This last weeks loss..

So, for the last week or so I’ve been copying the Slimming World ‘lifestyle change’ NOT diet and tracking my food intake with the amazing Nutra-Check App (Check it out).

Quick note: I normally go to my local health club/gym around 3-4 times a week, in the mornings, with a rest day between and mainly spend 40 minutes doing Cardio and then a further 20 minutes on Strength-Training, sometimes an additional 20 minutes in the steam room for chill time! (The irony!)

Slimming World been a really successful lifestyle change, both these last few weeks and before, I’ve followed the plan in previous places in my life, with friends and independently, but mainly succeeded most by losing alot of weight (2.5 Stone) when I was having the initial steps to orthodontic treatment, which meant having one tooth removed each week for three weeks in a row (Ouch!) so it was kind of silly to pay the £4.95 fee per week and get weighed, knowing I had not eaten much for a whole week, probably the most I’d eaten was some Petis Filous, Mousses, Angel Delight, Rice and Tikka Sauce and Biscuits! Although, I did find it fun to sit and reap the benefit of gaining stickers and certificates for enjoying my huge calorific intake of sugar and fats and loved seeing the lbs drift off!

I really should have taken a realistic ‘break’ from SW at this time and instead try to reintroduce healthier foods as and when it was comfortable to eat with fixed braces in, but for a massive fussy eater, that’s something that never crossed my mind at the time, so my fixed braces or “train tracks”, upper and lower, were in for a total of 873 days, it was painful to start and then the unhealthy food habits maintained, weight increased and lead to me getting to a heavy weight that I am today, whether some of it may be muscle, who knows, only one of those clever, expensive body fat percentage measurements, but at the same time, thinking about that would probably lower my mood even more.

So it’s mid-October, I’m starting a complete fresh, with weigh-in days now for me on Saturday morning each week at home, I’m following the plan alongside my beautiful wife, but I am not going to any of the groups etc or paying the £4.95, just weighing myself at home and in my first full week following it, last Saturday came and I had a loss of -2lbs!

This was an AMAZING achievement for me, but it didn’t sink in like one, mainly because I could not understand how a week without going to the gym and being a little lazier at work and home could achieve this? 

I’ve had a few issues these last few months with my body image, it’s become increasingly worse this last fortnight, I naively expect instant changes and get upset when weight increases, even though I know muscle is heavier than fat. With my gym habits becoming engrained in my weekly routine since April this year, I tried those Grenade Black-Ops supplements/fat-burners but found no help from them, so have scrapped them. 

But to make this decision, I already felt quite low and got dragged even lower in mood and reached out to friends and family, to kind of just say the words “I need your help and motivation” to get on a lifestyle change “bandwagon” and strap up my seatbelt and prepare to wait for the journey to begin, let alone make any difference. 

By doing this, I found that it wasn’t just me, a twenty-five year old male struggling like this, some of my friends felt the same, but had never mentioned it. So now, I have more than my own thoughts to keep me accountable and to workout with and support them in whatever stage of the journey they are on! 

And if you see my insta posts/stories tagging myself at the gym, send me some motivation with a 👌🏻🙏🏻⭐️👍🏻 or a short message! It honestly goes a long way!

Remember this: You all own the day, you all own this moment, you all own your own life, so take control and count your blessings and know that the best view always comes from the hardest climb.

BIG LOVE

MATT