My Fitness Story - Laura S

Hello and welcome back to My Fitness Story... , my weekly guest post slot where people share their stories about fitness, diet, weight gain, and weight loss. This week's story is about the last of those - but it's not just about one person's battle with weight loss, it's about two people. Laura, who blogs at cakeandteablog, has agreed to tell the story of how both her and her husband lost weight (over 15 stone between them), their slide back down the slippery slope when a baby came into their lives (when doesn't it?) and how they have overcome it by fitting a healthy lifestyle around a baby. It's a really inspiring story, so please do settle down to have a good read as Laura takes up the tale.

David and I met in 2001, when I was 18 and he was 21. We were both morbidly obese, and had been heavy right through our childhoods. Through the next few years, we talked a lot about losing weight. We started diets for a couple of weeks at a time before getting bored and even had a couple of lapsed gym memberships. But nothing ever really stuck- life got in the way, motivation faltered, and somehow we just couldn’t get the momentum going to make any real lasting changes.

We got engaged in 2005, and set a date for our wedding in 2008. Finally, in August 2007, something clicked. With just under a year to go until our wedding, we both joined a gym. Coincidentally, our jobs were both changing around the same time. David was a salesman, on the road every day and living on junk food from service stations, but he was becoming more office based. I was leaving my prestigious, high pressure graduate training scheme which had me staying in random hotels for weeks on end, to work locally in a job with much more sensible hours. Suddenly, we had the time and the motivation to really do something.

This is us the month before we started out:

Looking back, I think it’s fair to say that we were both blinkered to how big we actually were. I was a dress size 26, David was struggling with size XXXL. We had fooled ourselves for a long time that everything was fine. It wasn’t.

We started slowly at the gym, beginning with some gentle cardio sessions, and upping the intensity gradually. David found the weight fell off him to start with, I found it came off slowly and steadily, which was frustrating because it felt like I was lagging behind! But the more we did it, the more it became part of our routine. We didn’t do anything special with our diet to begin with, we just started making healthier choices, and these eventually became normal for us.

By the time our wedding came around, I had lost 4 stone and David had lost 6. We looked and felt like different people. And when we got back home, we kept going. We started to do WeightWatchers online, which gave our weight loss a boost, and we looked for new fitness challenges to keep us interested, and started to run together.

To start with, that little voice in my head that said I would never run. It told me that people as big as me didn’t run. Eventually, I told the voice to shove it. So, here we are the start line of the Silverstone half marathon in March 2009. 18 months after starting to lose weight, I am about 7 stone lighter than the first picture, and David is almost 8 stone lighter.

And this is us in May 2009. Just before I got pregnant, and it all went a bit wrong! This is the lowest weight that either of us have ever achieved (so far!) in our adult lives.

When I got pregnant, very little changed at first. We didn’t change our diets too much, and I kept an eye on my heart rate when I worked out. Then I started making excuses... oh, I’ll just have this one takeaway, this one packet of Maltesers, this bucket of crisps, because I’m pregnant. That had an effect on David, who would help me with said takeaway/Maltesers/crisps. Then, as I eased off the exercise, so did he, because we just weren’t pushing each other anymore. Then it got even worse- I spent the last 2 months of my pregnancy going in and out of hospital with gallstones. I couldn’t really eat anything during that period, but David was stress eating- going back to an empty house with a convenient kebab, and worrying.

Just after I gave birth, I weighed 3 ½ stone more than at my lowest weight, and David had put on about the same. But of course, the last thing you can cope with through the sleeplessness and mayhem is of the newborn period is thinking about diet and exercise- thinking about basic personal hygiene was enough of a challenge! Plus, I had to wait three months to have my gall bladder removed, then it took weeks to recover from surgery enough to exercise.

We each had a few goes at losing weight at different times, but parenthood brought a new set of challenges. Every time we got some momentum up, something would happen, usually teething or a bug, that would disrupt sleep to the point that healthy living went out of the window. And where we’d always taken so much strength from exercising together, we now had to do it separately, so that there was always someone at home looking after the little one. With so much more to juggle, it was just harder.

Finally, we made New Year’s resolutions to start again in 2011. This time, it’s working. I have lost 1st 8lb since 1st January, and have 12lb to go to get to my pre baby weight, then another 2 stone to reach my ideal weight. David has lost 1st 11lb so far, with a stone and a half to go to his target weight. It’s slow, and it’s hard, but we are determined to get to the goals that we didn’t quite reach the first time around!

