As I sit at the keypad thinking of where to start –my mind has suddenly drifted back to my teenage years!
At the tender age of 18 I never new what weight watching was-and didn’t have a clue what all the fuss was about until I hit 21 (all the city drinking and late currys had left me
2 stone overweight from the slim /slight teenager to suddenly feeling very grown up at weight watchers and very naughty). Never the less, my goal weight was achieved and maintained and on with my life I went... until I hit my late twenties.
My first child was born and only 2 stone weight gain. 'Brilliant' I thought after reading horror stories of gaining 5 stone, except that after Alexandra was born the first stone fell off and it then took another year to lose another stone. What was happening? Why was the weight suddenly hard to shift?
I then tried every diet going and got to ½ stone overweight - yes I know, not a lot, but a whole difference between a 12 and a tight 14 – how could this be????
So I joined a gym and manically did aerobics daily and finally shifted the last bit and got back in my 12’s – phew.
I’ve always enjoyed aerobics and knew that this helped immensely so I decided to go back to college and become an aerobics instructor and in June 2001 I became a fully qualified exercise to music teacher - surely this would help me for life……
Then in August 2001 I fell pregnant again with my second child. I carried on teaching until I was 36 weeks and gave birth easily to another baby girl - BUT... shock horror - had put on 3 stone and only lost my baby’s birth weight - 6 pounds (something to be said for having big babies after all) - my body was as confused as me, back to slimming clubs - joining/leaving/losing one pound, putting on one pound - we've all been there - very depressing!!
"You Are What You Eat"
And then I read an article about slimming and diet and went on a seminar to do with teaching and how to advise clients. I learnt that we're all different and our metabolisms don’t always respond the same way to the same diets - and that really it's all down to old fashioned input versus output and you are what you eat - which I suppose we all know deep down but sometimes need to be told that.
I was a nightmare picker (the odd chicken nugget that had fallen into my hands wouldn’t hurt, would it? But it did!)
So I decided to put all the knowledge together from all the clubs and information that I had read and make up my own diet:
Breakfast I ate a bowl of cereal
Mid-morning a banana/apple
Lunch low calorie soup and roll/sandwich-fruit/beans on toast
Mid-afternoon fruit/carrots
Dinner if I was teaching then I would include carbs (potatoes/rice/pasta) with any meat and every vegetable I could think of. If I wasn’t going anywhere, and we were staying in watching TV, I didn’t have the carbs (as these are energy foods and I don’t believe that you need energy to go to bed or watch TV)
Weekends I would eat normally weekends – go out for meals/takeaways etc
(Please note I am not intending the above information to be construed as a diet plan, but as a guide to what worked for me after years on other plans with no real long term success.)
"If it takes 10 months to put weight on, it will take at least that to get it off."
I was teaching aerobics 3 times a week for 2 hours - all high impact and fat burning - I did end up losing the most weight and being the slim /slight teenager figure again (a happy baggy size 12) and felt better than I'd felt for a long time. I managed all of this a year after my second child was born and I'm a strong believer in 'if it takes 10 months to put weight on, it will take at least that to get it off'.
I’m now pregnant again with my third child and 3 months in I'm half a stone overweight already - will I put the big 5 on this time? Or will it all be different again? I don’t think so. I think I've found out how my own body works and what it responds well to. Watch this space...
But at the end of the day, we all still look in the mirror and think 'why can't I look like this or that?' and I'm not sure we will ever be fully happy with ourselves, but you only get one body and life, so enjoy and make the best of what you have got and help yourself be fit and happy.
Emma also runs two successful businesses from home: Phoenix Trading (greetings cards) and USborne Books
If you would like any information on becoming a trader for either of the above award winning companies and/or working from home, please contact Emma on 01268-561675/07904-115637 or
thewatkins@blueyonder.co.uk
As I sit at the keypad thinking of where to start –my mind has suddenly drifted back to my teenage years!
