Monday night’s meeting nearly got violent. Mr Scale and I were locked in battle. He wasn’t convinced by my pleas for mercy, my claims of having worked really hard to stick to plan all week. He wanted to give me a mediocre result for the week and if I wanted more, I had to fight for it. I was up and down on that damn thing so many times it looked like I had developed a sudden need to do step aerobics. Finally, after shedding a layer and nipping to the loo, he finally caved in… another 3lb gone! So, that’s a total loss of…

5st 13lb or 83lb or 37.6kg

One piddly pound away from another award. This one will put me a third of the way through my journey, and if I get there next week I’ll still be (almost) on track with my plan to string the ‘one stone a month’ losses out as long as possible. If I don’t get there next week, let me warn you all now, I will be emotional to say the least.

Not that I wasn’t emotional last week. This journey, campaign, mission, whatever you want to call it, is a huge deal to me. It signifies my escape from the cosy lardy cocoon I made for myself since my early 20s. It’s the kindest and most important thing I have done for myself since slipping young Mr Randall my telephone number back in early 1996. So, every now and then, I get a smidge moved by it all. I read the success stories in the magazine, read Margaret’s monthly column, and I get all weepy at the thought that in the not too distant future, I’m going to have a success story of my own.

Last week at group, I had that emotion welling up as I helped Saint Frankie with the start of the session. By the time everybody had settled down for the meeting I was struggling. I couldn’t handle being there, it was just too much. So I left early, and sobbed in the car park. Daft bugger.

Anyway, I felt a need for an extra SW fix this morning so I called in on Katrina at her Thursday morning group, where she adopted a Halloween theme and greeted all her members sporting a witches’ hat. Hmm. As if weigh-in day isn’t scary enough as it is.

That’ll do for this week. The journey continues!