08 Mar HOW I CHANGED THE WAY FOOD MADE ME FEEL
Your Story, Day One.
“it’s not our abilities that show what we truly are. It’s our choices”
Caroline why did you decide to start this 6 Week Challenge and how do you currently feel?
January 17th 2016
To be completely honest I have never been truly happy with my body and have always been super conscious of the way I look. Even when I lost weight – and I’m talking 25kg – I was still not 100% happy. This may sound silly but sometimes I can’t stand to look in the mirror. All I see is my imperfections and think about how fat I look. This makes me sad, as I don’t take the time to reflect on the progress I have made and can only see the negatives.
Growing up I was a competitive swimmer so always had to look a certain way to fit in. I became fixated on the scales and the number it represented. All the girls focused on their weight before performance as this is what was drummed into us by the coaches and parents. It’s how things were. God forbid if you did put on weight.
I strongly believe that this helped pave the way for my body image issues, and set the tone for a large amount of my teenage and adult life regarding my poor body image
So what has prompted me to start this challenge?
Well I want to challenge myself to not necessarily lose weight (and build muscle mass) but to actually start eating right for performance. I know that food is supposed to be fuel but I am struggling to view it this way. For me food signifies my negative relationship with my body.
I want to challenge myself to learn to love food, and that eating healthily does not need to be a huge chore. I know I need to be organised and change my mind-set.
I believe that once I have set down the fundamentals the everything else will fall into place, my training will improve and if I end up decreasing my body fat and building muscle mass then it will just be a bonus!
My challenge is to start learning how to love myself and my body. I want to be happy being me, “Caroline Cakebread”. The person I know that everyone at the box loves being around.
So How do I Currently feel?
I feel ready more than ever for this challenge. I know I’m going to have good days and bad days but I’m ready to tackle this demon in my life. My bad relationship with food needs to go. I’m ready to create new habits and a completely healthy lifestyle, not just for me, but for my 2 boys as well.
I can’t wait – Bring it on. 2016 is my year!
……Fast forward 6 weeks.
THE END OF A CHAPTER, AND ONLY THE BEGINNING.
Friday 27th Feb 2016
How do you feel now?
I feel AMAZING and my confidence has grown! I’m so very grateful for the love and support I have received from my fellow challenge participants and especially my mentors, my coaches, my inspiration every day, Rowena Calderwood & Aaron Shearer.
The biggest thing I’m walking away from this challenge is the wealth of knowledge I have with regards to food and making sure I’m fuelling my body correctly. My biggest goal I set out to do was overcome my bad habits I had created with food, snacking on rubbish and using excuses such as “I don’t have time”. I achieved this goal and much more..
I have learnt that I can eat healthy and don’t have to be a Nazi and be this crazy organised person day in and day out. With my busy lifestyle and looking after young boys, the thought of spending hours’ food preparing always scared me. Through this challenge I learnt this is a big myth! Real food is so simple to prepare!
The icing on the cake on completing this challenge was that I found out id got down to my goal body fat percentage and increased my muscle mass. All by eating so much more than I used too!
This is only the beginning for me and I can’t wait to continue this journey with my new found love for food.. and me
