Progress

Fleur De Guerre recently posted about her relationship to blogging in this post here and suddenly cogs went a turning in my own brain. Now, I'm no super blogger, but I do read a load of blogs and absolutely love following other people's journeys through life, especially following the progress of the champions who set themselves goals and advertise that determination to the social networking world. I suppose I've made a fair few internet mates this way and gained a serious amount of inspiration and stories to tell other people.

Fleur doesn't describe herself as a blogger, but she is. She's fantastic and she's right when she says that the pretty picture posts aren't the ones with the most comments, it's the ones with the real honest rants. The open honest posts where Fleur emotionally lays herself open to the mercy of her followers and receives nothing but encouragement and praise. I think some people think I'm a bit too "into" social media as I'm forever saying things like "Oh this girl I follow said this about the year she's had so far and what she's learnt" or "There's this amazing girl on Instagram who posts progress pictures on her weight loss journey" but that opportunity to share your own achievements with the world is so bloody amazing, I'm so happy that people feel they can do this on the big old scary internet world where "haters" and trolls are so common place, because there are people like me who really respond to them in a wonderfully positive way!

For instance, my post on last years' Sheffield Half Marathon is in my top 3 highest viewed and shared blog posts ever. I like to think that people read this and thought, "well well, if she can do it then so can I!" because that's sure what I think when I read other such things. If it wasn't for my discovery of Bangs And A Bun and her girls Orsii, Miss Mei, Elles Bells,  and the rest I wouldn't have even considered running 5K never mind a half marathon.

Now I can't help but think this post is for my own benefit more than anyone elses', but I'd like to share some photos from when I was a little larger. I'm doing this because I now feel fat again. But we must all remember where we have come from and the progress we have achieved. So even though I'm not feeling 100% now about the way I look, I've still come a long way. This is me on the right at my graduation in 2010, I was a size 18 and approximately 16 stone but I had already made the decision to lose the weight by this point.

This is me at my smallest, July 2012 at around 12 st 5lbs from a gig at Tramlines festival. I've put on a little bit of weight since the Summer, around 7lbs, so naturally, I'm feeling a bit gutted at my lack of self control and inability to keep going or at least maintain this weight. However, I must look at the change I've made in these two years.  I'm definitely not done yet, but my goodness I'm over the moon I'm not where I was in 2010. Progress.  

So! Half marathon training, triathalon training, clean eating, 2 litres of water a day and fingers crossed I get back on it. I look at these photos and can't help but feel much better and determined to succeed. Soppy blog post over and out.

G x