110kg to 56kg – Melinda’s Story

I’ve taken some time this week to have a chat to Melinda, a 32 year old mother of 3. I wanted to share her story with my readers because she is nothing short of inspirational. Her journey to health has not been easy, nor did she have a lot of support. What she did have was determination and the strength to continue on no matter what was thrown at her.

Melinda went from obese at 110kg, down to a strong 56kg. She still has goals and is constantly seeking to challenge herself further. I am certain her story and experience will show you that anything is possible and that any goal is realistic if you are prepared to be in it for the long haul and make a commitment to your health. Here is Melinda at her heaviest:

My interview with Melinda follows:

What bodyshape did you have as a child/teenager?

I was skinny & bony as a kid, and went on the pill at 17. I started to put on heaps of weight, went from 45kg to 85kg at age 20. I went on fad diets, starvation diets lost weight put it on again. At 24 with exercise & a bad diet due to lack of education on food I went down to 57kg.

What did pregnancy and/or eating habits change about your body?

During my pregnancy I got really depressed, thought I was eating for 10, worked for a company where there was photography studios, they were shooting food, when they were finished with it I got to eat as much of it as I wanted, every day! Packets of chips, cream cakes, hot chips, roast lunches (along with living at Mcdonalds.) I ended up with huge with no neck & strechmark city.

What weight did you get to at your heaviest?

Went from 57kg to 110kg. 3 months into my first pregnancy I was in maternity clothes by 6 months they didn’t have a hope in hell of fitting me & by the end of the pregnancy. I was wearing size 24 clothes. 8 months after the first baby was born I was still wearing size 22 at 105kg

Bra size was a 16DD & that was tight.

What did the weight make you feel like or stop you from doing?

Having this much weight made me feel depressed & suicidal, no confidence, no friends, judged by others. Less of a person like I didn’t mater. I walked into Sports Girl once & the sales girls would not even acknowledge me, they were so rude because they didn’t cater for my size, I walked out in tears I felt about 50 years old not 24.

At one point when my baby was around 11 months I was so close to a nervous breakdown.

I couldn’t do activities with my baby, wouldn’t go swimming had no energy to even go for a family walk it started to create marriage problems because he was embarrassed by my weight, even a marriage counsellor suggested along with my husband that I should lose weight that just really upset me.

Tell me about the decision to change (how, why, when, with what help)

My decision to change came from nasty judgmental comments that still ring in my head to this day (which I can now laugh at those who made them). “You will never lose that weight”,” look how fat she is, hahaha”. I said to myself, stuff these people! and set out to prove a point.

From the time my first baby was 8months old it took me 5 years but I did it. I started off with a personal trainer, dietician, determination & dedication also asking the right people in gyms etc lots of questions along the way.

What food habits did you have to break?

I had to break eating Mcdonalds, hot chips, hamburgers, chocolate & any other crap you can imagine.

What kept you going every day?

Determination & wanting to prove a point to those people with negative comments that I’m better than them!

Did you find it hard or easy overall?

It was a very rocky road lots of highs & lows, lots tears, frustration & anguish. I was ready to chuck in the towel many of times, it was the hardest journey of my life.

What does it feel like now, to be training as an athlete and eating even better than ever?

Now after 3 children, & a huge life style change, eating healthy food & regular exercise  I feel alive & well like Im 20 years old not 32!

It’s unreal I now have more confidence than I have ever had, friends & I’m happier than ever at 56kg & a size 8. Im in much better shape than all the judgemental people who I now seriously laugh at. I’m doing things I never would have imagined possible 8 years ago & with the best trainer that I’ve ever had encouraging me, I’m training to be in the best shape I can possibly be in. I want to be a personal trainer & help other women or men who are in the same situation that I was in because I understand them & know how hard it is. It is possible!

