Hi ...

Well, as this is the opening post, I suppose I'd better introduce myself - I'm 28, single, a standard girl with a good bunch of friends, a decent social life to keep me busy and a love of extreme sports ... and I'm overweight.

It's not like it's crept up on me when I wasn't looking, I've never been small, but there's no reason for it, as both my parents were a normal build when they were young. I've never seriously dieted before - not sticking to a set routine - my weight has just slowly rollercoasted up and down quite naturally over the years, but overall the "ups" have outweighed the "downs", and now enough is enough.

I'm not the heaviest I've ever been, but I can see so many benefits of doing this now - my health, self-confidence, my general fitness - that I think I've finally got the focus to do it.

This blog won't just be about my weight loss (I hope), but this is a major thing for me, and I'd quite like to document it, whether or not anyone else reads it. You see, having never been slim, or at least not since I was about 6, I can't imagine what it will be like to be that way. And that scares me a little bit - will I be the same person if I manage this, or will I be irrevocably changed? And for the better or worse?

So - the ugly details - I joined Weight Watchers 5 weeks ago, at the starting weight of 16 stone and 6 lbs. The first couple of weeks have been surprisingly easy - at my 4th weigh in on Monday, I'd already lost 11 and a half lbs, so I'm currently 15 stone 8.5 lbs. But I've got a hell of a long way to go. Ultimately, I'd like to get into the healthy BMI category which means getting to 11 stone dead on - that's a loss of 5 stone 6 lbs. Frightening? I think so.