Two years ago today I looked in the mirror and took these photos, whilst making a huge commitment to myself. Two years ago to this day, I vowed I would change my life; I was going to start exercising to become healthier. I wanted to make sure I did all I could to live a long, healthy life, be able to see my kids grow up, feel better about myself and but mostly so I could stop hating my body so much. I won’t lie, my main motivation at the beginning was to look better… but I didn’t realise how much of an impact it would have on every aspect of my life.
I wasn’t quite prepared for how incredible it would be and the amazing journey I would take. I had absolutely no idea how beautiful it would feel to finally get my confidence back and become more mindful about what I was putting into my body. I can now say, after a very quick 2 years, this was THE best thing I have ever done. I am living proof that by changing your mindset you can become happier and healthier.
When I first started on this journey, I was so focused on the scales and loosing pounds that going into my 2nd year, I knew I would have to change my mindset; I needed to stop being a slave to the scales. Why do the scales give us such a hard time? Why do we allow them to have such a hold over us? Some days, they take away everything positive we feel about our progress, grow a pair of arms and punch us in our vaginas (or dicks if you’re a penis owner).
“I didn’t realise how much of an impact it would have on every aspect of my life.”
Don’t get me wrong, at first the scales are important… you want to see that number going down so you know you’re going in the right direction, but once you lose a considerable amount of weight and you are sustaining, why do you feel the need to step onto them anymore? What exactly are you going to get out of it? Just because you don’t wear your apple watch by accident doesn’t mean you didn’t do an amazing workout… Why are you giving the scales so much power over your life? Why do they seem like they are the only thing that can justify our hard work?
BECAUSE SOMEONE TOLD US THEY ARE.
I haven’t lose ONE POUND on the scales in over 12 months, but my body looks completely different. I am living proof that eventually the scales don’t mean a thing.
For years and years, all you ever see on advertisements is the word ‘lose weight’
Why don’t we ever push our focus into being healthier and stronger? Why does it all have to be about loosing pounds? Had you really ever asked yourself why? Wouldn’t it be amazing if they were promoting women and men being able to become fitter instead of skinner?
Me after one of the free fitness zooms I put on over lockdown
As women, we fluctuate around the time we have our periods, if we ate too much salt the night before, if we didn’t drink enough water or drank a lot of water… pounds can go up and down quite a lot. Me personally, I fluctuate around 5-7 pounds during my time of the month and that’s not something I can control so now, I just let it be. I don’t pay too much attention to it. I just remember that, that is a part of me and that’s how my body controls my hormones. I hear from people quite a lot that they are upset because they have put on 2Ibs… mate, that could literally be a big poo ready to come out. Give yourself a break. Continue. Don’t let that make you stop!! You are stronger than that!
Let me break it down for you. You have to physically consume an extra 3500 calories to put on 1-2lbs of FAT. Fat- Not weight the scales would notice, which could be anything from extra water or eating extra salt one day… I am talking about actual fat. Tell me, did you just eat an extra 3500 calories yesterday? I think not. So let’s stop letting your brain tell you this journey isn’t worth it. It is.
Women generally burn around 1800-2000 calories a day, just by walking around, doing your job, breathing, sleeping, talking etc, so this is why the national guidelines are 2000 calories for an average woman, so add a workout into that where you burnt around 300 calories, so to maintain your current weight you could eat/drink 2300 calories. If you then put yourself in a CALORIE DEFICIT of say, 500 calories a day, after about a week you will burn around 1-2 lbs of fat. Actual hard. core. fat. So… why aren’t you seeing that drop on the scales every week? Well, are you weight training? Are you drinking enough water? Are you due on? All these things you have to take into consideration. Don’t let this make you stop working hard and dedicating yourself to making your body healthier.
“STOP letting your brain tell you this journey isn’t worth it. ”
If you are lifting weights, you will be building muscle. It’s common knowledge for some reason that muscle weighs more than fat… WELL THAT IS WRONG. 1lb of fat is the same as 1lb of muscle… a pound and a pound weigh the same no matter what is is. If you are building muscle and burning fat, you may not see it go down so quickly on the scales as you will be balancing out your weight, but I guarantee your body will be changing. Slowly but surely… you will see shape. If you do endless amounts of cardio, yes you’ll be loosing fat but where’s that skin going to go? You need to lift those weights and do exercises involving your own bodyweight like press-ups for example (where you are physically lifting up your own bodyweight!!) so you can shape your body out. Basically, to burn fat you NEED to be in a caloric deficit. This is the ONLY way you can get rid of that fat because your body is burning more energy than what you are consuming.
