More about me...
As I have mentioned before I am just your average 33 year old mum of two- Nothing too special about me so I hope this doesn’t bore too many people!! I've been asked to talk more about myself and how I gained the 35kg I have now lost.
Quick as I can life story coming up….. All my life I’ve hated exercise and sports & could pretty much couldn’t care less about nutrition. I was always the bigger girl throughout my schooling. Upon leaving school in 1999, I headed straight to university and was a size 14. I have always thought I was fat! Always!! I have no idea what I weighed way back then as I never was game to hop on the scale. I am guessing it is similar to what I weigh now as I am a size 12 now. But I know I weigh less now than I did in high school! I spent 4 years at university studying education. I graduated in 2003 and worked as a teacher until 2010. Amongst all that I moved towns and met Casey and got married. After a career change in 2010, Aiden was born in 2011 and Millie in 2014. (Insert breath here 😆)
I guess sometimes we ask ourselves – "how did I get to where I am body wise? How have I gone from that to this?" We don’t realise it at the time and we tell ourselves it’s only a kilo or two – but then it slowly turns into 5kg, 10kg, 20kg, 30kg. Busy lives, babies, family, work – life can get in the way of us truly looking after ourselves. The one thing we do for almost everyone else and we hide behind our excuses! For me, I found that when I was in a relationship I became very ‘comfortable’ and didn’t really care about what I ate or if I gained weight. To be honest I never weighed myself so I never realised I was gaining weight until clothes for tighter, but it didn't make me rethink my choices! I wasn’t out to impress anyone anymore! This is how my weight steadily crept on. I was in a 4 year relationship during my uni days – ate what I wanted and never exercised. When I met Casey I moved to Emerald and spent 18 months out there and gained even more weight, purely due to over-eating and not exercising. Again comfortable and content with life. As I have said before I knew I was overweight and I have always known the benefits of exercise but I just didn’t like how I felt when I was doing it – and I never stuck with anything long enough to see results. I simply had no regard for my body, how I treated it or what I put into it. It was too much hard work!
After being married for 4 years we decided to start a family. I didn’t gain huge amounts of weight during my pregnancies. With Aiden I gained 14kgs and with Amelia I gained 11kgs. I was lucky & very surprised after Aiden was born as I lost that 14kg in the 3 weeks after having him. At this point (apart from thinking I was amazing and invincible 😜), I was breastfeeding, eating loads (I was very hungry!) and losing weight – I took it for granted and started gaining weight. By the time I fell pregnant with Amelia I was back over 100kgs. I assumed I'd lose weight quickly again but sadly this time I didn’t! I gained more weight once again and reached my all time heaviest at 113.4kg. Feeling horrible about myself and with zero energy and two active kids, I wanted to improve my body image and be a better role model for them. My sister’s wedding was another kick in the butt I needed to get my ass into gear! This is when I started calorie counting and lost 14kgs and after that I joined F.A.T and have lost a further 21kgs through diet & exercise. I have NEVER felt better! Embarrassingly I do sometimes catch myself having - I can't believe this is me moment, whilst checking myself out in the mirror!! 😆 I recently went shopping and I cannot explain the thrilling feeling of being able to go into any store and try on clothes and stare at myself in disbelief! I've never been able to shop in normal, everyday stores. It's all been so worth it and I will never let myself go back to where I was. I love where I'm at!! ❤️
Life is all about choices. When we are uninformed and uneducated about health and nutrition we generally unknowingly make bad choices. We can think we are doing the right thing where in fact we are not. You cannot out-exercise a bad diet - food is key to losing weight!! There is so much information out there now, so much to learn. I have become very interested nutrition and its benefits for our bodies. I am becoming much more interested in clean eating and cutting right back on processed foods. I always thought this was an unattainable way of life and something I could never stick with. So now I challenge myself everyday to eat clean foods...I try my best to eat clean, whole foods, and where I cannot I will make healthiest choice I can depending where I am! I still believe, for me, that to live 100% clean is not realistic. One exception for me is milk. I won’t be having almond, oat, rice or any other milk substitute 😩. That is where I am drawing the line for myself - I just do not like it!! In the future I want to see more muscle definition in my body - but I continue to take one day at a time, ride the roller coaster, have ups and downs but ultimately do my best each day! And so can you! xo
As you'll see in my wrap up video...I too have bad days and weeks! School holidays threw my routine out the window...along with everything else...but I let it and listened to the negative voice in my head...I let it win. But I had to just get over it and move on. I have decided that my next blog will be on the topic of excuses!! Stay tuned :)