I hope by now you can see that the results you get from what can be a quite a long, challenging journey are well worth it. Melinda will never go back to her old ways, one chat with her and you get the impression she means business! She made a decision one day, and stuck to it. She does miss days of training and does eat chocolate and icecream, but the majority of her days are based on good nutrition and short, intense exercise sessions that continue to give her results. She doesn’t have a trainer coaching her for 5 hours a day like on The Biggest Loser, so yes it did take a little while. If you can understand that and respect that your body took some time to get big and will need more time to reverse the damage you will find it easier to be consistent.

What sets her apart from people who fail to sustain change is that she picks herself back up when she has a bad day, and gets on with things again, rather than spending a week eating herself sick because of one small mistake. Despite having a demanding role as a mother of 3 (her youngest is 18 months) she makes time for exercise (20 mins 6 days a week) and puts the effort into educating herself about new foods and recipes as much as possible. She stopped making excuses and started demanding better respect from herself and everyone around her so she could live again. Get off your chair now, and go bash out a set of push ups, or look up a new healthy recipe. It starts with one small step!

How to see the glass as half full – Tools for becoming more positive

I personally battled a 2 year long bout of depression that did more than just drain me mentally. It affected my relationships, lost me many a job and even had physical ramifications that are only now finally clearing up (some 8 years later). My confidence was non existent and I had no friends. I had dug myself into a hole. I could find a negative to any positive people wanted to throw at me. I could find something wrong with everything. I actually started finding a wicked sense of pride and achievement in being negative. I don’t know if my depression was a chemical imbalance, or whether my circumstances at the time became too much for me and I just let go and let the darkness take me over. If you have never experienced true depression, the best way I can describe it is that you wake up in the morning and start crying right away because you are literally unable to face the day. Every task, conversation, meal, shopping trip, shower is too much effort and you simply can’t get out of bed. A total sense of helplessness and an overwhelming negative feeling about every single aspect of your life.

I’m in a different space all together now, it is blissful, sometimes still emotional and I do have bouts of rage that I am gradually whittling down. I feel so alive though and I have an overwhelming desire to help others now instead of wallowing in self pity. I hope what I share here may help you if you are feeling down, struggling financially, having relationship problems, or indeed suffering depression or anxiety. I’ve built up a series of steps and cues for myself which I feel I should share, in case they can even help just one of my readers.

I can’t go on any further without referring to some of the amazing people who I’ve learnt from in my journey so far. I went from living in a caravan park, and living off food vouchers in a destructive relationship, to being happily married, with a son, living in paradise, financially stable and living in a energetic, motivated space. My first wake up call came from one of Tony Robbins’ CD sets. I remember buying them out of desperation. I figured my next stop was a shrink and seeing as I couldn’t afford one, I went to the local book shop and ordered a 6 CD pack of his motivational talks.

Constant and Never Ending Improvement

The main thing I took away from what he teaches is that you must always ask yourself an empowering question to find some direction. For me, it is always “What can I do right now, this INSTANT to improve my situation? “ I used this in a very literal sense. Sometimes it meant logging on and looking for a job. Other times it might be to swallow my pride, and apologise to someone, or even go through and sell some items on ebay so I could pay a bill. Creating a habit of stopping myself in the peak moment of rage or anxiety and asking that question was one of the most powerful tools I used to change my state from helplessness to productive. Tony also talks a lot about the C.A.N.I principle – Constant And Never Ending Improvement. I’ve successfully applied this to all areas of my life and I feel just reminding myself of it keeps me very motivated. I try to think of it as 1% a day = 100% in 100 days! You can apply it to everything – for me it is very important with my training and developing my nutritional habits as I want to attain as much information as possible and use what I know to help others. I am much more relaxed about both areas now because I don’t see a particular “end point”. I’m ok with never being perfect. I still have goals but there is always an open end them. I enjoy every day seeking out a way to improve my fitness, strength, endurance, cooking skills and relationships. I don’t set out to improve on every aspect of my life every day, but I do make a mental note of something I want to achieve, no matter how small. I love the driving force thinking like this provides me, it is really empowering and gives me so much energy. Disappointment has been banished from my life, I just keep looking forward to what I can work on next. It isn’t tiring at all, you live in a sense of achievement and motivation all the time!

