I used to say that I’m rubbish at losing weight but that’s simply not true. The reality is, I’m brilliant at losing weight – over the last twenty years I’ve lost the same 60lb more times than I care to remember! It’s always been a case of knowing what I needed to do and then, so long as I did it, the weight would come off. And then go back on again. And then off again. And then on again and … you get the idea! ?

Until this year. The first quarter of this year I found myself facing a bit of a health crisis. Okay, a fairly mini health crisis, it’s not like I had cancer or depression or anything else horribly debilitating, but I wasn’t in a good place. I was lethargic, cold all the time, my focus was shot to pieces and, to top it all, my usual routine for losing weight refused to make any difference.

I went to the doctor, hoping she’d tell me my thyroid was under-active (there’s a magic pill for that. Yay medicine!) but nope, the results came back as normal. Still though I felt rotten. As a bit of an experiment I decided to give up gluten for Lent. Just one week in I felt like a new person! Or, more like the person I’d always been until this most recent slump. Symptoms that I didn’t even know might be symptoms disappeared with the gluten. It was like magic!

Feeling so, so much better, I didn’t give much thought to my little weight issue. I lost a few pounds (probably as a natural result of not eating toast slathered with butter!) but then that was it. I didn’t care though. I was feeling great and that was all that mattered.

Just recently though it’s been niggling at me again. Am I really destined to remain in this slightly curvier than average frame? I’m happy to embrace my curves, I’m never going to be a waif, but I have been a bit slimmer and wouldn’t it be nice to be so again? And, probably even more frustratingly, why aren’t the things I was doing before working any more?

And then over the weekend I happened across a book called The Daniel Plan, with it’s focus on fitness and faith. That sounds like exactly my kind of thing, I thought, and so I decided to read it. I’ve only just started it so I can’t tell you anything about it yet but what I can tell you is, as a result of starting this book and picking at the niggle, my brain is trying to trip me up:

“Why are you bothering? It’s too late to start thinking about all this nonsense again! Be content with who you are. Why waste your energy on something that’ll never work?”

But it’s never too late, not unless we say it is.

And yes, my example today is health stuff but the same is true for whatever is important to you. You can try again. You don’t have to settle. And it is possible to be completely content with who you and yet still want to make a change. The two are not mutually exclusive.

And so today, at the start of this brand new week and the last week of the school year (here at least. I gather my friends in the US finished weeks ago!) consider this your encouragement to look again at those things that are important to you.

It’s only too late if you say it is so please don’t let anyone (even the little voice in your own head!) tell you otherwise. Thank you ?