Introductions

Hello, I’m Ria – a gap year student with the aim to fit into a size 12 dress before I start university in a year’s time! I plan to do this by finding ways to incorporate exercise into my routine and following a healthy diet as I cannot afford to join a slimming group because any spare money I do have is being saved to support me through university. I have already lost half a stone since beginning and although it has been difficult to try and ward off my many vices, (ice cream, chocolate, crisps, cheese – generally anything fatty or sweet!) on discovering that my Mum has gall stones and my Dad has type 2 diabetes after years of indulging in a fatty diet and a lack of exercise, I have truly been warned of the dangers to my health that being unhealthy can cause.

Although I probably got to my lowest weight when following the Slim Fast plan, I always felt as though it was unhealthy as, despite getting all of your vitamins, there was no variety and nothing for your stomach to break down – often leaving me feeling faint and tired. Also, it's not something you can stick to for life and as soon as I started eating normal foods I quickly piled even more weight on than I'd lost, leaving me where I am today!

This time I am going to do my best to follow a varied and healthy plan by keeping a food diary and essentially using lower fat/lower sugar alternatives to foods I enjoy as well as allowing myself to indulge now and then to try and change the destructive attitude that I’ve had before whereby if I’ve ‘fallen off’ and eaten a bit too much or treated myself, I’ve told myself that I may as well go on a huge binge and eat everything in sight, ignoring the food baby that would be rapidly increasing. To truly live a healthier life I need to find a way of addressing this attitude and I want to view this as an ultimate change in lifestyle rather than just a ‘diet’ as otherwise I’d simply eventually come off the diet and put the weight back on.

My real hang-ups with my body are my arms and legs, as I have a fairly small stomach but my thighs and bum are around a size 16 whereas my top is more like a 12 (bar my arms and boobs!), so I’d love to have more of an hourglass figure than my current pear shape. I’ve already finished the 30-day-shred and am currently using it as my go to exercise routine but I’m hoping to find something that is more leg-focused. I'm determined to live a healthier, slimmer life which will allow me to feel 'normal' and hopefully make it easier for me to make friends when I get to uni as I won't constantly be obsessing about how fat I feel/look.

I've been inspired by the wonderful Where Are My Knees team and after applying to be a part of the team, decided to start my own blog to track my progress and post a weekly weigh-in update amongst anything else I'm musing about! :)