Setting achievable targets

I've made Monday's 'weigh in' day.

Current
Weight:  121.3 kgs       |       BMI: 41

Target
Weight:  87 kgs            |       BMI: 29.4

That means I have 34.3 kgs to lose. God help me.  I was sitting here thinking, "Ok, so how much is an achievable amount to lose per week?" I want to set my self obtainable goals, so I feel like I am getting somewhere.  Is half a kilo a week to low? Should I try and aim to lose 1kg per week?

So, for now.. I've decided that I'll stick to 0.5 kg per week, that seems pretty achievable with just small lifestyle and diet change. Ideally, I will kick my targets fair up the arse and be way ahead of myself. Awesome. But if I am only just meeting those targets, then atleast I can see that I'm 'on track' and getting somewhere.  Not beating myself up for not reaching goals.

At half a kilo per week with 34.3 kgs to lose, that will take me forever 68 weeks.  The unwritten goal within that, is I want to achieve that goal before Christmas 2010... so, one year away.

Does one set mini goals? And congratulate ones self for achieving said mini goals?  I've never really taken this whole weight loss thing seriously.  I've always been fairly happy with my size.  Well, if not fairly happy then I've not been unhappy enough to do anything about it.

I guess I've been a fortunate fatty. I didn't grow up with my parents or siblings or other kids at school criticising my weight.  Well, actually looking back I always felt and thought I was fat but I really wasn't. I just developed earlier and was much taller than other girls in my year (and the boys too for that matter!), so I always felt larger than I was.  I've always had friends that accepted me for who I am, never found it too difficult to get nice clothes, carry my weight rather well and had loads of male attention.  So, my weight never seemed to be that much of an issue.

Until now.

So, that said.  I am going to celebrate the mini victories where I can.  My first 'mini target' will be reaching 115kgs, and that will take my BMI under the 40 mark.  How shall I reward myself?

Back story anyone?

I'm 28, fat and I have PCOS and a septate uterus.  I hate that word, 'septate'. Everytime I hear it or think it, 'septic' flashes into my brain... I have a septic uterus. Urgh.

I'm not ready to have children yet.... well, actually that's not true. I've been ready since I was 16. So, let me rephrase. My relationship and my financial situation is not quite ready. But it's wayyyyyyyyyy up there on my agenda. It's something I want to seriously start thinking about, like, yesterday.

Sat here approaching my 29th birthday in a few months, weighing 121kgs (the same weight I've been for the last 8 years or so give or take a few kilos), I just wish I hadn't burried my head in the sand for as long as I have. 

I was diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) in late 2005.  In early 2006 I was having an internal ultrasound to determine if I had any cysts on my ovaries as part of my diagnosis. A minute or so in, with my legs spread wide and feeling rather vulnerable, the sonographer - a insensitive bitch nice woman in her early 30s - starts uttering just the thing you want to hear when you have a skinny police batton like contraption shoved up your nether regions by a stranger...

Sonographer: "Oh, hmm... ok, that's weird.  I've not seen that before."
Me: (veryyyyy concerned) "what? what haven't you seen before, what's weird? Is everything ok?"
Sonographer: "Just give me a minute, I need to try and understand what I'm looking at here."
Me: "oh... god... errrr, ok"

I mean, what choice did I have?  The balance of power clearly lay in her gloved hands.

What seems like hours passed...

Sonographer: "I'll be a back in a minute, I just need to go and get a colleague to take a look at this with me.  Don't move please."

Fuck.

She comes back with her colleague.  They take a look together and then reach for the shelves and pull of a binder. They start flipping through the pages, pointing at pictures and pointing at the ultrasound screen.  They were trying to match up my uterus! Oh crap!

Finally, the colleague leaves. I ask the sonographer to please explain what's going on. I can't handle much more of the suspense.

Sonographer: "Do you have two periods a month?"
Me: (what the hell??) "Umm, no. Why?"
Sonographer: "Are you periods extremely heavy and painful?"
Me: "No, when I get a period (about 4 times a year) its quite light and pain free.  Please, tell me what is going on."
Sonographer: "Well, it appears like you have two uteruses."
Me: "Excuse me? Two what? Is that even possible?!?!"

Turns out, it not only is possible to have two uteruses, but also two vaginas and two cervixes as well.  Who knew??  I certainly didn't. She booked me an appointment to see the consultant again. I went through a few more ultrasounds, 3D and 4D, and was diagnosed with a septate uterus. Not two uteruses at all, but rather one uterus that has a dividing wall of sorts splitting it into two cavities.  I can have a very simple operation to remove this, a hysteroscopy, but was told to go away and lose weight before it could be done.

If I don't have this operation, my chances of having a miscarriage are approximately 50% and if I did manage to carry a pregnancy my risk of pre-term labour are off the chart.  So, I need to have this operation if I ever want to have a baby of my own.

Life got in the way and here I am about three years later still needing to lose weight to have the operation.  Losing weight would also helped with the bad back I have as a result of a slipped disc caused by an assault two years ago and also with my symptoms of PCOS.  So why haven't I taken the bull by the horns years ago? I dunno.  Life, laziness and fear I guess. Fear that even if I lose weight I still won't be able to have my own family.

Enough of the psycho-analysis.

I'm angry!  Through my work, I was speaking with a top fertility specialist in the UK and he recommended me to a particular fertility surgeon in London to do the surgery. He said that because its a relative simple procedure, that the consultant telling me to lose weight first was bollocks. A brush off.  Fat people get brushed off by doctors all the freakin' time; doctors who rely on a bullshit BMI system to calculate someones health.  It's bollocks.

So, with renewed hope I went along to my GP and got a referral for said specialist.  I waited for my appointment which came through after six weeks.  I went along only to see somebody in the wrong department because my GP had got the referral wrong.  The registrar I saw made me another appointment for a months time to see the consultant I should have seen in the first place. 

I went to that appointment on the 11th of December and the consultant wasn't there, I saw one of his colleagues instead. After asking me whether I smoke (no), drink (no), have any heart problems (no) he said, incredibly awkwardly, that I would need to get my BMI down to under 30 before I will be considered for the elective procedure.

I didn't elect to have a uterus abnormality that requires me to have surgery before I can have a baby.  That was not something I chose! I've done my research. As far as procedure's go, it's a fairly simple one that would be over in less than 20 minutes.

I was dismissed from the clinic and driven into the depths of despair for the next week. 

So, now here I am.  28.7 years old.  I need to lose approx. 30kgs ASAP so I can have the hysterscopy and start thinking about having a family.  As it is, having PCOS is going to make it incredibly hard for me to lose weight.  If it takes me a year to lose the weight, that makes me almost 30. It can literally take years for someone with PCOS to conceive, even with fertility treatment. 

Tick, tick, tick tick

I need to get started!