So, I may be the slackest blogger in history.

Sorry about that. I could say that things will change, but they probably won’t. I will probably continue to suck at blogging.

But today I am social media free – I have made the commitment to do this once a week and switch off at 9 each night.

Now I have done some crazy scary stuff since I began this journey, but this one has my heart rate higher than it has ever been.

It’s kind of a competition thing with the other person involved and there is no way that she is going to win.  So I’ll do it.

Not that I’m competitive.

So writing this (obviously not publishing it till tomorrow) but writing this is my way of dealing with day 1. This way I still get to narrate my life. Because let’s face it, that’s what social media allows us to do – we tell our story rather than just be our story.

But here’s the thing, I’m ready to be the story of Cathy Sheargold.

Not the story where I drop a heap of weight and I am the ex-fat girl, the ‘wow, it’s so amazing you lost all that weight’ girl or the ‘do you have much loose skin’ girl or the “what’s your secret’ girl.

Just me.

I am ready for the story of me.

It’s shaping up to be a pretty good read.  Might even be a best seller.

It all brings me back to the many references to home. Did ya notice that? It’s kinda been a theme of mine.

Coming Home

and I think I have.

I think I am actually home.

I have collected these incredible, amazing, inspiring, passionate, kooky people into my life, who have taught me so very much about myself and the world and…. I dunno, number 42.

The 12WBT has given me a safe place to practice being me and not shrinking away from who I am meant to be.

I really wish they would get rid of the B, come to think of it the 12W should go too.

I am being drawn back to old passions that I had let myself forget, music and theatre and great literature and art and… stuff.

I am dreaming and planning and being unapologetic for wanting a big life. All this is wrapped up in a feeling of calm.

This is what home feels like.

This morning I danced around in my underwear in the living room and sang very very very loudly because I am so excited about my life.

Just over a year ago it was very different.

So different that I find it hard to completely remember who I was being then.

 I say who I was being because I certainly wasn’t being me, I wasn’t home then.

I thought that coming home would mean that I would approach my life with certainty, that I would walk around knowing exactly who I am, but that’s not it at all. I look at life and say “let’s see if this is who I am”.

Let’s see.

Just a thought - Failure vs Quitting. Failure is that glorious thing that happens when you give 100% of yourself to something but you fall short of the goals you set. Not many people fail - you need to commit to something to fail. Failure means that you are testing your limits and you are growing. 
Aim to fail.
Quitting is what we mistake for failing. Every time you have ' failed' at quitting weight, you can be pretty sure what you actually did was quit.
Never quit.
It is very very very hard to fail at dropping weight. 
Success is inevitable.

"I know it's late

But I couldn't wait to call you on the phone

it's been a while since I've been at home

All of this was my own choice

Since the man upstairs has given me this voice

No matter how long it takes

No matter how hard the breaks

I've gotta use it!

Or lose it!

I just can't stand to refuse

A chance to do what I've gotta do

I've got to sing my song"




Oleta Adams, I've gotta sing my song

I am finally finding  my own tune 

Last night I did Emazon Mindfit. I am sceptical about anyone and anything that someone turns into a Guru and there are certainly people who have done that with Emazon. Generally that means that is just someone who has been able to give them the brief history of time even more briefly than the last person did. 

Emazon certainly does that - she pulls together Quantum Physics,  Pendulum magic, Meditation, Neurology, Meditation, Mind Mapping, Nutrition,  Chinese Medicine and a bit of Biff too. She doesn't claim to do anything other than that. 

Oh - and she listens better than most people I have come across in life. She sits quietly within herself, listens to what you have said and then feeds back to you what you have REALLY just said.

This is one smart cookie and a passionate one at that.

I gotta tell you I love the Biff - I previously spent a lot of time being afraid of hitting someone or even just hitting something, but now I love the biff. I love that the skin on my knuckles is is bruised, cut, red - I feel strong.  For a woman a punch is a big deal, in the beginning there is a voice that runs through your head "Girls don't hit. What if you hurt someone? It's wrong to hit. People will think you are a bad person" But deeper than that my voice had been saying "Oh no, what if I'm strong? If I'm strong, then I need to stop playing this game where I quit." 

