Death of the Diet.

It's not a diet, it's a lifestyle change! The moment I actually accepted this and stopped "dieting", was the moment I not only started to lose weight for good, but became healthier and happier too.
I decided to start a blog about healthy eating, exercise and general health so I could share with as many people as I could, all that I have learnt over the past 2 years. I have been asked a handful of times how I lost weight and what I do to keep it off (that hardest part in my opinion), so I thought it would be good to have a space where I could tell people how I did it, and how I will continue to do it.

So, what qualifies me to be able to tell you what you should be eating and how you should be exercising? Nothing. Everyone is different, and everyone has their own way of dealing with things. However, over the past 2 years, I have fallen into all the "diet" traps and tried just about everything going and to be honest, I think I slowed the whole process down and damaged my body in the process. If I can save someone time, effort and their health by sharing my failures and success, then this will not be in vain. It's also nice to have written down what has been one of the best things I have ever done.

I guess, if anything qualifies me to tell you what you should be eating, it is the fact that just over 2 years ago (December 2008), I weighed 16 stone 7lbs. I am not sure if that is the heaviest I have ever been, but that was the first time I had weighed my self in years. Now I weigh, well, that I am not entirely sure - I chucked the scales away. Scales are evil, evil things - but more about that in another post. The last time I weighed myself, I was bang on 9 stone 7. For my 5ft 9in height, that put my BMI at 19.6 (the healthy range being 18.5–24.9). I went from a size 22 at my biggest, to now a size 8. I still have my "big" jeans, just for a boost. I still fit in the same size (although, depending on the shop, but I will moan about that another time), so I know I have not lost or gained a significant amount of weight. But, I most likely have gained weight, as I exercise every day and we all know muscle weighs more than fat. Again, something I will talk about more, but the number on the scales and what the NHS thinks my BMI is does not bother me. What bothers me, is that I am eating right, exercising and that I am finally gaining a healthy attitude towards food and this is what I will be posting about here.

I hope you keep checking back here to see what I have been posting. My next post will be about how I got to that weight in the first place, and what gave me the push I needed to become healthier and thinner. I will be blogging my favourite recipes (with pictures) that have kept me going, all the healthy alternatives to my favourite foods and desserts that I have created, my views on particular "diets", information on super foods, my favourite exercises and everything in between.

Dannii
xx