My story

I guess a good place to start would probably be to introduce myself and tell you a little bit about my story. By a little bit, I more than likely mean a great deal because I tend to end up with essays. I can't promise that you'll like my essays but what I can promise you is that they will be open, honest and I will try my best to make them interesting and inspirational. If you have any ideas for posts, then please let me know.

My Blog Name

Some people may be wondering about the blog name. It comes from an amazing band that I have been following for a good few years now called Biffy Clyro. The full line 'take the pieces and build them skywards' appears in the song Machines. While it is a completely different situation the song talks about not savouring life, forgetting how good life can be and feeling alive. I want to take the pieces of my weight loss journey, collect them and focus on each step and build them skywards to reach my final goal. In this case I use it to motivate myself to think of each pound, each step, each choice as one of the pieces and how each one can allow me to reach the sky.

The Beginning

I don't know what is worse; knowing what it is like to be thin and love your body and not having it any more or never having been thin to have that motivation to get back there. I have never been thin, unless you count when I was a young child, which I don't. I was maybe a pound or two overweight by the time I started junior school but I remember always feeling fat and being called names. I've always been tall and big built, so maybe that was it, but it's sad to have never felt happy with myself. I've been dieting now on and off since I was 10. At 10 I was tall for my age and wearing an adult size 10 jeans which I don't think was really that big looking back on it. But that's where my struggle started. I can pin point a bunch of reasons why I have put on weight. Firstly, one of 5 girls each one of us has a weight problem...not just being a bit overweight but ranging from a size 16 to what I guess is probably about a size 28 (maybe more). Is it genetics or socialisation? Who knows. My second reason is boredom. When I was 10 I moved to Wales. I certainly wasn't happy there and I was away from my friends that I spent all my time out of the house with. As I grew older I was bored because I lived in a smaller part of a very small village that had only one shop; a post office that was open for half a day on a Wednesday. The nearest shop was 5 miles away. There was no bus route other than the school bus, which also ran through the village twice on a Saturday. When I thought 'what is there to do?' Eat was really my only answer. Ever since I have tended to go in a pattern of diet, fail, stuff everything in I can before I diet again on Monday, diet on Monday, fail and repeat! The problem with never having been thin is I have nothing to picture, no feeling to remember, no clothes to fit back into, no idea of my goal weight and no pictures to motivate me.

Weight Loss "Successes"

When I was 16 I got down to my lowest ever weight of 13 stone 13lbs and a small size 18. I did this through religious exercising and not eating very much, not the healthiest way of doing it but this was my first taste of weight loss success. When I first started college I was shy, quiet and very unhappy. I didn't speak to anyone really and I felt like the girl who followed my thin friend around and that nobody wanted around. I lost weight and suddenly all that changed. I was happy, popular and outgoing. I had several groups of friends I was happy hanging out with, I had boys asking me out, I could buy clothes in regular shops and enjoy dressing up. Second time I gave weight watchers a shot for the first time. I lost 5 stone in 9 months and went from a size 26 to a small size 18. Due to a family tragedy I started gaining weight (2 stone in the month afterwards) and then steadily gained most of it back until I joined Weight Watchers online and did the new ProPoints plan. I lost slowly and ended up just over a stone and a half lighter but depression made it difficult and I gave in. I decided to forget about dieting all together rather than follow my destructive pattern. That got me to my highest ever weight and at the beginning of January I started Weight Watchers once again and here I am. Hopefully this will be the time I get to goal and I hope to take you with me. Thank you for reading such a long post!