In 2022-2023 I made a lot of progress with my business. How I run it, who I work with, etc. and I achieved what I wanted. I've streamlined my processes, purpose and aims and I now have the business that I love, that works for me and benefits my clients. But it's important to look back, reflect and think about how far I've come. I always enjoy my review of the year posts which always inspire my goals for the following year (I don't say resolutions!) And whilst I start thinking about it, I always take time to ponder everything that's happened in the last year.
Once I achieved what I needed for my business, I felt able to put some more time into myself. I've been wanting to sort my health out for a long time. The last decade has been hard. Various factors affected my ability to focus on my health. (Including but not limited to loneliness, a very stressful job, PND, losing friends, starting a business, general overwhelm and most likely undiagnosed ADHD...)
Anyway. These days I'm in a new, supportive practice with an awesome team, feel more confident socially, feel in control of my business, working with amazing clients and I have now managed to get my body back to where I feel good and I'm in a much healthier state. Both physically and mentally.
So I wanted to give a shout out to Nicolle who helped make this possible. If you've read my previous posts about my health journey with Nic, then you'll know how much I've enjoyed this process! It came as a surprise to me when I joined the gym and have consistently attended twice weekly for the last year (excluding school holidays when Nic helps me switch to more home workouts whilst the twins are off!)
I hit my target weight of 82.7kg (a pre-kids weight noted in MyFitnessPal that I had been comfortable at) after 8 months working with Nicolle. Since May this year, I have been steadily maintaining my weight since I stopped tracking my food, still keeping up with my new workout routine and daily steps.
I wanted to prove to myself that I could do this and not slide back into old habits and routines and I'm delighted that I managed it. But I always planned to go back into a calorie deficit again this autumn with the aim to lose a bit more body fat. Although my visceral fat has drastically reduced (as you would expect with over 4 stone of weight loss), I am still a little overweight with subcutaneous fat and wanted to get into the "normal" zones for a couple more of the metrics we've been measuring, as well as getting a bit more toned in certain areas.
It has been much harder recently, not least because I've been busier with life in general since September now that losing weight hasn't been such a big focus for me. (It takes a lot of time and effort in the beginning and I took a step back from certain things - social media, marketing, etc. to enable me to get here.) I'm happy with how I look and feel now, but I do still want to make progress and Nicolle has been in my corner, in her fabulous non-judgemental way, to keep me going.
I'm happy to say I've now lost 30kg overall and have just 1.8% to go to achieve my body fat goal.
I've shared the back view before as I've made progress but was too nervous to show the side view but here's a cropped version which shows the huge difference in my belly from the side!
I'm back in more of my old clothes I couldn't bare to part with (that I'd stashed in the attic for Priya), including my favourite old boots which now zip up again. I've gone from a size 20-22 to being firmly back in a size 12 and of course I feel so much better in myself.
My BMI has come down from 36 to 26, I don't get short of breath easily, I have more energy, I am no longer close to being pre-diabetic, my mood is mostly more stable (let's not discount peri-menopause and that suspected ADHD) and I am definitely happier overall! Some of my patients haven't even recognised me after 6 months!
So thank you Nicolle for your support, workouts, accountability and weekly check-ins! I love working with you!!
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