All change again! (But it's the last time I promise...)

I hope you have all been enjoying the recent sunshine: it's a shame Easter didn't fall this week! However, it is not just the beautiful weather that is giving me such optimism at the moment. I am still making progress on my weight target, inching up towards halfway. Even my therapist at the ED clinic had to agree. This week we had our shortest session ever as her advice was simply to "keep on with the plan".

But I only wish that this progress had started three months ago. It would have given me a little more leeway in case things start to plateau later. I'm still going up against the wire and can't afford to slacken the pace for a second.

Still, at least things are (finally) going in the right direction. I am feeling less desperate and hopeless, and am finally having more peace in my mind. It is a clichéd paradox in the ED world that it gets easier to challenge the negative thoughts as you start to put on weight - but that black voice makes it so hard to do just that! Yet it seems to be true for me. As the scales tip upwards, I am finding the mental strength to say "Shut up Anna" when she would make me feel guilty, bloated, sick and miserable. I still feel bad that so much of my life seems to be about eating and that I am having so many calorie-dense foods at the moment. Yet I do feel more able to justify this. I tell myself:

- This food is my ticket back to my PhD. If I don't make the target, I will feel a lot worse about NOT eating this food now than I could by eating it

- This is only temporary! Life can be about other things, once I get to where I should be.

After all, when cancer patients undergo chemotherapy, you would expect their life to be focused around their treatment until it ends. You certainly wouldn't advocate that they approach it half heartedly. But when the course is over, the illness can drop back to being a lesser focus in life insignificant part of life, if any.

Meanwhile, I'm afraid I have to admit that the walk plan has changed again. I have really struggled to "connect the dots" on Offa's Dyke and work out a plan for accommodation (it just wouldn't be feasible for me to try and heft camping gear all that way!). After sending hundreds of emails and only receiving two (negative) replies, I am admitting defeat. But there is also another reason - I was never truly drawn to Offa's Dyke and only chose it as it seemed the logical candidate after I gave up the Pennine Way (for now). What I really wanted was to complete a walk based in the Peak District. So I have chosen (and this is IT now, FINAL ANSWER!) the WHITE PEAK WAY , an 80 mile circuit of the glorious Peaks, with 13,000 ft of ascent. As this is based on the YHA network, accommodation shouldn't be a problem. It should also make it easier for any of my Sheffield-based friends to join me for a section if they so wish! I will be posting details of my planned stages on the "Walk" page on this blog soon so stay tuned.

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoy the rest of this week.