several years I've been relatively content with my weight. Yes I've still been officially overweight for my height, but compared with where I used to be, it's felt so much less important.
The weight loss, and the eventual achievement of losing more than 112 pounds really has been a side effect of a lifestyle change, and not a permanent struggle to try and attain the seemingly impossible.
And if I lose another 3.6 pounds I will actually cross the barrier into a "normal" weight for my size and build. I will no longer be officially "overweight" for the first time since I was probably a teenager.
But if that happens, I won't be feeling the need to celebrate with a large chocolate cake...
38 years old and over 19½ stone, vs 53 years old and 11½ stone
