My Relationship with my Body...

So I'm going to start this post by explaining my general diet from a young age. I was incredibly spoilt and undisciplined which essentially meant whatever I wanted to eat I could. I remember having two pan au chocolats for breakfast EVERY morning without fail. Accompanied by a lunch of 3 packets of crisps, 2 penguin bars and a bottle of Oasis. I rarely ate fruit or veg, and to be honest I probably barely ate meat either, since cheese on toast was a staple dinner of mine. It makes me shiver just thinking about it now. But I was young, and had a fantastic metabolism, so naturally when I never put on weight from it all, I thought I was invincible! I mean, no child is going to sit there and eat meat and veg for every meal, so I realise I'm probably not that different from most kids, but I definitely could have been on a better diet than I was! And hopefully, when I have kids, I'll be able to implement some kind of nutrition into their diet, in between penguin bars!!
As I began to grow into my teenage years, I realised I was still amongst the skinniest of my friends. However there was one major difference between me and 90% of the girls surrounding me, they had begun to develop and hit puberty. I waited and waited, after being comforted with terms like 'late developer' but when I eventually hit about 17 I realised I still wasn't resembling a woman in any way. Not only did I still have the body of a little boy, but I still hadn't even started my period! Much to my dismay since it was such a grown up thing, and I was missing out! (I should have counted my blessings!!) Eventually I developed a hint of some kind of irregular cycle, but trust me, not enough to even recognise as a time of the month! P.s Sorry if this is major TMI (too much info) for you, but I'm a completely honest and open person and so this is what you get for enjoying my blog ha! I was forced into thinking this was just me, and maybe I would always just have a lack of female hormones, essentially being flat chested and having no proper biological cycle! However, I can tell you now this is NOT normal! The only reason people think it is normal is because most women have irregularities, the important difference to note is that this is common NOT normal. And in fact most women are irregular and need to fix it, not accept it!
So my next step of action was to go to the doctor and naturally they put me straight on the contraceptive pill. And yes, this treated the symptoms, and I've been reliant on it for the past 3 years, essentially because it controls my cycle to the hour. At the end of the day though, it is synthetic hormones, and the cause of my problems were still not being addressed, however I had completely ignored the idea that I still had problems as I was perfectly happy with my engineered cycle. Another major problem with the pill, is all the side effects, bad skin, weight gain/loss, headaches, you name it! And this is because the pill can only increase oestrogen/progesterone in your body, it doesn't in fact address all the other imbalances in your body which have led to hormonal chaos!
By now, I am feeling like a proper girl, but absolutely hating my body shape. There I am, with the smallest waist in the world, defined abs, and BOOM, a serious bulk of fat around my legs and bum. Again, I was humoured into thinking this was just my natural pear shaped body. NO! Humans are not fruits, they are people with bad diets. In fact these body shapes can actually signpost for symptoms. And finding out that my exact body shape is typical of someone with hormonal imbalances on the pill has been a revolutionary thing for me, because my hatred of my thunder thighs and pear-shape are not in fact something I have to live with, but something tangible that I can fix! Welcome to the world of body composition! For so long, I thought that eating nothing and doing a million and one side lunges would get rid of my most hated body part, and I can tell you after 2 years of intense gym sessions, it hasn't changed my legs one bit. I'd tried everything, counting and limiting calories, I even ate nothing but Melon, three meals a day for a whole summer and people noticed I had lost weight but thats because my rib cage was so prominent and my arms/face were more defined, however this bad diet was still causing my hormone imbalances, which were still causing me to have big hips which is the only bit I focused on. So for me, nothing had changed after starving myself for so long! And of course as soon as you start looking thinner to others, yet have the illusion of no change, the eating disorder accusations start to be thrown at you, which leave you feeling worse because no one enjoys being accused of having an eating disorder.
Another HUGE factor that has caused my many problems, is Stress. Obviously everyone suffers from stress, and although I won't go into it, I've not had the best time emotionally in recent years! And it all plays a huge factor, as stress causes such damaging effects on the body physically, and one problem is that a stressed body uses progesterone up to try and fix itself, and a lack of progesterone in the body leads straight back to my hormonal imbalances! So as you can see, no amount of starving/spin classes would have ever solved my problems because I was looking in totally the wrong places for answers! And if I had never have been told about this, I would still be torturing myself with cardio and no food in the hope of some relief.
So its at this point I'd like to say a HUGE thank you to Luke Hagreen for completely changing my outlook on food, my body and my life! For those of you who don't know him, he is a personal trainer/ nutrition specialist/ all round great guy! So if you also want your life changing, I'll link everything at the end of the post!
Turns out, starving myself and doing my most hated thing (cardio!) was the worst thing I could have been doing all along! Because the thing I had been totally ignorant to, is that if I wanted to be normal, and have the perfect body, I needed to have optimal health and the perfect diet! So eating melon for a whole summer was not a good shout ha!


