Why Am I Doing This?

To be fair (to myself) I have no idea. I haven't added to my original blog since 2014, but then that was a year of change. We moved from Malaysia to Sweden and, I can see from the final post (so far) there that it was a time that began total upheaval, dog export, dog import, furnishing shipments, clearing out the house, settling with servants and gardeners, lunches with friends and fellow writers...and who knows what else.

Ahhh, as I write that, I realise precisely WHY I am writing this:

On June 2, 2019, having injured my left knee the month before and hardly able to walk, much less walk an Alaskan Malamute in the woods every day, I realised that the very best thing I could do for me, Solo and hubby, Derek, who was then stuck with walking said dog on top of his job, was to lose weight.

On Facebook, I saw an Advert for Noom. I knew nothing about it. I wouldn't say I was desperate but I was also perfectly aware that a person in the morbidly obese category with a BMI way too high, in spite of how fit she was (I trained with a trainer three times a week in Malaysia; it's not like I wasn't strong...I was simply broken and I knew, deep inside, how to take the steps--literally--to fix it.

By the time I got to January 26th, 2020, I had achieved my initial goal of losing 61 pounds, arriving at a weight I hadn't seen for a few decades. I decided to go on. Over the course of the Year of Pandemic, I lost another twenty-some pounds, not without some struggling, yo-yoing, numerous thyroid blood tests and visits with my doctor (medication down 67% over the past few years) and being told to slow down, especially at my age, 71 at that point.

I've come a long way. I've learned a lot. I bought an Instant Pot last year and an Air Fryer this year. I experimented with recipes, exercise modalities, and, the latest, Intermittent Fasting. I even cut my own hair. But, hey, that's the part I'm not so happy about.

All that and here I am. I want to share some of it with friends and relatives also doing Noom, to thank my trainers at Camp Gladiator, to honour Noomy friends. my (live) Group Coaches, the (live) Goal Specialist who's been there every week of the way...and the whole 'Noomily' as they call it, in some way. 

It really did change my life. I'm within 14.7 pounds of my final final goal weight--and THAT weight I haven't seen since 1974, the year I was 25 and returning from life in Thailand playing tennis--and sweating!--at the American Ambassador's residence with a neighbour, a little girl ready for kindergarten in tow.

I'm so grateful to Noom. So very, very grateful.