Sunday 15 May 2011

I am so sorry for not having written on here for about a year and a half! What's happened is I've been so busy slimming and dieting that I've finally become a size 0 and have been snapped up by a modelling company (literally snapped up, someone breathed on me and my spine caved in).


Just kidding. I haven't changed that much. Although I do have new hair:



Yes, it's ginger, stfu. Dig the braces instead. Shiny shiny.


Anyway, the reason I have been so shit with updating my blog is because it has been a big time of change for me, relationship wise, career wise, spiritually wise, economically wise and so on. Life has been busy and chaotic. But I am here now and the love I have is vast and many.

I will sum up my weight loss progress over the past few months:


Pretty exciting stuff huh? I've been on and off the wagon so many times I should go to Dieting Anonymous.
Here lies the problem, I love food, food loves to be eaten by me, it's scientific fact.

Food can be pretty persuasive, and I'm an obliging kind of girl, I don't like to disappoint.

However, after trying some weight loss products (which believe me, I will review like a motherfuck), I am back on the wagon of healthy eating and exercise (at the moment, it's rollerskating and Zumba, which again, I will review, as previously, like a motherfuck).

So, I apologise for my absence, and hope that it can be made up to you by a picture of a bunny with a pancake on it's head:



Love and sparkles,

Sara x

Thursday 27 January 2011

Kick! Punch! It's all in the mind.

(NB. Apologies for any delays, I've had bugger all free time recently and shift work is slowly sucking my soul).





If I were a creature, I would be a slug.

I'm small, wiggly, slow moving, am a bit cute in a very weird way and most of all:


I AM LAZY.

(If any slugs are insulted by this, I apologise, but it's true).


As far as ROONP (For those who have forgotten, Re-examination Of Om Noms Perception) is concerned, the healthy (ish) eating I can do. I have that down. The issue I have is exercise.


I lack motivation. This is evident in my top 5 favourite pastimes:

1.) Watching TV shows/ DVDs/ Films.

I am a media whore. The majority of my student loan went on take away and DVDs. The DVDs or TV shows don't even have to be particularly good, one of my favourite TV shows is America's Next Top Model. I know that it's superficial, I know that it's inane, but YOU know it's bloody good telly watching skinny models tear each other's throats out and hoping for a Tyra Banks strop!



2.) Playing computer games.

I love playing Xbox. There's so much appealing about it. I can shoot zombies, play computer games from my youth, play board games, pretend I have a life so I don't need to face the harsh reality that my job kinda sucks and I'm not in a career I would actually prefer. And let us not forget the competition. I am a competitive bitch (although not as competitive as my best friend who once assaulted me with a Monopoly board because she was losing), so the whole "Achievements" thing, comparing yourself to friends, seeing who is more awesome (or lacks a life the most), is just right up my Diagon-alley.



3.) Shopping.

Retail therapy is by far the best therapy. Window shopping, browsing, mooching. I love to wander round towns and look at what I could buy if I had the money. Living near Brighton and London, I have the best of both worlds, contemporary fashion and off beat vintage fashion. It's just fantastic, barre a few things.

My dislikes when it comes shopping are:

- Crowds of people
- Annoying knob heads who walk ridiculously slow
- People who stop right in front of you so you practically penetrate them
- Crowds of teenagers who stand in stupid places and then wonder why you call them a prick and tell them to move
- Queues
- Queues of people WHO AREN'T EVEN QUEUING (this happened yesterday when I went shopping with my brother)
- Cyclists who cycle on the pavement
- Cyclists who cycle on the road
- Cyclists in general
- Women with prams and people with mobility scooters who believe that because they birthed a child or are not able/ can't be bothered to walk for long periods of time that this entitles them to run over my feet and not apologise (but on the reverse, people who don't hold doors for people struggling with prams)
- Rude people who don't hold doors open, or say "thank you" for holding a door open.
- CEX. There has never been a more pikey-ish shop in existance. It smells of B.O., the majority of the stock is ridiculously over priced, the one in Brighton has a wonky floor, the customers generally seem like they have a gene puddle rather than a gene pool.

Love individual persons, hate people.



4.) Listening to music

CDs, mp3s, Radio, Live gigs, Advert jingles. I bloody love music. I can't imagine a world without it.


