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Today marks the end of week six of MJ and my first full week after tirating up to 5mls. (If you want to read about week 1 and my weigh in after 7 days on MJ, then you can do so here, week 2 here, week 3 here, week 4 here and week 5 here).
Look, you know from last week that I was pretty nervous about the doubling in MJ from 2.5mls to 5. There are SO many horror stories online. You can read more about them on last week’s post. So, after all my researching and all my worry, guess what happened?
Nothing.
Literally no other side effects. Yes, I was still tired in a crushing heavy fashion at tea time, but that’s nothing new. Yes, I am still having to be careful with my fibre and water intake so that I don’t become one big walking poo storage facility. But these aren’t exactly awful consequences of weight loss without the omnipresent hunger, are they? I don’t think so.
On the plus side, well where do I begin? The little white spots I’d been noticing on my face (easily popped - I am one of those people) have stopped appearing, which is one less thing to attend to of a morning. I can maybe get back to focusing on my facial hair instead. My wardrobe continues to be a place of joy. I tried on a very old pair of NYDJ jeans yesterday. I did them up! Now, there’s no way on earth I’d actually manage to wear them. At a size 14 they were tight. But I got them on, which feels thrilling let me tell you. They’ve been languishing in my cupboard for years.
Now the next NSV (non scale victory) is a niche one for the yoga lovers amongst you. I was first introduced to yoga in around 1987 by Glynn Parker’s Mum who kindly taught classes to us primary age kids in the school hall amongst the lost Monster Munch and sweet aroma of pine local authority issue disinfectant. Glynn’s Mum was ahead of her time given the school was bang smack in the middle of a suburban council estate in the East Midlands. No-one else was teaching kids meditation, box breathing or how to contort their bodies into animal named positions. I loved it. Even before I hit double digits I knew I wasn’t a sporty girl, but yoga, well, I could get on board with laying on my back and focusing on my breathing.
Of course there was more to it than that. One of the positions Glynn’s Mum taught us was a shoulder stand. She didn’t call it that of course. She called it ‘cycling’. I loved the feeling of weightlessness as my legs rose over my body. If I closed my eyes tightly enough I was a gymnast, not an overweight 80’s school girl who couldn’t ride a bike. I made a promise to myself to ‘cycle’ and ‘be a crab’ daily, for the worry that one day I might lose these magical abilities.
Cut to my mid 20’s and I’d stopped. Drinking and dating and spending almost every waking hour at work got in the way. Years later, after my first son was born I tried to ‘be a crab’ and my core muscles laughed at me. My cycling and crabby days were over.
Until last week in a yoga class. Usually when we’re told to move into a shoulder stand I do something else. This time I’m not sure why or how it happened, but I did it. Yep, up I went. Everyone else carried on regardless. At the end of the class my yoga teacher quietly congratulated me. It felt good. Now this new ability to get into a shoulder stand isn’t just weight loss related, it’s a result of hours and hours of yoga, Pilates and barre classes. I know that. But here’s a not very popular truth; exercise is easier when you weigh less. Sorry, it just is.
I should say at this point that I am going to make the time in the next week or so to write a little on how it feels to take MJ, at the request of none other than Clover Stroud. She of ‘My Wild and Sleepless Nights’ fame. Clover left a comment on my last weigh in asking specifically:
Do the physical changes feel manageable or slightly scary? Does it feel worth swapping constipation (that sounds bad!!) for weight loss? Also, the exhaustion. how do you manage that? Also, what does food taste like now? Does it taste kind of gross? I am so curious to hear more!!
Now I don’t know about you, but when Clover gives you a writing prompt you don’t ignore it. So more on that another time.
All that’s left to say here is how much weight I’ve lost this week. (Drum roll)…
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