Want to lose weight? Stop dieting!!

Recently I was asked to be featured in an article for my local paper the Adelaide Advertiser. They were running a story on yo-yo dieting and were looking for a 'success story' so I bravely put my hand up to have my before and after weights published for all to see!

During the interview I was asked a question that I have been asked by plenty of people over the last year - how did I lose the weight? I have been asked this question by numerous friends all wanting to know if I took some magical pill to melt the fat or followed some wonderful diet plan that would melt those kilos away. The answer always sounds so easy - eat less move more and stop dieting!

For over 20 years I followed just about every 'diet' going, and made quite a few up myself along the way too! I have been seduced by those ads informing me just one pill a day will melt away the fat to reveal a bikini clad body just like the model on TV. I have blamed my metabolism for being too slow (nothing to do with the large quantities of crap food going into my body) and could write a book on 'Excuses not to exercise' which I am sure would become an instant best seller...

The way that I lost weight is simple - I stopped dieting. Every diet I have ever tried has made me miserable and food obsessed. They all focus on what you CANNOT eat which, of course, makes you want it soooo bad! Most of them do not even offer a balanced diet - one such diet I tried 'the heart smart diet' allowed only boiled eggs, tomatoes and red meat. Lost weight but felt so ill all of the time it just wasn't worth it. And that is how the cycles of diets work - you stick at them a while and lose weight, you get bored/tired/hungry so stop the 'diet' and the weight goes back on, normally with a couple of added kilos just for the hell of it to make you feel even worse than before you started. Then another 'diet' comes along full of sweet promises and so the cycle continues.

Rather than try another diet this time I decided to change my life - nothing radical, simply switch to better foods and start exercising. Out went white bread in came Soy & Linseed bread, our went sweets as snacks in came fruit, out went skipping meals then stuffing my intake of calories in one hit at night, in came regular smaller meals with  snacks in between. I even have the odd takeaway if I fancy it - just not 4 times a week!

And out went wasted hours of Facebook, watching TV and moving as little as possible, and in came hitting the gym a few times a week. It sounds easy but it works! So if you want to lose weight - stop dieting and get a healthier lifestyle and the changes will happen.

Adelaide Advertiser Article

Just do it....

My mantra in life over the last 12 months - well JFDI to be precise (Google it!!)

Any time that things seemed to hard, any time I thought I couldn't do something - this is what I would say over and over in my head.

One of the hardest days for me had to be the first class I took at my local gym. Seems easy doesn't it? Go down the gym, walk through those studio doors and enjoy a class. I wish it had been that easy for me! For some unknown obscure reason my brain spent nearly six months telling my body that I had no hope of ever completing one of those classes....

I would visit the gym regularly spending time in the cardio and weights sections without worry but when it came to walking through those doors - NO WAY!!! 

Don't get me wrong it isn't that I didn't want to join in - the music pumping, great instructors motivating everyone to work just that little bit harder, the smiles at the end of the class as everyone made their way out. I wanted to be one of them more than anything. I would stand there peering in trying to take that step but always walked away back to the cardio section.

I have done a lot of self analysing over the last 18 months and looking back it seems so silly the reasons for not doing it but at the time the feelings were so strong. NO WAY could someone as big as me do a class like that, NO WAY could my body be pushed that hard, NO WAY could I move that fast, NO WAY would someone like me fit in with all the fit thin people. 

I don't know what changed that Friday morning. Seeing a class about to start I made my way to peer through the door but instead found myself walking back to the reception area to get a ticket for the class. I told the voice chanting NO WAY in my head to shut the hell up and scurried to the back of the class. It wasn't pretty, certainly wasn't easy but I did do it. And I kept doing it. I became completely hooked on the Les Mills classes and tried them all out and regularly show up for Body Combat, Body Attack, Body Vive, Body Step and Body Pump.

Now the only voice in my head it the one screaming JFDI as I push myself as hard as I can which is so much better than NO WAY!!

I was asked today why I became a personal trainer and the answer is simple - to teach people how to shut up the negative voices in their heads and discover just how much they can do :-)

Starting with a bang!

Been a really busy couple of weeks since finishing with the Australian Institute of Fitness in Adelaide. I got the text this week that my certs were ready to collect so everything feels very real now. Now on to sorting out my registration with Fitness Australia and getting my insurance in place.

The Facebook page is slowly growing and today the main website for the Boost Fitness launched - www.boostfitness.com.au so check it out when you have a minute


And the news keep getting better - starting from July 8th I will offering PT services from Genesis Fitness Health Club in Noarlunga so things are really starting with a bang!


Check out our website for some launch promotions and watch this space for some healthy tips and tricks for a healthier you...