2018: THE YEAR I...
...finally cracked the real secret to losing weight
NEVER in my life have I kept a New Year’s resolution. When I was young, I was endlessly giving up chocolate, fags, booze, unsuitable boyfriends, trashy TV — to no avail.
Then, as I grew older, it became more about positive self-improvement: joining a gym, eating ‘clean’, keeping a diary, exercising, proper sleep, hygiene. Again, hopeless.
I blame my stars. After all, I’m an Aries: superlative at starting things, full of energy and enthusiasm for that first exciting push, but less keen on the subsequent slog and bored to tears by routine. Like countless other good intentions, my New Year’s resolutions were yesterday’s dreams by February, distant regrets by spring.
But 2018 was the year that all changed, when I finally stuck to my New Year’s resolution: shifting (almost) all of my excess weight.
In fairness, I had a bit of a head-start on the year. In autumn 2017, following several rather uncomfortable conversations about my weight with my doctor, I took myself off to the Viva Mayr clinic in Austria. It wasn’t the first time I had tried a weight-loss clinic — indeed, I’ve lost count of the amount of time and money I’ve frittered away on these sorts of places — but, this time, I was determined to succeed.
My weight, you see, had shifted from being a purely aesthetic problem, an impediment to looking half-decent in a bathing costume,