I have boxed before - not in the ring, Pads. And I have hit hard, but this time it was MMA gloves, gloves where you get to feel the contact and therefore feel your strength and the biff reminded me - 


I AM POWERFUL. I HAVE EVERYTHING I NEED. 

I like hittin' shit.

In my first Emazon session one of the other people there said "They  needed to stop comparing themselves to people who seemed to have their stuff together"  [pause] "Like Cathy"

This made me angry, really really angry and I replied with..
"I just want people to STOP thinking I have my stuff together - All I am is consistent."
I stewed on this, cried about this later when I got home. 
What I thought I was crying about was this - I thought I was frustrated because people weren't seeing me as a real person. A real flawed, struggling to work shit out Person. I felt like if people weren't seeing my struggling than they were judging my journey as easy.  That I had some magical answer. I don't. 

Maybe they thought this, maybe they didn't.  But that wasn't the truth as to what was going on for me. 
At the end of my final Emazon we did a guided meditation, in this meditation we met ourselves, she gave me a message - 

You are not working towards Extraordinary, you are remembering it.


I cried. I got it. These people that call me amazing and inspirational and think I have it all together - what has bugged me about this was my fear of taking a punch and finding my power. It has been easier to be annoyed than to say - 'Yes, I am powerful, I am extraordinary' 

We all are.


We just need to remember that. 

Someone asked me about cravings...

Cravings are a tricky thing. First up I try to get in before the cravings start, lots of protein in my snacks and heaps of green veges generally do it. My theory is that a craving is just your body screaming out for a quick energy hit. Water, water and more water! How much are you drinking? I do a minimum of 3l each day. You also need to become more deliberate with your eating; start dining instead, serve food up beautifully and savour every mouth full. Know your calories, if you know that eating that chocolate equates to an extra hour at the gym it really really helps! Remember that you CAN eat anything all you are doing is making little choices to say no right now.

This is the thing I did for Shape Magazine.  Unfortunately they used the "I'm a big smug wanker" photo :P

Shape Magazine -   http://www.shapemagazine.com.au/

Yes, I have neck waddle.  It has appeared over the last month or so. Along the way I have had other bits that sagged, most of which are starting (slowly) to tone. But I had never really thought about the neck waddle and it bothers me! It really really really bothers me! 
Although - it is kind of fun to play with, in honour of the Waddle I have made a short Vlog...

Well, not the complete story. I don't actually have my starting picture. I was about 30kgs heavier in it. I couldn't bring myself to do a photo in my undies. So this is just 2012. This Bridges chick might be on to something :)

I believe that change should be celebrated. In this day and age  there is far too little ritual in our lives. We rush madly through each moment scrambling to survive and in doing this we forget to thrive.  I have made a point of celebrating and taking symbolic steps along this journey home and one of the monumental steps happened a little over a week ago.
It was then that I climbed the mountain. A real honest to God mountain. From the first moment I saw her it was love. Now climbing a mountain would be enough to write an entry about - but it was the ritual that made this so special.

The List
The night before I sat in the freezing cold in front of a camp fire, with another 12WBTer RuthP, writing our lists. It began as a list of ways I had let the weight hold me down. But as I keep discovering on this journey, the list became something much greater. 
It turned into a list of letting go; old wounds, old concepts of myself. Things that I didn't realise I was carrying around ended up on that list.
Once we4 had finished our lists we read them in silence and then... we burned those suckers. We then collected the ashes. Ruth made a comment about how light and insignificant our lists had become. This other weight we had been carrying around for so long had been reduced to something so incredibly small.

The Climb and a a new day
At 3am we met the other 12WBTers (and my very reluctant sister) to begin the climb. It was cold. It was dark. I had the Flu. I am not going to write about the climb itself, that's something between me and the mountain.
But that first line of light that spread itself along the horizon was spectacular and each moment between then and seeing the new day in it's entirety was simply stunning.
As the new day dawned Ruth and I released our list to the mountain. She is now carrying those burdens for us.  

 I had said initially that I would write a new list when I was up there, a list of who am now and who I am becoming; but I realised something, I don't want a list of who I am because I'm enjoying the fact that I keep surprising myself along the way. 


We walked down the mountain into our new day.