Happy Sunday everyone! What a glorious day it is on the Goldy today! I truly do love where I live and it is my absolute favourite time of year – during the day anyway! Not too cold and not too hot – just perfect! As most of you know, on Wednesday the 26th of July I began the next part of my weight loss journey and I called it Shari Ware’s Bikini Body Experiment. Some of you have been following me by watching my Facebook Lives through the week and I hope that they have been interesting and of help to you on whatever journey you are on. If you haven’t been watching and would like to, make sure that you have liked my page and you can do that by clicking here. Anyway, for those of you who don’t know what I am talking about, I will catch you up in the next few paragraphs.
I call it an experiment, because I actually don’t know if it is possible to achieve. Now first of all, let me clarify that that is not me being negative or defeatist or anything like that. I say that I don’t know if it is possible, because it is something that I have never had, and when you haven’t ever had or achieved something before, there is always a bit of uncertainty about whether it is actually possible, at least until you have actually achieved it. That has always been my experience anyway. I also want to clarify what I mean when I say “bikini body”. I have never EVER – not even when I was a kid – had a body that looked nice in a swimsuit of any kind. I don’t want a super skinny body. I just want a TONED body. I want to be able to put on a pair of shorts, or a bathing suit, even if it be a full piece bathing suit and feel comfortable to go out in public in it. That is something that I have never ever felt in my whole life and I am currently 42. Yes I have body issues, as so many of us do, and I am working on them every day, but it is a work in progress and will continue to be so for a while at least. I am definitely better than I used to be that’s for sure. I totally take my hat off to all those awesome ladies out there that don’t care and one of these days I hope to get to that point, but right now I’m not there. I also really really really want to know if I can achieve what I am setting out to achieve and I am going to try my darndest to do it! Theoretically, it is possible, so I am holding onto that!
To achieve my goal, it is not just about losing weight now. It is really about losing my body fat. Which is really what we all should be aiming for anyway, but that is a whole other topic that I am sure I have talked about in the past and probably will again in the future. So my approach for this goal is two pronged. Firstly, my nutrition for which I have seen a Nutritionist to help me and secondly my exercise for which I have seen an Exercise Physiologist for some extra help as well. I have learnt such a lot over the last 7 years and yes, I am also a fully qualified Personal Trainer, BUT, that doesn’t mean that I know everything and that it wouldn’t be of benefit for me to access help from other experts, especially when I am trying to achieve something that I have never tried to do before. You don’t know what you don’t know and it doesn’t hurt to have a chat to other people because they may just know something that you don’t that can help. To be quite honest, the reason why I first thought that it might be of benefit for me to see a nutritionist actually came from a webinar that I was listening to. The lady on the webinar had had a long term weight issue. One day she made the decision to lose the weight and knew that she needed help with what to eat and so she went to a Nutritionist. The Nutritionist did some testing and found that she had intolerances to over 70 different foods, some of them everyday foods such as chicken, etc. So long story short, she cut out all of those things and as a result her body became less bloated, she lost weight and now has a bikini body. It got me thinking and I thought that maybe I might have some food intolerances that were causing bloating. The reason why this made sense to me, is because firstly, I exercise usually 6 days per week and when I say exercise, I mean high intensity exercise. It is a mix of weights and cardio, because that is best for weight loss and it also stops me from getting bored. So I have pretty good ab muscles, but nobody can see them. I do know that the reason for that mostly, is that I have too much body fat, BUT, it also made sense to me that bloating could also be an issue for the following reason. I ALWAYS look pregnant. I am not pregnant. I do however, look pregnant and so I wear shapewear to suck it in. Now, I know that a lot of people have a tummy, but I really shouldn’t, because of 2 things. Firstly, the amount of exercise that I do. It won’t give me a 6 pack because my body fat is too high, but I should not have the size tummy that I have. I always look at least 5 months pregnant and by the time I have eaten my last meal at night, I look at least 7 months pregnant, and I am not exaggerating I promise you. The other reason that I shouldn’t really have a tummy, is that I had surgery to remove excess skin after I lost my 100kg, and that included cutting me right around the middle of my body, pulling up and pulling down and stitching it all back together again. So I thought that maybe I should get some testing done to see if I have food intolerances that are causing bloating.
