About Me, My Motivation To Lose Weight & My Blog

I was always such a sad little girl. This was truly a traumatic experience. I went to my school Christmas Party as a Fat Little Fairy. I laugh now, but back then …

My real struggle with my weight started a year later when at the tender age of 8 a boy I had a crush on, crushed me by telling me I was too fat and to bugger off! No, not the soldier. That’s my cute little brother.

Two years later my dramas with dieting began. My first memory of trying to lose weight that really stands out was when I heard a whisper that drinking Apple Shampoo would melt away my fat.

I was sick for a week! The fat remained to taunt me some more.

My teenage years were not that kind to me either. Sports seemed to be my biggest hurdle (disregard the pun – there was definitely no hurdling going on with my little stubby legs). I went to great lengths to get myself excused from Sports Days. Beating myself with a hair brush to simulate a sprained ankle was probably the most extreme measure of self inflicted abuse.

Little did I know, more was to come in my 20′s.

By the time I hit my 20′s I was a serial and professional dieter. I tried every one trick pony that hit the market; the Grapefruit Diet, the Brown Bread Diet, The Cabbage Soup Diet, the Cookie Diet and every diet program including Weight Watchers, Herbalife and Gloria Marshall. But for some reason the one program that tipped me over the edge was Jenny Craig.

I think it was the fact that I felt this was my last ditch effort to lose weight and I was so strict with myself. I only ate what they told me to eat, I did all the exercises they told me to … but for some reason this is the program that I completely ‘lost it’ on.

I’ll never forget the day. My will was broken with a Snickers Bar and to me it was the end of the world. I went on such a gluttonous food bender and then felt so traumatized with guilt afterwards that I was utterly desperate to find a way to undo what I had done.

Hello bulimia. I thought I had found such a magical solution. I could eat whatever I wanted and as long as I could purge it within minutes no damage would be done. I became so adept at this practice that I could literally will myself to throw up without even putting my fingers down my throat.

It took years of heartache with my family and group counseling sessions to rid myself of this disease. And believe me, it is a disease.

My self esteem lifted in my late 20′s but by this stage I was tipping the scales at over 200lbs.

My diet was atrocious. As was my fashion sense!

At this stage in my life I was wearing men’s XL clothing. Nothing seemed to show through those ‘exquisitely tailored tops’ so it gave me the freedom to eat whatever I wanted.

That was actually how I gave up bulimia. I gave myself the freedom to eat whatever I wanted – with NO GUILT. For the first time ever, since I had started being conscious of dieting at the age of 10, I had no rules when it came to food.

And I ate with wild abandon. By allowing myself to eat without guilt I started to have a new relationship with food. For the first time in the longest time, food started to lose it’s grip on me. I got to the point where I could CHOOSE to eat or not, as opposed to being COMPELLED to eat. I didn’t care about trying to be slim anymore. I just gave up caring about how I looked.

Learning that I had CHOICES was my turning point.

I remember going to a “self-help” course and I was stunned to see a beautiful, slim blonde walk into the room. I thought she had to be an instructor. Then she sat down beside me and pulled out a class instruction book, just like mine. It was only then that it dawned on me that she was a participant, not an instructor.

My head was spinning. I remember thinking, “What on earth is she doing here? She’s perfect. She can’t have any problems. She’s slim!” That was the first time ever that I was hit with the realization that it’s not only fat people who have issues. I was dumbfounded by the fact that someone so slim and so beautiful could ever have a problem. I later found out she had quite a few.

But the most profound thing I got out of this course, was learning that I had a CHOICE. I honestly did not know that I could CHOOSE my behavior. I never knew that that was within my power. I thought that I was ruled by something bigger than myself. When I took that power into my own hands my whole life changed.

I spent my 30′s learning about health. I dabbled with being a vegan, vegetarian, non-red meat eater and found that a diet of white meat, fruit, vegetables, nuts and legumes interested me most.

I dabbled with exercise. I hit the gym, fell in love with kick boxing, spinning and Pump classes.

But my major vice in my 30′s turned out to be alcohol. I had finally gotten my eating and exercise sorted out but I spent the next decade working on cruise ships and that’s just one big party after another. Late night benders were not inducive to hitting the gym the next day.

So here I am, in my 40′s …

I’m off ships now and I’m giving it one last shot!

I’ve thrown down the gauntlet to the diet industry and said, “Enough is enough!”

The one thing I have worked out by studying my own behavior and that of millions of women around the world is that we can’t stick to a diet for any long period of time.

It makes us go crazy – click “LIKE” if you know what I mean.

Diets don’t work! The only people who win in the diet industry, is the diet industry itself! If diets really worked, why are we still trying to lose weight?

So I set myself up very publicly to do my own 90 day challenge and prove once and for all that you CAN lose weight just by eating naturally and normally, finding an exercise you love to do and most importantly, finding a motivation to lose weight that is invincible.

I’ve cut out all the naughties, the hardest one being alcohol and I’ve chosen to do Tony Horton’s P90X 90 Day Challenge, but without the shakes, the protein bars, the supplements, the scales, the calorie counters, the tape measures and the constant self-scrutiny. I have a theory about all of that stuff and I’ll share that with you all at the end of my journey.

Along the way I am sharing my discoveries; what works, what doesn’t and what I’m doing to keep going. I’m also including some interesting stories that catch my eye as time goes by, that I find either helpful or shocking.

The reason I chose P90X is because my husband did it religiously a few years back and got wicked results. I was only half hearted in my efforts so got some pretty half hearted results. I do recall enjoying the challenge however. Not that this picture is proof of that. In fact I think at this point I was ready to puke, throw all my toys out of the pram and pack my stuff up forever.

This is my little workout room where the magic is happening.

And I’ll be upfront with you. This is not easy. Getting in shape takes hard work.

But you get to a point where you just have to ask yourself, “how much longer will I put up with this crap for?” Being overweight and miserable about it I mean.

So here we are, you and me.

If you got this far I believe it’s because you are desperate to find your own motivation to lose weight – am I right?

If this is the case, connect with me here or on my Facebook page. Let’s start a dialogue and let’s see if we can help each other get in the best shape of our lives. We deserve it … don’t we?

I look forward to meeting you : )

Epilogue (April 2012):

I thought I should update this now.

I have spent the past 3 months analyzing every step in the process of losing weight naturally. I have pinpointed exactly WHY traditional diets don’t work and found out exactly what DOES work.

This is how I look now …

… and I did it all without dieting.

I have been miserable with the way I’ve looked my entire life. Nothing I ever tried worked. Until now.

If you want to know how I did this go here now to find out.