A Little Bit About Me

I thought I would share a little about who I am and my motivations behind what I am trying to achieve. So here it is my Name is Mellissa (although I prefer Melly),I am 26 years old, I live with my boyfriend, of almost 6 years, Boris and my kitty cat Freyja! I would say I have struggled with my weight since my mid teens but in reality I was not fat in my teens at all. Don't get me wrong I was no where near those little skinny teenage girls who went to my high school but I have always had boobs and hips and that made me feel larger than them. I honestly wish I could go back to meet myself when I was 15 and give myself a good hard slap in the face, tell myself that I was not fat and to stop wasting the figure I had by covering it up and being embarrassed by it.

Me with my family, I was a slim child!

Me at a wedding with my nephew age 15

 

It wasn't until about age 21 that I really started piling on the pounds properly, I had met Boris and we moved in together and well put it this way we both loved to eat! We got into some terrible habits, I'm talking making an 8 person lasagne and eating it between us in one night, ahem plus desert. If we weren't having a huge meal we would be going across the road to the shop and buying 2 bags of those big sharing crisps, 2 big bars of Dairy milk and 2 tubs of Ben & Jerry's and scoff the lot between us! Shocking I know but it stands to reason we both got to be the size we were at our largest.

 

Me at 25 around about my heaviest weight!

 

At age 25 I had reached the heaviest weight of my life which was 17 stone 2 (240 Pounds), I felt terrible, had reached a size 22 and got out of breath and even headaches when I did any physical activity but I still didn't really know how bad I looked. Then as so often happens I saw some pictures of myself and I looked massive! On top of that my mum had been diagnosed with cancer in her kidney, as well as diabetes (which I might add both of my parents have) I started to think if I carry on this way I am going to die much sooner than later!

Me (and Freyja) last Christmas after loosing 20 pounds

That was last year and I lost a little weight then just over 20 pounds but then slowly over the few months at the start of this year I felt myself slipping back into old ways again. Then a few months ago I was diagnosed with PCOS and the doctor told me that my best chance of having children sometime it he future was to start taking medication for it but I did some research and I prefer to do it the natural way and if I reach goal weight and have to still take the medication then so be it.

So now I have completely changed my eating habits, I don't eat any processed sugar at all anymore and things are looking better already. My goal weight is 12 stone and at the moment I weigh 14 stone 7 so I am well on my way to achieving goal! As soon as I have any more up to date pictures I will post them up so watch this space.

Thanks for reading

Tracking Food

Anyone who has been on any kind of diet will know how important it is to track everything that you are eating and drinking and I have had trouble in this respect in the past. I would buy a fancy little book, decorate it nicely and fully intend to write down every bite in it, but of course I would go out and forget to take it with me or forget to write in it and start estimating the calories in things and as a result be eating a lot more than I thought I was and wonder why I wasn't loosing weight. So this time I went looking for a solution to this problem and I have to say I found a fantastic one!

So here it is a little app for the smart phone called myfitnesspal, it is of course free! (most important thing) and pretty nifty. You feed in your information(weight, height etc.), and how much you want to loose and it works out how much calories you should be eating. It has a huge database of foods in it which you can type in or scan the barcode with your phone and it enters these into your food diary! You can also input any exercise you do and it will take that into account too. I personally love seeing the little graphs and charts it makes of your weight loss and food habits.  It really is a fantastic app and I highly recommend you give it a go as it just makes the tedious task or food tracking easy and even a little fun.

If you do sign up I would love it if you would add me as a friend here. Look forward to loosing some weight with you!

Thanks for reading!

Diet Update 1

Well the diet is going really well so far, I'm on week six and I have lost 1 stone 5 lbs so far. Pretty good I think. I have been finding it relatively easy so far, of course I have had a few days (as I'm sure we all do) where I have thought there was no point or I just really wanted some fatty food but I've been really good and haven't went over my target of 1,200 per day calories yet.

I've tried a few new foods so far one of which was Avocado, I'm sorry to anyone who loves this but I thought it was horrible, not my bag at all I'm afraid. I've started eating peas and sweet corn, both of which I hadn't had before and I really enjoy them. By far the tastiest thing I have tried so far though is roasted butternut squash with rosemary, the recipe I have been using is here. It's yummy try it!

I have seen some changes in my body in the last month, I'm almost down to a size 16 again from biggest of a 22 (yikes)! I bought myself a leather jacket and actually feel good wearing it. It's the little things like this that I think keep me going and the thought of going out shopping with my skinny mini friends to the trendy high street shops and being able to buy things. I think this is something all us larger ladies can identify with.

I am going to try and get more posts up in future so watch this space and thanks for reading!

A Fresh Start

Well it has been almost a year since I last put up a post. Last year I managed to get down from 240 pounds to 218 pounds and I am glad to say that 10 months later I have maintained it well (give of take a pound or two) but I am back on the healthy eating bandwagon once again and determined to outdo my success last year. Yes I do see it as a success even though I gave up after about 3 months because I still had substantial and lasting weight loss.

I have been eating healthy for 5 days so far and already feel better in myself, maybe not much thinner but more confident and hopeful for the future.

I've always been a very fussy eater I'm on a mission to try and cut this out and I read a tip that said to try one new food per week so I thought I'd give it a go with my most neglected food groups, FRUITS and VEGETABLES. So I though I would do this, pick up something I have never tried before (you may be surprised at some of them) in my weekly shop and put up a post once a week about what it was and what I thought of it. I am the sort of person who when I go out somewhere I will only pick something if I know I'm going to like it so this will be a big challenge for me but hopefully I'll like some of the foods and end up with a more varied diet because of it.

Wish me luck as I start over and feel free to recommend some fruits and veg for me to try out.

1 Stone Gone

I have been doing so well in the last few days, I've been finding it so easy to get motivated (long may it last) and I have officially lost my first stone! yay! I am really proud of myself.

I am starting college next week so I guess I'm going to have to try my best to stay on track while there, it is easy in the summer because I never have to eat out of the house so I can plan all my meals but all those lunch times coming up having to resist the chips could be a bit of a challenge!

I am just trying to stick to the thought that when I eventually do loose all this weight I will look and feel amazing compared now and for the moment that is keeping me going, but it is early days still.

Getting back on track

I have had a little hiccup lately with my weight loss, you know how it is, something happens in life and you become really busy and so the diet goes straight out the window. Thats what happened to me over the last month but luckily I havent been too bad and have maintained my weight quite well.

I did let the healthy eating slip though and so got back into my old habbits of needing lots more sleep, being lazy and just generally feeling unwell all the time. So the day before yesterday was shopping day and I bought all healthy stuff again and am back on track as of yesterday.

Look out for some really good weight losses! Fingers crossed!

Looking forward

Welcome to the beginning of my new healthy lifestyle.

My activity and eating habits before a few days ago were absolutely shameful, I used to look at those healthy slim people in the streets and out jogging and wonder how they could possibly have the energy to be so fit and eat so well but at the same time i'd be wishing I could look like them too.

I have been on diets before, many many times, but have never stuck to them for more than a few months at a time. I've had fantastic results on these diets but my problem is i always starved myself for as long as i could stand it, when i was really hungry id just drink some water or go to sleep, but after a while the need to eat would take over and i would binge on everything i could. So alas i fell into the trap of loosing a little then putting more on again and again.

Then last week I braced myself and stood on the scales and couldnt believe my eyes. 236.4 pounds!

So I have decided to do something about it! Properly this time!