“Chunking it down” was a great way to cope with anxiety attacks. I’d often have an overwhelming sense of urgency about me when trying to get through normal daily tasks at home or work. I would often stress myself out so much over it, I’d throw my hands up in the air, claim “it can’t be done, there is no way I can finish this in time” then promptly burst into tears or tear shreds off the nearest person who dared to try and calm me down. If you take a moment to truly prioritise what is in front of you, you can often get a little list going and break things down into smaller tasks and then be strong and push yourself to only focus on one at a time. Looking back I’m actually embarrassed about my behavior, but to me at the time, in the moment, it felt so rational!

Perspective and Gratitude

A strong influence for me over the last decade has been someone I have never had the chance to thank in person, her name is Belita, the child I sponsor in Africa. Receiving her letters would give me a huge reality check. To hear her describe how excited she was to sit in her new classroom at school now, (because my money had helped them build one) was sobering. She told me it was much better than being under the tree because at least when it rained now they would be able to keep on with the class. After reading her letter, not being able to afford to go the movies, or having to get up and work at 4:30am, or my boyfriend leaving his clothes on the floor seemed so very trivial. No matter how poor my financial situation became, I prioritised my monthly payment to her over everything else. Someone so far away has affected my life so much and one day I hope I can meet her to tell her that in person. Writing back to her, telling her about what is going on my life made me realise I was somewhat materialistic and had no reason to be so negative. She has always been so happy about everything in her life, and so thankful for what she does have, it made me sick to the stomach as I became more aware of my attitude and general outlook. I needed to find ways to appreciate all the greatness in my life. To have a sense of gratitude for all the wonderful people and experiences that came my way.

The Law of Attraction

A good friend of mine who I met through my husbands design work, is Helen Hall. She is an amazing Health Coach who taught me a lot about real health and real nutrition, which was a far cry from what they taught me in my Personal Training course! Having meals with her and her partner at the time, Stephanie Burns, led to many enlightening conversations about how we could eat and live better. They introduced us to Udo’s oil and eating LSA (a ground up meal of linseeds, sunflower seeds and almonds), got us drinking more water and snapped us out of our slack habit of eating whatever we could get on the way to training. We learnt to respect our bodies with better fuel.

I’ve learnt that the right people tend to come into your life at the right time. Helen taught me a lot about health, however the main reason I wanted to mention her is because she introduced me to a movie called “The Secret”. If you haven’t seen it, it is about the Law of Attraction. Steve Pavlina has a good article on this and there is a lot of writing about it out there so I won’t rehash what has been done before. A brief explanation is:

Your can attract into your life what you think about. If you think about negative things, that is what the universe delivers. If you think about money, or a job, it delivers that too. For example, if you are struggling financially, and you tend to think about bills and debts, that is what you will get more of. If you constantly think about how fat you are, you are ordering more fat from the universe! If you change your tune and think about money and higher income, or a healthy body, you will have opportunities come your way, and even cheques in the mail that you didn’t expect.

1. Know exactly what you want.
2. Ask the universe for it.
3. Feel, behave and know as if the object of your desire is already yours (visualise)
4. Be open to receive it and let go of (the attachment to) the outcome.

For all of the above to work, it is imperative that you think about what you are grateful for all the time. I have started a gratitude journal and try to write 5 things in it every night. I’d recommend everyone to start one whether you believe in the law of attraction or not. I write things like:

Thankyou for my health
Thankyou for my wonderful relationships with my family,
I’m grateful for the money that is helping us pay our home off
I’m grateful for how much sleep I have been getting

Doing this every day helps you to appreciate everything good in your life and makes it easier to disregard the negatives. The more thought you give to all the great things, the more you start to pay attention to opportunities and coincidences that can lead you to what you want. You know when you want to buy a certain model of car, then for a few weeks, you start seeing that model everywhere you go? Same principle – it sets you up to notice and pay attention to ways to bring the things you want into your life.

