lose those extra calories!

A Balanced Diet for Weight Loss

Having being a 'traditional' yo-yo dieter, Paula has lost over 3½ stone by following a healthy, balanced diet using the Weight Loss Resources tools. Here's her success story.


Success Story: Paula (alias 3004 on WLR)


Click here to see Paula before and after

Age: 38
Start Weight: 15st 8½lb
Current Weight: 12 stone
Goal Weight: 10 stone
Weight Lost: 3st 8½lb
Rate of Loss: 1lb per weekDieting History

Calorie counting armed with a book and a calculator - too fiddly.
Cambridge Diet - too impractical, effects didn't last.
Slimming World - worked up to a point, but no further.
Weight Watchers - didn't work at all for me - followed the initial strict diet plan to the letter and weirdly gained 4lbs, despite being starving every single day.
I've never been even slightly tempted to try the Atkins Diet!
I've followed the traditional yo-yo path, going up a bit each time. Whenever I diet, this seems to make my body ultra-efficient at storing fat, so the second I come off the diet and start eating normal quantities of food again, my weight shoots up, alarmingly quickly. So this time I'm trying not to treat it as a diet (i.e. a thing with an end point, after which my eating habits change) at all. Instead I'm just trying to eat a more healthy and balanced diet in the very long term. I'm hoping that this way my body won't notice what I'm up to and sabotage my weight loss. I'm trying to achieve the last couple of stone of weight loss very slowly, just creeping downwards, so that by the time I hit my maintenance weight I will already be virtually eating a maintenance calorie level. That way there won't be a very noticeable increase in my calorific intake after I reach my goal, so I should stand more chance of maintaining my goal weight. If that makes sense to anyone else!

On Being Overweight…
I have tons more energy now, and I feel far happier with the way I look. I was a size 20-22, and now am wearing a mixture of 14s and 16s for the first time in about 5 years. A much wider choice of things now fits me (and also suits me). Other people have really noticed and made positive comments. I recently got a new job, and was able to go to the interview feeling confident and looking smart in a nice tailored suit - whereas before I would have looked and felt like a blob, and would not have performed so well.



The biggest benefit for me is simply not feeling hot and sweaty all the time. When I'm fat, I'm always boiling. Last Christmas the family went to stay with my sister in Warsaw - the temperature got down to minus 20, but I still wasn't particularly cold, owing to my layers of blubber. While everyone else was wrapped up in coats and fur hats and gloves, I was fine in a t-shirt and thick jacket. Whereas going on the tube in London in the summer was a complete no-no for me - in a matter of seconds I'd look as if I'd just had a bucket of warm water thrown over me. Yuck. Now I'm looking forward to being genuinely cold this winter!



Last time I went to Alton Towers I found to my horror that I nearly didn't fit on the new ride, Oxygen, which is one of those where they have to pin you in with a big metal bar so you don't fall out. Next time I go, hopefully the guy won't have to push so hard to get the safety bar to latch shut!



There is one negative thing about a few people's reactions. Despite the fact that I'm still 2 stone heavier than my healthy target weight, and don't exactly look skinny, I've had several people claiming that I've "taken it too far". This started after I had lost only 1 stone, perhaps because I tend to lose weight off my face first. It seems that a thinner me falls outside of some people's mental comfort zone, but I figure it is up to them to adjust, and not me to apologise or stop what I am doing. I really resent this type of reaction, but find I only get it from a very few naturally thin people who don't know a thing about dieting.
Finding the Motivation
I just don't feel like me when I'm really fat. It looks totally wrong on me, and at only 5' 3" I can't carry it the way some people can. I prefer having more energy - I used to get home and lie around watching telly, wondering whether I could be bothered to cook anything (and usually concluding that it was far less effort to have a packet of crisps, or two). I'm much more active now - I go out more, but also I get more done at home, even if I am just having a quiet evening in.



Choice in clothing shops was another big incentive - and bigger sizes didn't suit me anyway even if I found things I liked.

so gals be ready to achieve your dream curves to wear whatu wanted todo from years!