A whole year later

Hello readers. I'm sure I've lost a lot of my viewership considering how remiss I've been at writing this. I'm crap- don't you worry, I know! But, it's been a year. A YEAR, so I couldn't go a day further without getting on my laptop and writing something- anything- to sum up this last year. And hopefully break down the whole 'oh I haven't written in a while, no one cares' thing.

A few stats:
74 lbs lost (that's 5 stone 4 lbs; 34 kilos to translate)
5 dress sizes
41 inches across my body
11.5 points down on my Body Mass Index
5 trips to charity shops with old clothes
50 Weight Watchers meetings
10 silver sevens
One 10% key chain
One half marathon
Two races for life

It hasn't been easy, and I still have miles to go before I sleep, but simply writing those stats down has reminded me how much I have achieved in the last year. I won't lie to you- in the last few weeks I've slipped; lots of work, deadlines, running in my university union elections (I didn't win- oh well) has all made planning difficult. I'm going home tomorrow for the Easter holiday (which, if you're a finalist at university, is NOT actually a holiday) and am filled with renewed vigour. I live in the knowledge that Jemma will be there to beat me up if I don't come to the gym, I'll be getting in all the foods I need to help me succeed and I'll be reunited with my Weight Watchers family (something I always look forward to; it's amazing seeing people who started with you and how far they've come).

To keep myself on track, and to actually document the change my body is going through, I've decided that I'm going to challenge myself to a daily selfie. Every day of the next year I am going to take a picture of my face and then put it into a timelapse video to see the change. I'll also post the images daily to twitter which (I hope) will encourage me to keep doing it, even when I really don't want to. In honesty, I've come closer to giving up in the last three weeks than I have in the entirety of the last year. I can't let that happen. I wan't to continue to have stats like ^ that so that this time next year I'm thinking of how much I've accomplished, not wishing I hadn't kept going. I hope to hit 100 lbs lost in the by October (which if I pull my finger out is more than achievable) and I'm checking the Virgin London Marathon page daily so that I am in there the moment the ballot opens for next year. I think my obsession with marathons comes from the weight loss. It sums it up beautifully. It's not about being the fastest; whether you run it, walk it or end up crawling over the finish line, it is the finish and the journey that gets you there that is important.

And finally, a comparison. The last picture of me pre- weight loss and my first of this year's selfies.

Me in March 2013 and today 04/04/2014