Happy 2nd Weight Watch-a-versary!

It's the end of August which means only one thing... Happy 2nd Weight Watch-a-versary to me! It's been quite a different year than the previous one (Link here) in that I lost 99lbs in my first year of Weight Watchers. I went from 19st 2lbs to 12st 1lbs.

The first year of Weight Watchers

Now look at my 2nd year graph (The red line is my Target/Goal weight of 12st - 168lbs).

Ya. Not great is it?! As of today, I am 22.5lbs off Goal Weight - thats a stone and a half (and a bit!). Now I'm not making excuses or anything, but over the 2nd year... here is what this graph doesn't show:

I ran two marathons

I clocked my fastest 5K, 10K and Half Marathon times

I started cycling

I cycled the Ring of Kerry (180km)

I quit smoking

I got married

Now, the first five of these clearly put me in a better place in terms of my overall health and fitness irrespective of weight while the last one (getting married) explains that giant bump last month when I took an unofficial 5 week break from weight watchers. 

My point, however, is two-fold - on one hand:

While on the other:

I believe 100% that weight and fitness are not destinations, they have no finish line. I've surprised myself over and over with my ability to focus solely on a goal only to find when I cross the finish line there, I have set myself another finish line to chase. This blog after all is called '19st to 10K' as it was originally meant to document my journey to running my first 10K.  What happened when I hit the 10K? It became a faster 10K, then a half, then another half, then the full marathon.

While it's true... it is not the mountain we conquer, I've also learned that the view and personal achievement from climbing whatever self-imposed mountain I have place in front of me has been far more rewarding than anything I could have imagined. Weight Watchers has worked for me as it's given me a framework to keep myself accountable to the one person that it matters to, me. Yesterday, I came across this quote from Katie Piper which really hit everything home to me:

So now, two years on I feel my outlook on the future is even more positive than last year. I now know that it is hard but I also know that it's not all about the number on the scale. I know that I will always have a relationship my weight, food and fitness be constant. These are not going to go away once I hit goal weight if run a sub 3 hour marathon. All I can do is be me, stay happy, stay healthy and keep looking to the next mountain for me to climb.

Two years later (March 2012 v July 2014)