Weight Loss is Never Truly Lost

Time to stop focusing on the "New Year New Me" mantra in its entirety, and time to realise that life is all about gains and losses - in every aspect.

The above picture is my body transformation from approximately April 2015 to around December of the same year. I had lost 2 stone (28lbs) and 40 inches off my girth measurements (it's not always about what the scales say!)

I was eating incredibly healthily and going to the gym (and a PT) around three times a week pretty steadily throughout these months. I was in my final year of uni so I wasn't partying anywhere as near as I had been the rest of my student years, so alcohol - and the subsequent takeaways that followed boozy nights - weren't as much of a craving anymore. You could say I was fairly content, although even here in this photo I was nowhere near my dream weight; I had wanted to lose another stone.

I did lose a bit more weight after that, but for all the wrong reasons - In May 2016 I got out of a pretty turbulent relationship which very little people even knew I was in. This was 2 weeks before my final uni assignments were due, which also happened to be a day after my 23rd birthday. I felt aimless, lost, and just downright depressed. I literally didn't eat for maybe a month.

Very little people know about that time of my life, but it's something I can look back on now and say I'm proud about because I got through it and am even better for it today (cliché AF but it's the truth!)

A few months after graduating I acquired my first full time job waitressing in a pizzeria and went on to go out with my current boyfriend, Lee, who I had actually been friends with first for a few years (we met in first year of university, but then rarely saw each other for a while because he switched courses).

He helped me get out of probably the most depressed black hole I've ever been in my life (I call it 'Squiggly Head', or the 'trapped in my own mind' feeling.. I still call it 'Squiggly Head' when I feel really down now).

However, working in a pizzeria and getting into a happy relationship also helped to pile the pounds back on. In April 2017 I started working in my first graduate job - which involves sitting at an office desk for 40+ hours a week; although I'm happy in it, it's a seriously sedentary lifestyle! I was so happy in my life from what I was a year before, but I knew I needed to get my own body positivism and health back on track, which leads me to...

The photo to the right in the picture above is me now - well, perhaps with a few extra Christmas pounds on (to quote Ross Gellar, I'm carrying a little holiday weight right now) - the photo to the left is kind of blurry with bad lighting, probably because I wanted it to be. I've never taken photos with my tummy and hips fully out before, because it's the part of me that I absolutely loathe the most, and the areas I put the majority of my weight on. That left photo was taken the day before I went to my first ever boxing class. The photo to the right was taken ten weeks later, after three boxing classes a week - which lasted a few hours each time - as well as seriously healthy eating and some of my own gym sessions thrown in for good measure. In ten weeks I lost just under a stone, and participated in my first ever white collar boxing fight (which I wrote about in a previous blog post that you can find below!)

By the way, my current 'after' photo still makes me cringe. I have a long way to go in terms of how I want my body to look, but it's a start, and I'm proud of it. However, without rambling on about myself anymore, my main point of this post is; just because you lead a healthy lifestyle, for however long you want to, it needs to remain constant. Fad diets don't (and won't) work; a lifestyle you love truly does. At the same time, don't give up hope. We forever see body transformations on social media and can feel jealous that they aren't our bodies, but those people put in serious effort to maintain looking like that, and often if they're athletes, personal trainers, models etc, they're getting paid to look like it. Furthermore, learn to be happy in your own skin.

I was least happiest at my lightest, which just proves that
Weight and appearances aren't everything. (Not even close)

But you can always better yourself, as long as you're doing it for you. Make small changes, like exercising and eating healthier day by day, one step at a time. Find a a sport you genuinely like, even if it is just going to gym or yoga classes. It took me 9 months to lose 2 stone in a gym, but only just over 2 months to lose 1 stone while boxing (and it was far more enjoyable). In conclusion...