My Weight Loss Journey So Far...

So somebody asked me the other day what my journey so far had been and as I was sat there trying to sum up my weight loss and realised just how far it went back to and how my life had been dictated to an extent by my weight or my perception of myself...

As I tried to sum up my journey I realised how much it helped me come to terms with a few things and how much of a story there was so after talking with my husband I decided to blog my story to share where I have come from and where I am going...

So here it is...

Since I can remember I have had issues with my weight and my self image. Even when there was no problem with my weight and shape, my relationship with my self was too destroyed to love myself.

Since starting high school at the age of 11 I can remember having weight struggles and the bullying I experienced during High School because of my weight and also because I had a very good childhood did nothing but explode these issues to the volumes that I would not be able to shift them until now at the beginning of my thirties! Nearly 20 years of hating myself, that's two thirds of my life and its not as if I love myself still but at least I am in a good mind space and can start to like the person I see in the mirror now.

1997 - age 14

1999 - age 16

At 16 I was far from overweight if anything I had an athletic body as I was riding and looking after two horses everyday and would be out competing at the weekends. I was working my butt off and enjoying it but still hated the person looking back at me in the mirror just because I had curves which made me think I was overweight because not many other girls in my year had boobs yet and the bullies seemed to still want to get at me even though I was in as good a shape as I could be.

1999 and hating my body

2000 and still thinking I was overweight while competing every weekend and riding daily

At the age of 18 in 2001 I moved to University at a UK size 12/14 as I had cooled off the horses a bit and only had one who I did not get out with as much

due to preparing for Uni and not bringing my horse with me. So I went from eating home cooked meals and exercising my horse and looking after her to the student life of no exercise, lots of alcohol and all meals either processed rubbish, takeaway or fast food.

2001 - starting Uni

2002 - starting to date my husband

Well of course I began to put the weight on and never once noticed, I remember my sister coming to stay and going back home to tell my mum I was squeezing myself into my old clothes which I obviously did not fit in any more and my mum having to come and help me buy some new fitting clothes, that even though they were size 18 I still didn't notice I had put weight on. I think by this point my relationship with myself was so far destroyed I just didn't see it or care! By 3rd year I was settled down with my now husband and we became comfy and the weight piled on even more.

My weight got to a point that it triggered an under active thyroid which of course puts weight on you and makes it very hard to lose weight. By the time we graduated I was nearly 4 or 5 clothes sizes bigger then when I started at Uni and the strange thing is when I look at photos it seemed to happen most in the last year, as I graduated twice once in 2003 and once in 2004 and the difference in the girl in the two graduation photos is insane!! This was a bit to do with my thyroid and the medication but come on Laura it's time to admit that was a pretty good excuse to eat and put weight on!!

2004 My Final year at Uni - graduating at my highest weight

A few years later 2007/2008 in my early twenties and settled down with my husband, who at the time I was engaged to and getting ready to get married to in March 2008 I decided to lose weight and started on my journey of trying all the dreaded Yo-yo diets you could think of, even when they hadn't worked in the past i.e milkshake diets, abstinence of food completely and only having liquid foods, counting calories, the list goes on and although I managed to lose weight for our wedding and actually like the pictures from the day as with all Yo-yo diets as soon as I stopped the weight went back on, if not double the amount.

Our Wedding Day - 2008

By 2010 it was all back on, not as much as when I graduated as I had got back into horses but I was not riding much due to my weight making me lose all confidence in riding horses and I didn't want to look cruel on the horse so I managed to keep some off but the Yo-yo dieting damage and being "settled" was enough to put me back overweight and by the end of 2010 after 5 years of trying to get pregnant, being diagnosed with PCOS and having 2 miscarriages all the doctors could tell me was I needed to lose weight as the PCOS was triggered by my weight. The PCOS and my under active thyroid were basically fighting against my body and I needed to shed the weight to sort them both out and let my hormones level to be able to get pregnant and stay pregnant.

America Trip - 2010

2011 the break through I needed came and we moved to Sweden. We arrived in a country where health is paramount, where we had no car and had to walk and take the bus everywhere. My husband and I used to argue so much about how far we had to walk to get into town or to go get groceries, where as now its laughable how close it is and how easy it is to go grocery shopping walking and carrying it back.
2012 I was back to a weight I hadn't seen in a long time and I was happy and relaxed and our little miracle was on his way. I was so good the entire pregnancy and my midwife was so happy with how little weight I put on while pregnant and once he was born I was back to my pre-pregnancy weight within a month.

So all was good then and I was healthy and happy  - Wrong!! So Wrong!! I used having a baby as an excuse to not do a lot in terms of exercise or eating right. We were living on take-out and processed foods as we were too tired as new parents to cook. By May 2013 4 months after my baby boy was born I was at my heaviest weight ever or at least as big as I was when I graduated, I had managed to put on 2 stone in 4 months (well 3), I felt awful and tired all the time - no wonder really.

It all came to a head when family came to visit end of May and I saw a picture of myself that disgusted me and I think the reason it really hit home and made me want to change that instant was the fact that in that picture I was stood by my pram with my son in and it made me feel sick with guilt that I was his Mamma.
We spent that month even though we knew they didn't work Yo-yo dieting on milkshakes and yes we lost some weight but as usual when we stopped to go to the UK and ate normal foods, drank alcohol and fizzy drinks it all went straight back on. So when we got home and weighed ourselves we realised something had to change and it had to be for good.

The picture that saved my life

1st of July 2013 we started a plan of action which involved clean eating and exercise. No gimmicks, no diets, no nothing just good old fashioned hard work and teaching ourselves how to eat right. We want to lose the weight correctly and slowly as we now know that is the most safest, most likely to last, most intelligent way to lose weight - we are not on a "diet" there is no "quick fix" we are living a Lifestyle Change and it doesn't even feel like hard work or like we are missing out on anything because we're not missing out on anything but bad, fatty, processed rubbish.
And has it worked? Well both my husband and I have lost 42lbs each (which is 3 stone or 20kg) and even though I have a long way to go, I know I've got this, I know I will be the Mamma my boy needs and I know that 2014 will be a huge year of self discovery and I look forward to spending my thirties loving myself - because it's about time...

My Progress so far...

Me - January 2014