How did I get here?

Today we went to the mall and I was happy I remembered to look for Shauna Reid's book 'The Amazing adventures of diet girl.' As far as I know, this is what inspired my friend Bryher to write her blog in the first place. If you haven't read it and are trying to lose weight I highly recommend it.


She still keeps a blog here.
And Bryher's equally inspiring blog is here.

So, I thought I would write about how I ended up here, trying to lose weight.

I think as a child and a young teenager I was not really over weight. Certainly as I got older into my teens, I was curvaceous, but when I look back now I don't think I was as big as I felt at the time.

Once I started university and had a lot of my own money (well not a lot, but enough!) I would do things my parents would otherwise not give me money to do or even I wouldn't ask them, mostly they were making my food choices by being responsible for the groceries.

So think lots of snacks for lectures and popping to the corner shop for chocolate, buying reduced easter eggs as snacks...I've always been more of a sweet eater than savoury. I guess I just let myself have what I wanted when I wanted, as no one was stopping me!

So after almost 3 years of uni, myself and my then boyfriend Daniel decided to get married in August 2002.

My Mum sugested we go to Weight Watchers, and I was kinda like, well ok then. I didn't see myself as big or horrible but agreed it would be a good idea to lose some weight before the wedding.

I was shocked to get on the scales and find I was around 14st 13lbs (209lbs) and was happy to give weight watchers a shot. The first week I lost 7lb and was really chuffed.

I then found The Dream Dress. Kinda like in a movie, the first dress I tried on was 'The One'. I mean I am still in love with this dress 7 years later. It was just perfect, pretty straps, amazing bead work, gorgeous train. Wow. I love my dress. Can you tell!

Anyway the dress was, of course, too small. Can we order it in a different size ,we asked? No, it was one of a kind, we were told. It's ok, i said, I'm trying to lose weight for the wedding anyway...
They said it might work if we put pannels in the side to make it bigger. I was like um...and ruin the beadwork! No!

This gave me my biggest ever motivation to lose weight. I wanted my precious dress to fit, plus, you know the wedding night was an incentive too...

I was focused. I stuck to weight wacthers rigidly, but it didn't feel ridgid. Nothing was banned, as long as you counted it in your points.

I began on April 18th 2002 and at my final weigh in before the wedding on August 24th 2002, I got got down to 12 stone 9. 2 st 4 lbs in 4 months.

I went to my final dress fitting, not sure if i had done enough, but low and behold, I had. No side pannels. No big adjustments, my dream dress stayed intact.

I had such drive, determination, and really little choice if wanted my dress to go unchanged.

I'm writing about this to try to find that drive and motivation again. The weight steadily crept on, through out the years. I suck at willpower. I've lost bits here and there, as you can see below, but I still weigh more than that first weight watchers meeting.

I'll keep reading Shauna, and Bryher, and I may keep writing like this too. It's theraputic.