Learning and living, my journey to a healthier life simplified.

Kayaking is my happy place.

I suppose it was about 3 years ago that I finally got serious about wanting & needing to lose weight and do something about my rather poor fitness levels. Having been fairly active while growing up (I lived on a farm, with two brothers, we were rarely inside and there was always something to do), the so creep of a sedentary city lifestyle as well as other more personal factors had taken their toll. I’d started taking small steps already – cutting down on sugar, trying to move more (I started Couch to 5K, but stopped at about week 6 after somebody told me that what I was doing wasn’t counted as ‘running’ – yes, I had issues, but also some people are just plain rude), but I needed to learn more and get stuck in and do it in my own way.

It really is a bit of a wake-up call when you finally step on a scale and realise that you are heavier than you were at the end of your last pregnancy (with the Boy who was not a small baby for someone my size – big hungry bubba he was!). And that little number has tipped you over into the ‘overweight’ zone.

What the hell? I’d never been overweight. Underweight, yes. But overweight, no.

I wasn’t carrying another life inside me, and I hadn’t magically grown a couple of inches (I actually lost one!), so I had no more excuses.

At the worst of it, I couldn’t even walk up the stairs in our new house without being out of breath at the top. I had become resigned to the fact that perhaps this is what happens with age. You get heavier, you can’t breath, you get sick all the time, constant headaches and everything hurting. I’d almost come to accept that I would also probably get diabetes just like everyone else in my family as well, especially as I already had PCOS (poly-cystic ovarian syndrome).

That’s really just a little bit sad, isn’t it? And depressing.

I much prefer being able to bound up the stairs two at a time now.

In the beginning, it was hard to get proper support from others around me (see case in point mentioned above about my ‘running’ style). Being so short, if you discuss your weight numbers with someone of average height, they get jealous because to them, it seems so small. They never take into consideration the height difference. They don’t realise that when you are so vertically challenged (145cm/4’9), a ‘measly’ 5kg (11pd) weight gain or loss can make a huge difference.

I started small. I walked with some friends after school 1-2 afternoons a week while the kids played on the playground. We went round and round the oval. Then I would go walking/jogging with a friend of a morning after drop-off and before work. We managed to squeeze 20-30 minutes in before 9am. I began reading, and researching and learning, and trying different things until I found something that worked for me.

And over a period of about 18 months I lost 20% of that original overweight bodyweight. I’ve been maintaining a perfectly healthy weight range since October 2013.

I had moved onto at home DVD’s (Jillian Michael’s 30 Day Shred) and little by little I got used to including exercise & movement into my daily routine. Eventually, I found my way back to strength training, something I had always enjoyed when I was younger.

These days, I love food and I love lifting heavy things and being active – which is a really good thing as they all go so well together. This healthy lifestyle business really is a journey of self-discovering and never-ending learning. There’s so much more knowledge out there, I don’t think I will ever truly be ‘finished’.

Food is awesome. As is coffee.

Life and living is one hell of an awesome journey.

I’m not naive enough to think that life will be all smooth sailing, although that would be nice. There are just so many more ways to really enjoy life when you’re fit and healthy. I was missing out on that before. I have no intention on missing out any more.