This week I’m celebrating being 1 stone lighter than I was when I started with Rash and Nish at Lift365. In actual fact I am now 17 pounds down from my heaviest weight last summer. It’s been a hard journey and I guess comparatively slow. But for me this has been about taking control of my health (and more broadly my life) and really changing things for the better. 

The exercise side of the plan has been relatively easy. The joy of having a personal trainer is that you just show up and do what they tell you. Haha if only it was as simple as it sounds! That said working with Rash has been enlightening. I’ve learned a lot about nutrition and muscles and what works for me. I’ve learned how to isolate muscles and found some I didn’t know I had! Rash has taught me about good form and how heavy is just right. I’ve found that I enjoy weight training (it’s definitely more fun than running!). All this has allowed me to really understand what I’m doing with each exercise which will come in handy should I ever leave Lift365. 

The food side hasn’t been easy. At all. I’ve been a fad dieter all my adult life. Food has always been a comfort or reward. It’s been hard to break the mind set of ‘dieting’ and instead think about eating healthily. I’ve taken it slowly though (perhaps too slowly) and gradually my diet has improved. I’m not just eating more healthily I’m also thinking about food in a different way. It is no longer a reward, treat or comfort.  I’m also taking the time to rediscover foods. I’ve found that lots of food I used to eat regularly I simply ate out of habit and I didn’t really like. I also shiny new foods like quinoa and quark (although the jury is still out on that one!).  Don’t get my wrong I still crave ‘bad’ foods and I still eat chocolate most days but I now consider the consequences of that choice which helps me rein in the little voice in my head telling me to eat the whole tub of Ben and Jerry’s! One of the important things I’ve learned is how to deal with mistakes. In the past if I had given in to the craving and eaten all the chocolate or a whole tub of ice cream I would have felt awful and either given in to all my cravings or been really restrictive of food for the next week. Now I’m trying to follow the advice of a wise woman and be kind to myself. It’s ok to make mistakes. That’s how we learn. 

So 1 stone down. What next? The plan is to keep going. I don’t actually have a final goal weight or dress size in mind. I want to be healthy and feel good about myself. There’s still a long way to go to healthy so I’ll see how I feel when I get there. First though I need to get down to a nice healthy weight/BMI/body fat. For me that’s at least another stone away. Probably more. The aim is to lose this next one a little quicker. Hopefully by my birthday in August. I just need to keep up a slow but steady progress. That requires two things I’m not very good at yet. Patience and consistency. Fun times ahead!