So nearly 30 days have passed and I am reflecting back on what I have learned. I certainly didn't expect to learn so much, it is so overused and is such a cliche but I have been on a bit of a journey to try and get back to fitness.

On the plus side, I have been on a downwards trend where my weight is concerned and and upwards trend on my health.

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It should be this easy, in an ideal world, this is all that you really do, but the mind is a funny thing and tricks you into thinking that you are eating less and exercising more.

So I adopted a few strategies that have helped me.

These Strategies are addressing some of the habits and beliefs that have kept me putting on weight.

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My daily strategies now include

• Portion Size
• Mindful Eating
• Daily Exercise
• Limiting my Treats
• Still enjoying life
• being aware of my "secret" eating
• Drink more water
• No one else really cares, only you are accountable for your own actions

These have all be working for me, and every day I try to embed them into my daily routines.

The weekends

I work hard over the week, stick to my diet and then blow out on the weekends, it was only when I started looking at what I was doing that I really recognized how truly unhealthy I was being at the weekends. I used myfitnesspal for a weekend to record my calorie intake and I think that I had eaten my days calorie intake by about 11AM on a Saturday morning. I do still relax at weekends but within reason and this weekend syndrome probably carries over into these 30 day fitness

Ive finished :-)

I have only just began, this is just the start of it. I found myself yesterday planning what I was going to eat over the weekend to "celebrate" the end of my wee journey into healthy land.

The one thing that these 30 days have taught me, is that I have to find a way to enjoy this, I have to be able to love this new healthy lifestyle or at least look at reasons to follow it.

My family

This is the one thing that is really driving me to keep at this, I have two young children a 5 year old and a 4 week old and I desperately want to live to see them grow up and be fit and healthy well into my 80's...if I start now I have a good chance of doing that.

Exercises

I have been lucky that the rain has kept of (a near miracle in Ireland) while I went for my morning and afternoon walks. @trevor.george has been incredibly supportive through these 30 days and has slowly recommended that I start running again, I think that this may be the next set of exercise that I start and I will look at starting a couch to 5K program.

Weigh in day tomorrow

I think that this week's trend may not be as good as other weeks, I don't think that an upwards trend will start but I have been a bit tired this week and my old behavior of "I deserve" a treat crept in a bit at the evenings, but rather than having crisps and fizzy drink, I had a small bowl of grapes and some broken up crackers (which were by the way, very nice). I will be happy if I have remained the same weight.

The future

I am not going to blog every single day about the minutiae of my eating and exercising, like most people I have many interests and opinions, so I think that I will look for a new 30 day challenge (I kind of need goals to aim for) but I will definitely commit to posting once a week on Friday to give an update on my weight loss. If nothing else, my trend upwards or downwards will be

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As always, thanks to everyone who has supported me during this challenge, it is all very much appreciated.

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Thanks to @ryivhnn for his creativity and generosity in giving me this, check out his excellent posts.