So the big question now, is how I go about fixing it? And it comes down to the absolute basics, which although seem completely obvious, have been forgotten over time!

The first step I have taken is to come off the pill. The idea of going back to my sixteen year old self who didn't have a cycle or any biological functioning scares the life out of me, but Luke has promised me that it can be regulated with the following things, so I'm trusting in him, and the magical properties of good food...

1) Diet!
After some intensive health questionnaires which poor Luke had to spend hours analysing and devising solutions, I have been put on a balanced, three meal  + 2 snacks diet plan. This (mentally) is a huge increase of food for someone who is used to restricting themselves. But calories are not to be focused on. 2000 good nutritious calories will be way more beneficial to your body, than 1000 calories worth of junk. And such a low calorie diet puts stress on your body anyway!  For my particular body type and goals, I am now on a high fat, high protein diet with carbs as well! This is completely personal, so do not follow my diet plan and expect to have the same results. You need to be personally assessed.
My diet now contains a lot of 'Good Fats' such as gold top milk, full fat unprocessed cheese, Avocado and more Nuts! (I have developed a small Almond addiction!) This is because these good fats and cholesterol are used in the process of creating hormones! So I need as much as I can get!!!!!
The other major difference is that I am now eating actual meals (as opposed to toast!) three times a day. So for example, my breakfast this morning was Scrambled duck eggs with butter, Chorizo, peppers and mushrooms! And Im eating meat and veg for every meal in some form!
A few important notes I wish to include are that it is important to find good produce. This includes butter from grass fed cows! Now I use to laugh at this thought, but obviously if cows are being fed with hormones, their produce is going to have hormones in and then guess what goes into my already imbalanced body? This also effects meat, so its important to find good sources to buy your meat from too! I made my first trip to the local butchers this week!
Another note, that applies for all people concerned about their health, (which I had no clue about before this plan) is that in order to reach optimal health, you have to subject your body to a wide variety of meats and animal/plant sources as they all contain several different yet beneficial amino acids. This means that eating chicken for every meal will not be as beneficial as eating a wide variety of meats such as lamb, game, chicken, turkey, fish etc. I know its hard, as getting a diet plan on track requires routine and routine is why most people end up eating the same things! But once you get this basic level of knowledge about nutrition, its so easy to start eating well!
Obviously my meals are portioned, and so although I seem to be eating a lot of food, and high fat foods, it will in fact aid fat loss and most importantly help sort my health which leads to numerous benefits such as complexion! (Something I was previously trying to fix with £50 face creams and make up products!) This all sounds too good to be true, but when you think about it, humans were put on this earth, to eat from natural sources, so of course they are going to be the answer! And we all know humans have to eat to survive, so why diet is looked at as a small part of health is ridiculous!
Theres a million things I haven't included in this like inflammatory foods like Caffeine, Gluten and Dairy which contribute to gut health and thus digestive functioning, but I'm not qualified nor do I have all night to go any further into this. So the main take home message is INVEST IN YOUR NUTRITION from someone who is qualified, it is the most central thing a person can do for themselves.

Don't get me wrong, I struggle with this so much. Ofcourse I want to eat chocolate every second of the day. And the second I experience any kind of emotional knock, I binge. And it makes me so guilty, which leads to more binging and before you know it, I've eaten a kilo of Jazzies. And unfortunately this  doesn't just mean I've gone over my calories, it has completely ruined my glucose levels which I have been working so hard to stabilise. And it also has probably inflamed my gut since they're full of nasties. So its something I'm really trying hard to work on, and hopefully by minimising stress, I can help avoid these lows! Or find something such as cheese as my naughty food which I can eat instead, which actually fits into my diet plan!

