Hello there!

I wish I had started this last week as so much has happened. Very briefly I have decided now is the time to face some serious gremlins. I have had a bad relationship with food for over twenty years and I am determined to not pass my bad behaviour and attitudes onto my beautiful daughter. She is of an age where she notices everything now - including mummy stuffing a sneaky biscuit in her gob! So its time to teach this old Cat (ok not that old!) some new tricks about eating food

So I began this journey (sorry to sound like someone on a reality tv show!) by seeing a CBT counsellor and really pulling apart why I have done what I do, what fuels it and how I hope to change. That process still continues, and I'm not sure how much detail I will share on that subject yet. But despite increased personal awareness I was left still feeling scared of what food to buy, cook, eat and every day I will regret eating something. So I decided I needed some kind of dietary framework to work in.

I'm not going to promote the system I chose to follow (they have advertising budgets for that!) though some people my guess from the terms I use. I went in this direction as I was impressed by the change of attitude my brother had on this system, I craved to have such a level headed relationship with food. I really want to stress now this is not a blog about how to lose weight though of course that will be a pleasant side effect. This blog is to chart my relationship with food as I attempt to break the crazy rules I have put in place over the years and teach myself and my daughter how to eat healthily.

The first week has been a huge eyeopener for me, I have never eaten so much food! Three meals a day that are leaving me so full up I rarely even think about snacking between meals. I have heard the saying 'you have to eat to loose' but never dared to believe it or try it in case I put more weight on, restricting my food to unhealthy levels was the only way I knew to loose weight. This 'old trick' was of course rubbish as I would just end up breaking at some point and eating a huge amount the next day. I was amazed that in the first week I had lost 3lb - but try not to focus on that figure as it is more important that I was full and my fruit and veg intake went through the roof. I am constantly taking photos of my food on my phone as it is so colourful, and to remind me how good eating healthily is if I feel an urge to return to my old ways.

The most important change for me was that I didn't feel guilty about what I ate as I not only knew but understood what I had eaten that day so no panic. This is a breakthrough in my mental process and I am so excited about it as to me it shows real change. I will add in other things that have happened in this first week as I go along as I am not sure I can remember everything tonight but I hope that recording these changes will help them to become my new tricks and rules and in time become second nature to me

Well that's the plan for this blog anyway, lets see where it actually goes :-)