funcurls
Never gets tired of SW!
Hi troops!
It is exactly 1 year ago that I set sail on my Slimming World journey, so to mark the occasion I thought I'd write a few words to express how I feel about the plan and why I think it's working for me!
I am 33 years old and since the age of 14 have struggled with my weight, bingeing, not recognising when I was full, comfort eating, and basically getting into really bad habits and developing destructive thought processes regarding food! This continued into the rest of my teens and at about 16 I embarked on the yo-yo dieting route! This subsequently continued into my 20s and now into my 30s. I'm not a sporty person and exercise has always been faddy- an all or nothing approach! I did Weight Watchers in my early twenties and went from 13 stone to 11 stone (my target now is 10st 10, so not far off) and was very pleased with myself but only kept it off for 6 months and then gradually it crept up on me again! Why? Because I naively treated it as a quick fix and wasn't prepared to change my habits! I have partially nipped it in the bud over recent years but never again managed to get below 12 stone and in October last year I peaked at 15st 12. I have never had children, I have just had a very disjointed relationship with my body and eating!
When I joined Slimming World on Monday October 26th 2009 I felt ready for it, like the time had finally come, I was going to get to target and nothing was going to stop me! I made a commitment to myself that I was going to change my habits for good, not just for the time it took to get to target! I also decided that I was going to aim for a rate of 1lb per week because this would mean nearly 4 stone in a year. To many people this would feel painfully slow, but in my mind I believed that if I was going to change for good, I might as well enjoy the scenic route and I would still see a substantial weight loss over time. On starting the plan it took me some time to start trusting it and to get used to what and how much I could eat. It wasn't long before I was using the cookbooks, magazines and recommendations from others and realising that I could enjoy gorgeous flavoursome meals that would fill me up and that my husband would enjoy too! And a lot of my meals didn't include syns or HEXs so the thought of having these on top, or integrating them in the meals was very exciting! In short, I didn't have to starve myself and the variety of food was vast so I knew I'd never get bored! It was clear before long that I could carry on eating like this long-term.
The uncanny thing is that I have indeed lost 4 stone in 1 year, which is what I set out to do! Of course there have been times when I have overindulged on holiday, on special occasions or simply when I've just had enough!! But something has clicked in me and I've realised that it wasn't the odd occasion, holiday or comfort binge that caused the weight problem, it was the regular ones that took control of me! I still have 15.5lb to go (hopefully less as of WI tonight) but I am very happy plodding along because I am 100% confident that I will do it! I'm not going to go into all the amazing benefits of losing weight- they're all personal to us and vary massively, and there are numerous great threads on here relating to them (Non Scale Victories springs to mind!) but I am a different person! I am lighter, with more energy and I am gradually increasing my activity levels- walking and swimming are becoming a comfortable part of my life, rather than something I had to force myself to do because I 'should'! My journey certainly hasn't been without its stumbling blocks and bad days/weeks but I think this is just life! We can't see it as black and white, all or nothing, we just have to accept the bad moments and continue with the good ones as soon as we can! I strongly feel that I have been successful in my progress so far because Slimming World is a fantastic healthy and realistic plan that fits in with real life, and also because I made a commitment to myself at the start to take it slowly but to keep it up no matter what, and that's what's happened. I'm very happy!x
It is exactly 1 year ago that I set sail on my Slimming World journey, so to mark the occasion I thought I'd write a few words to express how I feel about the plan and why I think it's working for me!
I am 33 years old and since the age of 14 have struggled with my weight, bingeing, not recognising when I was full, comfort eating, and basically getting into really bad habits and developing destructive thought processes regarding food! This continued into the rest of my teens and at about 16 I embarked on the yo-yo dieting route! This subsequently continued into my 20s and now into my 30s. I'm not a sporty person and exercise has always been faddy- an all or nothing approach! I did Weight Watchers in my early twenties and went from 13 stone to 11 stone (my target now is 10st 10, so not far off) and was very pleased with myself but only kept it off for 6 months and then gradually it crept up on me again! Why? Because I naively treated it as a quick fix and wasn't prepared to change my habits! I have partially nipped it in the bud over recent years but never again managed to get below 12 stone and in October last year I peaked at 15st 12. I have never had children, I have just had a very disjointed relationship with my body and eating!
When I joined Slimming World on Monday October 26th 2009 I felt ready for it, like the time had finally come, I was going to get to target and nothing was going to stop me! I made a commitment to myself that I was going to change my habits for good, not just for the time it took to get to target! I also decided that I was going to aim for a rate of 1lb per week because this would mean nearly 4 stone in a year. To many people this would feel painfully slow, but in my mind I believed that if I was going to change for good, I might as well enjoy the scenic route and I would still see a substantial weight loss over time. On starting the plan it took me some time to start trusting it and to get used to what and how much I could eat. It wasn't long before I was using the cookbooks, magazines and recommendations from others and realising that I could enjoy gorgeous flavoursome meals that would fill me up and that my husband would enjoy too! And a lot of my meals didn't include syns or HEXs so the thought of having these on top, or integrating them in the meals was very exciting! In short, I didn't have to starve myself and the variety of food was vast so I knew I'd never get bored! It was clear before long that I could carry on eating like this long-term.
The uncanny thing is that I have indeed lost 4 stone in 1 year, which is what I set out to do! Of course there have been times when I have overindulged on holiday, on special occasions or simply when I've just had enough!! But something has clicked in me and I've realised that it wasn't the odd occasion, holiday or comfort binge that caused the weight problem, it was the regular ones that took control of me! I still have 15.5lb to go (hopefully less as of WI tonight) but I am very happy plodding along because I am 100% confident that I will do it! I'm not going to go into all the amazing benefits of losing weight- they're all personal to us and vary massively, and there are numerous great threads on here relating to them (Non Scale Victories springs to mind!) but I am a different person! I am lighter, with more energy and I am gradually increasing my activity levels- walking and swimming are becoming a comfortable part of my life, rather than something I had to force myself to do because I 'should'! My journey certainly hasn't been without its stumbling blocks and bad days/weeks but I think this is just life! We can't see it as black and white, all or nothing, we just have to accept the bad moments and continue with the good ones as soon as we can! I strongly feel that I have been successful in my progress so far because Slimming World is a fantastic healthy and realistic plan that fits in with real life, and also because I made a commitment to myself at the start to take it slowly but to keep it up no matter what, and that's what's happened. I'm very happy!x
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