There are so many things that I want to and need to do, I find it very difficult to set just one goal, which I believe is the advice given. These include re-gaining my confidence and self-esteem, improving my fitness, keeping on top of housework and making my home lovely, finances, overcoming my anxiety and constant worrying about my lads, re-building my social life, finding romance (oh now that would be nice!), spending time outdoors... yes, it's quite a list.

For some time I have tried to put regaining my confidence first, but now think it would be more sensible for me to put fitness first. If I have aches and pains, headaches, fatigue, heartburn, or whatever ailment I have on a particular day, with the best will in the world I cannot work on those other goals anyway, so I am best to work on exercise and healthy eating as my top priority. Exercise is known to be very good for helping to lift depression and ease anxiety, it improves your confidence through feeling stronger and fitter - and standing taller - and I want a healthy heart, to have strong muscles, to be fit enough to do the things I want to do.

So with the wonderful, wise advice I have received through Spark teams and warm encouragement from responses to (at times defeatist!) blogs, I am going to start using this website to pick up again the exercising and healthy eating I had started to do. I had begun to do ten minutes of exercises most days, and eat better, then had a crisis at home to cope with and was all ready to give it up all but as someone said, if I hadn't been eating healthier and been doing some exercising I might not have coped as well as I did - and I think this is absolutely right.

I am going to have to start gently again, but I'm fine with that - better to start gently and succeed in forming healthy eating and exercise habits, than let having to start gently bother me and not do anything at all! And the great thing is, I can incorporate some of my other goals, for doing such activities as housework and spending time outdoors is a form of exercise anyway, especially when you are very unfit and overweight! But I will do them as ways to get fit, not to try to achieve those other goals, because that is how I am going to approach this - nothing else matters for now except becoming fit and physically healthy. The mental health will improve to some extent in itself with increased activity and spending time out rather than in.

I have even stopped weighing and measuring myself, and certainly stopped tracking food eaten and exercise taken, so will use all these tools on SP to enjoy measuring my progress. Hopefully it's all downhill from here -the weight and measurements that is!