Mum-of-two Bella lost 45kg in two years, and has kept it off – here’s her inspiring story.
Deciding to Make a Change
Six months after Bella’s youngest baby was born, she still looked heavily pregnant and was bingeing on food terribly. Finally she decided to bite the bullet and brave the scales.
“When I saw 112kg, I sobbed. It seemed hopeless,” she recalls. “In desperation I spoke to my GP and was prescribed a weight-loss medication. The side effects were so extreme and scary that I lasted less than a week. I researched weight-loss surgery options but struggled to come to terms with the drastic nature of them and was afraid.”
Bella came to the realisation that to make long-term change, she’d have to put in some serious effort and alter her habits, so she joined 12WBT.
“The only solution that stacked up was that I was going to need to do this the hard way,” she says. “I’d have to change my diet and maybe even exercise!”.
Enjoying Exercise Again
At 112kg everything was hard for Bella – especially exercise. And with no previous experience in sport or fitness she really struggled to find anything enjoyable about it at all.
“I did my best and found classes at my local gym that I could do at my own pace, and that made going easier. As I got fitter the gym became less daunting, and when I finally found my way into the weights room, it felt like home!”
Once she saw the dramatic difference she was making to her body by strength training, there was no going back.
Changing Her Eating Habits
When Bella started 12WBT, she was juggling running her own small business with being a wife and mum of two, including a baby.
“I simply felt I was too busy to exercise. and our diet was almost exclusively convenience and pre-packaged foods,” she says. “I’d be ‘too busy’ to eat all day but then be so hungry at night I’d make awful food choices sitting in front of the TV.”
What changed Bella’s eating habits was learning to really eat properly. Having a satisfying breakfast and packing snacks in her handbag so she wasn’t caught without something to eat set her up for success.
“Finding the balance to live healthily and enjoy a night out without guilt has been the best thing that I’ve established as a habit now,” she says.
Finding Her Inner Strength
What’s the important thing Bella’s achieved through 12WBT? Finding her strength. “When I started I felt soft, not just physically, but malleable, easily pushed around and weak-willed,” she recalls.
“As I started to make clear goals and set expectations about what I wanted, I began to feel better about myself, my will and my ability to succeed.
“I went through a tough time with my business and it happened to coincide with an amazing time in my fitness, when I was gaining and loving my physical strength. It became really clear that in changing my life I hadn’t just made myself physically stronger, but personally stronger too.”
