Dear Me,

It’s March 2018 already and your attempts to ‘start again’ in January failed after about a week and a half. The standard pattern is to repeat this throughout the year but it will fail all over again and you will end up fatter and unhappier. You will miss out on a hundred opportunities because you feel so terrible and will disappear inside yourself, affecting relationships with your loved ones and your working life. You will convince yourself that you will give it one more try (and one more try, and one more try, tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow).

This has been the pattern many, many years.

You have tried every diet under the sun and they never – ever – work after the first few days/weeks. However, you tried 5:2 (with occasional 4:3) a couple of years ago and it was slow but sure. You lost weight, felt better and were still able to have a social life and enjoy amazing food – unlike VLCDs, extreme low fat, extreme low carb etc etc. But then you convinced yourself that [insert excuse here].

I am writing to ask you to give it one year to see how it goes, with no restrictions other than: don’t eat processed crap. That’s it. Nothing is out of bounds as long as you stick to your fast days. Enjoy it. Take it slowly, breathe, relax.

I am looking forward to tracking your progress over the year and you coming back to this post regularly to remind yourself what you need to do and why you are doing it.

You have amazing willpower for doing exercise and it is the one thing that has kept you from going under completely. Keep it up, improve on it, feel the strength growing in your body.

Oh, and stop stressing about absolutely everything. There’s not much you can do about most of it. And maybe learn to love yourself a little bit along the way.

How have we done? I’m really looking forward to a massive celebration, hoping it will be epic.

Love, Me.

Hi Penguin

Thank you for your wise words. I am with you on the gym membership – I must have had ten memberships over the years that I paid hundreds of pounds for and used a handful of times before giving up in the second or third week of January.

I am on my second fast day for week one so baby steps but I’m determined to stick with it.

Thank you again, it’s great to have some encouragement.

Hello Penz, thank you for you comments and I truly hope those are the words I will be writing too. I will look back on your post in one year’s time and hopefully say “thanks Penz, I did it!”.

Hello Diverdog, thank you also for your kind words and I will join the March group – a fantastic idea. I’m also determined not to let my negative thinking derail me. Slow and steady this time is the plan and I feel like I’ve let the air out of the balloon by writing my letter, and finally giving up on the idea of quick fixes.

Hello Chris48, thank you and I’m so delighted you are getting back on track. It’s amazing isn’t it; we waste so much of our lives obsessing about food and doing these diets that make us unhappy and less healthy. I am a slow loser too but I need to be more realistic and just keep going. I’m in a different frame of mind this time and comments like yours really help. Maybe we could check in on progress from time to time. Australia – how lovely. I’ve never made it that far south but I’m imagining you there, sitting with a drink at sunset being content, healthy and the weight you would like to be.

Hello FatFingers, thank you for the words of encouragement. I’ve just been reading through the March challenge postings and it’s great to learn how people do things in their own way – with some great tips for us newbies.

Congratulations on sticking with it for 4 months. I’m hoping to make this a way of life too and look forward to reading your thread.

It really does seem to be a wonderful community and I’m looking forward to listening to, and learning from, all the amazing people on here.