5.) A good old night out.
Club, pub, kebab, floor and so on.


None of the activities I enjoy doing really involve any form of strenuous exercise. So, I had to adapt my regular routine a little bit.



1.) DVDs, film etc.

As silly as it sounds, while watching TV during the day or evening, just jump up and throw some shapes, have a look online for good exercises (whether they be jumping jacks, the pendullum, reverse cowgirl or whatever) and watch TV while doing them. Yes, I know sitting on your arse is much more comfortable and fun than doing star jumps and sweating your tits off, but fuck it, you're still able to watch TV. C'mon, meet me half way. If it helps you feel any better, I hate exercise as much as you do, but it's necessary to exercise to lose weight.



Throw in an exercise DVD every now and again, you can get some really fun ones with great music and easy exercises. My own personal favourite is The Pussycat Dolls Workout, a few of my work friends can vouch this is both fun, easy, makes you sweat your tits off and ache like a bitch the next day. (Just ignore the fact that Robin Antin maybe the most bizarre female you've ever seen).




2.) Playing Computer Games.

Get. Kinnect.

Simple really. If you love computer games, love achievements, and want to burn calories. Get a Kinnect.

It's possibly the most genius idea for someone like me, who loves to p0wn friends at computer games and show off their achievement score, and has such a fragile concept of reality that they would be willing to run 5 miles for a 5G achievement.


Fantastic games like Kinnect Adventures, Dance Central and Kinnect Sports will keep you active with friends, just make sure you have a big enough living room.

If you don't have an xbox, Wii fit is also awesome. And there are many fantastic family games you can get that are a good work out and laugh.



3.) Shopping

Shopping in itself is fantastic exercise. People underestimate how good walking is for you, but it's bloody tip top! Properly explore the town or city you shop in. Go down side streets, back alleys (all during the day, of course) and really immerse yourself. You may find some shops you never had a clue existed (Brighton's a good example of this, up until recently I didn't know they had a MAC shop, yay!)

If you use public transport, try walking into town (if it's reasonable, obviously not if you live 10 miles away). When I was younger and lived in Kent, I used to walk from my village to the local town, a distance of 2.1 miles there, 2.1 miles back. Sometimes I'd also go onto the next town and then walk back from there. And I lived on a hill. And it was snowy. And I lost a foot in 'Nam.... The last point may not be true.
If it's not reasonable to walk into town, get off at the stop before your normal one, or walk to the next stop on your route. It does help!

If you use a car, park at a car park further away from town. When I go to visit my brother in Brighton, I park at his house and we do a 25-30 minute walk into town, it gives us a chance to chat and moan.

If you dislike walking, do it with a friend! Or stop moaning? One of the two.

And remember, walking with heavier weights is better, so if that's not encouragement to buy things, I don't know what is.





4.) Listening to music. Easy peasy. DANCE! DANCE LIKE A SILLY TWAT!

Here are some of my favourite songs to have a cheeky dance to in the privacy of my own home.


i.) Pendulum - Propane Nightmares



I have seen my fair share of clubbers dance like a twat to this song. Full volume is essential.


ii.) Nickelback - Animals




FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUU. I actually LIKE Nickelback. And this is a fantastic song to do hip rolls to, and to jump around to.


iii.) N.E.R.D - Lapdance (Trent Reznor Remix)

                                                                

A lot of my exercise music taste stems from when I used to do pole dancing lessons. Practice your sexiest moves to this. The whole point is, don't feel silly doing it. I probably look like an absolute knob head when I do my shoulder rolls and hip rolls, but you know what? I don't care. It keeps me busy and active!


iv.) Rob Zombie - Living Dead Girl


I honestly believe that Rob Zombie's music is possibly the best ever music to pole dance to (and he must believe so too, what with having an album entitled "American Made Music to Strip By").


v.) The Prodigy - No Good


Get off your nuts on diet red bull, a handful of green skittles and some Guarana and dance. Dancing is so bloody fun. You can do it on your own, with a friend, you can have the music on while you're tidying and dance while you're hoovering even. JUST DANCE!

Make up dance routines, do exercise work outs to music, run to music if it helps (this is one I find difficult, I hate running).