After chatting to the Nutritionist and discussing where I am at and my concerns, we came up with the plan for me to continue with my Keto eating plan which is a high fat, moderate protein and very low carbohydrate eating plan, but that I needed to be a lot stricter with trying to get the carbs down to the level dictated by the Keto guidelines and to also combine it with something called a Low FODMAP eating plan. If you don’t know what that it, each letter of FODMAP stands for a different food group and some of those food groups can cause issues for some people. So how the Low FODMAP plan works is basically an elimination diet. For 4 weeks you cut out anything in any of those food groups, so I have a lot of things that I can’t eat right now, such as mushrooms, onion, garlic, avocado, beetroot, etc. Then after 4 weeks, you start doing food challenges which is where you add one thing from one of the food groups back into your diet to see if it has an effect, if it does then you know you need to keep not having it and if it doesn’t then you know that that is not an issue for you and you can keep having it. Regardless of the results, the next step is to take it out again, wait a couple of days for it to get back out of your system and then try another food from another food group and do the same process, until you have tested something from each of the food groups. Once you have done that, you know if anything affects you and can adjust your eating plan on a permanent basis from then on. It is an interesting process and I am actually enjoying doing it. I am happy that I don’t have to do it forever though!
Now let’s talk about the exercise. Initially I didn’t think that I needed to talk to anyone about exercise, but then I reminded myself that I don’t know what I don’t know and that I haven’t ever tried to achieve this particular goal before and that it just might be of benefit for me to talk to the Exercise Physiologist and I am so glad that I did. In our conversation she made a statement that I have known all along, but until she actually said it to me, I didn’t actually “GET” it if you know what I mean. This is what she said – “I know that you really want to reduce your body fat, but what you really need to concentrate on right now, is increasing your muscle, and while you are doing that”……and this is the part that I didn’t really “GET” until she said it…..”you may not necessarily lose body fat”. Such a simple concept, but one that is so crucial to “GET” because it can really screw with your head to not see your body fat reduce when you are doing all the “right” things. So I came out of that session with a specific progressive heavy weights program to add to my normal exercise regime. My normal exercise was perfect, I just need to add in the heavy weights program 3 days per week to majorly increase my muscle which will in the end help to majorly reduce my body fat.
Back squat is part of my heavy weights program
Bench press is also part of my heavy weights program
Now to the actual point of my blog – I know that it has taken me a long time to get there, but I do feel that all of the above was necessary to paint the full picture if you haven’t been following me thus far. Yes, I have a goal that I am trying to achieve. Yes, this has thrown a MAJOR spanner in the works. There is absolutely no denying that. Does that mean that my “Bikini Body Experiment” is over? HELL NO!!!! It means that I have had a bump in the road. It means that I have taken a bit of a detour. It means that I have to concentrate even more on my nutrition right now even than I had to before, which is definitely not a bad thing. It means that it will take me a bit longer to get to my goal than what it would have if this hasn’t happened. It DOES NOT mean that I give up on it. It DOES NOT mean that I throw my hands up in the air and say, “Oh well, I tried but it just wasn’t meant to be”. This is life. Life is not perfect and it’s not meant to be. If it was perfect, how would we ever get strong? How would we learn how to deal with what life throws at us from time to time? So if you are trying to get to a goal, whether it be to release weight, create a healthier life, become fitter, run a marathon or get that bikini body, remember that it probably isn’t going to be smooth sailing the whole way. There will most probably be bumps in the road. You will most probably have to take some detours. As long as you DON’T give up, I promise that you WILL get to your destination in the end!
Have a wonderful week everyone!
Xoxo
PS – The Ghandi quote that I have at the top of this post popped up as a memory on my Facebook account last Sunday which was while I was still in a lot of pain from my injury. I was wondering when it was ever going to get better and when I was going to be able to get back to training. It was such a good thing to be reminded of and right when I needed it! Love how the universe shoves exactly what we need right in our face at exactly the right time!
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