Lost 24.1kg and 30% of her body weight

I have carried weight most of my adult life but got to my heaviest after COVID. There were lots of “treating “myself and the family through food, and menopause might have played a part also. My weight was making me sad and self-conscious, and I hated looking at photos of myself. It shocked me how I looked, and at times I just didn’t even recognise myself.

My inspiration to lose weight was watching a couple of colleagues shift their weight successfully through the Healthies program. I joined with my friend Petrea, and I want to thank her for being part of this journey as together we have lost 56kgs! We were just so determined to become healthier versions of ourselves and just did it, no excuses! I found getting started with a friend helped keep me motivated as she was my backup person. We also socialise and travel often together, so we have that extra support to make better food and drink choices along the way.

Losing weight was not overly difficult because I was ready to lose weight and knew this nutrition plan would work if I stuck to it. The lifestyle changes I’ve made were things like having cauliflower rice or mash (instead of rice or pasta) and choosing when and how much alcohol to have as I know there are so many hidden calories in wine.

Now that I have shifted the weight, I am so much happier. I am healthier, have much more energy and love shopping for clothes. I can go into any shop and know that most things will fit well. I don’t need to avoid buying tight clothes as I no longer need to buy things to disguise my body, but show it off!

With socialising or events I am very mindful of what I am eating that day, and treat these as one-off meals, knowing how important that my next meal or day is back onto my regular eating plan. I do this as I never want to go back to where I was as I was truly miserable carrying all that extra weight. What is important for me now is that even though I have achieved my goal, I need to learn to keep it off (for good), and am continuing my 1 on 1 nutrition check-ins each month at the centre for the extra support and accountability.

My 3 top tips are:

  1. Stick to the nutrition plan, it works. 
  2. Avoid cheat days, they prolong the process.
  3. Maintenance is important and helps avoid those bad habits to creep back.