I'm not laughing

So when I saw the doctor on holiday the nurse routinely took my blood pressure, and it was high, proper high - 170/120. But hey I was it the middle of being traumatised. The following day she came to our room to take another reading. It was the same. The nurse urged me to see my GP upon returning to home, which I did. The reading was the same.

I didn't really know what it meant to be honest. I didn't know anyone with high BP. I knew it was linked to heart attacks and was called 'the silent killer' and that was about it. It was a bloody shock. At first I lay in bed worrying like a worrier. I thought I could feel pains in my chest - as if just knowing about it could give me a cardiac arrest! Seriously, I was scared. My first morning of spinning class I couldn't go. What if it was too intense? What if I keeled over?

I have learnt a bit more. For instance, it is linked to snoring. So for about a year my body has been trying to tell me, very loudly, to do something about my weight! I ignored it (to be fair I didn't hear it as I was sound asleep). We've talked about it before; how being over weight can increase your risk of diabetes, cancers, heart disease but like most people I guess I really didn't think it would actually happen to me. I feel so guilty that my obesity is my fault. That I will have contributed to this ailment and maybe ailments to come.

I have family and friends who would gladly take all this extra weight from me and lose it for me. They would eat the healthy food and do the exercise because they love me. But of course they can't. Its up to me and me only. And that makes me feel ashamed.

My daughter was born almost 23 years ago. I remember so clearly holding her for the first time and feeling overwhelmed with love. How I suddenly realised how much my mum loved me, and I also realised that you would kill for your children. I promised to love and protect her forever, to do whatever I was capable of to keep her safe.And I made the same promise to my son 7 years later. But what about keeping myself safe for them? How could I do this to myself and risk so much. Do my children not deserve their mother to be happy, and healthy and slim? To live a long life to keep them protected?

At the end of the day do I love food more than my family? No. Do I hate exercise more than I love my kids? No

I apologise to everyone who loves me, who wants me healthy and happy, and I want to show you that I love you so much that I can somehow get through this and shed the layers of fat, to reveal the old Gilly who is buried and suffocating.

And fingers crossed I can do it before my heart attack. xxx