I'd always been overweight (you can read more about it here) and I genuinely thought I could never be a size 12 or even go back to being a 14. I had been a size 12 at the age of 12 and gradually got bigger until I was in size 20 clothes and weighing just over 15 stone. Exercise had never been my strong point, a dislike came from school where I was always picked last for teams and generally hated every second. The biggest concession I made to a healthy diet was drinking diet coke, and buying low fat mayonaise, I didn't cook proper meals and I ate a lot of ready meals and pre-made sauces etc, as well as a very small amount of vegetables and virtually no fruit.... unless it was on a cheesecake or in a pie!
In my first week I lost 2.5lb, I was over the moon with that considering I hadn't even really got to grips with the plan. The next week I read up more on it and just did what it said.... at weigh in I was stunned to see I'd lost 5lb and I gained my first ever award - my 1/2 stone sticker!
I never had any plan as to how much I wanted to lose in total, I think maybe I might have hoped to lose a couple of stone but I would never have said that out loud, it just seemed like too much to achieve. But I just plodded along, following the plan, losing an about 2lb a week until eventually I had lost just over 4 stone!!!!
It changed my life, for the first time I could go clothes shopping and find things to fit, it actually confused me as I was used to finding maybe just one or two things that looked ok and so I would buy both. I was genuinely confused when standing in a changing room one day after taking in a huge amount of clothes that they ALL fitted, I even rang Aaron to tell him as I felt I should buy them all, utill he pointed out I could no longer buy EVERYTHING that fitted and I would have to choose.
|Before and after - 2004 and 2007|
I pretty much stayed at my target weight until getting pregnant with Leo at which point I relaxed a little (well, quite a lot!) on the plan, however it had permanently changed many of my habits as I was now used to eating fruit and cooking proper meals. On the day I went to be induced I stood on the scales and smiled to see I was still lighter than the day I joined SW!
I rejoined the group a few months later but after just a couple of months we moved to Cyprus, this threw me right off track for quite a while and I eventually got back to target (a slightly higher one than my original but one I was happy with) the week before Leo's 2nd birthday. Everyone told me I knew the plan so well that I didn't need to go to a group but I did - it turns out I just need the support and the knowledge that my weight loss will be recorded, it makes all the difference for me.
Now it's almost time to do it again, I do have a group local to me here but can't really spare the money to go. Instead I will be making my own group here on my blog - if people want to join me that's great (you will be able to link your post or just join in with your weight loss in the comments) but I'm primarily doing it to keep myself motivated, knowing that I have to post my losses (and inevitable occasional gains) for the world to see!
I've set myself the start date of October, as Louka will then be 6 weeks old, in the meantime I'll dig out all my old SW books and make sure I've filled my cupboards with my old SW favourites!
Linking up to Flashback Friday