CC, Author at CC - A healthy life and me

February 27, 2019August 11, 2019

Feel good about yourself, whatever stage you’re at

Another year, another change in the Weight Watchers world….only this time it’s the biggest change to be rolled out yet. Rebranded as WW, the emphasis has shifted away from weightloss and moved more towards wellness and feeling good.

Personally I am delighted with this approach because it is what I have come to incorporate in maintaining a healthy lifestyle. The programme has been leading up to this for a couple of years now. Programme materials included a booklet about mindfulness and doing more of the things that make you happy. Also meeting talks including these topics have become more frequent.

As well as being ideal for WW Gold (Lifetime) members who are trying maintain their weight rather than lose more. I believe that learning these skills early on in the journey will put you in a great position when you reach your goal and transition to maintenance.

It has taken me a considerable amount of time to reach my current level of wellbeing, as the saying goes, ‘old habits die hard’. Even though my body was changing and fitness increasing, my mindset was trailing behind. Self confidence and self esteem didn’t come easily, I doubted myself and my ability to keep going. Deep inside I always felt like I was one step away from it all falling apart and my progress would be wiped away, inevitably I was destined to be obese and unhealthy for life.

So what changed?…… Hope. The flicker of hope that I felt when I first started was still there. Then I believed. I believed the messages given in the meetings… if I just changed this one small thing, it would make a difference. I tried and I saw some benefits. The slightest result had a positive effect and spurred me on to keep making small changes. Even when a week didn’t go as I planned or expected, just the knowledge that something worked before kept my hope alive. Eventually I believed in myself which made me feel good about myself.

Before and after photos — Live well, Love life…. embracing wellness!

Somewhere along this long and winding road I came to realise that I’m the one who is responsible for my own happiness. I don’t know why I’ve gone through life looking to others to make me happy and ultimately determine if I felt good about myself or not. I’m understanding more about my own wellbeing so the wellness overtone of WW is ideal for me.

Through reflection and mindfulness, I have embraced my experiences both positive and negative, after all they have shaped me into the person I am today. I have a balance within the strands of my life… who I am, what I do and the choices I make. I have a feeling of freedom that I can be flexible in the choices I make.

As a result of this I’ve made the decision to reduce my weigh-ins to once a month and rely on healthy habits rather than the scales. So far so good, I’m no longing just living in hope but with real wellness that works for me.

Soli Deo Gloria

December 31, 2018May 19, 2019

2018 Year Review

Here we are at the end of another year and 2018 seems to have flown past. Time for my 2018 year review. It’s always good to take some time to reflect and this is something that we are encouraged to do on a regular basis.

On the whole I am extremely happy with the way things went in 2018. Early in the year I made the decision to reduce weigh-ins to once a month and rely more on healthy habits rather than the scales. Throughout the year I’ve been able to continue my healthy lifestyle and maintain a healthy weight with only slight fluctuations throughout the year, successfully reaching my 8th year at goal anniversary in August.

This year I celebrated a milestone birthday and fulfilled a lifetime dream of holidaying in Hawaii USA, as well as Rome, Italy. The experiences I had on those trips would not have been possible without my lifestyle transformation. Hiking to the top of Hawaii’s Diamond Head volcano crater and Rome’s Colosseum was truly overwhelming when I considered that prior to my weightloss I was unable to climb a flight of stairs.

Photos CC in Hawaii and Italy — At the top of Diamond Head, Hawaii and the Colosseum, Rome

These experiences empowered me in ways I never imagined. Even though I’ve achieved success in my weightloss journey and gained a lot of self confidence, I have still underestimated my abilities in many aspects of life. Fulfilling your dreams can inspire and motive you to accomplish greater things. I have since seized the opportunity to further my professional career and look forward to making a positive impact in my new job in the new year.

There are things which continue to be a challenge for me. At the beginning of the year, I set myself a task of increasing my sleep levels, I am still to achieve this goal. I’ll be carrying this goal forward and utilising the new tools incorporated in the WW program to focus on mindfulness, meditation and wellbeing to assist me.

I’m also conscious that I haven’t been writing as much as I would like to. I hope to use my experiences and ideas to inspire and help others. Therefore time management will play a key part in my plans to continue blog posts and recipes. After all if something is truly important to us, we’ll make time for it.

So all in all, in review, 2018 has been an amazingly memorable year. I look forward to 2019 to try new things and build wellness that works for me. Whatever you plan for the new year, be sure to live well and love life!

Soli Deo Gloria

May 29, 2018May 19, 2019

The road to success – so close and yet so far

I was back on my way and this time I was determined to make it the road to success! I had achieved 30 pounds weight loss in the 12 months since returning to Weight Watchers after having a baby, which left me with 30 pounds left to lose. There had been the occasional small gain here and there, but for the most part I was cruising along nicely and I felt good.

What could possibly stand in my way? Because I had already experienced a similar level of weight loss before having my baby break, I had some preconceived notion that it would be plain sailing because I knew what I was doing. And yes, while I had learnt the basics – how to plan, healthy food choices, portion control and being active. I had no idea about the way my body would react to the transformation it was going through.

I had been morbidly obese for years and it seemed like on the whole my body was very comfortable with that. My mind and spirit on the other hand would no longer settle for that and knew that I could be a better version of myself, indeed, my best self. It felt like I was in a battle with my body to get rid of the excess fat. As my weight reduced, my body seemed to resist more and more. Another 4 months passed and the gains began to become more frequent, it may have only been half a pound gains but it was just not what I wanted to see on the scales. Then I hit another dreaded plateau, 4 whole weeks of staying the same! What’s a girl gotta do!

Yes, there were tears and thoughts of throwing in the towel. I’d come so far, I was 80 pounds lighter, my health had improved, I’d dropped dress sizes, all great reasons to celebrate so surely it didn’t matter if I just stopped now. It was at this point that I became most grateful for my Weight Watchers leader and meeting group. Having the support and encouragement of people who have experienced the same struggles and truly understand was and still is invaluable to me. They rallied around, allowed me to let my frustrations and emotions out, picked me up and helped me plan what I would do in the next week to get me moving again in the right direction. (To read more about dealing with plateaus click here.)

They didn’t let me quit and in reality it wasn’t what I wanted to do either. Many people are able to achieve weight loss success independently or through online programmes but personally for me, the meeting group played a major part in me getting to my goal and maintaining it. I’m happy to say the following week I registered a 2 pounds loss at the scales, which meant I had less than 1 stone to go.

I’d often heard people say that the last few pounds are the hardest to lose. Now I know from experience that they are not wrong. Success doesn’t come easy. It’s also said that ‘anything worth having is worth fighting for’, once I hit the home straight, it would be a fight to the finish.

Soli Deo Gloria