Life on the other end of the magic number....

If you've read my earlier posts this year on flourishing you would know I've been on a weight loss journey. It's been about 14 months since that journey started, but I reached my goal weight several months ago, that 'magic number' that was going to make me happy. That number put me in the healthy weight range in the BMI charts, that number put me in an average clothing size instead of the plus section where I had lived my whole adult life, but that number did not magically make me happy.

Yes I was healthier and fitter, but there was still plenty of jiggly flab to be found, especially around my middle, not to mention the saggy skin that happens after losing lots of weight, plus add the flappy skin & stretch marks from 3 babies to that. I still looked in the mirror and saw nothing but flaws, nothing but more work to do. Feeling defeated that even with working so hard I looked nothing like any of those fitness motivational pictures on pinterest that used to inspire me and now taunted me. Living terrified of gaining back even 1 kilo. I had lost all this weight in a completely healthy way without obsessing over it, but now found myself in a negative, unhealthy mental state constantly criticising everything about the way I looked.

So I signed up for the 8 week beach bod boost challenge at my gym thinking that it would help motivate and inspire me and that maybe my weight hadn't just found where it was meant to be maybe it was a dreaded plateau and I just wasn't tying hard enough. It is now 5 weeks into that challenge and the results have been very different to what I expected, not because of any numbers, not because I learnt any amazing new nutrition or fitness information, but because along the way I have had a mental shift, let me share it with you, it's mind boggling......I discovered that the numbers on the scale do not dictate my life!!!!! You might already know that, you may think how is that mind boggling, but the reality is deep down I thought that a number would make me happy and I have only just realised that it didn't.

You see part of that challenge is a weekly food coaching & weigh in session. The first week I got weighed and measured, the 2nd week I lost weight, then weeks 3 & 4 I gained weight which I expected after some crappy food choices, then this week after getting my eating mojo back to normal I lost all the weight I had gained. I came home after that session yesterday and had a good laugh at myself because I suddenly realised that I actually know how to eat well and live healthy now and in those 5 weeks of focusing on the scale all I saw was the number fluctuate a little up & down and end up right back where it started. It all of a sudden seemed completely ridiculous to be worried about that number.

 I had a good long look in the mirror and realised that the woman I see is healthy, she is fit, she is achieving things she never though she could, she can jump and run and play with her kids without getting puffed, and despite the flaws and imperfections she is beautiful, and that woman is me!! All this time I thought that magic number would make me happy, but I had to actually choose to be happy, to love myself as I am, to accept myself flaws and all even if I never ever have a flat belly, and I can honestly say that for the first time ever in my life I feel comfortable in my own skin, flappy bits and all.

Life is a journey and that number will probably move up and down many more times, but once this challenge is done in 3 weeks time I wont even be worrying about the scales anymore. I will be enjoying chasing fitness goals (which includes the mud run, eeek!!), eating the good food I love that nourishes my body, embracing life in the skin i'm in and hopefully passing onto my daughters a much healthier attitude about body image.

Learning to Flourish Part 1

Last year at Colour conference there was a lot of emphasis on the word 'flourish'. I went to that conference only recently having wrestled with God to a place of peace after a very emotional journey of losing my grandma and then having a miscarriage and I turned up as a bit of a wreck who just needed to meet with God. The weekend was a soothing balm to my soul and I left knowing it was time to heal, stand up, move on and flourish, I just wasn't exactly sure how. God started revealing to me bit by bit that an area I really needed to address and flourish in was my health. I was very overweight and facing some issues because of it and knew it was time to face the giant of food that has been an ever present nemesis since my teens resulting in more than a decade of struggling with bulimia. So here I was knowing it was time to face my giant and that God was with me, but no idea how this time would be different, then I heard Dr Caroline Leaf.

I had heard of her through a friends blog and knew she was a brain scientist person but wasn't sure what to expect when she came to Hillsong sisterhood one day. Her talk on renewing our minds through the power of our choices and that we can actually regrow the barren parts of our brains into flourishing trees by choosing God switched on a lightbulb for me and I went home different. I can't explain it any better than that, what she said (which was way more complicated that what I just said) just clicked. I suddenly got that everything is a choice and that as I submit my choices to God I can choose life and flourish, and so I did. Since that day I have lost 23 kg, gone down from a size 22 to a size 14, found energy and strength, and fixed hormone issues, fatigue and headaches with no medication, just by making good choices.

It wasn't a magic potion that made it easy, it was just a revelation on the power of choice, there was plenty of hard work involved in the process. I joined a gym and started exercising, including personal training which is not something I would've ever considered before and I really enjoy the challenge of it. I have found myself doing things I never imagined like bench pressing and boxing! And I started eating right, eating the food God created for our bodies and cutting out packaged, processed crap, the difference it has made not just in my weight but in my health and how I feel has been astounding!!

The picture on the left is from my birthday in April 2012, I don't even look like the same person!

 

These are examples of what I now eat, lots of yummy salad, veggies, protein, some whole grain carbs at breakfast and lunch, fruit and lots of water. Do I feel deprived when I skip the sugary stuff? Nope I feel empowered that I am making good choices for my body and health and I can say no food is worth the way I used to feel. I love clothes shopping now and it's a whole new world that I am LOVING!! I do have occasional treats but they are just that, treats, and then I return to normal eating, the difference is I used to think I needed 'treats' to get me through every single day!!

(This is home made hummus and it's so yum. This was afternoon tea for me and my kids and yes they ate the vegies too. The rice crackers were for the kids but I did eat a couple of them, they are not a regular thing that I eat though.)

 

And I have spent many hours literally sweating my backside off like this....

to achieve goals like this. When I first started at the gym I could barely last 2 minutes on the rowing machine. Once I started doing 5 my trainer set me the goal of doing 1km in 5 minutes, this was my personal best a couple of weeks ago, 1169 metres in 5 minutes. I love it when I smash goals cause then I just set them higher for the enxt time and I love the challenge!!

 

So this year I went to Colour conference and Dr Leaf was there, I got to hear her in more detail and learnt even more, I bought a new flourish t-shirt (in a much smaller size) and I came away with fresh revelation that I will share in another post about other areas of my life where I need to make better choices. It's a journey, I will always be learning, but I think I have made a good start :-)