Three weeks since...

So it's been three weeks since I last posted, and because I've been lazy, I've only lost about 200g. NOT GOOD. My college life is getting busier, and I'm still working part time (on my feet!!), so it hasn't given me a lot of off time.

Three big things happening in February:

1. My new Meet Up group, Edinburgh College Group, is finally getting off the ground. Although I still only have 15 members, I have a meeting with the college in 2 weeks about becoming a proper events group and getting support from them. It means I'll get help with advertising, promotion and posters!!

http://www.meetup.com/Edinburgh-College-Group/

2. My mate Janice and I are celebrating 10 years of friendship by finally taking that girl's holiday we've always wanted to do... 2 days in Belfast! Can't wait!!

3. I've decided to be a Pescatarian the whole of February. Because I can't eat dairy, it's basically me being Vegan + eggs + fish. Let's see how I manage, but I'm just trying to give myself a healthier diet. I'm also going to start doing Jane Fonda workouts in my living room. All welcome.

I don't eat a lot of meat, at least, I don't think I do. But it's giving up salami, and chicken at lunch in college, and eating weirdly. I need to have a healthy diet as well as exercise more. A classmate told me yesterday that you have to improve on diet the most: 70% is diet and only 30% is getting fit, for losing weight.

It's a four week taster, I'll start on Monday 1st February and my last meaty meal will be... HAGGIS!

#diet #meetup #edinburghcollege #janefonda #belfast

Day Zero

Hello, I'm Kirsty, I'm 28 and I live in Edinburgh. And I've decided that I should lose some weight.

Curious about my BMI (Body Mass Index), I looked on the NHS website, weighed myself and put in my details and out came this:

That word. Obese. I've always thought of myself as a little overweight. Curvy. I like my curves. I like my boobs big too! I think I have good legs and lips and hair. There's a lot of myself I do like. But again, like normal people, some I don't. I don't like having to take photos at a particular angle. I don't like friends taking pictures of me where I think I look terrible. It's all in the mind, right? No. I am not the weight I should be. I should be, according to the NHS, be 25kg lighter to be at a healthy weight.

25kg. That's a lot. 25 bags of sugar. 55 pounds. Almost four stone. To me, that's an impossible weight aim. But I'm going to try.

I want to be able to run around after my nephews and not get tired so easily. I want to be able to run a block for the bus and not feel my heart in my chest for ten minutes afterwards. I want to be able to walk up a hill easily, and not take so many breaks to "take photos".

My lifestyle is not all couch potato. I work in a job where I am on my feet for 6 hours in a 12 hour job. I am either standing still or walking (fairly fast paced usually) between venues. I am a rambler and like to take walks to explore. I'll just take myself off on a walk when I have time, but that's not so often. When I was travelling, I did lose weight. I was exploring and walking more - but then I was also ill from the food a lot of the time so lost some that way too. I sit at a computer a lot. I'm at college and am currently taking nine classes along with an extra Spanish class one evening a week. It's a lot of studying and essays and exams and reports. But I signed up for it!

I am dairy-free. Not by choice. I could eat dairy until I was 21, and then gradually got ill so much when I ate it, that I made a choice and took myself off it. I lost a dress size actually. I went from a 16-18 to a 14-16 (UK sizes) and haven't gone back up.

I have IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome) which means, at least to me, that anything could make me ill. Things that are completely dairy free commonly make me ill - everything from aubergines to vegan cheese, from soya milk to pasta, from tea to spinach. I'm weird. I used to get excruciatingly painful heartburn where it used to keep me up all night (can't cure it with milk). After a particularly awful 8 day episode, a friend suggested apple cider vinegar, and my heartburn cleared up within 48 hours. Bliss.

I have PCOS (Polysystic Ovary Syndrome), which will make it harder for me to lose weight than a "normal" person. It gives me a hormone imbalance which gives me infrequent and prolonged periods (I have a thing in my arm to prevent this for three years), excess hair growth (I have hairy arms, sideburns and hair sprouting in weird places) and... obesity.

So there's a lot standing against me, but I'm going to try to fight against it. I'm going to eat healthily (I will put recipes up on here and you guys can judge me on how healthy or unhealthy you think they are). I will also put up what I've eaten when I'm ill. Maybe a dietician out there will see what I'm not and let me know what's wrong this time! I will put up my exercise regime, photos of me sweating away and my progress (if any) weekly.

Today is day zero. Let's see how I go!

Day 0 - January 10th 2016
Not going to add my face in at this point because I'm in my underwear! Please don't report this for nudity, I am showing this photo as a starting point, rather than nakedness!