Bride side of fitness

Once upon a time, you had to worry only about choosing bridesmaids. Now, as I've learnt to my dismay since getting engaged last year, being ready for your wedding day is more about ticking off the glossy hair, gleaming skin, toned arms, plump lips and perfect feet — the list is aisle-long. And nowhere are these hopes of perfection more tightly bound than in the pursuit of the perfect figure for that white dress. "Your wedding day represents becoming someone's future, so it makes sense to want to project an image of perfection," says Alice du Parcq, health and beauty editor of Brides magazine. "A huge part of the wedding ‘vision' is the bride and her dress. Body-image obsession is understandable if you have to walk down an aisle with a room full of people staring at you — secretly judging you — and looking to you for hope, happiness and inspiration."

The bwidesmaids syndrome

In my experience, you start to feel like a public pincushion the moment you say "yes'', as other women size you up. "Congratulations" is barely past their lips when they say "Don't worry, you've got loads of time" and bypass you with the refreshments bottle, adding: "I assume you're dieting?" Then come the jokes about choosing unattractive attendants to make you look better by comparison. So rife is this practice that there's even an official term — "bwidesmaids" — for these rent-a-friends. Nowadays, it's about the improved model. According to ICM research published recently, 40 per cent of brides-to-be want to lose at least eight pounds before their wedding day and 12 per cent want to lose at least two stones. One in seven brides buys her wedding dress a size or so smaller than usual, more than a third of them using "extreme dieting tactics".

Jean Oliver, a marketing executive from London, says it's almost impossible to not become your own worst critic. "I was determined not to become obsessed with my weight. Then, three months before the wedding, I found myself waking up in a cold sweat," she says. "There's the romantic side, wanting to be beautiful for the person you love, but then there's the shallow part, which is not wanting to have everyone think you're a fat bride."

Diet, don't die

It's no wonder that quick-fit schemes, such as the Bridal Boot Camp, are thriving. But these are not half as desperate as the crash-diet approach that saw Samantha Clowe, a 34-year-old bride-to-be, who weighed 17 stone 6 pounds, die from heart failure recently after eating just 530 calories a day and shedding three stone in 11 weeks.

Catherine Greeley, an HR assistant from Surrey, plans to drop three dress sizes before her July wedding. She admits her approach isn't ideal — no meat, dairy products and wheat, and consuming just 800 calories a day — but feels she has no choice.

"I know girls who have become obsessed — right down to scraping the breadcrumbs off baked salmon, downing prune juice daily or taking diet pills and giving themselves heart palpitations," Du Parcq says. "It's not sustainable and when I see that happen, it makes me dread the wedding. Cutting out food groups such as carbohydrates is a fast-track ticket to failure. Then the guilt sets in, followed by another ‘new me' mantra. It's exhausting."

Sara Stanner, from the British Nutrition Foundation, agrees that sudden, desperate action often has a detrimental effect. "The most common mistake is to be too ambitious," she says. "I've spoken to several women who ordered their dress several sizes too small only to find they don't manage anywhere near that amount of weight loss. Another common mistake is to embark on crash diets that can't be maintained, so women regain most of the weight they lost before the day."

Crash-dieting, Stanner says, can cause tiredness, irritability, headaches and gastrointestinal problems, and low-carb diets can leave you with bad breath and constipation. "The best approach is combining a calorie-reduced diet with exercise, aiming for weight loss of about two pounds a week."

So where does that leave me? My August wedding in the ancient town hall of Certaldo, Tuscany, is fast approaching. Thanks to the light and the heat, my dress needs to be very light and is therefore quite "unforgiving''. I admit I don't feel or look my best. And my bridesmaids would all disappear from the wedding photos if they turned sideways. I don't believe that happiness is tied to looks but confidence is and while I don't want to transform myself into one of those starving, crazed-looking brides, I would like to be my confident self, so that I can focus on what's really important on the day.

Tom Marien, founder and personal trainer at One Element, believes that I could take it a step further, "convert the pressure into momentum" and make long-lasting, positive changes.

"Don't think of it as something you have to do but as an opportunity," says Marien, who has, for many years, trained athletes, post-natal mothers and brides-to-be, and specialises in motivational coaching and stress management. "Once you begin to enjoy exercise, you will be amazed at the change in your body chemistry. You will look and feel amazing and you won't want to stop."

Healthier option

I've committed to a ten-week "bride-in-training" programme devised by Marien and his team. They aim to help me lose a stone, improve my posture, help me destress, tone up and look healthy. The programme will look at my diet and overall fitness to make me feel, as Marien says, "on top of the world". Let's find out if an exercise-phobe and chronic procrastinator like me will really sail through to "I do''. Wish me luck.