How I ended up here.....
So how did I end up here? What on earth has my body been through all these years? 98kgs and 47 years young. Finally understanding my body and metabolism, after damaging it for so long......
The sad thing is I have pretty much been on a diet since I was 15 - when I was tall and about 55kgs (think Nicole Kidman, without the crazy red hair). I was tall and lanky and sporty, I had the metabolism of an elite athlete. So why did I start dieting and begin over 30 years of unhappiness to weighing myself and worrying about what I looked like, how much I weighed? Because I wanted to be perfect. I wanted to be the fittest and everywhere you looked in magazines (no internet that early) were pictures of thin women in bikini's, the diets and fads that you must do to look thin. I thought thin was fit back then. Oh man if I could go back and slap myself.
I never really started putting weight on until I moved to London - I would always put on a few kgs here and there after a new diet and then would go out partying and eating/drinking like normal again but never more than 5kgs. I would go from 64kgs to 69kgs. I moved to London and was about 71kgs, in about a year I had gone up to 83kgs. So I did weight watchers and went back down to 73kgs. Ahhh phew. Up and down this happened when I used to eat cheap food (fast food, low nutrient) and drink my calories. I would then start running or back doing triathlons and swimming to get the bodyweight off. it was a continuous cycle of starving myself and overtraining to get smaller.
I also had an insecurity that men didn't like tall overweight women, so I couldn't change my height, so I thought I would change my body to get men to like me. I was a tall, outgoing confident girl who would be "too much" for most men. I also would like to go back and slap that girl who was 26 years old and still thought she had to be perfect for a man. My goodness. So I didn't really have too many long term/serious relationships for more than a few months in my twenties and early thirties, just lots of drunken nights and random hook ups or relationships with men that wouldn't last because they weren't really a good fit, because of my previous relationships all being with people I couldn't trust. The issue wasn't with me, it was them. Slap slap. Why do we give men so much power?
So fast forward years of dieting, becoming a personal trainer and training others I really started to change my thought patterns on eating, training and found that the low calorie diet and cardio wasn't the key, that weight training (something I learnt when I was 18) was still the best way to train, and my favourite way to train - loved being fit and strong (and another way to intimidate men was to have biceps and strong back muscles haha)! I stopped dating, started training and had a great time in Sydney with friends and travelling the world and experiencing so many great countries. Life was good, I was happy. After a few years I realised it would be nice to spend all the fun time I was having with someone special, I had dated in Sydney and it was a hard gig. Before all the Tinder apps it was old school meeting with "friends of friends", or people at work trying to set you up with their friends, because you know you are both single! It was not fun. I had started dating on RSVP online and had been on some pretty funny dates. I met a guy who loved bike riding more than life, the spanish man who was an alpha male and didn't like alpha women and put me down constantly, the detective who had a cute beagle, the Italian guy who lived with his parents still at 34! I had just about given up when my now husband sent his first message/stamp to me and we went on a date. It all made sense, it was easy, it was fun and full of laughter (snorts and all), fast forward to being together 10 years this year, married for seven and with our four year old daughter, things have never been better with love and family.
Being the heaviest I have ever been and happy. Truly happy, until I look in the mirror and see the reflection looking back at me and i feel so unhappy. My hormones and body have been through the wars the past six years. Whilst becoming a mum has been the best thing I have ever done, the journey wasn't good on the body. All the dieting caught up with me and my hormones went fucking mental after we had experienced three miscarriages in a year, then I had my daughter and was put on depo injection. My body was officially in a bad place. Mentally I was unstable, i was sleep deprived and constantly worried about my new baby. My body was 25kgs heavier and i couldn't sleep, my hands and feet were constantly cold, I was so tired, achy and just started feeling beige and due to the contraception, didn't have a period. I needed to do something drastic and change, I wanted to be a healthier, more stable role model for my daughter.
Knowing that quick diets and fads wasn't the way, I came off the depo injection I had been on for over two years and started to notice a difference within a few months. I got my period back which was a great indicator of how my body wasn't coping, it was painful, it was heavy, it was making me want to curl up and die every 28-30days. I felt horrid. Fat, bloated, ugly. I tried to do a few training programs, cardio and eating healthy foods. I just felt like I was going on a roundabout, around, around and no stopping. I was stressed at work and being bullied, my anxiety was through the roof and I didn't know what to do. I knew I had to do something as I wasn't happy and it was starting to affect my relationships. I had been down this dark rabbit hole before and knew the signs, I also knew I could get out of this hole and do something.
Then I found Kitty... 18 months ago, after stalking Kitty Blomfield (for about six months), from Nustrength who created WinatLife, I started following her advice, based on Dr Ray Peat and her Nutrition Coach advice. I have also read Healing my Metabolism by Kate Deering - these sites and books I highly recommend reading if you have any of the following issues:-
*constantly on a "diet"
* have hormonal or PMS pain or peri menopause symptoms
* have bloating, digestion issues
*have sleep issues
*have low intimacy issues
*have cold hands and feet
*thyroid or autoimmune issues
*weight gain
*mood swings
* anxiety
*depression (obviously if you have severe depression this is not doctors advice, just a place to start and see if diet can help you)
What you eat is really what FUELS your body and mind. How your body responds to food is always changing and the fitness industry is still conditioning us with the "eating less, training more" method which leads to so many of the above issues and more. Read the above, click on the links.... and just let it absorb. It makes sense. So much sense.
NEXT BLOGPOST: foods I am eating and how I am training less, how I am sleeping better and how I reduced my peri menopause symptoms.
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