notforeating.com.au » Photography by Renee Bell, Newcastle based photographer

so, i had an idea… a series of posts where people share the one thing they are most passionate about… in 5 minutes…  inspired by an exercise that my wonderful friend jesh de Rox had us do at a workshop last year

5 minutes of passion!

i asked my lovely friend Bec if she would like to write as i have been so inspired by her dramatic lifestyle change in the last few months… and i am warning you, Bec was a little too passionate!  so this is more like 15 minutes of passion all about health and fitness and her 12wbt experiences.  definitely worth reading…   So amazed of your achievements Bec, well done!!!

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A little over 12 weeks ago I started a journey.  I think originally it was a journey purely about weight loss, but it ended up being so much more.  I wasn’t what you would call over weight and at 172cm I weighed 68kg.  Pretty average I guess.  I told myself I looked fine.  Hell, I’ve had five HUGE 10 lb babies in my lifetime, I deserve to be able to carry a little bit of flab..right!?!?!  WRONG!  What a stupid bloody excuse for being lazy and unhealthy and making all the wrong food choices.  I also had some health problems but I blamed that on everything else but my lack of exercise and bad diet as well.   I was severely anaemic, had low blood pressure and suffered incredibly debilitating insomnia and lethargy pretty much every day.   On top of that my blah days were outnumbering my good ones so I was quite likely on a fast track to a path of depression.  That’s ok though because I’m a working mother of five. Of course I feel that way.  I mean seriously, who wouldn’t when you’re dealing with five noisy, outspoken, active, demanding children (two of them pre-teen so even more stressful to deal with), a husband that works loooong hours, studying at uni and working???  I look at those excuses now and thing what a load of absolute crap!  I wasn’t anaemic because I had five kids for goodness sake.  I didn’t have insomnia because I was spending my afternoons being mums taxi.  I wasn’t depressed because Blossy had dancing 4 days a week and it was hard to keep up with my study.  Something had to change and it had to change fast.  I had made other big lifestyle changes earlier on in the year and it was time to get the rest of me sorted.  The half a block of macadamia nut chocolate a day habit… yeah that needed to go,  like yesterday!  The piles of white bread and other carb loaded foods I lived on… yep, they needed to go too.  The  softdrink that was likely to be eating away my insides and causing all sorts of destruction…going, going, gone!  I also needed to get moving.  This laying around studying all day and then spending weekends indulging in fatty foods and watching tv just wasn’t going to cut it.   I needed to get my pasty white butt out of the house and walk, run, cycle, do whatever it took to feel good again.  Ok, so I knew what I had to do but did I do it.  Ummm I tried.  I walked everyday for a little while.  I ate fruit salad for lunch instead of bread (but I still had chocolate afterwards).  I had some vegies with my steak and chips and I cut back to only two HUGE glasses of pepsi max a day.  After a few weeks I was disheartened.  Nothing was happening.  I had lost no weight, I didn’t feel any fitter and I still had all my health issues.  Well of course nothing changed.  I wasn’t trying hard enough and I wasn’t committing myself to making real changes in my diet.  I was doing everything half arsed!  So I gave up.  I went back to just doing what I had always done.  Life wasn’t so bad. I could get by like this.   It wasn’t like I had real major health problems and I wasn’t that over weight.

Then I saw a friend on facebook who had signed up for some weight loss program.  I thought to myself, Oh yeah big deal.  It’ll be like very other weight loss program.  She’ll have lost the weight but after it’s done she’ll go back to her old ways, the weight will creep back on and nothing will change.  Afterall that’s what had always happened to me.  Weight Watchers, Calorie Counting, Fat Blasters, Weight Loss Shakes.  I had done them all!  I even did a diet back in the 90’s where you had to eat a whole cabbage before you started every meal.  No wonder I can’ t stand the site of cabbage now!  So although I had my doubts, I kept a watch over this friend’s progress.  She looked damn hot and every facebook post was about how awesome she felt, how motivated she was and how this program changed her life.  I could tell just by the way she was talking that her whole attitude had changed.  She seemed happier.    Ok, maybe, just maybe I was starting to be swayed here.  Then, she posted a photo.  Holy Moly!  Really!  Was that really her?!?!?  Skinny, toned and looking healthier than pretty much anyone I know.   Clearly I had to look into this program now because whatever it was, it worked and I wanted to look and feel like that!

Turns out the program was the Michelle Bridges 12WBT (12 week body transformation).  Who’s Michelle Bridges?  Well for those of you without televisions, Michelle Bridges is a trainer from The Biggest Loser television show.  I won’t lie to you.  I had my doubts.  I wasn’t a fan of The Biggest Loser and figured that like any other reality tv show, it wasn’t all it seemed on television.  I signed up anyway but had a few weeks to wait before pre-season started.  What did I do in those weeks?  I ate of course.  It was Christmas afterall and pavlova is only egg whites and fresh fruit.  It couldn’t be all bad!

