My Story.....where before met after and proper before again!!

I honestly feel really awkward dabbling into this terrain….but a man has gotta do what a man has gotta do…*doublesigh.

I am not going to come and claim I was disgustingly obese and obscene to look at all the time i was fat. On the contrary even at my largest I still looked quite "ok"(maybe as a function of good skin inherited from my mum and probably an ‘easy on the eyes’ face) but those didn’t make me feel nice. I was constantly out of breathe, asthma attacks waaaay more frequent, self inflicted ulcer bouts, my self esteem was at rock bottom and had suddenly become camera shy! me ke???I hated what I had become.

From my child hood I had always been the cute little chubby angel with chuberic cheeks and pink lips. The first of 5 kids, I was easily the cute example of what a first born should look like to encourage the passion to have more kids ;D, though clearly as time went on it was obvious I also took all the “big genes”. As I entered high school it obviously was more of a curse than a blessing. The ‘happening’ girls were all slim, some stick thin but everyone believed that was beautiful so we were all sucked into that fad….really what’s a 14 year old to do* shrugging. Now I do know better and I am definitely instilling that into my children!

I felt unattractive and basically plain though a lot of people thought otherwise….it’s all about self confidence people, which I lacked at that point in my life even though I appeared to be full of it *yinmu…so I really just sailed through high school and didn’t really allow it pass through me.

That was me at the farthest right @ sz16 + in uni year 1......see how beautiful and trim my friends looked. All looking age appropriate!!

Fast forward to university and in a huge summary I was the fat fine girl!!! NOTE; Fat comes first!!Like seriously! Hence i hid under tee shirts and baggy jeans and added my touch of head bands initially so i could kuku pass off as a tomboy!! It worked!!! I eventually pondered and pondered on what I could really do to combat this weight. And of course at only 18/19 (age of awareness) I really shouldn’t be wearing a UK size 16 and weigh 82kg. So I did a lot of research and based on that reduced portions and incorporated daily exercises’……I started sporting a small 14 in good time and started feeling better. By my final year I was a 12 up and 14 down….glory!!

My bridal shower night- 68kg

 Me on my wedding day march 2006 @ 68kg: Uk10 up big 12 down

By middle law school I had pushed it further to UK size 10 up and small 14 down (hips don’t lie!!!) and I remember I weighed 68kg on my wedding day!!! Yaaaaay me!

But then kids started coming almost immediately. And by the time my 1^st bundle came

 I climbed on the scale and was a shocking but expected 90kg!!!! I had craved all sorts of things and constantly ate for 3 sef and not 2 (which in itself is a myth) and honeyboo always tried to make me happy….:D! Oh my goodness! I was crushed and when the breastfeeding kicked in fully I added a few more kgs. This i will attribute to my loving mother-in-law(in a good way o) . She would constantly wait on me hand and foot and aside 3 regular full meals i had to drown in different variants of pap cos of the baby. and of cos, milk and sugar, sometimes milo and horlicks sef go join the mix :D!!I had to do something ASAP. So I resorted to starving and would eat maybe once in 2 days….and water. And with even all that ‘suffering I only lost about 3.5 kg and ended up being admitted for chronic ulcer!! It was a harrowing experience o. My lil angel had to be brought to me to get some milk everyday for 5 days.:(

Had been back from the hospital from the ulcer showdown a few months… ….about 86kg/sz 16 going on 18

Here maybe about 90 something kg: sz18 going on 20….about 2 months preggy for my son

My almost all time heaviest here….about 102kg….my son about 4 or 5 months

So I took in for my 2nd lil bundle at 87kg, was a bit more conscious but still hit 99kg at his birth and added more as the months wore on. I eventually needed to start a job and my medicals revealed a whooping 104kg and after a hard and long day at the shops to buy some work clothes, I got home depressed, I could only fit into size 18 shirts ( though I had to take in the waist a little) and a size 20/22 under!! The horror!  I got home and fought my husband…..i had to vent mbok! Said he obviously didn’t love me if he would watch me get soo fat and didn’t say anything. He held me apologizing that he didn’t want me to feel bad and also go about the weight loss the wrong way…..made plenty sense.

So in a nutshell I found out I should eat often and it was what I ate that mattered and the quantity of course. So armed with that information and a determination to be healthy I started working on it and slowly and surely by the time I took in for my 3^rd bundle I was 82kg from 104kg and UK 12 up 14 down. When I had her I weighed 91kg and when she was about 11 months I reckoned it was time to get rid of the baby weight at 94kg.

Today (24/4/2013) I am size Uk10 up and big 12 down and weigh 74kg so I am still work in progress as to be in my healthy BMI range I need to weigh below 72kg. Though in a corner of my heart that BMI ish na yinmu.....i use it more like a guide than "cast in stone". But in truth I’m more size conscious and belly inches conscious than what the scale says and I believe in a lifestyle change because that brings about sustainability and since YOLO, i would still want to LIVE.

At my SILs wedding easter weekend of this our good and blessed year 2013

A lot of people are beginning to face the truth behind weight loss and how it really works and honestly I just want everyone especially mums and mums to be to find inspiration through healthy perspectives and not crash diets or weight loss gimmicks and also not what the media portrays to be healthy. We are all built differently so it’s about being our very own best and not look like a Nicki Minaj or nowwanna go overboard and remove all the curves God has blessed us with!!! Its about balance huns! We are not in competition with anyone but ourselves!

People don’t be oppressed by your problems or challenges……be led by your dreams.

And errrrrrrm before I sign out lemme confess mbok… my ores of life!…this was why I was MIA for a while…I would never wanna go anywhere and had to miss all your events!!! From weddings to birthdays to baby dedications!I would think up all the excuses I could think of from babysitting to headache to asthma attack just so that I can be left in peace and stay at home!!! Boohoohoo *mewailingseriously! But will more than make up for it now…..forgive me plix! *grouphug

So drawing from this innate passion to help people….i have now turned a passion and hobby into a structure to help people most especially my heart beats for women and mums like me to find that confidence back hence the birth of F.i.t.T.r.i.x......where wellness meets fabulosity. :*