Still alive - and not fat!

Hello. My name's Isabel and I used to write this blog.

Yes, I know, I know... it's been months since I've written in here - but that's partly been a conscious decision. I'm now firmly back in the world of eating and drinking like a normal person and my size 18 self is but a distant memory. Actually, perhaps that's not strictly true - every time I'm in the supermarket or in a restaurant, I have to think about the choices Isabel + 5 stone would make, and then do the opposite, and it's quite exhausting. However, I've been successfully maintaining my weight for the past few weeks but have still enjoyed myself, which is really good to know. In February, I gained a few pounds - but it was a whirlwind month of weddings, birthdays, holidays and other shenanigans, and I've since tried to balance it out in the way that someone who's never been overweight might. But I'm not going to pretend it's easy - for a start, my metabolism is still buggered from so many months of so few calories, so I'm more likely to gain weight than your average person. However, the effort is worth it, as I feel pretty great, if it's OK to say that without sounding like a wanker.

There's been a LOT going on - the biggest thing is definitely the fact that I have a new job, which I start in a couple of weeks. I've been at Heat for six years now and I am incredibly sad to be leaving, but it seems like the right time - and that's partly because of all this. I like the idea of going somewhere completely different where nobody knows the bigger me. I sometimes feel like the people I know now are just waiting for me to trip up and gain weight - although in reality I know that's probably just paranoia on my part, as nobody's that mean. Well, only one or two people anyway.

The love life relaunch has also been and continues to be... interesting. I'm not quite so much of an attention seeker that I'm going to divulge these things here, sorry. I wish I was that shameless, though, as my whole weight loss "journey" has led to some interesting boy-shaped developments, some good, some bad, and it would make for a really meaty and thought-provoking bloggy thing. Ooh, intriguing. But I can't go into it. Ha. Actually, I think some people might be quite relieved to hear that. La la la la la.

What else? I've covered food, work and romance - that's pretty much all there is to life, no? So, let's do some photos. I went to Spain last month, and happened to have my picture taken on the same beach as the last time I went, in March 2008. I'm even clutching the same flip-flops...



And then there was Raj and Tom's wedding a couple of weeks later, where I wore the best dress ever. I delved through the archives and found a photo of myself in a somewhat larger spotty dress back in November 2007. So you can literally spot the difference. Yeah, it's just the mouse ears really, isn't it?

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For a while I felt a bit repulsed when I looked at old pictures, but that seems to have passed. When I study those two "before" photos, I don't think I looked that bad. I definitely prefer the way I look now, but I don't utterly hate myself in either of those. My good bits are still my good bits, and my bad bits are still my bad bits - they're just scaled-down versions of them.

I do think it's important to regularly remind myself how far I've come, as for the past couple of months I've been deliberately trying to put the whole diet thing behind me and move on, as if I've always been this weight, and I've even been a bit annoyed when anyone else brings it up. However, I need to keep myself in check by looking back from time to time, if that makes sense. While I've partly written this blog entry tonight to shut all the people up who've been nagging me about not updating it, I've mainly written it for my own benefit - it's a bit of a pat on the back for how well I've done, but it's also a kick up the bum to remind me to keep it up.