With under nine weeks to go before my wedding, I’m working as hard as ever in training and in my eating. The wedding isn’t the only motivation for my fitness, fat loss journey. I want to be healthy. I want to walk around without becoming a breathless, sweaty mess. I’m definitely getting there – my fitness has improved vastly over the last few months.

Nevertheless, I found myself saying to my trainer, ‘I’ve got eight weeks to lose as much weight as I can without killing myself’. That’s not exactly a healthy thing to say, but you see, I’m kicking myself over not being able to get into this journey earlier. My mind is plagued with ‘if you had managed to stick to this regime when he proposed, you would be a size 12 by now!’. Whether or not that’s true, it’s a bitter pill to swallow.

The fact remains that I didn’t manage to stick to it until a few months ago. I need to accept that. I can’t change it – I can only change what I do going forward.

Knowing I’ll be centre stage, for want of a better term, is daunting. Not surprisingly my ego rises to the surface. Thoughts such as, “I don’t want everyone looking at me when I’m fat,” or “I can’t get married like this, full stop.” It’s all self-centred fear. Quite a normal one, to a degree, but still my focus is on the wrong thing. Instead of focusing on the real meaning of the day – marrying the love of my life – I’m focusing on me and my insecurities.

Several people have said to me, ‘everyone at the wedding loves you for you and if they judge you then they shouldn’t be there.’ While it’s a nice and logical observation, it is SO hard to believe. I’ve got this fear people will judge me when I walk down that aisle. I don’t want to be a fat bride, but I do have to be realistic in what I can achieve in 8 weeks time (when my final dress fitting is). Notice the use of ‘I’ in those last few sentences? I’m making it all about me, and that’s not right. Andy says he will be proud of marrying me whatever size bride I am… but it’s still hard to swallow my pride and accept my size.

I need to keep on my programme, keep working hard, but most of all I need to stop the negative talk in my head, the jokes I make about my weight so others can’t, the hurtful words I say about myself out loud… and really get back in touch with the meaning of the wedding day.

61 days and counting, folks. Follow my journey daily on Instagram.