How I Shed 10 Kilos

I would like to start off this post by saying, I do not encourage “weight loss”. Every individual body is beautiful, everyone’s body is different, and I don’t believe that you need to be a certain weight or size to be beautiful. I would highly encourage following pages like Tess Holiday and Eff your beauty standards to begin to embrace all kinds of body types.

The reason I am writing this post is because I gained 20 kg in under 2 years. I spent the next 5 years drastically trying to get the weight off and generally feeling miserable. I tried diet tablets, fasts, gyms, different diets and detoxes and nothing worked (or it worked for a while and then I would put the weight back on). I speak to so many people who go through the same experience and are constantly searching for the next best thing to help them change their bodies overnight.

The most ironic thing is that when I stopped trying to lose weight I lost the weight. I changed my goals to things like “making friends” and “feeling good about myself” and the weight slowly came off on its own. The following things I embraced, did help me lose weight but more importantly, they helped me feel good about myself.

I CHANGED MY GOALS TO “FEEL GOALS”

My old goal was to lose 20 kg STAT! Seriously, my goals were crazy unrealistic. I believed that I could lose 5 kg a week and I was so disappointed when it didn’t happen. After ending up in hospital, covered head to toe in a rash, my goals finally changed. I wanted to feel healthy. I wanted to get rid of the rash. I wanted to boost my immune system. I wanted to find alternatives to the high dosages of steroids I was on and I want to soothe my anxiety around my health issues. As soon as I stopped focusing on what I wanted to “lose” and started focusing on how I wanted to “feel”, positive changes began to take place in my life.

I SLOWLY IMPLEMENTED HEALTHY HABITS

I believed that I could click my fingers and my body would automatically go back to the way it was. I didn’t look at the fact that it took years of unhealthy patterns for me to end up where I was. It took me a while to understand that it would also take years to build more positive patterns. Instead of deciding that I was going to go the gym every single day and cut out all junk food, I slowly implemented healthy habits. I would walk once a week and build up from there. I would have one home-cooked meal that slowly turned into two and then three. Slowly making these changes ensured that I was building habits instead of just losing weight.

I EXERCISED FOR FUN

I constantly found myself at the gym, flogging my body with programs that I hated. When a girlfriend of mine recommended pole dancing classes I apprehensive but interested in something different. When I began attending classes I fell in love. I loved the way everyone motivated each other to nail a move and supported each other. We laughed with each other, we sweated, we grunted, and it was a huge difference to running on a treadmill next to 10 other people who don’t make eye contact with each other. The key here is to try different things until you find something that works. One person may love running where another may love walks along the beach. Do something that lights YOU up.

I DETOXED NATURALLY

Currently, there are a lot of things that can negatively impact our bodies like stress, fumes, chemicals and processed foods. Instead of gently detoxing to counteract this, I was constantly on the lookout for detoxes that would make me thin. There are a lot of detox products out there that are simply laxatives which are not great for your body long term. Some gentle detox methods you can do every day are to take hot baths (my favourite), use a sauna, exercise, experiment with charcoal and clay, dry body brush, oil-pull or tongue scraping.

I FACED MY FEARS

I had to get real about what was holding me back. Was I trying to keep myself safe by surrounding myself with excess weight? What I “too busy” to cook healthy meals? Where was I really putting all my time and energy? Once I got real with myself I uncovered so many ways that I was holding myself back because I was just afraid of change. Now I lovingly chip away at my fears the best I can and always ask myself how I might be getting in my own way.

I would love to hear from you in the comments below. How do you want to feel? What exercise do you find fun? What fears are holding you back?

Much love,

Shalee xo