How I lost 10kgs in 15 months!

10kgs in 15 months! I know what you are thinking, I should've lost it quicker.

well hear me out.

Crash dieting is not my thing and certainly not a sustainable or healthy way of losing weight. And in all honesty this was the first time in my life that I fell into the "overweight" category. The realisation only hit me one morning when my jeans went from feeling little tight to OMG they don't fit. Questions and emotions of disappointment started filling up my thoughts. But ultimately I knew that I needed to do something. But where do I even start?

My first steps

Well the first thing I did was cry, as you do when you feel overwhelmed and disappointed with yourself. My advice, this is totally normal, so don't beat yourself up even more if this happens, have a good cry and eat that last chocolate bar if you have too.

But seriously, the first thing I did was figure out where my habits had changed... Life and self reflection, the hard part!

Things that had change for me:

• I went from an active job which required me to be on my feet most of the day walking, standing, constantly up and down and moving around, to sitting infront of a laptop all day.

• I would drink a good amount of water and have a healthy lunch, fruit, veg, carbs, proteins.

• Because of my working hours at the time I wouldn't drink any alcohol during the week. In fact I rarely drank any alcohol.

• I had a lovely dog and we would go for long walks, runs and cycle at times. But my dog suddenly passed away, unexpectedly, and stopped going for those walk and runs. It felt weird going without him and felt like I no longer had a purpose to walk nor did I find the enjoyment in it.

• I was alway health conscious but somewhere I lost sight of this.

• We bought a house and as we no longer had a "couples" goal. We spent a few extra days a month at the pub or eating out.

• Covid came along - some of us took the opportunity to change our lives, I didn't, I was rather comfortable.

• Also, I was redeployed and worked shifts, which meant that I was one of those unlucky people who would stand in the queues at a supermarket at night and the shelves and fridges would be cleaned out. So it was either bread or takeaways (if it was allowed at that time).

• 
  

My next steps:

1. I reintroduced exercise - I joined my local PureGym. Tried one of their classes, but embarrassingly I wast so unfit that I nearly passed out and the instructor stopped the class to check in on me. Needless to say, I never joined a class for a long time after that. I decided to follow a social media trend at that time which was: A treadmill walk on an incline of 12, speed of 3 for 30 minutes. It was difficult to begin with but after a few week of persevering I could walk at this incline for 30 minutes without reducing the incline back to 0. I also used this time to listen to my podcasts. My rule - only listen to a podcast when on the treadmill.

2. I grated any hard cheese I ate using a fine grater. It looked and felt like I was eating loads but I was tricking my brain into eating less calories.

3. I swapped red wine for gin and tonic. Again less calories.

4. Decreased some carbs and replaced it with protein. I swapped my morning weetabix with milk and sugar for overnight oats. Oats, authentic greet yoghurt, berries and nuts.

5. Introduced regular protein shakes.

6. I started calorie counting. After a fews weeks getting into my new habits I downloaded MyNetDiary and I started tracking what I ate to see where I could improve, without cutting out food groups.

   
   

My learning from my weight loss journey

The first thing I learnt is that making changes is difficult. Saying NO doesn't come easy.

"No thanks, no wine for me" "No thanks, no crisps for me" "Sorry I can't make it at that time I am going for my walk"

Why don't we say "NO thank you"? We don't want to spoils someone else's day, let someone else down, offend someone else. But remember saying YES, lets you down, your goals will suffer and you will give up before you even started. So learn to say No thank you, it gets easier to say the more you say it.

The second thing I learnt was that weight loss is not one straight line all the way to your goal. It looks like my charts above. Especially the last stretch, the dreaded plateau. Ladies, you have hormones to deal with, so does lose momentum when you get on the scale and you way more than the previous week. Over time you will feel better, your clothes will fit better, you will have more energy and you will sleep better.

Lastly, I learnt that cutting food groups is not healthy. I didn't follow keto, paleo, atkins, juicing, fasting or any of the other fads out there. I briefly tried, but felt awful. I slowly reduced my calorie intake over time, made calculated food swaps and reduced ultra processed foods.

My advice to you is forget you goal weight, make some changes and review as you go. Because you are mostly like going to set an unrealistic target, that's human nature. We are now programmed to see results and see result fast.

One change at a time is good, because the truth is starting is the hardest part.

Be kind to yourself

Desré