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Hello and welcome…………

I’m Simone.

I was born with a significant physical disability, which affects my mobility (mobility further reduced in 2002 following a head-on car crash, broken tibia and fibula, which didn’t heal well and then an ankle fusion).

I am also very short – as a result of my disability (4ft 8″ or 142cm), rather than genetics – my two “little sisters” are both a foot taller than I am. I use a wheelchair outside of the house, and cannot stand for long periods because of pain in my hips, lower back and damaged ankle.

Pain, long-term illness, ill-health, reduction in mobility or a disability doesn’t make weight loss impossible – it just makes it somewhat more challenging – but hey, we folks who have to deal with pain and/or disability daily are used to challenges, aren’t we???

Since February 2012, I have successfully lost over 4.5 stone (28.5kg) and improved my fitness through regular exercise.

This blog charts my weight-loss journey, sharing many of the things I have learned (and continue to learn) along the way, including my love of food, which can be a positive when it comes to healthy eating!

There are so many other benefits I didn’t even dream of when I started my journey.

I started my weight loss journey at the end of February 2012, weighing in at 14 stone – over 10 years ago. I was 49 years old and had been trying to lose weight my whole life, since the age of 9.

I managed to lose 4.5 stone in 2 and a half years through calorie counting and logging, weighing all my food, and going from a size 24 to a size 16, and from 14 stone down to 9 and a half. That works out at 130 weeks, so on average my weight loss was less than half a pound a week – of course, some weeks I lost more, others I gained… but I am trying to impress upon you the importance of just keeping on going, even though the weight may not come off as quickly as you would like it to.

I just KEPT ON GOING!! I didn’t give up.

I cannot stress enough how important this part of the weight-loss journey is: recognising just how much we are eating and addressing it. It is not about cutting out any foods, but about making informed choices about the foods we eat. Also, about learning how to behave differently around food. Just because food is in front of us does not mean that we have to eat it! Being able to exercise control and moderate intake is paramount. Then regained some… lost some again, and have now managed to more or less maintain for the past 2 years (upwards during main holidays and Christmas!)

I know that because I wasn’t very active, I couldn’t even walk for over three years, food became an essential factor in my life. I used it to help make me feel better…. (I was only able to recognise that with hindsight, though)

Ideally, I would love to drop another 8lbs (to 9 stone) and maintain there.

The one thing that I realised very early on in my journey was that I was eating FAR TOO MUCH! As a VERY short, middle-aged, sedentary female, I was eating the same as a 5ft 9″ active man.

No wonder I was piling on the weight! I now think of the weight I lost as each half a stone being a newborn baby… I lost 9 of them and can’t understand how I was ever able to lug all of that around with me all of the time.

I often wish I had dealt with my weight when I was a lot younger, but still, better late than never and also the risk of illness that is associated with being overweight increases once you reach 50 years plus….

I won’t try to tell you that my journey was easy – there have been many blips along the way, -but 10 years down the line, I feel about 20 years younger than I did when I was lugging around four stone more.

A few things I’ve found that help me:

Cutting down on portion sizes (always read the recommended portion size on packaging),

Reducing the amount of bread, pasta and rice I eat, replacing them with vegetables such as stir-fried cabbage and leek, and mashed swede and carrot.

KEEP MOVING – I exercise for an hour most days, stretches, resistance bands to tone and strengthen and then a bouncing session seated on a gym ball, bouncing and swinging my arms vigorously.

NEVER stop (I still log my food daily as there isn’t much wiggle room).

EXERCISE isn’t essential for weight loss—logging and weighing portion sizes is. If you can’t move much, it’s even more important to recognise that you have to eat less than someone more mobile.