I’m glad I have indulged myself for the last six months because let’s face it, I grew a baby in my tummy and that in itself should allow one to enjoy some pampering. However, at the back of my mind I knew that the daily cakes and lattes would need to come to an end. If not for mywaist line, then perhaps for my now acne-ridden face.

A mere week into eating better and exercising I already feel brand new and have seen an energy boost – I’m much more productive when I work. It’s reminded me of how important it is to look after the body we have. I love cakes and desserts more than the next person but I also like waking up and feeling like I can defeat the world.

When your body gets to a stage where you think“uuurrgggh, I’m not happy with this”, bite the bullet and start transforming yourself. Within a short space of time you will see that other parts of your life just seem to start working better too;you think better and you work better.

This is how I’ve changed.

Since 5 July (Day After I got back from holiday)

Until I fit into my favourite yellow trousers, cakes and desserts are OUT. This will probably take about two months. At the moment there is at least an inch before I can claspthe button on the trousers.

Having a clothes goal works well for me because it’s more real than standing on a scale.

I consider things like bread and butter treats. I am allowed both but I am trying not to eat more than one slice of bread 3 or 4 times a week. When I was out of control I started having 2 slices of bread a day thicklycoated in my favourite whey butter, yum.

I still use full fat milk but I now dilute it with water when I make my oats. The full fat milk is fine; my personal trainer says my diet is currently too low in fats (and protein) anyway. Oh, yeah, I’ve recently got a personal trainer too.

Besides cakes, chocolates and desserts I can have small quantities of everything. Instead of having a whole tub of my favourite rice pudding I might just have half and give the rest to The Good Husband.

Exercise

I have started strength training to increase my muscle mass so that I burn more calories during rest. I am currently so, so weak; I was told 60-seconds is the amount of time you should do a plank for if you are of average fitness, I could only do 5 seconds before I collapsed. I am currently physically weak but within 4 weeks I know I will have made leaps and bounds in physical fitness.

I would love to start running 5km twice a week again as I did for ages before I had my baby but at the moment time is a little scarce.

Personal Trainer

This time around I realizedI need help to get fitter because I just got so lazy with my habits so I’ve forked out £500 ($800) on a personal trainer. It’s pricey and I was very hesitant but at the end of the day I remembered that good health is my top priority in life.

No amount of money can makeup for bad health. If I got a bad illness today I would probably give everything I own away to get my health back so with that mindset I closed my eyes and handed the cash over. I’m quite glad I did now.

Immediate Results

I feel fitter and more energetic and I’ve already lost 5lbs. That’s about a quarter of the weight I want to lose so I am already 25% there. The fact that it’s come off in just one week shows just how badly I was eating before. The more overweight you are,the bigger the impact of small changes.

Are You Physically Where You Want To Be?

Eating well and keeping fit is hard and frankly every once in while we all fall off the wagon.

If I facilitated a New Year’s 30-day detox would you be interested in joining me?  

It would involve a small group of women encouraging each other via a closed Facebook page and friending each other via “myfitnesspal” to keep motivated. You would also get some nutrition-expert approved menus to help guide your meals. A small fee would be applicable. Take the below survey and let me know.

We all know someone with more energy than us. For some unknown reason even if you can produce just as much work as they can in any given amount of time, they seem to be able to just go on for hours and hours. They seem to need less sleep than you do and even after a game of squash or whatever it is they’ll shower and just rabbit on where as you need a break. I’ll call these type of people Energizer Bunnies.

Energizer Bunnies are exhausting to watch…so how can you work on their level?

Pretty much, something’s gotta give.

You just have to focus on fewer tasks than they do and make more sacrifices. If you try to do everything that they do you will just burn out.

For the most part, I need 8 hours of sleep a night and this is how I achieve the same or better academic and financial goals as Energizer Bunnies.

Firstly, I remember one little piece of advice my daddy gave me when I was a teenager, he said “Heather, there is a time for everything.” By this, he meant that sometimes you have to give up all or most of the fun stuff for a while in order to enjoy yourself properly in the future. If you try to have all your fun now as well as get your academic or financial success it just ends up with you having to work harder for longer.

I thought he had a point so I took what he said on-board.

With this in mind:

1. I sleep for 8 hours almost every night. I rarely compromise on sleep to get work done because my quality of work is far higher and I am much more productive when I feel well rested. 
   
2. I don’t party or go clubbing much at all. Mostly because after about the age of 23 I stopped enjoying it. I’d been partying since I was 15 and it kind of got boring. If I did still enjoy partying I would just have to do it less often to produce the same amount of work as Energizer Bunnies.
   
3. I’m disciplined about my leisure time. I love going to dinner and hanging out with friends, however, because I know I can hang out and chat forever I decide how much leisure I plan on having in advance if I am working on something. Even with that kind of structure I can have plenty of unplanned fun but at the end of the day I have disciplined my mind to know that no matter how much fun I’m having, if there’s work to be done the next day fun must be cut short. 
   
4. I get help. A cleaner does all the domestic cleaning for me so I can save time. If I expend energy on cleaning I have less energy for running my business. This is one thing I don’t compromise on.

In summary, I don’t try to live the life of the Energizer Bunny. Ultimately, my idea of fun involves having more free time to hang out with my husband and kids, reading books in cafes whenever I want, eating out wherever I want and whenever I feel like it, sending my kids to good private schools and getting my cleaner to come more often. Even if the Energizer Bunny posts numerous social posts of them moving from one party to the next, flying to various exotic locations and playing lots of sport I know those are not my goals so comparing myself to them is fruitless.

The problem some find is that they do want to live the same life as their Energizer Bunny friend. If that is the case you just have to accept that in the short term you’ll need to have less fun and work harder so that in future your hard work pays you enough income to buy more leisure time.

There’s a time for everything.