If you feel you can't dance around, get your mp3 player, tape player, cd player on and go for a walk. Back when I lived in Kent, almost every evening I'd go for a walk that lasted an hour or two, just listening to music and being on my own. It was bloody beautiful.




5.) Clubbing.

This is pretty much the same as above. Don't be a wall flower, get up on that dance floor and strut your stuff.

If you feel like you need some dutch courage, have a couple vodka and diet cokes.

The best thing is, find a club that does music you like. There's no point in going somewhere where you dislike the music because chances are you won't dance. There are plenty of fantastic clubs in the world. My favourites being in Pompey, which are Babylon (an awesome 90s club) and Delight Mondays at Pure (an awesome alternative, rock, jungle, punk, metal night).


And for God's sake, on the way home, get a chicken shish kebab.

Friday 14 January 2011

Failure to prepare is preparing to fail.

Today, we're going to talk about a word so dirty, even I hate it.

The thought of it makes me shudder, sparks fear into the heart of most and even comes to the point of offending me (which is a tall order).





That word is:  DIET.

It is a filthy word. And it should be banned (N.B. Please ignore the fact that it's in part of my tag line for my blog, but "diet" takes fewer characters than "change your relationship and thinking with food kfanx", so shhhh).

A word that's supposed to encompass change shouldn't contain the word "DIE" in it! It's just ominous.

The term diet denotes restriction, denial, starving and in all honesty, misery. WHY CHOOSE A LIFESTYLE THAT WILL MAKE YOU MISERABLE FROM THE GET GO?

Rather than diet, we need to think of it as changing the way we relate to, think about and use food in our lives. I do not believe that restricting what you eat, cutting out foods and denying yourself is good for losing weight. Thusly, I have changed it to the Re-examination Of Om Noms Perception (or ROONP for short).


Preparation for ROONP is key. Think about the following (Btw, everything I talk about in this lonnnnnnnnnnnng post, I will do individual posts for and be more elaborate and focussed, this is just what I believe you need before you get started):


1.) Why do you want to do this?

If you're doing it for a partner, to be more popular, to fit in, to look like your favourite celebrity or anything like this, THIS IS NOT RIGHT FOR YOU. ROONP is not for other people, it is for you. You are the person that has to live your life, and you should not feel you are compromising for the benefit of other people. You need to get it into your head that being skinny does not make you pretty, beauty is in all different shapes and sizes. Self esteem won't come from losing weight, losing weight can bring a whole other load of insecurities (don't even get me started on excess skin).

I believe that as human beings, we are doomed to have insecurities and be jealous of other people, it's in our nature to compete. Do not feel that losing weight, have plastic surgery, getting designer clothes or changing your image will make you any less jealous of other people, any less catty, or change how much you like or dislike yourself. YOU ARE YOU AND YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL.

I know many fuller figure ladies who are more desired than their slender counter parts, because they are confident. Confidence is key.

I think everyone should have role models, whether they be regular people you know or celebrities (celebrity culture is everywhere and I believe having a variety is the spice of life). Think about the celebrities you find beautiful, and examine why.

Examples of mine:


Dawn French is everything sexy about a woman, she is confident, she is funny and she has bangers Gok Wan would love to stick his face in. If I was 20 years older and a convert, I would.






I think Beth Ditto is gorgeous (possibly more so if she shaved more often), and again, it's about spirit. It's pulling off a look, it's saying a big "f you" to the norm. (Although she does have a penchant for dressing in clothes that I think a hooker would find a little revealing).



Tura Satana could have probably birth an infant at 70mph with those hips, but she is a kick ass female. She overcame so many issues in her life to become a sex symbol, which is still true today!




Christina Hendricks. Oh. My. God. 


Unfortunately, the last foxy female I wanted to post is a difficult one. For those who know her, it's Jessicka Fodera (now Jessicka Addams) from Jack Off Jill/ Scarling fame. Massive pioneer of girly rock, back when she was in Jack Off Jill she was a gorgeous and voluptuous woman and within the last few years she has slimmed down. Trying to find a before picture that is flattering and how I remember her is damn near impossible, so just take my word for it, she is gorgeous, she is amazing. I am a fangirl.

I think it's a good idea to find other people attractive and see their beauty, but the most important role model in your life should be yourself. Be proud of you, chances are you've been through a lot to get where you are and you need to be less hard on yourself.


