This is me on the left here aged 24 and on the right that’s me aged 35.

 

I’ll never forget when my friend and I were walking up some stairs and she was behind me, and she started to laugh, and in the nicest way possible (I promise she wasn’t being mean!) she said “your bum is soooooo big”. I laughed too, and I did genuinely find it funny, but I did start to think hmm maybe I should make some changes, but the intention lasted no more than a day and nothing changed, I guess I just didn’t really know another way. I’d thought about joining a club like Weight Watchers but looking back I think I just accepted my weight, my health and got on with it.

 

I spent the next 4 years like this, and my weight stayed relatively stable (on the big side!). Then I set off on my yearlong trip of a lifetime. We spent the first 4 months travelling around, some of it cultural and active and some of it lounging, drinking and eating. 

 

 

We then got to Sydney where we settled for 6 months and got a job so we could save enough money to spend the last 4 months in Asia before coming home. Well, when I got to Sydney and rented a flat with a full-length mirror I got the biggest shock!! I suddenly realized that I had gained a stone since I left the UK but it was how I looked that shocked me more, now that I could see myself full length. I’d been in a bubble for the last 4 months and paid no attention to my body. I now realized something had to change so I joined the local gym BUT I was clueless as to how to eat in order to lose weight healthily.

 

I’ve always been against starving ourselves to lose weight or using radical fad diets like the cabbage soup etc. Something in me knew that deprivation wasn’t the way to do it and that food was an important fuel for our bodies, I just didn’t know how food should be used.

 

Then I bought a book called ‘The Optimum Nutrition Bible’ by Patrick Holford. This is the book that changed my life. It was so enlightening and educational yet so easy and pleasurable to read. The main points I took from the book were that food could be used as medicine, that food could be the difference between feeling absolutely rubbish and feeling amazing. I read that refined carbs e.g. white pasta, white bread, white rice, and conventional cereals, were best avoided as they are broken down into sugars in the body and void of nutrients. I learned that sugar isn’t just bad for your teeth but it makes us fat, and I learned that green leafy vegetables and low sugar fruits like berries should be included everyday for fibre and important nutrients.

 

So what did I do?

 

I wrote out a plan of action and it said:

• No more white carbs, switch all to brown

• No more sugar, including biscuits, cakes, muffins, chocolate bars, fizzy drinks

• Buy spinach, kale and blueberries to eat everyday

 

Within 2 weeks weight had started to leave my body, but better than that, my energy improved and my skin got a bit clearer. My flat mates were shocked, and so was I.

 

Now it was time to go to South East Asia for the last leg of our trip. To this day they were the best 3 months of my life. I fell in love with the food in Thailand, eating an array of vegetables and fresh fruit everyday and freshly caught fish and I drank water like it was going out of fashion, I rested, I swam, I partied, and generally had a ball. I had sweet things here and there, but my taste buds had changed and I wasn’t uncontrollably craving sugar like I used to. I drank alcohol but switched my staple brandy and Coke to vodka with soda water and fresh lime. When my Mum and Dad met me at Heathrow they almost let me walk straight past them because they didn’t recognize me! This was before the days of Facebook and smart phones so they had no idea how I was looking now that I’d lost some weight, my Mum was flabbergasted (and so pleased!).

 

I got back into normal life in London and continued with the 3 points on my list above and I started reading more and more books on nutrition, which I just found fascinating. Then I added a 4th point to my list:

 

4) Give up wheat

 

I totally removed pasta and bread. I was mindful to cut out wheat in the form of cakes too but I wasn’t so strict about this one, and by now I wasn’t eating cakes very much anyway.

Point number 4 was a game changer for me. More weight fell off, not too much, just the extra few pounds that I still hadn’t been able to shift since the first 3 changes. But even more great things happened health wise. My energy levels improved even more, my skin started to glow, and the headaches reduced even more. I just started to feel really great. My IBS symptoms were still an issue although not half as bad as before.

 

The next step was:

 

5) Go to see a nutritionist

 

I found a nutritional therapy clinic in Richmond and made an appointment. I had to fill out a health and symptoms questionnaire and a 3-day food diary for my therapist so she could review my case and eating style before we met. The nutritionist told me that the IBS was indeed something that could go away with the right nutritional and lifestyle intervention, and she said my diet was ok but needed more variety to give me exposure to more nutrients and gut friendly foods. She also gave me some things to help restore balance in my gut and heal my gut lining in a bid to improve my IBS symptoms. Yet again another game changer!! Within just 3 weeks I was experiencing massive improvements in my symptoms and after 6 weeks I was shell shocked at how much better I felt and kicking myself for not knowing all this years before! The bloating stopped, the pains in my stomach went away, I never saw another psoriasis patch or any dry skin again, my headaches literally disappeared, and yet again my energy improved!

 

What I realized in all this is that its so easy to accept our symptoms whether they are low energy, headaches, IBS related, or excess weight, and believe they’re just a normal part of daily life, we carry on eating how we always have and don’t link our health with what we put and don’t put into our mouths. If the GP says we’re fine then we must be fine. That’s when I decided I wanted to study nutrition and change my career for good so I could help others to experience the same life changing effects of good food that I had.

 

I gained control of my weight through changing my diet for life, not through dieting or restricting calories. I have times when I eat more than I need or indulge in sweet foods more than I usually would, but its not an issue, my body regains balance because 80% of the time I eat the right foods at the right time and support my metabolism and health. The initial changes I made in points 1-4 were the catalyst to a healthy lifestyle that has changed my life, not only did I finally see the body that was hiding under all the excess weight, but I discovered the energy, clarity and health Id been missing out on for years. Now at aged 35 I feel better than I felt in my 20’s, and that’s all owed to good nutrition. I enjoy my food every single day, I look forward to my meals and snacks, and I’m in control of my body size and health, no one else. I hope this blog helps and inspires you to make small, gradual changes and improve your health and weight for the better, for good.

 

Francesca Liparoti