Let me start this with Skinny does not = success. You don’t have to change who you are to run your business or delay “getting out there” until things are just hunky dory.  This isn’t about fat being bad and thin being good nor is it that happiness is achieved through weight loss. 

I simply want to, as always, be totally open and honest with you about my entrepreneurial journey.  I always talk about the fact that the work I do ISN’T about business.  It’s about the heart of the business and that heart of the business is YOU.  I want YOU to be in a position to be able to grow a thriving business and to achieve success on your terms, without burn out, without compromising yourself, without it being icky and with YOU directly at the centre. 

If you don’t look after yourself then you aren’t in a position to truly make the biggest impact possible to those around you. 

It’s clique BUT your health is your wealth. 

I suppose the title of this article is the first story and outright big fat lie I was telling myself. 

Being Self Employed Made Me Fat! 

I don’t think there’s any clinical studies or trials that ever came to the conclusion that self employment had a direct impact on your weight, fitness or health. 

BUT, an indirect link may well be something to considered.  

I worked from home.  I sat on my arse at a computer all day long.  I had access to food and no real routine as to when eating during the day needed to occur nor did I have any restriction on what & when I consumed food.  I didn’t need to leave the house and I suppose that a toxic mix of becoming increasingly sedentary with open access to food had become a reality. 

We all know that at a very basic level your weight is a product of calories in – calories out.  If there’s a surplus you’ll gain weight, if there’s a deficit you’ll ditch weight and if there’s an equilibrium it’ll stay the same.  

So, rather than saying self employment made me fat I suppose I should really take responsibility.  In order to make any changes taking responsibility is your starting point. 

Whatever stories I told myself about how busy I was and how I needed to spend my time solely focused on my business these were my decisions. 

The fact that my eating wasn’t optimal was something I was responsible for. 

I had to take responsibility without guilt.  Yup, I could have gone down the “whoa ist me” and “how did I get myself to this point” and “I can’t believe I let this happen” or “it’s too hard now as there’s too much to do OR I could go “I am where I am and the only way to get started is to get started. 

Life had become uncomfortable.  I needed to have a word with myself.  The most powerful catalysts to change are FUCK IT & FUCK THIS SHIT and I think that the FUCK THIS SHIT was my initial catalyst. 

I felt ridiculously lethargic and sluggish all of the time. 

Everything was an effort, my body wasn’t the body I knew or that I wanted to spend my days in.  I had to effort my way through the day.  Climbing the stairs was a chore and hard work.  I couldn’t be arsed to walk the dog because that meant moving and moving wasn’t comfortable.  I was out of breath.  I was difficult to get up and down off the sofa (oh my 🙈writing about the actual uncomfort of it makes me feel quite sad).  I had stopped buying clothes and instead borrowed stuff if I needed anything particular and tried to make do.  I did have to bite the bullet and buy some BIG jeans as I simply couldn’t fit into the ones I had anymore. 

ENOUGH WAS ENOUGH

I started to work out a plan to move more and to start to nourish my body properly (more of that to come separately). 

Here’s a little FB post I wrote in September 2018….

😱 I Put On 56lbs (ish) Running A Digital Business 😱

PLEASE DON’T MISS THE MESSAGE OF THIS ONE IN THE HEADLINE

Yeah, I was a skinny mini after the birth of my first child, I worked hard to get rid of the weight and to get back into my body groove.

GUESS WHAT!!!!

At this point I still wasn’t showing up! 

I was going through the motions.  I HAD decided that I needed to make a change but I hadn’t gone full arse in.  If you are half arsed then you’ll get half arsed results.  

I continued to half arse it through the rest of 2018.  Not making any real changes other than showing up to my training sessions twice per week, being utterly exhausted by them and thinking I’d do my bit. 

As 2018 came to a close I had the second wave of epiphany. 

You need to go all in or you might as well step out! 

AND stepping out simply wasn’t an option. 

I’d broken the seal and I’d made a little progress and I hadn’t come this far to only come this far.  I needed to make a commitment to myself.  I needed to see what happened. 

At this stage I wasn’t able to set any goals or targets.  I know that the standard advice is to set the big target and then have little mini goals along the way but I simply couldn’t see that far ahead. 

I made a decision to back myself. 

To show up daily and back myself and see where things lead.  

I knew I couldn’t simply show up to a training session once or twice per week and expect results.  I needed to overhaul my life.  I did that step by step ~ literally. 

MOVEMENT ~ I needed to make sure I was moving more each and every day and set myself the 10,000 steps per day target (which I have hit every single day since 1st January 2019) 

EXERCISE ~ I needed to incorporate into my routines and habits and schedule non negogitable time in my diary to make this happen.  The rule was ~ if you wouldn’t cancel a client appointment for whatever excuse you’re coming up with then you can’t cancel your exercise appointment. 

MADE IT NON-NEGOGITABLE ~ yup, I could procrastafaff over whether I was going to do it or not, I could talk myself into it or out of it but the only person that would be going through the wringer if I did that was me.  Whatever my mind was going to dish up to me it was going to happen so did I want to crack on with it and get it done sooner or later.   We don’t talk ourselves out of taking the kids to school or putting the bins out ~ those tasks as non negogitable – this needed to be too. 

NUTRITION ~ it was time to start to understand how to nourish my body.  No faddy diets, no diets with fancy dan names, no rules & restrictions, no diet industry terminology that labeled food good or bad.  A simple understanding of calories and portions and how to fuel my body to achieve a calorie deficit without deprivation. 

GAME ON!!!! 

On some journey to be fair 😂

I started the year unfit and unhealthy (perhaps not quite as unhealthy as I had been mid 2018 but not too far away). 

I got up on New Years morning and disappeared off to Parkrun.  A 5k free event that takes place each Saturday morning (with special events at Christmas and New Year).  I didn’t go to the one in my park 400 meters away (too close, people might know me) but I ventured to another town and completed by first park run of 2019 in just over 40 minutes (it was an absolute slog and the run was more of a wobble).  Fast forward to the end of the year  and I have completed 50 parkruns and my time is now 24 minutes on a good day 😃

I’ve lost 88lbs throughout the year. 

I’ve got much more energy and zest. 

My work still gets done every week and I am now productive and efficient than I’ve ever been. 

So, what do you need to do???

You need to back yourself 

In the same way as you back and cheerlead other people, dip your toe in, show up for yourself every single day and commit to a fitter, healthier, happier you. 

I’d love to know what your questions are! What would you like to ask me about my journey?  What would you like to know about?  Dive into the comments below and let me know. 

Fancy joining me for the next live running of the WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?  Masterclass?  I’m going to be diving into how I lost 45% of my body weight but I found much more than I lost.   Register your seat now….