My Two Stones Lost Certificate - at last!

Hurrah! I've done it! At last! Yesterday evening at Slimming World (at Louth in Lincolnshire) I recorded a thumping weight loss of six pounds for the last week, and finally won my Two Stone Lost Certificate!

I wanted this so much. It's a personal landmark. Now I have just nine pounds left to go before I get down to my target weight. That'll still take two or three months, but the end goal is now in sight. In fact I burst through that two-stone barrier with two and a half pounds in hand. So there's some slippage available for next week's birthday celebrations, although such is my steadily-developed self-discipline where food and drink choices are concerned, I don't think I will throw this wonderful achievement away.

This is the cherished Certificate:

I'm getting close to the end of my four-week holiday. I've visited the East Midlands (losing two and a half pounds at SW in Stamford), Yorkshire, Northumberland (losing one and a half pounds at SW in Alnwick), Fife in Scotland (gaining an unexpected and disastrous three pounds at SW in Glenrothes), the Lake District, and lately the Lincolnshire Wolds (with this amazing spurt of six pounds lost at SW in Louth). Of course, the holiday isn't primarily about losing weight! It's about seeing places old and new, and just travelling - with all the charm and creature comforts afforded by my caravan. The caravan is the key to all this. It's my mobile self-catering accommodation. I need not eat out at all, and can have complete control over my food and drink intake, and therefore the extent to which I can keep to plan. I love meeting up with my widely-scattered friends, and enjoy relaxing that strict personal control for a meal or two while seeing them, but being on your own is the very best thing for sticking to a regime without deviation.

Of course I've had the odd portion of traditional battered fish (but only at Scarborough and - much more poshly - at Cornhill-on-Tweed) or a bag of chips only (at Whitley Bay and Silloth). But no ice cream. And since the 7th June my alcohol consumption (alcohol is a serious threat to weight-loss progress) has been limited to two social occasions with friends: a glass or two of white wine and a gin-and-tonic one lunchtime and evening at Cornhill-on-Tweed; a glass of red wine one evening in Fife. Such abstention has a very good effect. I will inevitably slip into slightly more bibulous ways back home, with more meals out too - I'm not a slave to strict eating control - but I'm confident that I'll still get those remaining nine pounds off, and then maintain the desired weight (twelve stones, five pounds), which I still think is the optimum weight for me, a state of attractive slimness that hasn't been taken too far.

I shall maintain my ideal weight with small morsels of cheese and crackers, which will counteract the ongoing tendency, with my current regime, to get lighter and lighter. Cheese again! I can't wait! But not yet, not yet. It'll be my final reward, my pay-off. And the moment of triumph may not come until I'm on my next caravan holiday (in the West Country again, taking in the Appledore Book Festival) in September. That's fine. I always think one should have achievable goals (with attendant well-deserved celebrations) to look forward to. And this one may be only three months away. Say ten weeks. Can do.