Christmas and the following few weeks flew by in a haze of presents and parties and sunshine and lots and lots of food but before I knew it, pre-season tasks were upon us.  What are pre-season tasks?  Personally I think they’re what make this program different from others.  In the weeks leading up to Season 1 starting, you are asked to complete a series of tasks to prepare you for what lies ahead.  There’s no going into this blindly, being shocked to the core and retreating back to the safety of chocolate cake and ice-cream.  Nope.  Everything that could possibly become a road block in your success at a healthier lifestyle is approached, talked about and handled in a way that creates the right headspace for you to begin this life change.  Because that’s what it is you know.  It’s not a diet.  It’s a lifestyle change.  This isn’t temporary. It’s forever.  This isn’t about losing a few kg’s and going back to how it was before.  This is about changing the choices you make and not wanting to go back to the old you.  Believe me, I did the pre-season tasks and I know that without them, I would never have succeeded like I have.  I would have gone into it like any other diet and would have been back on the chocolate within a month.

Season 1 started and I was set.  I had my menu plan, my exercise plan and my plan of attack!  All supplied by the lovely Michelle Bridges.  I’m celiac and so must avoid gluten at all costs. I was worried this would make it difficult for me to follow the menu plan but I can honestly say I haven’t had an issue.   I’m now a pro at converting your every day recipe using gluten free alternatives.  It’s just a case of making sure you adjust the calories as well.  The food on this plan is amazing and I’m pretty sure I had my instagram followers drooling over my low fat yet tasty meals on more than one occasion.  I will admit that yes, there were a few duds in there (Lentil loaf = puke) but most meals were a huge hit.  The food is packed with flavour and serves are substantial enough even to satisfy my husband’s huge appetite.

They say losing weight and getting healthy is 80% diet, which is absolutely true but hey, there’s no gain without pain and yes you will need to exercise.  This is the part I dreaded.  I’ve never been an exercise kinda girl and the idea of having to burn 500 cal a day (as recommended by Mish) was something that kept me up at night during pre-season (or maybe that was the 20 cups a coffee a day I was still consuming at that time).  So I got myself one of those fancy shmancy heart rate monitor thingy’s and away I went.  First workout I did was the Michelle Bridges Shredder DVD.  Sounds painful huh?  Yeah well I almost died.  I did it all but my legs were like jelly and I swear my 3kg weights were labelled wrong and actually weighed 10kg.  So here I am at the end of the workout thinking, hell yeah baby, that’s gotta be 500 cal burnt easy peasy.  Nope.  345cal!  Ok, where is the polar customer service number because my heart rate monitor is quite obviously faulty.  I sucked it up though.  Started the dvd again and kept going till I got to 500 cal.  I felt so good when I was done.  I had done it!  I had burnt 500 cal, followed the meal plan to the letter and completed day 1 of the 12 week challenge.  I was pumped and ready for day 2.

As the weeks went on I felt better and better and slowly it became routine to exercise every morning and cook yummy, nutritious, low fat meals at night.  After around 3 weeks I began to see changes.  Of course there had been weight loss on the scales before then but at three weeks was when I could see that I looked different.  It wasn’t just my weight though.  My skin was clearer, my hair was shinier and I realised I had been sleeping.  All night, every night.  The insomnia, well it was gone.  I hadn’t even noticed, as I was too busy thinking about meal plans and exercise routines.  Mentally I was so much happier as well.  Nothing seemed to get me down and things that would have been major dramas in my before life no longer bothered me.  I felt happy, I felt fit, I felt fabulous.  Eight weeks in I had dropped a dress size and now my family were noticing the difference in me, both in weight and attitude.

The one thing I couldn’t have done this without, is my support network.  I surrounded myself with positive like minded people.  Some of who were on the same journey as myself.  We motivated each other, congratulated each other and supported each other through the whole process.  It’s not easy to change the way you have lived for your whole life.  It’s scary and it’s bloody hard work but it can be done.

By week 12 I had reached my goal weight, smashed my fitness test and done things I never ever thought I would do.  I run 8km’s a day now.  I lift weights,  I do push ups (proper ones on my toes) I have biceps and a flat stomach for goodness sake!  Who would have thought 12 weeks ago that flabby old me would have biceps?  I no longer eat chocolate, or cake or pavlova.  I make healthy food choices and avoid situations where I may be tempted to eat the wrong things.  I’m confident, happy, active and completely and utterly satisfied with what I achieved in the 12 weeks and in what I have learnt.  The 12wbt is not a gimmick.  It’s not a quick fix to your weight problems.  It’s hard work. It requires complete commitment, honestly and integrity.  It’s life changing.  I couldn’t even begin to imagine going back to how I used to live and I’m ashamed that I was bringing up my children in the same way.  We now eat healthy together and exercise together.

Just because the 12 weeks is over doesn’t mean we go back to our previous lives.  It just means we’re 12 weeks into our new, improved, healthier way of living.  I have signed up for round 2 though and I’m currently in pre-season.  I enjoyed the program so much that I just wasn’t ready to let go just yet and will be following the lean and strong section.  Give me another 12 weeks and I’ll be just as committed as I am now but I’ll have even bigger biceps and hopefully some pretty impressive quad muscles to go along with them!

I guess if you’ve followed my journey this far then you want some stats right?  Well here they are…

Weight Lost – 11.5kg

Cm’s lost -  61cm

Workouts -  111 sessions

Cal Burnt – 67 084

And I finished the program in the top 8%.  Wahoo.  Go me!

If you feel like its time for a change then you really need to sign up for the 12wbt.  It works.  I’m proof of that!

Bec

anyone who wants to sign up for the next round starting in two weeks please message ilovetowrite@nfedesign.com.au and we will hook you up with an invite

Bec’s before and after shot ~ wow amazing!!!

has anyone else done 12wbt and had amazing results, i’d love to hear from you in the comments below!!