Oh my god, I need to digress less (and rhyme more!)


2. Dieting takes time

Do not expect an overnight fix. Live under the ethos of "everything worth having is something worth fighting for". If I had my way, I'd snap my fingers and my bingo wings would be gone. But I know this will never happen (unless by snapping my fingers, I mean "take a large axe and chop off my arms").


And don't fall into the trap of these fad crash diets, or starving yourself, because either a.) you can end up getting an eating disorder and harming your body more than being a bit overweight could ever do, b.) when you eat normally, you will put the weight STRAIGHT back on.

In my teens, I was the self proclaimed Queen of Crash Dieting (but you'll never see my head on a stamp), I remember a period where I would "survive" (I call it surviving, because I was miserable and wasn't really living) on less than 500 calories a day. The lunch I'd take to school was a tin of fruit. Yes, a tin.... of fruit. Sometimes, it wasn't even a full size tin. But then, it would happen that I'd get hungry, crave food, totally binge on inappropriate food and then purge myself of it (vomming was my purge of choice, laxatives a close second). I am just thankful I have the hindsight now (and small and big gapped front teeth as a permanent reminder) to realise what a complete and utter tit I was. I think I hated myself more for what I was doing than actually being the size I was, because looking back, yeah I was big, but I'm a pretty cool person. (N.B. I am very candid and open about my past, I don't feel the need for feeling ashamed because I've acknowledged my mistakes and I am who I am today because of them (although I will never learn that you WILL get your hand caught in a Pringles can if you try to get the last few)).



I still see people today that starve themselves and I just can't get my head around it. I believe anorexia and bulimia are more about control than they are about food. Anorexia is to gain complete control over your life, so much so that you are your own master of your destiny (literally), and bulimia is about wanting that control, losing it and trying to regain it. I think what we need to learn is that we will never have complete control over our lives, and we need to accept that. However, we can regulate aspects and keep them in check.


3. Support. Support. Support.

There's only so much will power a person has. Food is like crack, it can be addictive and that little bit more-ish (or a lot more-ish in my case). My best advice for ROONP, there is safety in numbers.

It's no secret that I owe my successful weight loss to Weight Watchers, but I owe it more to my friend Mandy. She is my friend who first asked me to go to Weight Watchers, and without her I wouldn't have stuck at it. Come to think of it, she's responsible for a lot of good things in my life, she was the one who found the job advert for the current position I'm in (and although I'm not as happy with it as I used to be, I've met some amazing people and been in a fantastic industry), and she also told me about the dating website where I met James. How weird!

But yes, surround yourself with fantastic people who support you. If you have that friend in life who tries to talk you out of what you want and doesn't support you, then sever ties with them. This may sound harsh, but life is too short to spend it being told what you can't do, rather than what you're capable of.

If you want to go to a weight loss group, go with friends. You will encourage each other to go every week and there will be a little bit of healthy competition between you all. The amount of times me and Mandy used to text each other for support, along the lines of "I WANT CHOCOLATE, HELP!" You need that person (or people) in your life who you can relate your experiences to. I can talk to Mandy in terms of points, and it makes sense to both of us, we talk to language of Weight Watcherese.


Have support with exercise, join a class with friends, go running with a friend, join a team, just surround yourself with positive people! Exercising on your own is possibly one of the least motivating things ever.

If you find yourself without support, for goodness sake, use me! I'll be your own personal Gillian McKeith (but I'm more qualified and promise not to look at your poo).




If you're in a relationship, live with a partner or have a housemate, get them involved. They don't necessarily have to eat the ROONP way.

This needs explaining.

Right, my fiance is very supportive of what I do. He understands my way of thinking because he has a similar struggle. James has always been a slender guy, has been trying for years to bulk up and has tried many different methods. My ROONP is lower calorie and lower saturated fat, his is higher calorie and lower saturated fat, but we manage this. He has the majority of his calorie intake before he comes home for dinner, so that he knows he will still reach his target regardless of what he has with me for dinner. Sometimes at home, we exercise together, because we spur eachother on. I'm very thankful I have his support, because we are both foodies at heart, if we could eat take away every day, we would. We are lazy, we like to eat and we like junk food, but we also care about each other's well being so we try that bit harder.
(He is doing a similar thing to me, but blogging his experiences with trying to gain weight and muscle, which can be seen here and is beneficial for any guys (or girls) in a similar situation).



