It won’t be easy, but it will be worth it!!

Before and after pics! January 2013 and September 2013: 30 kilos difference.  I haven't lost any "weight" since september, yet i've dropped a whole dress size! Goes to show that muscle weighs more than fat!

I have had a brilliant response from many people about changing their lives so they become the best versions of themselves, and here is a message for those amazing people as well as everyone else out there.  It won’t be easy, but it will be worth it!  Before and after photos can be amazing to see, fill you with a sense of awe and wonder whilst inspiring you to get moving, but most importantly, they show you that it can be done.  I am about to fill you in on a little secret.  Nothing happens over night.  Nothing changes in a week or even two weeks.  Lasting change takes time and it is something you must be willing to accept and work hard for. 

What you don’t see in before and after photos are all the slip ups. Countless slip ups, binges and promises to myself that I will start again tomorrow.  Treat meals that turned into treat days and rest days that turned into a rest week.  Embarrassment and all my social awkwardness, oh and the mind games that go with that.  I can not even count the amount of times that I was curled up in a ball crying my eyes out because I was emotional and all I wanted was chocolate, toast, anything I could get my hands on!  My inner child would scream at me to give in and eat that entire block of chocolate, that bag of chips or start on the “toast conveyor belt”.  The stronger I got, the more I was able to say, “No, I am in control, I will not let my inner child win!”  So many times, I felt like my muscles were on fire from a really tough training session that again, I have wanted to burst into tears and scream “it’s not fair!” but slowly it becomes a pain you love.  You learn how to combat that inner child and stop playing mind games with yourself (“well…I skipped breakfast this morning, therefore I can have the cake”…sound familiar?).  This is an incredibly hard emotional journey but I promise you, it will all be worth it!! Seriously!  You will get there, not over night and definitely not without a great amount of tears and tantrums, but you will and you will need people to lean on.  By undertaking this journey you will learn who are your true supporters.  They’re the ones who are there for you every step of the journey, celebrating your wins, and supporting you when you don’t think you can do it any more.  Unfortunately, there is a flip side and there will also be those who either don’t understand, or don’t want to.  Let them go, it’s tough but if they can’t be there to support you, they aren’t really your friends.  If this happens to you, remember that you deserve to be happy and healthy and you deserve to be surrounded by people who love, support and lift you up.

I am not going to pretend I have perfect nutrition and training, because I don’t.  I eat chocolate. Yes that’s right, I EAT CHOCOLATE!  I go by the 80/20 rule.  If I eat squeaky clean 80% of the time, I can afford to relax the other 20% of the time.  Remember that this is a lifestyle change and not a diet.  Diets are not sustainable!  I try not to eat out too often, however eating out is a big part of our culture and can’t be avoided.  So when I do eat out, I am careful with what I consume, and I truly enjoy what ever it is I am eating.  I aim to train 6 days a week, but some weeks I only make 5, occasionally I’ve only made 3 or 4, as I said earlier, sometimes my rest day turned into a rest week!  Some days I light the gym on fire, have an amazing calorie burn and walk out a rock star!  Other days I count as a win simply because I dragged my sorry ass out to train.  I didn’t lose 30 kilos and all of a sudden, everything fell into place.  That just isn’t how life works, I still struggle with everything I said earlier, emotions, eating and training.  I probably will forever, but I can make life easier for myself.  I choose to wake up each morning and make good choices.  For me it has become a habit.

So what is the point of me telling you this?  What is the key to making this new lifestyle habitual?  Consistency.  That’s right, consistency.  JFDI – Just freaking do it!! By making the same good decisions every day you are creating habits, once these habits are ingrained, it becomes a lot easier to say no to another piece of chocolate, training becomes just another part of your day (it is a part I have learned to cherish and really enjoy).  It all becomes simply, what you do.  This is what I do, I eat clean and train often.  I actively choose to be happy and work hard, because nothing in life comes free, you have to work for what you want, and I want to be happy and healthy!  

Liz Xox