But before even that, I would like say a big thank you to everyone out there who has followed this blog, put up with my tardiness in posting and left feedback over the last 12 months I have found them incredibly motivating and encouraging.

A special big thank you to spike!, sideliner, nellc and lovehandles for their prolific posts, gentle nudges and kicks up the bum – all of which I duly needed. Thanks guys I hope you keep it up this year!

I should be able to blog a bit more regularly now that the Christmas and New Year rush is over at work, although these days I always seem to be busy!

Last year my goal was to lose between 25-30 kilos, unfortunately I fell a bit short, although I had lost 23 kilos a couple of weeks before Christmas my Christmas excess meant I lost a total of 21 kilos for the year. Although I was initially disappointed with this I haven’t gained any more weight and have in fact lost a kilo since Christmas - maybe the 2 kilos was all alcohol

This is the first time in my life that I have lost this much weight and kept it off over such an extended time, several years ago while doing a protein style diet I lost a similar amount of weight in about half the time but put it all back on by the end of the year and then added to it the next. I think the main reason I am being so successful this time is my more realistic approach to weight loss.

I finally made the realisation that there is no magic bullet. It takes time, patience and a daily determination to change the bad habits that got me into this situation in the first place. So off into the New Year I go….now I just need a plan…..stayed tuned!

My BIA result was very odd and made no sense, which was a tad worrying until I realised that the battery was flat, I had somehow missed the flashing sign on the screen. That probably had something to do with sleep deprivation as I had been staying up late to get through the last Harry Potter book before someone accidentally slipped up and told me the ending. Now that I am done (It was very good by the way) I am going to try and get some catch up sleep as sleep deprivation inhibits fat loss, and we can’t have that!!!

So I will try and redo my BIA this week and hopefully the lack of sleep since Saturday night won’t interfere too much with this weeks results…fingers crossed

One of the downsides of losing this much weight and size is the continual need for new clothes, although I understand many of you may see this as an upside, it really gives me the ….. well you get the picture.  But an incident the other day may have changed my mind on this stubbornness not to buy new clothes every five kilos or so.

I decided to take our son out for some breakfast and to do some shopping while leaving my wife at home for a sleep in a couple of Sundays ago, anyway without thinking I threw on a top and my favourite jeans and braved the madness that is the shopping centre. I did notice when I put my jeans on that they were a little loose, but I didn’t think much of it, that was a mistake. As we walked around the centre picking up odd bits and pieces it wasn’t long until I was loaded down with bags and it was time to head back to the car. At this stage of course our son had started to get tired and I thought I could carry him and the bags all at the same time, it was then as I stood on the travelator with no free hands that I first noticed that my jeans were heading south, it was a very slow decline but it was noticeable, I managed to hike them up a bit with the grocery arm and headed into the car park. I strolled toward our car, with someone stalking me in their car for my spot, my pants started heading south again, panic started to set in as I tried to hold on to them with my grocery arm while trying not to disturb a now dozing 3 1/3 year old, by the time I got to the car one side of my jeans was half down making me look like M.C. fat white bastard and the other half was been held up by a badly fatiguing arm. I had no choice I had to wake the child to save by dignity and to get out of there, he thankfully fell asleep again in the car, which unfortunately gave me the same holding child and grocery’s scenario while opening the front door. This led me to entering the house with my pants around my ankles while praying that the neighbour’s who entered their driveway at the same time as me didn’t think it was too odd to see me trying to open the door with my legs spread as far as possible in the vain attempt to keep my pants from falling down in public, it was unfortunately a fruitless attempt, but it could have been worse, the very old looking couple in the car following me in the car park could have really been in for a treat