Read Simone’s inspiring story of how she lost 4.4% body fat, 5.6 kgs, and 9 cms in just 9 weeks through changing her mindset, taking massive action and being dedicated to her results, all while looking after her young baby and working a full time job!
My Story – by Simone
I’ve struggled with my body image since I was 14 years old, when I was ridiculed at school for being overweight.
From that age, I began yo-yo dieting where my weight would fluctuate between 7-10 kilograms every 1-2 years up until I reached my late 20′s.
In 2009/2010 while I was pregnant with my daughter Kyla, I managed to keep my weight in check and gained approximately 14 kilograms during my pregnancy however, once Kyla was born, I struggled with the late nights and lack of sleep and quickly gained 7 kilograms within a matter of weeks.
From there, I started developing old habits again, and as I had very low self esteem and had no confidence that I would ever lose the weight that I had gained, I turned to food to comfort me. To knock me back into gear again, I entered a 9 week weight loss challenge with my gym in September 2010 and then again in March 2011, but both times I barely made it through the first week before I went home and stuffed my face with chocolate, biscuits and lollies. I’d then go through the cycle where I would feel extreme guilt and then promise myself that I would ‘get back on the horse’ by the following Monday. This continued for months, and I just felt more insecure and worse about myself as time went on.
In June, my personal trainer (Malcolm Turnbull, Vision Personal Training) suggested that I train for the City 2 Surf, which I had never considered participating in before, and so I started training with him for it. Leading up to the event, my gym also advertised the Spring 9 week weight loss challenge, and Malcolm encouraged me to attend the information night to enter. At the information night, Kylie Ryan from My Mind Coach gave an amazing talk about her life story and how she overcame her obstacles to achieve phenomenal personal goals, and how she has helped many others achieve similar successes. Her heartfelt story struck a chord with my own personal battles, and I spoke with Kylie immediately afterwards, and arranged to meet with her the following week.
From that point onwards, I have made some of the most amazing changes to my life that I never had previously believed possible. I created goals that I could easily identify with and envisaged myself being part of, I stopped beating myself up when I had an unhealthy meal or one two many glasses of wine, and I have been able to control my emotions so that I don’t use one bad meal as an excuse to binge for the following two to three days. I’ve learnt to deal with my past and I now understand my emotional triggers and the reasons why I’ve struggled previously. I’d always had the basic resources available to me to know what to eat and how to exercise, but I was never in the proper ‘head space’ to complete the picture. There was always an excuse, an issue from my past that I’d never dealt with, or some underlying problem that I was never able to face that stopped me from just ‘doing it’.
At the same time, I spoke with a number of people in the health and fitness industry who provided me with some of the most valuable advice that I have ever received. Their passion for helping people and their expansive knowledge in their fields of expertise helped me keep my momentum and gain further traction – especially at times when I would have previously faltered and binged to cope with my emotions – they all kept me strong and focussed on understanding that these issues are part of the journey and never the end of it.
One of the constants I heard from each of these people was that I needed to let my family and friends know about my commitment to a healthier lifestyle. My ‘inner circle’ was vital to my success, and I needed to ensure their full support. This wasn’t an easy task as I had embarked on weight loss challenges before, so I was met with scepticism at first, as well as comments like ‘you don’t need to lose weight, you are perfectly fine as you are’. As I knew that I would get this reaction, I had prepared my responses with Kylie in an earlier session and made sure that I could convey my feelings confidently and in a way that ensured their full support.
I then removed alcohol, wheat and dairy from my eating plan. In the past, my ‘all or nothing’ attitude would have seen me struggle with this type of plan for a week, and then finish my week of ‘deprivation’ off with an all-out sugar binge – undoing all of the hard work I had put in at the beginning of the week. This time around, I just took each day as it came and ensured that I prepared my food the night before so that I was equipped with the best possible choices. My eating plan was basic and easy to follow, which helped immensely as I could never find enough time in the day between training, work, travelling and spending time with my family and friends.
It worked – my husband quickly removed all chocolate from the fridge and refrained from bringing unhealthy food home as he didn’t want to be sabotage my plans. He also started eating the same meals as me, and has managed to lose four kilograms himself. He has also set himself some incredible goals for his own health and fitness, and is embarking on his first amateur boxing fight at the end of November. My other family members who had always told me – ‘you don’t need to lose weight’, or had previously commented on me being too thin when I had lost weight in the past, refrained from commenting altogether and just let me get on with it.
With my daughter, there were times during the Challenge when she was sick, or kept us up all night teething, which was hard and exhausting. My husband and both of our parents chipped in to help out so that I could go to training at 5:30am each morning and get enough sleep in order to function once I got home from work that evening as I am also working and travelling forty hours per week. A few weeks into the Challenge, I upped my training regime to incorporate more weight lifting for three nights a week (with Nathan Page, Writer for Ultra Fit Magazine), and everyone pitched in to cover the shifts to ensure Kyla was cared for. While it was very difficult spending this extra time away from my daughter, Kylie and I had discussed the huge affect that achieving my goals would have on Kyla as she gets older as I will be such an amazing role model for her, and that this will also ensure that she does not pick up any of the damaging habits that I had my yo yo dieting and poor relationship with food.
At the end of my 9 Week Spring Challenge, I had completed three fun runs, totalling 34kms (City2Surf, Brighton Beach Dash & Rebel Run4Fun). For the third fun run in early November, I brought Kyla along with me and pushed her in her pram, and it is by far my proudest moment since her birth. That day, I had every excuse in the world not to compete as we’d barely slept the night before due to Kyla’s teething, but we still turned up on the day and absolutely loved every minute of it! Through my sessions with Kylie, I began seeing the huge gain I would get from achieving my goals, and so the excuses that I had so heavily relied on in the past became far more trivial and easy to overcome, which has motivated me further to set more goals and challenges for myself.
During my sessions with Kylie, we also dealt with obstacles that I had encountered in the past, with one big issue being that once I had achieved my weight loss goals I would lapse back into my old habits and put the weight back on. To combat this, I’ve set new goals for Christmas, and I’ve also learnt that there is no such thing as ‘maintenance’ – we need to be constantly moving, evolving and adapting in order to live. Once I stopped looking at the ‘end’ of the Challenge, and started seeing my life as a continual journey, I stopped being so critical and judgemental of the small setbacks that had occurred and started praising myself about the fact that I’d overcome these obstacles and how fabulously my life had progressed. My training and eating plan has never been 100% perfect, but it has been consistent, and I now know that the quicker you pick yourself up, the closer you become to achieving your dreams!
- Simone B, Sydney, 11th November 2011.
Congratulations Simone, I’m so proud of you, and I know you’ll continue to achieve the next goals you’ve set for yourself too! – Kylie x
If you would like to achieve results like Simone’s email me about my 10 week Transformation private coaching program. It’s an investment in your health and happiness. Kylie@MyMindCoach.com.au
WOW! She looks SO amazing! Congrats sweetheart! x