Three weeks ago, I got fed up with my ever increasing weight and waistline, and decided to do something drastic about it.
After watching Fat: fighting for my life, I went on line and googled Jessie Pavelka – a rather gorgeous trainer who transforms the lives of overweight people (the ones on the program are morbidly obese – I don’t fit into that category fortunately, being about 2.5 stone overweight, but I need to do something about it!)
I found Jessie’s website – the Pavelka House (https://pavelka.co.uk/login/).
Very impressed to find the program is free to join (fed up with paying huge amounts for weight watchers, slimming world, etc and getting nowhere). I just had to lay out £12 for the book:
Whilst waiting for the book to arrive, and then time to go shopping, I checked out the website pretty thoroughly, and followed some of the recipes and the general principles for about 3 days – I lost 2lbs in those 3 days, so a good start!
What struck me most though, was the thinking part. Jessie promotes thinking about what you’re doing. What you want to achieve and primarily believing that you are in control. This has been the biggest change for me. For the first time in my life, I can walk past the chocolate bars on the shelf in the supermarket, with the thought – ‘I am in control – I don’t need this lump of sugar in my body – it will make me fat, grumpy and depressed.’
Trust me – that’s a powerful thought!
Anyway, to return to the shopping trip. I went round Aldi and Tesco and filled my trolley with all the ingredients listed for the first week. I got home and started to unpack – accompanied by shrieks of laughter after Andrew (my youngest) mentioned that I seem to have brought home a rain forest! After looking at the green-filled shelves, I had to agree with him!
After 4 days of surprisingly tasty smoothies and soups, and using almost every electrical gadget in my kitchen, I was able to start eating ‘proper food’ but still following the meal plan fairly rigidly.
The second week, I began to exchange foods a little bit more – there are lists of exchanges in the back of the book – and start to eat in a way that fits in better with my life style, food preferences, and cooking ability (although the recipes in the book are incredibly easy to follow, even for as incompetent a cook as I am!)
2 weeks into the plan (last Wednesday), I’d reached my first target, having lost 7lbs, and dipping just lost below the 11 st mark.
I’ve also been exercising. I continued with my couch to 5k training, and started working out to Davina 15 – one of her DVDs from a couple of years ago when she was still working out with Jackie and Mark. Overall the exercises aren’t too different from those prescribed by Jessie, but I’m not very good at exercising out of a book – whereas following a DVD is relatively easy.
Yesterday, I ran a 5k race for the Stroke Association. The weather could have been worse, but only if it had been windier or snowing! The rain was torrential from the time I arrived at the park to warm up, until about three hours after I got home again.
I discovered that the term ‘showerproof’ does not cope well with a seriously rainy day in Manchester, and after the first couple of kilometres, removed the soggy showerproof jacket, as I reckoned I’d be more comfortable without it. I was right. I finished the race in my t-shirt, after doing a personal best of just under 45 minutes (according to Endomondo – my running app). I suspect the rain helped – a strong desire to get warm and dry spurred me on to greater speeds than ever before!!!!
I finally thawed out after about 2 hours, some hot soup, and a very hot bath. And guess what – the sun is shining beautifully today! 🙂
Great post, Jo! Very motivating! x