The Slimming World journey begins

I created this blog a long time ago, but it's been sitting unused for almost a year. Every once in a while I thought about what I might want the focus of the blog to be, but I never settled on anything - until now.

On Monday, I decided to take my ever fluctuating body weight into my own hands and join Slimming World, following the great successes of various friends. Whilst I don't think this blog will be entirely about my weight loss journey, I do think it's a great thing to start writing about. I also hope having an online space to record my weigh-ins, weekly food diaries, successes, trials, and tribulations will help me with my motivation (well, that's the plan at least!)

I'll start by giving you a little background information. I'm 26 years old and have struggled with my weight my entire life. I was a chubby child and porky teenager, and since then my weight has yo-yoed from really quite slim (although I didn't think it at the time) to the biggest I have ever been (right now).

Part of my problem is I'm an extremely fussy eater and, although I'm getting better in my adulthood, people are always shocked when they first find out about my pernickety food habits, likes, and dislikes (but the Internet won't be - nothing is shocking on the Internet, is it?). Take cheese, for example, I can't stand cheese. It's mould. Why would anyone want to eat that? But cheesecake? Divine. I'm a walking mystery.

The other part of my problem is that I live less than 2 minutes walk from all the takeaway options under the sun. And they're all SO GOOD. Oh, and I like baking cakes. I'm pretty sure I'm completely addicted to sugar.

I've tried various diets in my time. The GI diet was pretty successful when I was about 14 or 15, but I literally ate the same thing every single day (I said I was fussy) and that got boring pretty quickly. I was my slimmest aged 16, at around 10st 7lb and 5'9".  Then I went to boarding school for sixth form, rarely liked the (somewhat) balanced dinner on offer, and usually ate an entire loaf of bread from supper tray every evening (no joke). I met my first serious boyfriend (a fellow eater), and the pounds piled on. Then the university years: calorie counting apps, on and off, proved successful but, you know, will power. And now I live in takeaway-land.

I lead a busy lifestyle - I'm a full time student (7 years and counting), freelance musician, and have a part time administrative job - so fast convenient unhealthy food has been the easy option. When I signed up on Monday my starting weight was a shocking 14st 7lb, which gives me around 4st to lose. I'm feeling pretty determined, so check in every week and see how I'm getting on...