Going into year two was a different experience all together from the first twelve months. Firstly we went into a pandemic and secondly, I knew I wouldn’t be loosing any weight on the scales. Suddenly it dawned on me that I would need to do this for more than just to ‘look good’. I had to change my ‘why’ if I was going to continue on this journey successfully. I stopped calling it ‘My Weight Loss Journey’ and started calling it ‘My Fitness Journey’ and just by making that small change my whole outlook was different. I focused on getting stronger not loosing weight.
This wasn’t an over night mind change, in-fact I spent months carrying on with the same YouTube workouts, found the amazing Courtney Black throughout the first Lockdown but I just wasn’t seeing the results in the mirror. The mirror has always been my nemesis; it told me the truth, made me feel good but also made me see all the things I hated about myself. I had to remember to practice what I preached and pay attention to all the positive things instead of purely focusing on the negative.
BEING IN A
calorie deficit …
…is the ONLY way you can get rid of that fat because your body is burning more energy than what you are consuming.
“What can I do to make more progress?” I asked my Husband. “I am not seeing any shift on the scales now, my body doesn’t seem to be changing much and I am getting disheartened.” Brett, my Husband is an Elite Gymnastics Coach and is lucky enough to work with the best people in the sport. He has extensive knowledge on fitness, building muscle, conditioning and nutrition and up until this point, which was about 18 months into my journey, I hadn’t really asked for his advice.
“You need to go and lift heavy weights” he told me. Heavy weights? Could I do that? Would I enjoy it? Could I find the time? All these thoughts went round in my head. Could I face going into a gym environment when I wouldn’t know what I was doing?
My first worry was that there was no way I would be able to find time to fit that in. Who has time to go to gym, especially a Mom of two little children who runs two businesses… TASHA STOP! I said to myself. This is my life, this is my time, I CAN do this. I will MAKE time. It will be a short slot twice a week but If I want to take the next step, then I have no choice.
Fitness is the only thing I do for myself.
It’s the only thing that is truly for me and me alone.
Every time I work out I achieve something and that is priceless.
I become fitter, stronger and healthier every single day and no one can take that away from me.
Even without the gym I can work out at home, I can challenge myself, I can explore my limits and I can if not anything else, try. I can show up, I can get it done and I can feel good about myself.
So when we came out of lockdown and I got back into my work routine, I signed up to the gym. I made Brett come with me the first time so he could show me how to use the equipment. It was so daunting, everyone seemed to know what they were doing but I instantly loved the environment where everyone was working hard too achieve something. I soon realised no one gave a shit what I did. I instantly loved it, even though I was nervous. I planned to go twice a week but that quickly changed to three times and then I wished I could be there every day. No kids to entertain during workouts and try not to smash in the face, no opportunity to give up and sit down, when I was there, I was there to work and that’s how I like it.
The first few weeks I experienced quite bad gym anxiety. I used to sit in the car for ages, psyching myself up to walk in, watching other people turning up, but when I got the confidence to just hold my head up high, respect myself for having a go and giving myself patience to find out how to work out the machines, I started to enjoy it more and more.
Everything in life is scary at first but you have to brave and take yourself out of your comfort zone so you can find out what you are able to achieve. Your mind constantly tries to keep you in your little bubble where it knows all the outcomes, so as soon as you try something different, challenge your limits and take hold of the horns with two hands, your brain says ‘woah what the hell’ but then starts making different pathways so you can realise your full potential. It’s all down to you to be courageous. This is what changes you and then eventually the world.
Paulina Duczman showing her love for my zooms- The support from friends has been so amazing.
I then had a different focus. I want to be strong. I want to leg press more, I want to squat more… it’s addictive. I was slowly coming away from the scales calling me to step on them… I was ignoring them. In the cupboard they stayed more and more until eventually I was able to control the urge to ‘just have a quick look’. I only had to taken a progress photo or look at my body in the mirror to see where my hard work was going.
