Project - I will look awesome in my wedding dress!

I am fairly sure most of you will know by now that I have an ongoing battle with my weight.

I am not considered fat and I am fairly fit, but for me I am at a stage where I am bigger than I have been for a while and that is never going to make a girl feel good!

In less than 3 months I will be walking down the aisle to marry the man I love and I also want to love my body by the time I get there.

Why you ask? Two reasons - Andy is currently training for the London Marathon so will be very fit and toned come the wedding and I want to be too, and secondly despite not wanting to bow to any pressure heaped onto every bride to be - I want to look bloody good in my dress!

I have spent the past two months getting a new tattoo so exercise has been limited but now it has healed I am going at this all guns blazing.

And I am not going it alone this time. I have enlisted my friend and personal trainer Ant (@BreatheFitPT) to help me.

As much as I am not into body shaming, I felt I needed to take photos and post them to a) show myself how much weight I have gained and b) to give myself something to compare against. This is my starting point:

Best unimpressed face I could manage. I don't think even I had realised how much my body had changed recently. Two years ago I ran a marathon and was feeling really great about my body. I have bloody back boobs!! A lot of people have commented recently that I look good and that I have lost weight. Personally I think I have just been very good at hiding it using a combination of baggy tops, pull you in pants and a lot of black (well the last is not really purposeful just that my wardrobe mainly consists of black).

This was me in 2009 when I was training hard and spending a lot of time at Virgin Active. I had just finished a 10k in the photo:

Same outfit - 6 years apart. I can't even begin to tell you how hard getting the top on and off was! 2009 me though is where I want to get back to. Not overly muscley (although would not say no to a Jessica Ennis-Hill washboard style stomach but have to be realistic!) but definitely no muffin top (although as the moment I think I have a full bloody gateaux).

Despite not really wanting to, I am also making some sacrifices to achieve my goal. The hardest being cutting down on beer. I love beer. This is going to be a tough one. There is no point going cold turkey as I will fail, hard! But I am definitely cutting down. And the sweets and chocolate, time to pretty much cut them out.

Only trouble is we are coming up to Christmas which means party season (beer) and well Christmas (Quality Street boxes, chocolate, mince pies and the like!). I could not have picked a harder time to start!

Ant keeps telling me it is not all about weight and it will be about muscle tone and fitness but I am hoping to lose weight too. My starting stats are the following:

Weight: 69kg
Bust: 38"
Waist: 33.5"
Hips: 38"
Thighs: 23"

I will actually chart my progress for a change as I am intrigued to see what I can do during such a hard part of the year to be starting these kinds of challenges.

In the meantime, here is a video from Ant to let you know what I am letting myself in for!

Breathe Fitness operate in London. Check out the Website here.