Profile – Joath

Dieting History

All of them. Lots of slimming clubs including

• Weight Watchers (not enough food)
• Slimming Magazine Club (closed down)
• Slimfast (starving)…

I could go on. Typical pattern would be to lose weight for 2 or 3 weeks then binged and burned.

I lost weight down to goal twice in the 1980s when the fashion was for very low calorie diets (below 1000 cals) and no exercise. Stayed at goal for about one week before piling it all back on. Have been obese for over 10 years.

On Being Overweight…

This is the list I made when I started, of reasons why I wanted to lose weight

1. My diabetes is out of control and getting worse
2. My self confidence is at rock bottom
3. I have no energy. I feel old and tired
4. I'm becoming more and more reclusive
5. I'm letting Paul and the kids down 

Finding the Motivation

At the same time I wrote a list of what I wanted to gain from losing weight

1. I want to be healthy
2. I want to happy and confident – I want to glow!
3. I want to be normal
4. I want to shop on the high street
5. I want to wear a strappy dress at Paul's Christmas party
6. I want to stand on top of Helvellyn
7. I want Paul and the kids to be proud of me

Discovering WLR

I found WLR through an article in Zest magazine naming it website of the year

How WLR Helps

It puts me in control, rather than being controlled by my eating. I plan what I'm going to eat each day and it encourages me to exercise. The whole family's eating patterns have changed - no more takeaways and I finally understand how to achieve a balance by learning about the components of different foods, this is not a diet that will stop when I reach goal, it's a way of life.

The Best of WLR

The message board because it saved me from throwing it all away more than once. When I first threw all my big clothes out I freaked out completely. The advice on the board was that any change is scary even if it's a change for the better. That piece of advice really helped me to re-focus on why I was making this journey.

Joath's Tips

I have been successful this time because my mantra has been "mind, mouth and muscle", whereas before I only ever concentrated on mouth!

• Mind - through the message boards and using "Lighten Up" by Pete Cohen (which was recommended to me by someone on the message boards
• Mouth - the Food Dairy  and database puts me in control
• Muscle - the Exercise Diary. I also used links from the home page through to a running website for a couch potato to 5k training plan. Using this I ran a Race for Life 5k, and am now training for 10k. Wouldn't have achieved this without the links and support on the fitness message board when I was starting out.

Enjoy the journey. Life doesn't begin when you get to goal, there are so many thrills and experiences along the way. From shopping at M&S for the first time, to standing on top of Helvellyn two weeks ago, and knowing I was on top of the world!

Joath's Vital Statistics

	Before	Now
Weight	17st 9lb	11st 13lbs

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