People would say things to me like ‘Don’t get too thin’ ‘You’re wasting away’ ‘Don’t go too far’ ‘You’re looking so skinny’. At first I would be angry I was getting these kinds of comments. I am not skinny and I eat a well balanced diet. I make sure I have as much protein as I can and I eat and drink whatever I want in moderation, eat chocolate.. drink cider… I have never restricted myself too much. I was lifting heavy weights, I was getting stronger, I was becoming fitter… how dare they say that to me! Then I realised it must be weird for them. They had never, ever seen me like this in my whole 30 years on this Earth. I had gone from an average size teenager, to an obese mother of two, to a fitness fanatic who loved working out. This whole thing was strange to them and I now know they said those things out of love. They wanted me to know that however I looked and whatever I did, I would be loved. How I looked didn’t matter to them, they just wanted me to be happy. They wanted to make sure I was doing it in the right way and not doing anything silly like starving myself so I explained it all to them. Knowledge is power and sometimes you have to educate people so they can understand. Maybe you will inspire them to change their lives too.
Me at PureGym Wolverhampton
In January, we went back into a national lockdown; the longest one yet. The whole country fell into a depression. Friends stopped talking to each other, families were once again separated, gyms were closed and businesses shut down. I personally was not in a good way at the start of 2021. Maybe I was naive to think this year would start differently and held out too much hope nothings would go back to normal. I shut down. It hit me like a ton of bricks. Fellow photographers from around the world posting new images of their clients and I was stuck in my house with no one to give an amazing experience to. There was a massive black cloud above me and I couldn’t shift it. I was so low and I couldn’t see a way out.
I carried on working out as it was the ONLY thing I had to look to forward to. Stuck in the house, whilst it was freezing cold outside with a toddler who hangs off the bannisters and climbs up wardrobes, I had had enough of this life. I wanted to go back to normal.
How would I get myself up in the morning? How would I get off this mattress? How could I help people that feel the same? I came to terms with the fact I didn't have any control over it and I just had to make the best out of a bad situation and the anxiety got worse before it got better, but I pushed through and every day got better.
So, at the end of January I started doing free fitness zooms for my family members. I told them it was important to exercise now life was far from normal and they needed to join in twice a week to keep themselves going. I am very bossy towards my family haha so they didn't all respond in the way I wanted. I decided to invite friends and fellow photographers to join in. It quickly spread and I was getting so many people joining, I had to start a WhatsApp group and a Facebook group so I could keep up with all the messages and admin! We started doing them three times a week and the messages I got from everyone was just so, so amazing!! I was helping people, inspiring people, keeping people going throughout this crazy time. Doing the classes live, making the girls commit to the times, being there as a constant for these incredible women was as good for me as it was for them. I enjoyed writing the plans, working out which exercises were best and making sure it was accessible for all levels from total beginner to intermediates. I spent my evenings researching new moves, making up random stuff in my kitchen and motivating people to sign on and join in, no matter who they were or what they looked like. I encouraged people to be brave. It felt so, so good to be needed and it’s something I want to continue even after lockdown gets lifted.
To join the Facebook group click this link-
Me & My Family having Xmas Photos taken. Me feeling very brave and embracing my body.
Fitness is the only thing I do for myself. It’s the only thing that is truly for me and me alone. Every time I work out I achieve something and that is priceless. I become fitter, stronger and healthier every single day and no one can take that away from me. Running alongside side that, I become more confident in myself, more positive and I spread that positivity around and try to help as many people as I can. I was a beginner once, I had no help once.. I never want people to feel like they have to doing this alone.
Even without the gym I can work out at home, I can challenge myself, I can explore my limits and I can if not anything else, jut try. I can show up, I can get it done and I can feel good about myself.At some point this all has to mean something more than just looking good. It has to be bigger than that.
We all have days where we feel dark, down and alone. We have to find the strength inside of ourselves to crawl out of that hole and see the world for what it really is… beautiful. If you are kind , people will be kind to you. Give out that energy you want back, even when people are mean, judgmental or trying to pull you down… just try and lift them up regardless.
Fitness has changed my life. It has given me this confidence I never ever really knew existed. It has made me grow as a person and it’s made me believe I can achieve my dreams. One of the things I am so thankful for is that this lifestyle has made me question my limits and wonder what else I am capable of. What will be next for me? It has given me the mental strength to pull myself out of the dark and see the light. It has given me the opportunity to inspire and motivate others to change their lives. It has made me fall in love with my job, given me the emotional capacity to love my family more but most of all, it’s allowed me to love myself.
“Learning to love yourself is the greatest gift of all”
