Losing 67 pounds, my four years journey.

Posted by RACHEL MATHENGE on OCTOBER 19, 2018

Looking down at the scale, I could not believe this was happening to me. It was a couple of months after giving birth to my daughter and I watched my weight progressively go up in just a few months. I had gained 57 pounds in one year. I was in physical pain due to Fibroids and also experienced pelvic and back pain, which made walking difficult.  I felt like I was trapped in someone else’s body and I needed to escape! I remember thinking to myself, how did I get here?

How did I gain 57 pounds in about a year?

Was it the bed rest during pregnancy?

Was it bad eating habits?

Was is it lack of exercise?

Yes to all the above! Absolutely!

I was no longer on bed rest but was not as active as I had been before my pregnancy and I knew I needed to do something, and fast.How was I going to lose weight?I thought my diet was pretty healthy, but this was not reflected by the three-digit numbers on the scale.I needed a plan!

What did I do?  Stay with me and find out. I believe you are here for a reason, and I hope my story inspires you to go after your health goals.

I started walking a few minutes a day. The first day my walk was less than 10 minutes. I was as slow as a tortoise, I didn’t go very far, but it was further than I had walked since I had got out of bed rest. In the days that followed, one of my close friends joined me for my walks. She encouraged me to keep walking and eventually, I walked longer and further. I was still slow but kept walking. The pain gradually reduced.

I did not stop there, I wanted to do better, and joined the gym. My friend agreed to join me for moral support. We would walk on the treadmill and tried to break a sweat. We also attended Zumba classes. I’m not a dancer and I like to say I have two left feet, so Zumba classes were never the highlight of my day, but they were fun. I moved and danced at my pace. In addition to moving more, I was still trying to eat more healthy foods.

Going to the gym and breastfeeding left me feeling very hungry most of the time. I turned to comfort foods like bread and sweets. I loved bread, chapati (Kenyan tortillas) and mandazis (similar to donuts). I ate fruits, vegetables, fish, chicken, and beef, but most of my meals were loaded with starches. Instead of soda and juice, I drunk water and hot chocolate.

After one year I had lost 26 pounds and plateaued for a couple of months. That was an average of half a pound a week. 

If you are making little progress, that seems insignificant, don’t be discouraged, stay consistent and find ways be better. 

Beginning January 2016, I hired a personal trainer for six months, I wanted to get better results. My goal was to maximize my time at the gym and get out of the weight plateau. I was still very cautious, the back pain was still a concern but the pelvic pain was manageable. Learning how to use more machines at the gym without injuring myself helped me get closer to my weight goal. I liked the consistency and the workout plans the trainer offered. He also suggested I eat more veggies and lean meat.

After 6 months I had lost 19 more pounds. I was very excited. Having a trainer by my side gave me confidence and I knew what to do to keep losing weight and get to my goal.I felt better overall and no longer felt like I was trapped in someone else’s body.I continued going to the gym, at least 2 to 3 times a week and cut out rice, ice cream and my beloved bread from my diet.  In the 6 months that followed, I lost another 10 pounds. I was on what I thought was a low carb diet. That year I lost 29 total pounds. I was close to my pre-pregnancy weight and I got comfortable.

Comfort led to complacency and I cut back on gym attendance. It felt like I had lived in the gym for the previous 12 months and started going to the gym once a week on a good week! I thought my diet had improved at this point since I cut back on coffee from several cups a day to just one cup and added fruits and veggie smoothies for breakfast! I thought going back to eating whole wheat bread was a good idea but was wrong! I gained a few pounds, I felt tired all the time, I took afternoon naps when I had a chance. By the end of 2017, I had gained about 10 pounds. Most of the weight had decided to take a nap around my belly and hips. I Knew I could not keep doing the same things and expect different results. I was discouraged and frustrated.

After expressing my frustrations to my husband, He suggested we try the Ketogenic diet. I was not very familiar with Keto diet but I knew it had something to do with eating fat to lose weight. I thought it was a crazy idea. How on earth was fat healthy?! Were we not going to end up with clogged arteries? I did not want to dismiss my husband’s idea without doing my own research about it. After a few weeks of online research and reading books about how the ketogenic diets work, I had learned enough about it to get started. My husband too needed to lose a few pounds and like birds of a feather,  we decided to start the Ketogenic diet together. I told my husband I was going to try it for one month and by the end of which if I had not lost weight or felt energetic again, it would not be worth the trouble.

To my surprise, this turned my life around. I did not only lose weight but I lost the stubborn belly fat. I lost 21 pounds in four and a half months. I was energetic once again. I went to the gym once or twice a week.  I no longer needed afternoon naps. One morning I woke up, I had so much energy I started doing jumping jacks in the house.

Three weeks into the keto diet, one morning I forgot to take my daily seasonal allergies medicine. By the end of the day, the wildest thing to me happened, I realized I did not have any symptoms. After many years of struggling with seasonal allergies, I had no more symptoms. The struggle was over.  I’ve not needed to take the allergy medicine on a regular basis since!

It's been a wild journey but it feels good to finally be pain free and finally be in control of my weight. If you are struggling to reach your weight loss goals, please reach out to us by clicking on the contact us button below. We may be able to help.