Louise Young - A Whole New Me

At 37 I am currently a stay at home mum to three beautiful children, Sorcha – 6, Darcy – 3 and Alyssa – 1 and wife to my gorgeous husband, Marc. I am also a comfort eater. I eat when I am stressed, when I am sad and when I am happy. I have eaten my emotions for so long that no matter how hard I trained in the weight room or how much cardio I did, I could not lose weight. I would become upset over this and eat my emotions again.

My emotional eating not only impacted on my weight and self-esteem, but also my relationship with my husband and 3 wonderful children.

I had enough of this horrid  - eat, exercise, eat - cycle and decided to embrace the 12 week Ideal Bodies Online challenge as the start to a whole new me. The past 12 weeks has not just been about losing weight and gaining awesome muscle, but to change a habit of a life time and to rebuild relationships with myself and those I love the most. I have changed physically but my biggest change of all has been emotionally.

The reasons why I decided to sign up with Ideal Bodies Online included: receiving personalised nutritional plan, weight and cardio programs but most importantly being able to communicate with a mentor regularly by email. Hilary’s feedback and support came at times that it was really needed. I also felt that she understood my position as she is a mother and understands the struggles that you have with a young child. My wonderful husband was my motivator and trainer at home and in the gym. He helped me with my technique and when I was about to give up he would encourage me to push that little bit harder.

I also adopted a mantra told to me by my Naturopath, Naomi, “I am a skinny bitch, I am a skinny bitch,” I wake up and say this to myself every day and even though I initially didn’t believe myself – I now do.

There were many ‘emotional’ hurdles in the past 12 weeks.

My husband and children all caught a terrible virus that knocked them all out for over a week. My youngest is still breast-fed and she would only have the breast for 5 consecutive days. I was exhausted. As everyone else got better – I got sick. This meant that I didn’t train for 4 days. During the past 12 weeks I also suffered from two bacterial chest infections that required antibiotics and left me lethargic. In the past this is when I would normally emotionally eat. Instead I would turn to my computer and read motivational articles from the website and that Hilary emailed me. I also wrote in my Goals Journal. I found that by writing my feelings down instead of eating them that they became easier to manage. For the first time in my life I was visualizing myself succeeding instead of failing.

I really began to notice a huge change in my physical appearance and fitness level around week nine. I felt awesome! My husband and I started to spend more quality time together and I began to believe in myself again. This made it easier for me to control my urges to emotionally eat. My children deserve a mum that is happy, confident and healthy. I do want to see my babies grow up without the unhealthy relationship I have with food impacting on their lives. Now I eat to fuel my body. I eat much more than I did before, but considerably more healthily. I have cut out sugars, processed foods and I read the label on everything that I buy.

From not wanting to run at all, I now enjoy running on the treadmill or at the oval near my home. I can lift more, squat more and press more than I could before. My husband and I go to Thumped and Body Combat classes together at Life and Soul, our local gym.

I hate not exercising. I love it!

This 12 week challenge has changed my life. I have learnt how to manage my emotional eating, to love my new body and I am 100 percent more confident and happy than I was only three months ago. This is just the beginning to a permanent life style change!