me and fitness have never been great friends. i have been a member of many gyms, i have not been in attendance at all of those gyms. i feel very uncomfortable in the gym environment, i find it all very intimidating and sometimes often a little fake. i had however managed to get away with not going to the gym for a very long time. i’ve never been skinny, well apart from after my divorce where everything went a little crazy, but i have always been a fairly healthy weight. however there was a changing point. my body changed and it wasn’t something that i was completely aware that was happening. i seemed to be putting on weight little by little but without anything in my diet changing. this is when i discovered i had polycystic ovaries but i also discovered i was pregnant too!

after the birth of ronnie i had chucked on a lot of weight. a good 4 stone and some more. shocking. i felt ashamed by it to be honest, i was so heavy and i could really feel it too. shifting it was hard, and those blooming ovaries were making it that little bit harder for me too. joy.  so for the first year or so, it just frustrated me so much and i didn’t really manage to lose anything, the devastation of not loosing a pound or so would send me into a chocolate eating frenzy and so the vicious circle began. i was deeply unhappy.

then something in me changed. i was embarrassed at my lack of will power and lack of success at shaking the weight back off, even if it was some, a small amount, i needed to start moving in the right direction. so i bit the bullet and joined weight watchers. this i discovered suited me well. i had a set amount of points and i could use them however i wanted. excellent. if i wanted something naughty i could, it wasn’t forbidden but then it was salad for the rest of day. it was something i could process easily in my head and manage with ease without have to weigh and count calories, and it worked. the pounds started to fall off, i was over the moon. then they fell off some more. i was pretty addicted. and some more! whoop whoop. but then i started to concern myself as i started weighing myself on a daily basis, sometime more than once, this couldn’t be good surely? this isn’t a healthy attitude? but i was getting so much response from friends and family on how great i was looking. but i knew i needed a break from it, it had started to take over my daily thoughts. so i took a break for around 6 months. i didn’t go to the meetings, i didn’t do any counting and i didn’t get on the scales. when i did go back i had completely maintained my weight, which was great as it meant the way i thought and ate food had permanently changed. i had also made a very different decision on how this next phase of weight loss was going to work for me. i was starting again but this time it would involve exercise.

exercise, yes me, and yes my family laughed in my face.

but what to do? gym no, yoga i love but not right, running not a chance my feet are a mess, cycling errr only if the sun is shining and then i found push studios just down the road from where i live. dancing that’s what i’ll do, so i signed my self up to zumba. zumba was created by a columbian man  alberto “beto” perez by complete accident. he had forgotten to take music to one of his classes so had to improvise with what music he had in his car, and improvised the whole class to a mix of latin rhythms and bingo, zumba was born.

i’ve been doing zumba twice a week if a can for a year now, or bum reduction as my lovely boys call it, and together with watching my points but not getting too obsessive about it and i can proudly say i have lost over 3 stone. my doctor even told me how proud she is of me, (which was quite a moment) and that i have finally found what suits me and i have succeeded. in an absolute ideal world i would love to shift that final stone, however mrs doctor has explained that this could be the hardest hurdle as my body is very different now with the cysts, and that i should not beat myself up about it, and that i remember to remain proud and focused on the three stone that i have lost and keeping that off.

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