4. Don't deny yourself

The worst thing you can do in a ROONP is denying yourself foods. You need all sorts of food. Do not fall for the kind of bollocks like the Maple Syrup D word, Cabbage Soup D word, or even Atkins. They are faddy and by saying you can't have foods just makes you want them all the more. It's everything in moderation. 


5. Tablets

Not diet pills (although the herbal ones are okay), but multivitamins. Get your body kitted out. I believe people should take multivitamins anyway, but you need them more so when you're ROONPing. Also, use a thermogenic like Green Tea tablets, it will naturally increase your metabolism and make you sweat more (gross, but really useful when exercising). Caffeine is good in moderation, but be wary of caffeinated drinks as they can add to unnecessary calories (swap full fat fizzy drinks for their diet brother, or water/squash. With tea and coffee, switch to red milk or don't have sugar, you will get used to the taste).



6. Figure out why you gained weight in the first place

How can you change something when you don't know what started, caused or exacerbated it?

For me, my most unhealthy time was University. But I would totally do it again. These were (and some still are) my downfalls:

a.) Alcohol.

At uni, I drank about four times a week, to excess. And my drink of choice was Snakebite (for those of you that don't know, it's beer + cider + blackcurrant + excess = purple vom). I would have about 2 of them a night, 2 or 3 shots of Corky's, 3 VKs, and half a bottle of Lambrini before leaving the house.

Let's do the maths:

A snakebite roughly has 230 calories in it, a White Chocolate Corkys is 102 calories, VK apple has 179 calories per bottle and half a bottle of Lambrini is roughly 275 calories.

230 + 230 + 102 + 102 + 102 + 179 + 179 + 179 + 275 =

1,578.

Then we need to include the compulsory Large Donor Kebab I'd have when I got home, which is around the 1,400 calories.

Altogether that makes my average night out 2,978 calories. That's about 1,000 calories over my recommended daily allowance, that's not including the food I would have during the day! (Let's put it this way, it probably wasn't a salad for lunch).

If we're talking WW points (and I love talking points), at the time I was at uni, I would have been allowed around 27 points a day. The alcohol ALONE is my 27 points.

It's when you examine this kind of thing, you realise why.


The first step: Drink less. Drink fewer nights a week, you'll cut out so much already. Don't drink during the week, it'll take you fewer drinks to get tipsy at the weekend as your tolerance will change.

The second step: Swap beers and sugary alcopops for straight spirits. Vodka is my spirit of choice. In a single shot of vodka, it's 55 calories. FIFTY. FIVE. (Or one WW point)

The third step: Swap full sugar mixers for their diet counterpart. 0 points, very few calories.






b. Takeaways

I love the laziness that comes with takeaways (and we all know, I'm a lazy mofo). Back at university, I would eat take away about 4 times a week. Big fan of pizza, Indian, Chinese and Kebab.

For pizza, I would have an XL BBQ pizza (That's 16 inches). Whatever I did not eat on the night, I'd have the next morning. One of those pizzas is roughly 2500 calories (or 48 WW points). That's a lot!

For the next bit, I've decided to do examples in a table, it's better than me writing shit loads!




These are just some rough calories from reputable websites. I'm not saying change your current take away habits for the ones suggested, but ignorance isn't an excuse! You can find rough estimates of take away calories online, so have a look at what's generally lower in calorie and have that instead.

Either that or do what I do with take aways. The most frequent one I have is a Chicken Shish Kebab, I have that about once every week and a half. Then once a month, or every two months, I will have an Indian, Chinese or Pizza.

When it comes to Indian, I refuse to give up my Chicken Korma. Point Blank. I love it far too much. So I haven't given it up, I just have it on a special occassion (and don't give me that crap about them tasting just as good if you make it yourself, or if you store buy it, it doesn't. I want it dripping in ghee, so unhealthy my arteries want to burst), and no, your cousin's gerbil's mum's 6th anniversary of their death does not count. Put down the take away menu and step away.


c. Snacking

I am a snacker. Anything sweet for me. Chocolate is my big downfall. My worst is when I first started doing Waking Nights at work (For those who don't know, Waking Nights are when you have to do a turn around from doing a day shift, to covering a 21:30 - 7:30 am shift, on your own for 10 hours, it's mind numbingly lonely, dull and scary). I would consume anything any everything, but my worst was having one of the big share bags (and note I say "share") of Galaxy Minstrels.

