How rude of me not to say hello

When I've been on here the last couple of weeks.......

Better late than never hey!

Hello Everyone - I'm Natalie, I'm from Yorkshire in the UK.

I live with my hubby in our city centre pad. I love visiting new places, learning new things and I am rather fond of cooking, eating out and socialising over dinner with friends (spotting one of my weaknesses here....... food is a very large social part of my life!)

I have slowly put weight on (and attempted to get to grips with it) for the past 6 years now - I am actually shocked at this now I write it down, its amazing how time flies.

Many times I have tried to lose weight, always so that I looked better to be honest - I've done well known programmes such as weight watchers & slimming world and also silly methods - porridge for lunches, missing meals e.t.c. I will lose about 1 stone but never see the difference in my body, so get fed up and stray.

Then I put the weight back on and a bit more.

This time though, I'm less bothered about a quick fix - I am doing it for my health. I want a strong heart and a healthy waist measurement .

And as a newly wed, of course having a family is on the cards - I really don't want to go into pregnancy overweight (not to mention my weight would probably hamper my chances of concieving), I'm scared of the possible strain on my body and of course the baby.

I also really really want change my lifestyle, the habits I have and the mentality I have towards food.

With hindsight, I can see that I myself have picked a lot of bad habits up off of my parents. I want to break the cycle.

SO, here I am!

I feel like I've spent the last year or so mentally preparing for this change. I've been taking the time to learn what I need to do. And I'm now doing it.

This is the plan;

*Exercise -

Something I never did properly before. Exercise has never been a proper part of my life. Again, its just not something I was brought up with. Which I now understand is imperative to get a strong heart and a leaner body!

So 10 weeks ago I splashed out on myself (for once!) - I enlisted the help of a personal trainer. She comes to see me at home once a week. I really love my personal trainer, she is so much fun and I get on with her so well. She makes exercise feel less of a chore. We do something completely new every week! I never know what she's go instore.

I don't have a garden or much indoor space so we run around outside and on the communal stairwell No excuse not to exercise.

She has designed a gym programme for me and a home programme as well, and I do 1 of those twice a week on top of our session.

Under her, I have shed 16 inches off of my body in 10 weeks!!! To be very honest, I made no effort with my eating for 8 weeks of that. The last 2 weeks I started to think about my food.

On top of that, I want to start swimming and doing Zumba. I love swimming, and I used to love latin dancing in the slimmer days, so I think Zumba will go down a treat.


*Food -

I love all foods - I do really love healthy foods too. I don't discriminate! My portion sizes are my issue. This is something I picked up from my family.

Also diets don't work. Not for me anyhow! The minute I think that I can't have something, is the minute I start plotting to get it.

Over time I have realised that you can eat what the heck you want - you just need to control the portion so that you don't eat too many calories. Actually sometimes just a couple of mouthfuls is all you really wanted anyway, to get the taste.

This isn't an easy mindset to get into when you're so used to over eating though, I really need to relearn and embrace the concept of portion size and healthy food!!!

So for 2 months I am following a programme where you have a months worth of portion controlled food delivered to you. That sounds posh but it costs £6 a day which is about what I'd have spent normally.

What this entails is the same routine of meals every day;

Breakfast - Granola or Porridge, 250ml Milk. Fruit
Snack - Popcorn or Oat bites (really nice!)
Lunch - Soup, Wholemeal Breadroll, Fruit
Snack - Shake (Choc, Vanilla, Strawberry, Cafe Latte)
Dinner - Usually comes in the form of Protein & a bit of Carbs in a Sauce (SO much choice and tasty!), serve with lots of veg/salad.
Dessert - I usually have 200 cals spare, so have cheese & crackers before dinner, or a yoghurt afterwards.

Once I've done that programme for a couple of months, I will have learnt a few lessons & be well trained when it comes to portion sizes and what I actually need to eat to feel full and be healthy.

Then I will start on with my own food, using my fitnesspal to track calories.

I'm also now of the opinion that it is much better to have 3 smaller meals and 3 large snacks - basically 6 meals. Seems to help my metabolism and stop me grazing.


*Mind -

Tieing in with the food, I listen to a hypnotherapy CD 3 times a week that my trainer did for me (she is multi skilled!). Only takes 45 mins, it relaxes me and it does help - it helps me to put into context my eating habits. It won't make me shed all my weight, but teamed with the food and exercise it certainly helps my mindset!



SO there we it. Thats my plan. I feel like I'm in the right place, that my approach is more realistic and I now have the right tools to do this now.

I'm going on Holiday in about a months time, so my short term goal is to fit into a dress I have bought - it nearly fits now, but I need to lose about an inch off of my back for it to sit comfortably.

Nat x