A Fab Fit Life: Lifestyle

One of the most debilitating things when it comes to health and fitness goals is a bad or misled mindset.

As a "powerless" fat person I kept wishing and wishing for thinness as if wishing by itself would bring about the necessary results. I think sometimes I thought that having a mindset that aspires to be thin sort of excused my current condition.
If I wanted it and it wasn't happening despite my good intention then it wasn't my fault. (Stupid but there you have it).

A lot of damage had been done by the time I realized that this way of thinking leads to no good.

Source: Unknown

First of all I should not have been aspiring for thinness, there is nothing attractive about being thin when you are not genetically engineered to be.

Secondly you can be thin but that does not necessarily guarantee health.

What I should have aspired for is:

Health for my body, mind and soul to function optimally.
Fitness for physical dexterity so that I can engage in daily activities, especially with my family, in comfort. (That it requires reduction to a healthy weigh that compliments my shape and composition is a given).

No doubt most of us with weight challenges are consumed with daydreams of thin-ness and one day fitting into the tiniest and sexiest dress we can find.

I remember saying the same thing was my goal when I started my journey 6 months ago...but somewhere along the way things changed.

When I started getting an awareness of what my body could do and what it means to be healthy, I realised that wishing myself thin is not in my best interest.

Working with my body to get the best of its unique shape is what's important.

That's what I'm doing now:

Getting fit and healthy and doing my best to avoid lifestyle related diseases and discomfort is at the top of the list.

I don't have the best diet plan, I wish I ate more vegetables than I get in.... but I think it passes for healthy.

No simple carbs (discounting the brownie at the coffee table at church on Synday - just cant help myself).
No refined sugar (again - ignore the brownie)
and since last July I've gone vegetarian... I just feel better healthwise,
Lots of exercise ( I workout 6 days a week at home and the gym - 80% resistance training which is what I enjoy)
and when I started I was counting calories I will not lie but now I would say my calorie intake is now between 1000 - 1300 a day, no more, especially on my rest day.

That's seems to be keeping on the right track,

I am more concerned about living with a healthy body than I am about my digits. Although knowing kilos lost in one most visible means of keeping track of progress.
Getting more muscle mass than fat is definitely my biggest goal. I enjoy feeling strong, it's my drug of choice.

How about you:

What's keeping you at your unhappy place healthwise?
Or what has been the best thing for you so far about your health and fitness journey?

Thanks for dropping in. I hope you will take a moment to comment and maybe share this post to. Let's spread the message of healthy living.

Hi, I'm Wendy Ewurum: blogger, mom and wife....

This new blog of mine is a symbol of a new and magnificent lifestyle change I've gone through.

But like everything else in life, this change I now call good now did not come easy.

Convincing myself to do something about fat situation didn't take:

waking up puking from migranes and sitting with my head on the porcelain throne for most of the day
nor the cracking knees, and backaches or me looking fat, frumpy and feeling 60 in my clothes.

My tipping point came in two parts:

Wakeup call 1

Early 2014 I had an opportunity to interview a well known and influential speaker from the UK, Dr. Ro of Dr. Ro TV when he was visiting. The interview, unbeknown to me, would be on camera.

It was while looking at this picture and watching that interview that I realised just how out of control my weight problem was. I had never seen myself through other people's eyes and it was a shocker. But even more disturbing was that I didn't recognise myself. I felt like I was looking at someone else, not the Wendy I had in mind. I was depressed for days after that and I was not even at my biggest weight yet at 114 or so. No one has ever seen that interview as fantastic as it was.

Wakeup call 2

The second event that really shook me was about 8 months later. My best friend's long term boyfriend didn't know me. I hadn't seen him in about a year and I had to explain to him who I was. This is someone who has known me for the better part of 10 years. But at that moment a look of horror came over his face when he looked at me. I could see he just couldn't reconcile the Wendy he knew with the person that was standing in front of him and worse, we were both so embarrassed because he was trying valiantly to hide what he was thinking and it wasn't working.

I felt so bad and humiliated I never told even my friend but all through that day this encounter ate at me.

Reflection

Dammit I wanted to be able to
take a full length photo and not
cringe to the point of cropping it.

At this point I realised that I had been living in denial.

I kept secretly wishing that my weight would just sort itself out, kept saying that as long as something fit in my wardrobe then I was not that bad.

Never mind that the things I could barely to squeeze into were size 46/24.

It also dawned on me that if this is how other people see me, then is it really that far fetched to think that maybe my husband also doesn't like what he sees but just doesn't say it?

I have to say that at this point nothing was about how good I'd feel being healthier, or what it would do for me. All I wanted was not to disgust people. I wanted to be proud of how I looked. I wanted to be able to take photographs that made me smile.

Time for Action:

That was August and that month I tried to start taking walks but I found it too easy to talk myself out of them. I then signed up for the gym but still could not work up the energy.

During the month of August I got 5 severe migranes, but I didn't know this is what it was at this point. So I thought perhaps I'm becoming diabetic and it definitely had something to do with my sugar consumption which was just extraordinarily high. I just craved the stuff.

The odd thing is that I has stopped eating meat in July but as soon as that happened my weight increased by another 3 kilos because my carb intake increased.

Taking all that happened into account I knew the time had come to do something.

I either had to wake up and recognize things for what they were or accept that my weight would keep ballooning, the hatred I felt for myself would keep escalating and my medical bill would keep growing with everything else.

Be it fear, vanity or ego, whatever it was, it saw me taking a small drive to the gym that first week of September.

And that is all she wrote.

My starting weight was 119kgs (05 September 2014)

I am now standing at 100kgs (17 March 2015)

My first goal weight is 80kgs ...

I say first goal weight because its my strongest memory of when I really felt good about myself., more than 15 years ago. Maybe once I get there I will have other goals.

At this point it's more than just about the weight and being smaller. I am loving eating clean and working out....

I love the way I feel inside and out.

As much as I am not there yet, my outlook on life has already changed. I feel more confident, emotionally stable and happier, no matter what life throws at me.

I'm starting this blog because I don't want to forget all the things i'm experiencing and learning along the way. I would also like to spread the good news that stem from living a life committed to clean eating and exercise.

Maybe one of my beautiful readers will also find that thing that gives them a light bulb moment about their health condition. Maybe it will inspire someone to take the first step on this journey.

I plan to lose this weight one last time, the right way and then for the rest of my life work on perfecting this body to its healthiest and fittest form.

I have found that the pursuit of good health has no expiration date, it is a life long commitment.