Anxiety. It’s a seven-letter word, but its effects on the mind and body can be both multi-faceted and debilitating. Today, I am struggling with my body image. Spending a disproportionate amount of my free time doom-scrolling isn’t helping, but I just want to be slimmer.
To cut a long story short, I gained no less than seven stone almost a decade ago after being misdiagnosed by an utterly, scarcely believably inept doctor and put on tablets which were not suitable for me. I lost just over four stone and returned to a much healthier weight, but have since gained a stone and a bit.
Yet I know I’m in a better shape than I was during 2015/16, and I am proud of how I managed to shed four - yes, four - stone in a healthy way and in a relatively short period of time, and the tools, techniques and motivation I deployed in order to achieve said weight loss, I know are still within reach.
So how did I lose four stone? Personal trainer? Gym? ‘Fad’ diet? Nope. I didn’t even have to give up on the foods I enjoyed or even the odd night out (and nights out in Laxey are invariably odd).
I need to point out at this, er, point, that I do not hold any professional expertise in diet and weight loss, that I am not a qualified personal trainer, and thus if you feel as though you want to lose weight, getting in touch with a professional to discuss a personalised plan is a good step. I’m just here to share with you my journey.
Essentially, it came down to calorie deficits, exercise, regular weigh-ins and the motivation to continue to shift the pounds once the numbers on the scales began to fall. Ooh, that’s a special feeling, right?
The gift of a FitBit in Christmas of 2019 proved to be a major factor in my success. The ability to see how many calories I was burning during the day (whether active or sedentary), plus the functionality of the App to log food and therefore calories, showed me in black and white what I could expect to see when I next stood on those scales.
The amounts I was losing per week gradually began to lessen, but as I started off pretty damn overweight, that was natural. Some weeks I’d lose one pound; others I’d lose over 2.5 pounds. Some weeks I wouldn’t lose anything. Again, that’s entirely normal, as I found after brief despair. One’s weight can fluctuate as a result of many factors, from water retention to muscle growth.
I made sure my diet included plenty of protein to keep me fuller for longer, plus a few cups of coffee to rev up my metabolism still further. I picked a form of exercise which I found enjoyable, effective and which I knew I could maintain: walking. Yes, walking. It helped that I live in the countryside surrounded by hills, but even so the only running you’ll ever catch me doing is running out of patience and money.
Consistency was the key, and as the weeks passed and I was losing weight, I was feeling so much better both physically and mentally. I also knew that I was doing so in a healthy way; I wasn’t starving myself or over-exercising.
The point of the matter is that I was able to achieve a slimmer, happier, healthier me without setting foot in a gym, enlisting the services of a personal trainer, or indeed trying whatever new-fangled diet happened to be the topic of conversation on This Morning (not that I would ever watch that piece of televisual excrement). Now, I just need to follow my own advice to get that stone off…
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