My Weight Loss Journey: # 1: Starting out

Hey Guys,

So on Saturdays post I mentioned that I'll be posting something which has taken me a while to put together and feel ok talking about. It's not necessary something which I find hard to talk about because I'm proud of my achievements, it's just, I'm not sure why I keep putting it off I just do. Something somewhere keeps telling me not to but I've got a couple of emails asking me to, so if I can help even one person then it's worth the anxiousness to put it out there.
I know most of you reading will think I'm silly worrying about it, but it's you know that one thing that makes me nervous talking about.

Anyways now that's out the way as the title suggests I am going to start talking about my weight loss journey. I've decided that once a month I'll post something about it. Now in the starting few posts it'll be like different aspects of going about weight loss then I move into my monthly achievements as they happen and more of in the moment than starting out. This particular post is going to be in two parts as it's a little long, so I need to break it up.

I also want to get this out the way now. I am not saying that my methods will work for everyone, I am also not saying that this is the only way to go about weight loss it simply just works for me.

Now that little introductions out the way lets start! 

I suppose I'll start with my weight history. I have always been a big girl since I can remember. I've always been active playing football, cricket, netball, rounders, pretty much everything I love sport. However I also love food, it was my relationship with food which was my main problem. I was your typical eat when I'm happy, eat when I'm sad even eat when I'm not hungry. This even goes back to when I was younger I would like take the whole packet of biscuits to my room instead of my allocated 3. Instead of buying a little freddo like most 10 years olds I'd buy the big box on celebrations. Anyways you get the picture. I'll mention that my parents never over feed me I was just very good at getting more food and hiding it in my pockets and that. When I started getting regular pocket money my brother would go off and buy CDs, a new football and there was me a massive bag of sweets and chocolate. No wonder I was 19 stone at age 19.

I remember when I was younger from the age of 9, my weight always matched my age, so when I was 9 I was 9 stone, all the way up till I was 16 leaving school at 16.7 stone. I then went to college and only crept up to about 17 stone because I was a little more active and other circumstances I can't talk about. By the end of my first year of university I was at my largest, weighing in at 19.7 stone. Over the summer of 2010 I didn't like the thought of hitting 20 stone so I did more exercise, reduced my eating and cut out excessive alcohol! With this I managed to come down to about 17.7. When I went back to University in September, starting my 2nd year, I decided to join a gym, not to loose weight because dieting at uni is never a good idea. So my main goal was just not to put on weight. So jumping to my final year (4years in total) I left university weighing just over 17 stone. This is where my real journey began.

Wow that was a long introduction, but I really do believe if you don't understand your history with food you can't pinpoint the problem and really go into losing weight with a clear direction.

Now I'm going to talk about how I went about starting my weight loss journey.

Admitting the problem
The first thing like I said above is to really getting under of your own problems and think about what the main problem is. This could be that your eatings good but you don't exercise or you simply just eat too much cheese etc.
I worked out my main problem was snacking and drinking, and I don't even mean alcohol. Yes I drank quite a lot of alcohol but because it was my final year I was only going out like every other week, if that.
So my problems:

• Coca-Cola
• Sugary coffee and full fat lattes 
• Pringles and popcorn
• Chocolate

When I finished university I realised on a daily basis I was consuming..(this is when the anxiety about admitting this comes out!) On top of my meals, which where actually fairly healthy, I was consuming approx. 12 large cups of caffeine (either coca-cola or coffee), a tube of Pringles, a bag of sweet and salted popcorn and more than likely a bar of Dairy Milk chocolate to end the day. Wow writing all that makes shit real..no wonder I was fat. 

Doing something about it: 

Now that I had worked out my problem areas it was time to strip them out! However my method wasn't just to wake up one day and stop because I think my body would go into shock because of lack of sugar. As crazy as that sounds. 

So in June each week I would cut something out of my diet, for example the first week I stopped eating crisps, the next Coca-Cola, 3rd week chocolate and so on. However when it comes to coffee if you're used to drinking a hefty amount a day I do not advise you to just stop. I did and was in bed for 3 days, instead I cut down to like 2 cups a day, then to one, then tackled the no sugar in my coffee and finally switched from green milk to red. Every little helps. 

I'm going to leave it there for now because otherwise this will be one hell of a long post, as it already it! However you don't need to wait too long as I'll be putting part two up tomorrow which will be about setting goals and planning. For the people who come here to read beauty there will be a review post up on Thursday! 

I hope people have enjoyed this post and it's not too boring but I really wanted to start bringing my weight loss into my blog as it's a big journey for me and I though it would be nice to share.

See Part 2 here!