And I'm talking the 270g ones here, the "more to share". I'd get through one of them a night, two (or three) nights in a row. In one of those bags it is 1,459 calories, I shit you not.

By the way, if any of you out there are saying "I could never get through one of them on my own", that is a bald faced lie and you know it! Anyone put in a boredom or stressful situation could cannonball their way through that bad boy.

I'd use the excuse of "It's only twice in one week, it's fine", but that was twice a week, two times a month, along with the calories I'd eat during the day.

This is my new method:

I measure out 60g of Butterkist Cinema Sweet Popcorn (303 Calories), 2 Satsumas (50 Calories for the 2), tube of Smarties (174 Calories) and sometimes the optional 1 bag of Monster Munch (108 Calories).

That's 635 Calories altogether, which pales in comparison of the 1,459 Calorie Chocolate!

My tip, find something else sweet to substitute, and mix it up with fruit. Om nom nom nom.



7. Exercise

Man cannot lose weight by the D-word alone. Cardio Cardio Cardio Cardio. Exercise will make you feel great about yourself (even though at the time you're doing it, you'll hate everyone and want them all to catch fire) and it will help tone and sculpt you.

Despite what you may be told by adverts for exercise equipment (Slendertone is the number one for this), you CANNOT spot train. Spot training means you work on one particular body part and you will lose weight from it. It's a load of bollocks. For example (and a lot of my friends are guilty for this, and I have been in the past), if you dislike your stomach because of excess fat cells, the myth is that by doing lots of sit ups, you will have a toned and flat stomach. This. Is. Bollocks. True, you will gain fantastic muscles. However, you will not be able to see them, they will be under the existing fat cells!

Cardio exercise is key, you need to get your heart pumping, sweat pouring and you need to get out of breath, THIS IS WHAT BURNS FAT. They recommend AT LEAST 4 lots of 30 minute Cardio per week for a reason. It is bloody good for you (if you ignore the case of Jim Fixx).



8. Structure

If I'm going to stick to something, I need structure. I need a plan. I need a ROONP. Weight Watchers was mine, and I whole heartedly recommend it, and I know many others who would. I know many who would recommend Slimming World too, it's all about personal preference.

Personally, I would not do the following:

Atkins, Slimfast, Cambridge Diet, Cabbage Diet, Maple Syrup Diet, or any other faddy diets that include swapping food for shakes (I have teeth, I can chew thank you, it burns more calories), cutting out complete food groups, restricting calories too much (I've heard of diets where you have 400- 500 calories a day, it is mental), or where you are recommended to chew on kangaroo knob (I may have just made that one up, but I imagine there's similar out there).



If you're likely to be susceptible and nothing else has worked for you, you can even try hypnotherapy (although I think it's for the easily manipulated and is all in the mind and a bit bollocks, if it works for you, it works for you!)



9. Treat yourself well.

Example, I had a shit Waking Night on Wednesday 12th January 2011, the shittest of the shit. I spent 5 hours at A&E, I was stressed, on energy drinks, but had gone past the stage of being hungry because I was worried and completely anxious. After a long sleep Thursday morning - afternoon, I text James saying "We're having Dominoes tonight". And you know what? We did. I bought myself a Large Texas BBQ pizza with Delite Mozarella (Low Fat Option), and although occassionally I had the "This is naughty" thought, I don't feel guilty about this. Not one bit. I ate 3/4 of it and threw out the rest. It was what I needed. I needed to give up control and to just do what I wanted for one night. Every now and again you need to do this.

However, if you find that the stresses in your life are causing you to eat badly more often, then you need to re-examine your life and job. No career should make you that stressed.

Another example, I gained almost a stone over Christmas. I will not be good over Christmas or on my Birthday. No way. These are MY times and always will be. (The  good thing is, I've lost the stone already, because my metabolism was so high from eating all the crap over Christmas, as soon as I started eating sensibly and exercising, it dropped back off).



