Nutrition is far more important than I think I ever realised. In honesty I don’t think I had an awareness of what was being put into my body, I was making dietary choices based on good intentions, but very little actual knowledge!

Couple that lack of knowledge with a tendency to eat through my problems, and all of a sudden I found myself staring into a mirror, not really recognising the man staring back at me.

I think for a long time I denied having a problem. I was acutely aware of how unhappy I was, but as I looked in the mirror, I think my brain was protecting me and not making me face the reality. I would stare and think – you don’t look too bad. But present me with a photograph that other people were going to see and all of a sudden, there wasn’t enough delusion in the world!

There are several factors that I attribute my fitness success to:

⁃ Discovering that gyms are not as scary as I perceived them to be

⁃ Accountability to a trainer

⁃ Feeling the mental health benefits of the consistency of my routine

But the most underrated has been gaining an understanding of what is in the food that I choose to eat. The reality that foods aren’t just simply good or bad, rather discovering that a balanced diet is a little more complicated than I had realised at first glance.

I started tracking my meals through MyFitnessPal. A simple app that you can search your foods from a directory and add them as you consume them, or you can plan ahead of time to keep on top of what one is “allowed” to eat each day. during the Pandemic, it was easy peasy to stay on top of! What was in the house was available and there was very little temptation to distract me from my goal. I would exercise daily and eat the allotted calories – the weight fell off of me.

When I had to adjust to returning to the real world, it all became a little

More complicated! Temptation was around and a little thing called “having a job” got in the way of some of my success. The calorie in take needed to get stricter, but the reality was that a jammy dodger or two found its way into my stomach untracked…

It was time to double down and use my new learned skills to develop a menu that would give me variation, keep the protein high to fuel my workouts, and be accountable to myself once again. The hardest for me were the cravings. My sweet tooth was left wanting and I became obsessive about the oddest things! Starburst (or Opal Fruits for those old Skool purists!) were my kryptonite. My trainer Tom from TPM Health and Fitness must have grown tired of my constant mentioning of these delicious sweet cubes! 20 calories per sweet, I could ALWAYS finish my days calories off with as many as my daily calories would allow!

This month I decided to return to tracking again as I had taken some time off from it. This had been a conscious decision as I can sometimes become a bit distracted by the number on the scales and the measurements. Mentally I needed a break to recalibrate. But now it was time to move forwards and this measure of progress is sometimes what my brain needs to really understand and push my motivation forwards.

As I embark on my first few days, I have to ask myself “where did my will power go?” every temptation in the house is luring me into the fridge door! With every cup of tea there is a potential biscuit, with every meal a dessert, and with every meal cooked there are bits to pick at! It’s a mental game, knowing that it will be hard at first but it will get easier. Being in the driving seat of your own personal development is a great place to be. If I am accountable to myself then I have proven that I can do it – for me alone.

It won’t always be easy – but then what is?!

The will power may seem like it has disappeared, but in reality it’s just testing my mettle. If I fail, then tomorrow is a new day and I can work even harder to ensure that I hit my goals!

There is no perfect recipe to getting fitter and healthier, it’s different for us all, you just have to discover what works for you and what goals you are trying to achieve. It’s all relative.