We make time for exercise - and sometimes that involves planning our evenings with military precision so that we both get to do what we need to. It’s tiring, but we are both happier, more confident, and healthier for it. We have learnt to stop making excuses and make time for ourselves, even when life is hectic. We have learned that losing weight is a long and frustrating process, but success will always come, as long as you never give up. And we have learned that getting fit alone is a hard and lonely battle - we need each other. Even if we can’t exercise together much anymore, the support is still there, and we keep each other going.

We have our son to set an example for now  - and if he has good role models, enjoys a healthy, active lifestyle, and never has to battle with weight like mum and dad, then it’s all been worth it.

Thanks to Laura for telling their fitness story today. Both David and her should be really proud of their achievements, even with their slip ups along the way. They have learned that slip ups happen, but the key is not to let it destroy your progress but to get back into it as soon as possible. As ever, and this is a common theme with the successful dieters who've written for me, they have made their regimes work for them, and found a way to build healthy eating and exercise into the lifestyle they have. I wish Laura - and David - the very best of luck in achieving their ideal weights. I'm sure that will happen very soon. 

As usual, please do comment to show your support or share similar experiences in the comments below. If you would like to share your fitness story, then please contact me on Twitter or email me on the address on the About Me page. Posts can be partly or fully anonymous, or if you are happy to be named, I will link back to your blog. All contributions are really appreciated so do get in touch, even if you feel yours is not a worthwhile story. If it's a personal experience, it is. And I mean that even if you have failed at something, because it is still YOUR fitness story and you learned from it.

Thanks for supporting My Fitness Story... and do come back for another guest post next week.

Baby Face

Tara from Sticky Fingers set us an easy one this week. The prompt for the Gallery was Children. Now, as you know, I like to post copious pictures of Monkey and Missy Woo given the chance, but I feel it's wearing thin, so I thought I would do something slightly different.

Unusually for a third child, I was the first grandchild in my dad's family. This is because my elder sisters are half sisters and had a different dad. Now, I'm sure you all know that a first grandchild is often a much treasured thing by immediate family and the attention lavished on said grandchild is akin to the same sort you'd give to visiting royalty. As a result, there were tons of photographs taken of me, compared to my younger sister who arrived 18 months later, even in the long-before-digital era. If I also remember correctly, I was also the first great grandchild - which is amazing as both my paternal grandparents were from large families - and I believe my great-grandfather changed his will to make me sole benefactor. However, he had a change of heart before he died and left it all to a cattery or something when he died a few years later. (There was a suggestion that he was "targeted" by one of his carers, but I don't think anything was proven and after all, it was his choice. I don't think it would have made me rich, he was not well off at all.)

When I was in my late teens, my now late uncle gave me a green plastic wallet. In there were several photos of me in the back garden of my grandparent's house - I can tell by the pebble dashing and the layout, it's ingrained in my memory. I had never seen these photos before but my uncle had taken them, had them developed and kept them to give to me to keep when I was an adult. I still have those photos in the same green wallet, stashed away in my file of important things. This one is probably the cutest - some of them I am pulling some embarrassingly horrible faces. I look like I have quite a tan there (note no sunshade too - who'd heard of skin cancer back in the 60s?), so I'd say it's summer time and therefore I'm about 6-7 months old.

Stop sniggering at the back there. Where's YOUR baby pic then, eh?

(Please take a look at the Gallery and visit some of the other entries, they are always brilliant.)

Sleepyhead

She's asleep. She actually looks as if she knows the camera is there and she's pretending to be asleep just to humour us so the photo can be taken, a hint of a knowing smile on her lips. Knowing her as I do now, I wouldn't put anything like that past her but she's only a baby here, right? In fact, I just checked - she's eight days old in this picture. The angle has cleverly disguised the baby acne she had so I think I got her best side. And I'd forgotten how dark her hair was at birth. 

My little sleepyhead, now known as Missy Woo. 

This is my entry for this week's Gallery at Sticky Fingers. The prompt this week is Body Parts. Why not take a look at visit some of the other entries - or even join in yourself? 

The Gallery - A smile

This week's Gallery prompt, over on Tara's Sticky Fingers blog, was "A smile". It is in honour of the Mona Lisa Million Project which aims to raise money for charity and helping people to promote their (genuine!) websites. It is run by a former policeman and stay at home dad called Dave Fowler. Such a great idea.

So, a smile. For me, a toughie. My children are very smiley so there is rarely a picture of them where they are not smiling. And then scanning through my photos, I found a favourite picture from way back. It used to be my signature picture on quite a few discussion boards that I used to frequent so it's possible you've seen it before.

