Success Story: Katherine

AKA "KatherineL" on Weight Loss Resources

Dieting History

Weight Watchers, Slimming World, the Cabbage Soup diet, the Atkins diet, Carol Vorderman's detox (which I seriously would not recommend to anyone… I think it is REALLY unhealthy), SlimFast and a variety of tablets e.g. Adios.

Have you lost weight before and regained the weight?

Yes and no. I blossomed in my late teens after taking a job in catering, over time that weight came off.

I tried many different diets that didn’t work and it was only when I started eating healthily that the weight just started to gradually fall off. My weight stabilised at around 8st 10lbs. My weight would occasionally go up to 9st 2 but I never had any problem getting my weight back to where I wanted it (as a singly I could exercise when I wanted and keep only healthy foods in etc)

I was at 9st 2 before I married and wanted to get to 8st 5 for my wedding. I got my weight down to 8st 10 and then discovered I was pregnant so stopped dieting, as I did not want to harm the baby.

After a wonderful (and very sober!!) wedding we went on honey moon to Mexico where I put on half a stone which was not due to the pregnancy as I was still under three months gone, then as the pregnancy progressed I just kept slapping the weight on.

I ended up putting on over 4stone… pregnancy hormones meant I didn’t notice this ballooning until after the baby was born. As I was breast-feeding I couldn’t go onto any strict diet and I was struggling with feeding so was advised to keep my fat intake up as it was thought I might not have been producing enough milk.

Anyway four and a half months later I got pregnant again which was great as it was planned but I was really upset about my weight as I had not gotten back to anywhere near my pre pregnancy weight.

I put on less weight during the second pregnancy and ended up half a stone lighter at the time of birth than with my first. So then that left me still overweight by three and a half stone.

How being overweight has affected you…

My Husband ought to be American…he likes everything BIG…apart from his women. He has always been a fantastic husband and father but I am always conscious of his views on the female physique and this does make me worry that he won’t love me if I am fat. Sadly a lot of my self esteem seems to be based around my looks / weight which is very superficial of me (luckily I don’t view others in the same light, I just can’t get away from the thought that they will judge me on mine).

Our society today is driven by fame and fame seems to come to those who are skinny and attractive…there seems to be no value on intelligence or ability…I find this sad yet have somehow been taken in by it also.

My first husband used to call me fatty and say it took forever for my thighs to stop wobbling after he slapped them and although I was never really fat at the time his words and actions I think had a lasting affect on my self esteem and views on weight.

Motivation to Diet

After the birth of my second child I really hated my body. It made me cry to look at myself in the mirror. Everything had changed…it had all gotten bigger and soggier. This in itself was a positive thing as it made me really want to change my body and to get back into my old clothes.

Discovering Weight Loss Resources

Zest magazine.

How Weight Loss Resources Helps

I very much believe in healthy eating and therefore cook my meals from scratch. This is obviously beneficial to me health but leaves me with the problem of not knowing their nutritional value. WLR proved invaluable in helping me to work out the nutritional value, what serving size I should be having, whether I should exchange ingredients (to lower fat etc), miss out ingredients and so on.

It also made me realise that a quick trip to Starbucks was doing more damage than I imagined.

I’ve always considered myself to have a good knowledge of food and calories (miss-spent youth) but in reality my knowledge was only superficial. With the help of WLR, I tailored my eating habits so that I could lose one pound a week and still eat healthily, cook my meals from scratch and not have to resort to nasty packaged food or slimming drinks.

The Best of Weight Loss Resources

I only ever really used the food diary, looking at my soggy floppy figure was all the motivation I needed and my husband provided all the support I needed.

Katherine's Dieting Tips

I did it my way!!

I think that is one of the best things about WLR no one is dictating to you to eat this not eat that (I was horrified when I looked at slimming world and they were recommending foods/ recipes with aspartame in)…you don’t have to have a green day or a red day, you have YOUR day, YOUR week, after all it is your body and your weight loss.

If you can do it for you and in the way you want to, I believe you are more likely to succeed.

Katherine's Vital Statistics

	Before	Now
Weight	11st 7lb	9st