So, how did I choose my weight loss method?

I've tried a few over the years. I haven't been a constant dieter, trying every new fad that comes along. But over the period of the last 15 years there has been:
Weight Watchers under the old exchange system. Lost about 10kg, got bored, bounced back up.
Jenny Craig. Lost about 15kg, learned absolutely nothing about healthy eating and felt like barfing every time I looked at the packaged food. Bounced back up and over.
My one attempt at a diet that really sounded wrong to me - Atkins - lasted three days till the caffeine withdrawal had me so sick I couldn't get out of bed.

That doesn't mean I only ever thought about losing weight three times in all those years. It was a thought that was pretty close to the surface much of the time. But it was easily pushed back down again - I'm not that fat, I'm happy the way I am, I'm too busy, diets never work. I had all the reasons (excuses).

However, once the decision was made that I finally had to do something about this, I knew this time the decision would stick. This was no impulse or knee-jerk reaction to one bad day. In the months I took to decide to make the change to my life, I also built up a strength of resolve that ensured THIS time I would make it.

Having decided to change, I needed to decide how to do it. The options were very quickly narrowed. Anything that sounded like a fad - not a style of eating I could see myself following for the rest of my life - was quickly off the list. JC didn't appeal again because of the cost and because it didn't seem real to me.

So, from early on, WW seemed my best option. But I'd been there before and couldn't face the thought of the meetings. Not that there's anything wrong with them - that's just not a form of motivation that works for me.

But then some web research found their At Home programme and I was set. This was just what I needed.

One thing I had to make myself do at the start was get over my misplaced intellectual snobbery. I needed to recognise that I was scoffing at things like visualisation not because they were silly, but because I was actually scared of trying them. And that was one of the traits that had let me down in the past.

And once I got over my discomfort, I found that these things really worked! When I was out walking I'd imagine how good it would feel when I could stride up and down hills without puffing (and wanting to pass out). I loved the buzz I felt getting on the scales at the end of the week and knowing it was MY efforts that had made that number drop (note to self: it would be pretty good to recapture that feeling about now).

Finally I was on my way - and once I had started it really wasn't that hard - and there was no holding me back.