Monica’s Story…

One day back in August 2005 I was in a country town outside Toowoomba in Queensland working as a rep for a medicinal herbal company and I received a phone call from my son telling me the wedding date was set for March.

OH MY GOODNESS PANIC SET IN

Let me paint a picture for you I had just left a store where I used to get my work shirts from and I was really upset because the size 22 that I thought I was did not fit me and the man who owned the store told me he could special order in the bigger size if I wanted.

I was gutted. That meant I was officially a size 24. I have three children all 180cm or taller and a husband all with lovely olive skin and fair hair and none had a weight problem.

I was not going to be the short white fat one in the wedding photos. I cried all the way back to Toowoomba about a 45 minute drive. It was decision time I knew I had already spent a very large amount of money over the 20 years that I had yoyo dieted and I needed to work it out for myself this time.

The first thing I decided was that someone had shot the good fairy and NOT to keep looking for the magic pill.

I was the size I was because of all the decisions I had made in the past.

I had worked in the health industry in one form or another all my life and I had access to lots of information but at the end of the day it came down to energy in- energy out and my want to change.

Now at any age change is difficult but not impossible, but at 50 years old I was pretty set in my ways and had lots of bad habits to undo and lots of good ones to start.

The old saying “If it is meant to be it is up to me” kept popping into my head. I worked out a program that suited me and my lifestyle. At the time I was working full time as a rep and I was running two businesses of my own which usually meant I was starting my day at about 5am finishing somewhere about 10pm and travelling about 1,000 klms a week to see clients.

Where was I going to fit in eating properly and exercising? My want was much bigger than my fear of failure so I just did what I could every day.

I started to eat 5 times a day and at the beginning I could only walk to the corner but as I got fitter I went further and faster and six months later just in time for the wedding I had lost 25kgs.

My usual trick was I would lose weight for some event and then put it all back on plus some afterwards. I had changed jobs after the wedding and I was working for a doctor explaining to his patients about nutrition and supplements when I noticed that I was still losing weight. A very unusual thing for me.

I asked the doctor if he thought there was something wrong with me “I wouldn’t think so you look too healthy.” He then asked why. When I explained to him I had lost another 5 kgs since the wedding he very casually said” Your metabolism is working” I am not sure if you have heard about a light bulb moment but that was definitely one for me.

That was 10 years ago and I have lost 45kg in total and have gone from my very unhealthy size 24 to a size 14 and the best part is I have maintained this for the past 7 years.

My joy now is to help other people understand just what it feels like to be healthy.