I think this will be enough to get anyone started, my fingers may go numb if I type anymore. I will elaborate on things I've spoken about on here more in future posts, but I need to jump on the Kinnect and burn some fat. Yeah Roy!


Peace out biatches. X

Wednesday 12 January 2011

A background summary.

My name is Sara, I'm 24 and I am a recovering food-a-holic.


Seems simple, right? The first step to changing your life is admitting that a problem exists. Sounds pretentious and twatty, but incredibly true! This realisation took place two years ago, completely by accident.

By the way, the reason I write this (and have even started this blog), is because I bought the latest issue of Cosmo last night, which came free with a "first hand experience" Diet Book that pissed me off no end for the following reasons:

i.) I have never seen anything similar to "my story" with food, and sod it, there must be people similar to me who feel the same!
ii.) It was yet another proposed diet that suggests cutting out whole groups of food for weeks and reintroducing them. I WILL NOT DENY MYSELF ANY GROUP OF NOMS. Fact.
iii.) It suggested (like other diet books) that fat is a feminist issue, and I totally don't think this is the case anymore (I've got a handful of male friends who have been on a diet or Weight Watchers, and I think they'd disagree too).

Anyway, digression over. For now.

Let me explain, in January 2009, one of my closest friends asked me if I'd like to start Weight Watchers with her so she wouldn't have to go alone (if you were to meet this girl, she's one of the last people you think would need to lose weight!). I agreed, I had no other plans for a Tuesday evening and it seemed like an interesting thing to do and I could offer moral support. A bit before, we'd started doing pole dancing lessons together (really fun by the way! But I'll get on to that later), and I enjoyed getting out there and doing things (is it terribly obvious I was single at the time?).

Going to the meeting, I stepped on the scales and it said:


17st 4lbs at 5ft 2 inches.


..... pardon?


I'd never really thought about my weight as a problem before, and I know this may sound stupid, but I suddenly thought "Wow, that's a lot isn't it?"

Now I will digress (again), this is where it began. For as long as I can remember, despite being born a month premature and a small 6lbs, I have always been chubby. I was the chubby girl at infant school, this escalated to the rotund girl in junior school.

I was the fat girl at secondary school...





.... and the obese girl at university.






My relationship with food has always been and will always be that I love it. That will never change. At times I have hated myself for loving it so much, but I never take that out on food. If I could, I would make a shrine to my favourite foods.

Throughout my late teens and early twenties, I'd always been between a size 18 and size 22. The smallest I could ever remember being was a size 14 when I was around 12.

It had never really bothered me (apart from between the ages of 12 and 17, which I will undoubtedly explain later). I'd always had boyfriends, enjoyed an active social life, had a blast at university and had a wonderful group of friends (although I agree, when you're growing up overweight, you develop an outgoing personality and a self depricating sense of humour to cover for other insecurites, which I still do to this day).

Despite a lifetime of having people make subtle suggestions that I should lose weight (or my Nan's less subtle "So how's the diet going?"), the occassional insult from a narrow minded prick and sometimes being "the fat friend" to a boy who I wanted as more than a friend, I never felt my weight was an issue. I was me, I was fat, people liked me, therefore, people liked me and my fatness.

At the age of 22, I came to a fork in the road. I could either continue my life being overweight, affecting my health (I'd suffered from asthma when I was younger and high blood pressure) and continuing with what I knew and what was safe, or I could take a risk, take a chance on losing weight and a new way of life.

Stay in ignorance and take the blue pill, face the harsh reality and take the red pill.

I chose the red pill.


Two years on, I am now 12st 3lbs, having lost 5st 1lb. I'm a size 10 on top, and a size 12/14 on bottom.




Upon doing this, I realise that I haven't had a proper full body photo take in about 5 or 6 months. I will rectify at some point.

The point of me doing this is, I want to prove to people it can be done, and I am by far one of the greediest, laziest people you will ever meet. In my upcoming posts, I will give a greater covering of what I did, what I recommend, what diet products I've tried, what has worked, what hasn't worked, why I was big to begin with and so on.

I hope this provides someone, or anyone with that extra oomph they need.


It can be done, you've just got to take that red pill.