I’ve always loved to travel, and have been lucky enough to travel through the UK & Europe, USA, South America, South East Asia, the South Pacific, New Zealand and Australia. I however, like many have fought an ongoing battle with my weight over the years. Here’s my story and how losing weight has helped me gain so much more from every opportunity and experience I am given whilst travelling and also every single day.
I’ve always loved to travel.
My love of overseas travel began when my parents first took us to New
Zealand when I was 11 years old. My love of travel began much earlier
than that on our annual family holidays to the coast. I was born on the
coast and my love of the ocean, beach and water began before I could
even walk or talk. Moving inland for my dad’s job meant our family
holidays to the beach were some of the best memories of my childhood.
I was always a happy, active child however during my college years my
unhealthy lifestyle took it’s toll on my body, and the weight piled on.
For me it was a constant vicious cycle of binge eating, emotional
eating, late nights whether studying or partying, excessive alcohol and
general unhappiness with myself and a growing hatred of my body.
I was at my biggest when I set off on a six week backpacking holiday
with three of my best friends to South East Asia in 2011. A mixture of
my accident prone nature, unluckiness and my weight led me to breaking
my ankle at a Full Moon Party in Thailand on New Years Eve.
It took a lot of rehab for my ankle to recover but it is now stronger
than ever. My weight slowly started to go down from here but it was
still a good 12 months before I began to take control of my health and
lifestyle.
Over the years I have tried every quick fix under the sun – weight loss
shakes, diet pills, fasting, over exercising, weight loss teas.
Everything. Some work, mostly for a short period of time but once you
stop you gain back all the weight, plus more normally.
It was in 2012 that I found clean eating. I found it through Ashy Bines
Clean Eating program. I am not an advocate for her but that is how I
first found out about clean eating. From here I did my own research,
found numerous other healthy websites, Facebook groups & books. I
educated myself, increased my knowledge of clean eating and worked on
focusing on my diet. I now realise that diet truly is the main thing,
you really cannot out exercise a bad diet. For me however, the word
“diet” is a bad, negative & emotionally-laden word. I am not on a diet – I have
completely revolutionised and changed my entire lifestyle.
Exercise was hard at first, but having friends who were willing to come
walking and be gym buddies helped. I’m now confident enough to hit the
gym on my own! I love going to the gym, going for a walk or a swim and
seeing people of all ages, sizes and abilities making a positive change
to their lives. I now love exercise! Who would have thought?!
I hid behind my weight and unhappy lifestyle for so long and through so
many overseas travels. I am the person I am now because of that but I do know I could have embraced those
experiences so much more. This drives me to continue on my weightloss
journey to the healthiest me possible so that I can make the most of
every opportunity to come my way in the future, including a ridiculous
amount of travelling!
Last year I took off overseas with my best friend for six months. We
worked in US Summer Camps, travelled America and backpacked though South
America. For me, this was one of the best experiences of my life and a
true testament to how far I have come. My best friend has been with me
the whole time and not ever loved me any less for my size, and has been a
true rock for me (along with many others) and it was incredible to
experience this with her as a confident, normal happy twenty-something.
As crazy as it is too at that stage I had lost more weight than the
combined total of our two huge backpacks we were lugging around!
Hiking the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu has always been at the top of my
bucket list and I knew it was something I needed to be at optimal health
to do. For someone who used to get puffed walking a few hundred metres
this seemed impossible. With the help of my best friend and incredible
guide I was able to tick this off my bucket list, something that a few
years ago never would have happened!
My confidence also meant I was able be myself and meet so many
incredible people and friends all over the world, including my wonderful
English boyfriend.
To date I have lost 55kg, had thousands of slip ups along the way, still
have about 15kg to lose but am happier than ever. It hasn’t been easy,
in fact it’s been bloody hard, but I know because I have done it the
healthy way I will NEVER go back to how I was. It’s only up (in a plane
haha) or down (on the scales) from here! I’m a completely different person to who I used to be and loving every minute of this journey!
I’d love to hear any fellow weightloss journey stories particularly from
my fellow travelers and wanderlusters out there!
Find us: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | Pinterest | Google+ | Bloglovin
