Finally Fed Up of Feeling Fat

A great result today as one of my clients has reached her weight loss and fitness goal. She's allowed me to share it with you.

Carole has had a brilliant beginning to 2008. She’s managed to shift almost 14lbs already and it’s only the beginning of March. This is how she did it:

• Divide your usual three meals a day in to three smaller meals and two snacks
• Eat early in the day, always have breakfast and spread your food evenly throughout the day
• Don't eat anything after 7.30pm
• Never skip meals
• Drink lots and lots of water
• Cut right back on alcohol or give up all together for even faster results.
• Be active everyday - walk, jog, skip, run up stairs. Add activity to every part of your day where it can be done.
• Most importantly, stick with this routine and give it time to get working

Basically, really simple stuff.

You're disappointed now aren't you? You wanted to hear something outlandish and radical but I'm afraid, the simplicity of this is what makes it so effective. And that's what Carole finally realised. She had made many attempts at shifting her excess weight before but decided that this time would be different. This time it would be a true priority. Not that she suddenly found she had more time on her hands, just that she was going to use her time differently.

One part of her approach was really different this time. She set aside most of an entire day to focus on what she wanted to achieve, think about why she’d not been successful in the past and make sure this time she would have her success.

She emerged from her day of planning to be confronted by her 4 children asking what she’d been up to all day. They thought she hadn’t been her usual busy self for the day and hadn’t achieved anything. Ironically, she’d achieved more in those few hours than she had done in months! She’d changed the way she thought about food, exercise, her weight and her approach to life. She had made a bigger difference in that one day than ever before. She felt elated and relieved. She knew she was going to be successful because she felt different. She felt focused. She knew what she was doing and she knew why she was doing it.

And she hasn’t looked back since. She's one stone lighter and fit.

She only truly realised the magnitude of her achievement when it dawned on her last week that the dumbbells we were training with weighed the same as the weight she’d lost. She couldn’t believe that just 7-weeks ago she was carrying this amount of extra weight around with her everywhere she went. This has spurred her on towards losing the next stone by the end of April.

And I don't have a single doubt that she'll do it.

Photograph by Nico (Flickr)