From Robyn Welsh-Stebbing Freelance writer, Mother of three children.
This is my story…
The day I arrived at Jacqui Dale's Real Nutrition was a day of truly shocking discoveries. Oh, I knew what I weighed. The scales had been stuck on 62kg for years but I seemed to be getting fatter and fatter. I knew everything there was to know about how losing weight, yet I was about to discover that I really knew nothing at all.
I arrived at my first appointment a picture of misery, misinformation and contradictions. I was desperate. I had tried and failed, cried and tried yet again every weightless programme every designed. I was eating less and getting fatter. I walked more but had less energy. The more positive I tried to be the more fragile I felt. I was barrelling towards my 50th birthday and memories of life not so long ago with boundless energy, optimism and positive self-image were slipping away. Yet when the friend of a friend gave me Jacqui's business card, I didn't rush to make the first appointment. Something told me to wait, to clear my head and to begin this new approach with an honest appraisal of my eating habits. I kept a food diary for a fortnight and I wrote down how I felt each day. With my notebook in hand for that first appointment, I was about to discover that my losing weight was, in fact, nothing to do with losing weight on the scales but everything to do with burning fat and building muscle.
I learned that the scales that every fatty knows define a good day or set the tone for a bad one are just a small part of the picture. Those scales show what I weigh right now - nothing more, nothing less. It is my fat kilos, my body fat percentage and my lean mass that are important statistics on my personal chart. Nine months down the track I have burned up 6.5kg of fat and increased my lean mass by 1.6kg on my small 1.57cm frame. Oh, and by the way, I've lost 7.5kg on the scales which is nice to know. All this means that I have burned fat without eating away at my muscle stores.
By eating the right foods, I have added more muscle and it's that muscle that is fuelling my fat loss. Years of dieting had depleted those muscle stores. Without muscle, no body can burn fat. Without adequate protein, no body can build good muscle. I have doubled my food intake and I have never ever been hungry. I have six measured meals a day from breakfast through to my favourite that is my suppertime hot chocolate drink. It took me two days to be able to get through all the food that Jacqui had calculated that I needed for fat loss, energy, anti-ageing and renewal. It took me only two or three days to start feeling alive, energised and connected with the world rather than just watching it from the sidelines. I could not believe how good it felt. Before then, I had been eating at near starvation levels, according to Jacqui. There had been too much carbohydrate, too few vegetables, very little protein and not enough quality snacks to keep my metabolism fired into action. Yet food is just part of the picture. At each fortnightly consultation, Jacqui writes down my achievements and strengths. We set new goals that might simply be getting more sleep or remembering to pack a protein bar if I'm out with the kids late in the day. This week I will celebrate my 50th birthday and I'm at a place in my life that I never dared to dream of a year ago. I'm happy with the way I look and I feel okay about saying that. I love my walks with our dog. I can stand up straight and look the world in the eye. I feel 35, not 85. I know I will lose the few remaining fat kilos to reach my goal and that I will maintain it for the rest of my life. Best of all I feel strong about what I have achieved. I no longer carry around the fragility and fear that it's all going to fall apart if I make one bad meal choice. As Jacqui says in her 'Thought for the Day' "Nothing tastes as good as lean and mean feels!"
|
|
