The history...

I'm fat.  REALLY REALLY fat.  People tell me that I'm not really, that I'm just curvy.  I don't believe a word of it and I find it somewhat irritating when they say I'm not fat.  Do they think I'm stupid??  I'm told that perhaps I have a hint of body dysmorphia.  Actually I do, but it's a weird kind of body dysmorphia.  I think I'm the fattest person in the world and then I look in the mirror and think "oh, that's not too bad actually..." and then I see a photo of myself or I step onto the scales or I find that I can no longer fit into my already incredibly enormous clothes.  And then I remember that I really am fat.  I'm far, far heavier than any man I know, let alone the women.

I wasn't always fat.  I was a skinny child and a skinny teenager.  My legs were like sticks.  And then, at 18, I had a boyfriend who was a bodybuilder and ate an obscene amount...and I kept up with him.  Since that day, I've struggled with my weight.

I was depressed at university because of my weight.  I was reclusive and never left my house unless it was to go to lectures.  I didn't have very many friends.

After university I moved down to London and discovered a city where I could blend into the background and for a year I was pretty happy.

Everything went a little bit wrong - I lost my (pretty rubbish) job at the same time that my lease was up on my flat.  I decided to leave London and I moved to Newcastle to go back to university.  Once again, I became pretty reclusive.  I barely went out and I found myself counting the days until I could move back to London, which I did in the summer of 2004.

In 2008 I lost a lot of weight - nearly 3 stones in 4 months - thanks to Weight Watchers and a new-found focus.  I felt amazing and I felt like I may be entitled to the happy-ever-after like everyone else.  I had a boyfriend for the first time since I was 18 (yes, I really had been single for 12 years) and everything seemed good.  Then, something bad happened - a very good friend and colleague died suddenly and unexpectedly, my boyfriend dumped me via text message the night before her funeral and I sank into a very deep depression and so I turned to what I know - comfort eating.

In the last 3 years since Jo's death, I've put back on every one of those 3 stones plus another stone and a bit.  I'm officially disgustingly obese and I'm seriously unhappy with myself.  I'm also incredibly cross with myself for letting this happen.

Anyway, on Saturday I was sitting in the pub with my lovely friend @shedlikesfood and we were discussing the fact that I keep falling off my diet and that I need some motivation.  She suggested that I start blogging - be it thoughts, recipes, details of what I've eaten on a particular day, confessing on a weekly basis whether I've lost any weight...and even though I feel it's incredibly self-indulgent, I'm at a point where I think it may be worth a shot.

I HAVE to lose weight.  I don't like myself very much at the moment and I'm now 33, I want to meet someone and eventually have babies and Live the Dream.  Until I like myself, that's not going to happen.  =

Finally, here are a few pictures.  I haven't really let anyone take any photos of me for a good few years, so my fat photos are from almost 4 years ago.  I think that I'm actually bigger now that I was then, so you'll just have to make an educated guess about what I look like now (unless you've met me of course).  The fat photos make me do a little sick in my mouth.

The thin photos are from when I lost all my weight before my friend died.  The irony being that, at the time, I thought that I was still huge (not helped by the aforementioned boyfriend telling me I still needed to lose a lot of weight.)  I can see now that I wasn't at all and that I looked great.  These photos are my target weight. (Apologies (a) for the dreadful sash on the dress and (b) for the ridiculous pose - I was drunk).

The last photo is a recent face shot.  FAT FACE.

So.  Here we go...