(Sorry about the quality; it was taken on our old camera).

Monkey is about 5 months old in this picture. He had a fish rattle, which became known as Mardy (tennis fans should get the joke). I came into the living room one day, having left him playing in his bouncy chair for a few seeconds and found the rattle had slipped down the front of his vest. It looked funny so I took this. Even at that age, Monkey was a little poser so smiled as soon as he saw the camera.

A cute photo, and still one of my favourites, even 5 years on.

(This is my entry for Week 28 of the Gallery at Sticky Fingers. If you get a chance, please visit some of the other entries. They are always worth it.)

A photo meme

I've not been tagged but Garry from Blog Up North  posted about a photo meme but was struggling to tag enough people so opened it out to other bloggers to join and post contributions if they want to carry on the meme. As I've never done one before, and also Garry's blog was what got me blogging as I've done a couple of guest posts for him, I thought I would help out and do mine. 


The rules are as follows:

1. Open your first (oldest) photo folder in your computer library
2. Scroll to the 10th photo
3. Post the photo and the story behind it
4. Tag 5 or more people to continue the thread

This is my photo:

This is Missy Woo, aged just an hour old. Labour was fairly uncomplicated with her and progressed at a reasonable pace unlike her brother, but let's not go there. The only hitches to that point were that I was not allowed to deliver in water because of her brother's delivery classed as borderline postpartum haemorrhage although I was allowed in the birthing pool up to a point, and the midwife recommended I get on my back to deliver because of a bump on my cervix. This did solve the problem but was not how I wanted to give birth.


The fetching pink floral pattern is from a hospital gown that I put on so I'm kind of in the picture too. What it doesn't show is the chaos that ensued after delivery. There were 2 midwives present as she was born and as she was handed to me, things seemed to progress normally. All of a sudden, there were about 6 people in the room - I was being hooked up to drips, although I had already had a cannula put in my hand because of my history, they were helping the placenta to deliver, all sorts was going on. 


What had basically happened was a postpartum haemorrhage, only worse this time. I lay there quite calmly and I remember them wrapping up Missy Woo and putting her in the cot by my side because it was hard to hold her. I found out later why - she was 9lbs 3oz, so with the cannula, a combination of tiredness through labouring overnight and no sleep, and her weight, my arm was shaking. Poor little thing was quite out of it and didn't really want to feed so she lay down as all this madness carried on around her, quiet as a mouse. 


After a while, they got the registrar in to do his, erm, stuff and check me out. I remember having a cuff on my arm put so they could check my blood pressure automatically on a regular basis. After a while, the delivering midwife said "you do realise you've lost 4 pints of blood, don't you? We need to check you are OK before we take you down to the ward." Um, no, I didn't but it did explain why everything went so mad. My husband disappeared outside for a long time to call grandparents and the like so for a while, I was left alone looking at my daughter in a hospital cot. 


Eventually, I asked for Missy Woo to be given back to me, and my husband took this shot. As you can see, she was born with really long slender fingers which everyone used to comment on when she was a baby. I was still hooked up to the drip at this point and remained this way for a long time. I was actually transferred down to the ward at lunchtime- she was born at 4.52 am - but in a bed as I was not allowed to stand up. It was not until 7pm (by which time I'd been on my back for 15 hours) that the staff on the postnatal ward allowed me to stand up and go to have a shower. As it was in the really hot summer of 2006, this was not pleasant. The ward was sweltering, although the delivery suite was air-conditioned. 


In hindsight, I was very lucky. I was in the right place for it to happen and it was dealt with quickly. They had 4 units of blood ready from the blood bank to give me a transfusion but miracles of miracles, my iron levels stayed high and I didn't need it. The nursing staff were pretty amazed by this and I was subjected to a number of blood tests in the following days "just to check" but all came back normal which isn't bad when you've lost half the blood in your body. I'd had low iron earlier on in my pregnancy so I'd been religiously taking iron tablets and Floradix which turned out to be worth every penny. Still, I felt like a pincushion and you should have seen the bruise I got in the crook of my arm from all the needles they kept poking in my veins. 


So, that's the story of this pic, of Missy Woo's dramatic entrance into the world on 5th July 2006. She's still causing me trouble now. ;) Actually, she's funny, independent and scarily sharp-minded. Hmm, remind you of anyone?! Yes, that's right, her aunt.


PS I don't know anyone who hasn't been tagged already but feel free to carry on the meme if you have a blog and have missed this one. Add a comment to this post and link back to your blog, and hopefully it can carry on a bit longer.