I do personally believe in the law of attraction (LOA). It has helped me with finding a career path I am passionate about, and being able to work from home. It’s helped my husband get remote work through his employer too. It has helped us start up our own businesses. We’ve gone from broke to a much better financial situation. We aren’t renting anymore. There were sums of money I asked the universe for and we got them within 12 months. I believe the way I think because I put the LOA into action helped me with getting pregnant and having a healthy baby. I believe it helped me get out of my depression and find plenty of motivation every day, with enough left over to help other people. If nothing else, it is a great tool for your emotional management as it can assist you to stay positive and maintain a sense of direction in your life.

Above all, respect and nourish your body. It is the vehicle for experiencing life and you can live on an amazing permanent high by fuelling yourself with good nutrition! Feeling physically well through exercise and food will go a long way to improving your mental experience.

I hope you can apply these tools for motivation, success and a positivity to your life. Be happy with constant and never ending improvement, celebrate all your achievements and keep looking for new ways to improve your life, 1% at a time.

If there are any areas of my posts that you would like me to expand upon, please let me know, I’m happy to oblige!

Information you NEED for your health!

For the last two weeks my husband and I have dedicated all of our spare time to educating ourselves on health and wellbeing. This short post is to direct you, my readers to some documentaries and topics so that I regard as essential for your education and self improvement.

I encourage you to watch the following documentaries as urgently as possible. Stick it out and watch them to the end, it is well worth the effort. I’ve learned some mind blowing things that have fuelled my desire to seek out more information. I will gradually include notes here on everything I refer you to as I know everyone doesn’t have time to do what I am doing.

“The Beautiful Truth”

“Healing Cancer from Inside Out” (just as important to watch even if you are not affected by cancer)

“Raw Food for Life – The Ultimate Encyclopedia of the Raw Food Lifestyle

I am concentrating my research on raw food at the moment. Becoming vegan or even just vegetarian was not something I have ever strongly considered until I watched these documentaries. My husband and I are both converting to a vegetarian and eventually vegan diet of predominanately raw food. We feel strongly enough about what we have learnt recently that it is necessary for our current and long term health. Some of my knowledge on nutritional requirements – especially protein intake has been spun around.

If you think about it, it is 2009 and we have spent billions of dollars on health research, drugs, treatments, “health food”, supplements and the like, yet the rates of cancer, heart disease, obesity and other major concerns are rising out of control! People still die after enduring the horrible side effects of treatments and surgeries. These documentaries outline why going back to our natural diet of raw, organic fresh vegetables and fruits is the only effective way of ensuring health and wellbeing. Consider that we are a society that treats symptoms not causes. Diet is THE number one reason why people develop cancer, heart disease, diabetes and become obese. Poisoning our bodies with chemotherapy has not proven to stop cancer in it’s tracks – in fact it often causes patients to have a severe recurrance that takes their life. The treatment and surgeries often leave them a sick, crippled mess, in pain and susceptible to any bug going around. Some of these documentaries show people who have overcome terminal cancer easily via converting to raw food vegan diets and a stack of evidence from studies supporting what they are saying. It is possible to eliminate diabetes simply via diet and people are doing it every day.

I will be posting some articles over the next week or two outlining the main points from these doco’s and also some information I am gathering from further research and undertaking a better diet myself. I’m very grateful for the people who pointed me in the right direction. It feels like a light has gone off in my head. You will need to challenge a lot of what you see in advertising and media with regards to food and nutrition – remember that these industries are BUSINESSES, not volunteers who are educating you out of the goodness of their hearts. It is not in their best interest financially to find cures for cancers, or to teach you that you can easily grow everything you need to eat at home in a 4m x 12m run of garden beds! Keep an open mind, become a critical thinker and educate yourself NOW so you can start enjoying the fantastic enlightenment and buzz of health that changing your eating habits can provide. Don’t be one of the fools who assumes “it won’t happen to me” and cancer or some other serious health concern will never come knocking on your door. It isn’t just about prevention, it is about feeling alive, having motivation day in day out, about your moods being normal. You can make changes with what you eat that will change your skin, your weight, your strength, your sleep, your ability to get pregnant! As mentioned in Raw Food for Life, it is a “Win – Win” !