Think I came out of the womb drinking kale smoothies and having perfect blood sugar balance? Think again! I look at wellness influencers such as Tracy Anderson, Kayla Itsines, the TIU girls and Bryony Deery and I wish I had their natural body types – but quite simply, I do not. I was not born with great genes and for me I struggled with my weight and metabolic health from my teens right through to my very early 30’s (see below):

 

So, for today’s Friday 5 I wanted to take you for a walk down memory lane of the diets I’ve tried over the years to where I am today in the hope of helping you not make the same mistakes I did…😉

 

1) The Unhealthy Vegetarian Years

When I was 12 (the year was 1993) I decided that I wanted to be a vegetarian because of my love for animals and this phase lasted until I was 21. My parents were great about this decision, but it was the era of convenience of foods and my mum had no idea how to feed me healthy vegetarian meals. As such, I pretty much existed on a diet of cereal, PB on toast, cheese sandwiches and pasta and more cheese. Yup, all the carbs and none of the protein. This led me to struggling with my weight as a teenager and in my early 20’s and causing gut and mental health challenges. Don’t get me wrong, I truly believe you can have a very healthy vegetarian diet and provide full vegetarian options for all of my programs, but the way I did it was not the right way.

 

2) The High Carb/High Cardio Years

Wake up, eat toast/a bagel/cereal, teach Aerobics and Zumba, eat one of those giant oat bars from Starbucks with a soy latte, teach spin, eat a panini. This was my life for years as I taught dance classes and fitness classes and whilst I was not very overweight I definitely was not metabolically healthy and pretty much had no muscle mass to speak off. I would try and get the weight off with more cardio and a very low fat diet (it was miserable) but to no avail.

 

3) The Fad Diets of the 00’s Years

Slimfast (gross), Atkins, Dukan (anyone remember that one?), fat burners, juice cleanses – you name it, I tried it. I remember feeling sick from the amount of no fat, artificially sweetened yoghurts and diet cokes that I ate on the Dukan diet, getting the meat sweats on the London Underground from Atkins and every time I started a juice cleanse I would fail by 10am that morning. Surprisingly enough, these diets didn’t work.

 

4) The Count Every Calorie and Train Every Day Years

In my very early 30’s I started to understand the importance of strength training and as something who loves to throw herself into something new I hired a coach who had worked with female bodybuilders to create a diet and exercise plan for me. This consisted of training for over an hour in the gym 5 days a week and meticulously counting every calorie that went in my mouth. I vividly remember shouting at Tim for taking a tiny bite of one of my protein oat balls as I was eating so little that every morsel of food was everything to me. This approach left me miserable, burnt out and affected my cortisol, adrenal and thyroid health. Because of this I ended up ‘skinny fat’ and it’s taken a long time to truly heal and reset my metabolism.

 

5) The Lean & Clean Years

Which brings us to today – hurrah! In my early 30’s I started my journey of truly educating myself on the science based principles of nutrition and metabolism, from becoming a Board Certified Holistic Nutritionist, Certified Personal Trainer, studying for my degree in Nutritional Science and mentoring under some incredible doctors and experts in the field. This led me to create my Lean & Clean Program, a truly science based program that boosts your metabolism and switches your body into fat burning mode. I’m so happy to say that I’ve been within 3 pounds of the same weight for about 9 years, my blood pressure, blood sugar, lipids and inflammation markers are excellent and I’ve never been more confident in my body. It’s so sustainable that I cannot see myself every changing my Lean & Clean daily habits and my clients say the same also.

Want to learn my weight loss secrets? Watch my FREE Masterclass The Secrets of Fat Loss for Women over 40 – where I share the SAME step by step, results-based framework that me and my clients used to help us get to our goal weight and stay there effortlessly.

​Watch the Masterclass here!