Hello fellow campers,
I'm back from an amazing time away and a planned off-piste meal and a totally unplanned off-piste meal and ANOTHER glass of "diet" pepsi whilst out that was actually full-sugar pepsi so weight likely back on from the good loss I had last week.
And am back 
from my first ever MN "flounce" in 7 years - thank you, for the encouragement, and I just want to explain and then draw a line
------------ like so at the end.
I put on a lot of weight after a major injury and much further surgery, and an emotionally dreadful time after the events that led to my stopping drinking, and I am not offering those as excuses, but those are the reasons. So I am losing 3/4/5 stone for health reasons. For improving my chances at regaining as much mobility as possible given the nature of my irreversible injuries. And I am doing it like this because I believe in all the health reasons that will benefit me on the way, regardless of how much or how fast I lose.
What I refuse to allow even a toe-hold in my thinking is any thought of body image and connecting my self-worth to that, and concerns about looks, what other people see, or think, or valuing myself more or thinking better of myself at a "normal", "slim", "pre-child(ren)" weight or figure. But society and the world tells us to believe in all these things, and the weight loss and beauty industry capitalises on the fact that we all can start thinking this way, and once you start it's very hard to stop. But I believe this stuff is harmful lies.
And in the past weeks I've realised that most people don't think this way, that being so tough with myself and my thinking is perhaps unusual, and some would say joyless. I've also realised how easy it is to start picking up those sorts of things from others, and that dissatisfaction with my looks and how my weight looks was creeping in to my thinking, and looking better was creeping into my motivation. I find that really unhealthy for my self-esteem.
But I really value the encouragement and the place to come where people think like I am about food, and about relationship with food and the ability to turn around habits of recent years, or of lifetimes, and I enjoy hearing about you all, and the positivity that exists here. I need to balance it - I find it easy to get really drawn in to a thread like this as a place to let my guard down and get too involved. So I'm sorry if I confused anyone, or if my hard line on self image has upset anyone with the things I've said that I thought were helpful.
And here is a line
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I've learned a lesson from the first, planned, carby twat meal - where I enjoyed the occasion, and every mouthful, it was wonderful... and the second time where I got pulled into it by DH (excuses, excuses) and felt guilty about most mouthfuls.
Having lost 3lb last week I put more than that back on which by what others have said about off-track meals should come off soon enough but I am disappointed about my willpower, and some failing to plan too - which I thought I had under control, but it turned out that I didn't .
Ah well, day 3 of being back on track today, and I agree very much about the bloating. Still full of the same cold, awful sinus pain and headaches and sniffles - 13 days now, feel like I've felt ill for aaaaages
Will try a Crabby-esque post in a bit! It's good to be back :)