When I was younger through to my early teens, I was active. An by active, I mean I did anything and everything my dad would allow me to do hobbies wise. I did judo, karate, kung fu, swimming, tennis, dancing and exercising pretty much everyday.
Now here's the part where I tell you what stopped me... Because all those things I did, I loved it thoroughly and never wanted to stop any of them! They made me happy!
When I was about 13 years old, I got diagnosed with a thyroid condition and I had graves disease. Sounds terrible but in essence, it wasn't as 'icky' as it sounds. Graves disease I believe is the part that refers to the increased heartbeat and to the muscles around the eyes.
My thyroid condition was duo'd with Graves disease so my eyes got affected too. This can cause the eyes to protrude which is not a pretty look (exophthalmos). And at that age, it really made me feel bad about myself 'image wise'. When we're teenagers we always have our insecurities amplified by our own thoughts driven by our hormones going crazy at that age and our peers.
Hyperthyroidism made me feel extremely tired. I read online it's supposed to make you more energetic but I really wasn't energetic at all. I can't tell you how high my heart rate was at the time as it was a long time ago, but put it this way, even if I was just sitting down I was exhausted like I was working out! So all those activities I used to do, I couldn't do them anymore. None, what-so-ever.
The only thing that I saw that was good (If you can call it that at this point) about this condition was, I was losing the weight with no effort. However, having said that, it didn't out weigh the bad that I had to go through.
I had the condition for at least 5 years and that's considered lucky! My mom had the condition, as well as my brother and my sister. I'm the only one out of 4 of us who got over the condition without needing the Iodine treatment nor operation to remove the glands and I'm not on any permanent medication as the rest of my family are.
So having told you all this... I just wanted to tell you about it to give you an insight and background info on my health... But now, present day, the condition has been gone for 13 years now. I get blood tests once in a while just incase it comes back..
Also I wanted to say that my weight has been very up and down as having that condition truly threw me out of my routine and all the activities I loved. Having said that, I am now able to focus more on my health and weight issues. I am not a big girl, but I'm not at my fittest. An there is the problem for me.
After all my experiences good and bad about trying to lose weight, I'm learning every time how I go about finding a good balance with my body. I know I'm not someone who loves the gym, never was, even way back when I was an active person. I'm now learning that not only do I not enjoy the gym, I also need to do different kinds of exercise now to really kick start my weight loss and get healthy. I've always done crunches and push ups but my body is so used to it as I've been doing it for years so I looked over on YouTube and I found a couple of videos that I thought would be great for me.
Here is 1 of the videos I tried out today for the first time and man did it kick my butt!
It's only 20 minutes so it really isn't much time at all and it truly did work out my arms and I really did break a sweat!! I bought myself some dumbbells from Sports Direct (2.5kg) and they were on sale 50% off (£11.99 previously and now £5.99 each).
I also saw this video...
I'll be trying this one out tomorrow or Saturday!
The thing that I love about these workouts is that they are short. Combined they are 30mins, however, I'm not even starting out with that. I'm going easy, taking my stride. Any exercise is better than doing nothing at all! That's how I like to see it. If you workout once a week, then once a week is good enough for a little while, then increase it to 2, or if you want to keep it at once, just make the 1 workout you have that week more intense. Make the duration longer. Eg. Combine the 2 videos as an example instead of doing 1 on different weeks/days.
The important thing is to really give yourself realistic goals. Don't over do it when you know for a fact you won't be able to do it or stick to it. Here's a little tip as well to get you started on getting yourself fitter, instead of taking escalators, if you have the energy and had a good nights sleep, take the stairs (unless it's about 50 floors ha), also doing just 10 minutes of exercise once a week is good too. You'll see a difference eventually. "Slow and steady wins the race!"
Summary/Remember this/Mental note worthy:
* Give yourself realistic goals!
* Aim for doing a proper 10min workout once a week!
* Change up your exercise. (Remember, your body gets used to doing the same thing over and over again that eventually it doesn't do anything for you anymore.)
* Take the stairs not the escalators!
* Don't eat too late at night (but if you really need to, drink some water first and wait a few minutes and question yourself again if you're still hungry and if you are, make smart healthy choices - fruit!)
* Get a good nights sleep so you aren't reaching for food to get energy!
* Pamper yourself and treat yourself when you've reached your goals.
* Don't lose the weight to "look good", lose the weight to "feel good".
* Don't deny yourself "bad foods" cold turkey - unless you can do it! (On weekends having a cake or something sweet isn't a terrible thing. You'll crave it less and stop the binge eating and no flood of overeating bad foods will happen!)
* Be realistic!
* Stay focused when working out.
"The beauty about gaining weight is that you can lose it - again!"
Just as you gained the weight, you can also lose it too.
I will write a post about how much weight I had gained at one point in my life. Like I said, I'm not the fittest person and I've gained some weight these past few months, however, when I remember that one point in my life when I was at my biggest, it makes me feel proud of the size I am now as it's no where near the same size I used to be. So as much as my weight isn't ideal right now, it's a whole lot better. Besides, losing weight takes time and when you aren't given guidance or advice, it just takes a bit longer. Just keep at it and you will get there!
Until next time ~ Allie
PS: Sorry this post was so long but I had so much to mention, and I have so much support I wanted to throw out there! Because I know how hard it is to lose weight... An when you haven't got the support, it's even harder!
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