My Slimming World Journey

So anyone who’s followed my blog for a while will know I’ve been a Slimming World member for about 5-6 years now?! (WTF!!). I’ve joined 6 times I think and I’ve never actually reached target…you’d think I’d be an expert by now! But in that time, I’ve been happy, depressed, pregnant, breast-feeding and now a freelancing mum and somehow I’ve still managed to loose weight and I’m at last very close to my target weight. So I thought it might be time to reflect again on my slimming world journey and give myself a little kick up the bottom…

So my most recent membership was after I’d given birth and re-joined back in January 2016. I decided to take a break from Slimming World whilst I was pregnant, as personally, I just didn’t want to be worrying about my weight and I just wanted to listen to my body and be as healthy as possible for our growing baby. I thought if I was worrying about syns and not actually what I was putting in my body, it’d be counter-productive.

Before I became pregnant, I was at my heaviest I’d ever been and it had totally snuck up on me. In hindsight (which is always 20/20 isn’t it), I had been going through a tough time at work, I’d taken a huge knock to my confidence and in honesty, I was a bit depressed. I also had an office job, which had be sat at my desk for most of the day, or travelling in my car, so my exercise was at an all time low. Then because I felt crap in clothes, I didn’t want to exercise and was disguising my weight gain and then as anyone who struggles with their weight knows, it’s just a vicious cycle.

So when I was pregnant, I actually lost approx 12 lbs in my first trimester and this was because for the first time in ages, I cared about myself and my body, I ate better (and was obviously pretty nauseous too so ate less!) and I was more active. After that initial loss, I only gained baby weight, which was about a stone, so just before giving birth, I was where I’d started before pregnancy, which I was pretty happy with considering it could have been a stone gain!

Post-Pregnancy Slimming World

So in the months after giving birth, I was of course still at my largest, but I was so happy and consumed with being a new mum, that I wasn’t ready to think about losing the weight. I breast-fed, which meant I could pretty much eat whatever I wanted and didn’t put on any weight, but I didn’t lose any weight as some of my mummy friends did. But I was exhausted so I cut myself some slack. It was only about 6 months after my daughter was born, that I felt physically and mentally (as this is very important!) ready to tackle losing weight again. That’s when I re-joined my local Slimming World group and set my new weightloss target – which for those of you that are curious, was to lose just under 2 stone.

Losing a stone

It took me 6 months to lose a stone, but knowing my track history of losing weight (and my love for eating out!), this was actually pretty good going for me. Some can lose this in a month, but I was happy with that progress. I averaged at 1.5lb a week loss pretty consistently, so there was just a general shift and I was still enjoying my food and my social life. But I had nearly another stone to lose and it was summer!

Standing still

For the next 4 months, my weightloss completely froze! I hadn’t shifted a single lb! I was still only 1 stone lighter after losing and gaining, losing and gaining each week. I was so bloody frustrated and had totally lost my mojo. I had been back to group for 10 months and I’d seen people come and go, reaching their target in that time and I was still nowhere near! Or at least, that’s how it felt. So I gave myself a good talking to and a kick up the proverbial butt and got back on it.

The months leading up to Christmas showed another boost of confidence and progress and I only put on 1lb over Christmas. I then had lost 3.5lbs by my 2nd weigh-in in January and even achieved my 1.5 stone award! Something I’d never done before…and after Christmas! I was ecstatic!

Feeling good and people noticing

So it was a great start to 2017 for me and my weightloss and it was at losing 1.5 stone, that the compliments started to roll in and people had noticed I’d lost weight – so physically, it must have shown. I felt good and was enjoying wearing clothes again. Then we went to Paris for Valentine’s day and it all went up the shitter! We over indulged on our first proper weekend without our baby and I got too complacent and used to eating and drinking whatever I wanted. I started getting small gains and maintains on the scales each week and no decent losses to counteract it.

This last 4 months

So from March until June, I hovered around the same couple of lbs and made no progress and my heart just wasn’t in it! I wanted to be at target for our holiday to Italy and I wasn’t, so I thought “what’s the point” and just sort of rebelled and stopped thinking about it.

When I weighed-in after Italy and realised by worst nightmares were in fact true and I’d put on 5lbs – which again, to some may not seem like a lot, but to my progress and track-history, takes ages to shift! – I was feeling pretty depressed again. It’s nearly 2 years after I’d given birth, I’d had my birthday and my holiday and still wasn’t where I wanted to be. What’s more, it felt like the last 6 months had been a total waste of time!

my slimming world journey weightloss graph

What about now?

So July was pretty devastating as I dropped back under the 1 stone weightloss, which mentally was really tough for me! That was pretty much back to where I was a year earlier…ahhhh! So today I went to weigh-in and stayed to group to regain that discipline and motivation and of course get some support from fellow SW-ers.

I had a 2.5lbs loss which was unexpected and gave me a total boost! It also tipped me back over into my stone award, which mentally sorted me out! My target suddenly felt achievable again and I now feel like I’ve got my mojo back.

So where do I go from here?

So, I’m now 10lbs away from my target weight and I’d like to achieve it by September, which gives me 5 weigh-ins and therefore an average loss of 2lbs per week. Which I know I can do! So I’m going to start documenting what I eat better, counting my syns (which I haven’t done all year!) and being more accountable for what I eat.

I hope these simple steps, will help put me back on track and mean I reach my goal in time for The Northern Blog Awards.