I believe people are sent to you for a reason. You might not realise it at the time, but at some point it will all become clear just why a certain person was sent to you, and what they taught you.  

The clever ones notice at the time and act accordingly. 

We had a lovely lodger living with us for a year, and she just moved out in March. She was a fitness fanatic. She went to the gym 3 or 4 times a week, often doing two classes a night. She was slim and healthy, and often invited me to go with her.

I never went.  She did park runs on a Saturday morning.  Although I’d lost nearly 8 stone on my weightloss journey, my fitness was nowhere near hers. 

Although I kind of knew that if I went along I’d end up getting fitter, I never went.  While she lived here, her boyfriend also took up the fitness/weight loss gauntlet and lost a staggering 3 stone in 3 months.

I knew that could have been me, and I felt disappointed that I had let the opportunity go by. 

Instead, in the year she was here, I put on nearly 2 stone, emotional eating due to a damaging relationship, apathy, comfort eating, not cycling the 16 miles a day to work I’d been doing the previous year.

When she left we were all distraught, like we were losing a member of the family. We weren’t sure we’d find another lodger like her, and I felt like I had missed a great opportunity to get properly fit for once in my life.

We had a month lodger free, then the new guy moved in last week.  Slightly overweight and by his own admission, a geek, he immediately announced that he was going to embark on a juice fast, having seen the movie Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead. 

I told him he didn’t need to buy a juicer, I had a good one sitting gathering dust at the back of a cupboard. He bought all his fruit and veg and began his journey.  

On day two, I decided to watch the movie.  Inspired, I then watched the follow up, Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead 2. Then I had two Breakaways and a chocolate brownie.

I woke up this morning with the same thought that I have every single morning – ugh, I feel so fat, my life would be so much better if I lost weight. Then it hit me.

The new lodger was sent to me to inspire me to a juice fast. Nothing had ever been clearer to me. It was like an epiphany. 

So off I went to the car boot sale to buy fruit and veg at knock down market prices from the traders there.  Filled up my cow print trolley and couldn’t wait to get started.

  I weighed myself, and promised myself that, 4 weeks from today, celebrating my birthday in Paris with friends, I WILL be thinner.

Wish me luck!