Hi to Tracy and Bubbles.  Thank you both for your lovely coments and for your encouragement.  It's inspiring to hear from other women who are further down the path I am trying to get on, and who are so positive.

So, I have gone back to work this week.  It feels good to start getting a bit of a routine back on our lives.  For the last 12 years I have been doing shift work, and for the last 5 this has included on-calls and night shifts (I am a midwife).  I have been able to negotiate a new position for myself which means that I am now working 3 days a week, 9-5!  Hurrah!  I think that this is going to make planning and sticking to an exercise routine a lot easier for me.  So, days I am working, I get up early and do 20 minutes of yoga following a DVD and days I am off, I do 30 minutes Wii Fit after I settle my little girl to sleep.  This is realistic, and achievable and as my fitness increases it will be easy to build upon it.

So since writing last, I have got pregnant, stopped breastfeeding, stopped exercising, had a miscarraige, and am just about ready to start taking control again.  I have been back on the Wii Fot the last 2 evenings, I have stopped drinking cordial, I have cut out the daily chocolate and crisps.  I know my weight and fitness weren't the cause of the miscarraige, but for the time I was pregnant I felt heavy and uncomfortable and sluggish.  It is going to be stressful enough trying for another baby and hopefully getting therough another pregnancy, but I want to enjoy it as much as I can when it happenes, and not feel like I am weighed down.  So the next few weeks are all about making healthy food choices and exercise just a routine part of my life so that I feel my absolute best when the time is right to start trying again.

Yes - and that new bag is Wii Fit!  I am currently at the top of my maximum weight that I am comfortable with, but more importantly, I am feeling unfit.  It has been a rought couple of years on this old carcass of mine - pregnancy, caesaerean, breastfeeding, kidney stones, septecaemia, recovery and the rigours of shift work.  My baby is now a toddler and getting more and more active all the time.  She deserves a Mum that can keep up with her and play with her, and frankly my dear - I need the energy!  I want another rugrat so I would like to be a bit lighter and a bit fitter before embarking on that journey.

I have been hesitant about trying to lose weight while I've been breastfeeding - just cos my appetite is so crazy, I think it would be too hard to reduce my calories, but I am now only feeding her once a day, and I think she will be dropping that soon, so it is time to start taking back some control.  Cut out the silly stuff - no more crisp butties, no more thick coatings of butter, no more cheap cocolate.  Not going to to crazy, but just start to be a bit more aware of what I am eating and honouring my hunger, rather than trying to eat up my frustration.