2) Sleep!
Something I am qualified to talk about thanks to my Psychology degree course! Sleep is something we have taken for granted. But have you not ever wondered why we have to completely shut down each day for hours? Our bodies need time to recover, and if you're working out a lot, your muscles need time to repair. This is when all the nutrients you've consumed from your diet can start to work on your body! So if you're pairing a good diet, with a good amount of sleep, your body is going to love you! Growth hormones peak during sleep, so its important to have optimal sleep. The perfect peak time is 10.30pm. I know this is early, but if you are genuinely serious about your health, you HAVE to implement this. Obviously it's hard if you currently have a very young child, but thats not the majority!
Good ways to aid getting to sleep are to stay away from stimulation. This includes TV, Laptops, iPhones etc! (I am being a huge martyr here as I am an iPhone addict!) but I've recently been using the Do Not Disturb function and seriously trying to have a break from it before sleep! You have to let your body relax before it will be ready to sleep, so that involves some serious down time an hour before! (About now actually, So I better hurry up and finish this post!)
Another problem is waking up in the night and needing the loo, if this is you, then stop your fluid intake in the evening! As long as you have drank enough (2-3L) in the day then this won't be a problem

3) Stress
Stress is a response very beneficial in dangerous situations. For example, if a lion is chasing you, you need that release of adrenalin to get you away and fast! However, the release of these powerful hormones such as Cortisol, are not supposed to be constantly at work in the body. And prolonged release of these (due to high levels of daily stress) has such damaging effects on the body. Another problem that arises due to this is digestive dysfunction. When you're stressed, your blood is being used to aid the stress response, instead of being diverted to the gut to digest the food you've just eaten. So in this case, it doesn't matter how good a diet you're eating if you're not able to digest it properly! And stress also will mean you're not sleeping, and thus we have a domino effect!

Something Luke suggested, which I had kinda been doing already but am taking more seriously now. Is to sit in bed and write down all the things you have to do the next day, all the people you have to contact, your schedule, things to remember, anything that you will worry about before sleeping! Its also handy to plan your meals for the day, and then during the day to keep a food diary as well, as this will help track intolerances etc. But I have found this really helps, as I always end up awake worrying that I will forget what jobs I need to do the next day! I even write down my lecture times etc, so when I wake up I don't worry about what the day is, and what lectures I have and if I need to remember to bring something with me to Uni etc, as its all written down for me!

4) Exercise
So as you know I am a bit of a gym addict. And for me, its not about the body, its totally a therapy thing. Just taking that time out and focusing on my body and exerting energy (thus diverting my stress into exercise) is the only thing that keeps me together! However, the amount of training I have reached is ridiculous and not optimal for my health and goals at all. So I have been told to cut down my training to 3/4 sessions a week! (God knows what I'll do on the other 3/4 other days now!) And to reduce my cardio to a minimum. (Again this is totally specific to me!) This seemed completely alien to a girl who is obsessed with losing weight, but that much training and high impact cardio stresses your body, and Im doing this to myself every day, sometimes twice a day! So no wonder my body cannot cope! So I'm now going to be doing a lot more resistance/heavy weight based training (cue girls that lifts memes).
Exercise is important, but really its easy to work out and gain muscle tone. Its the diet/health that is imperative and should come way before exercise. And you need a lot of calories to train, so a low calorie diet is not going to work if you wanna work out! So the whole no eating, more working out thing thats been drummed into us for years just isn't right!

So I better practice was I preach and get an early night, therefore I'm going to conclude by saying that I am not qualified in any of this. I just have developed a huge passion for it, and try and get as much information from trusted sources as I can. I have these mentioned in my previous post on the general public and health.

I'd also like to take this opportunity to say a huge thanks to Luke. If I hadn't have met him, I'd still be starving myself, and honestly hating myself. He's taught me to love food, and has improved my health and knowledge of health in the long run which is priceless. He's definitely going in the book of important people I've met in my life.

So naturally I now have to plug C5 fitness. As you can tell, I have learnt more here in a month, than I learnt for 2 years at other gyms. This is the first place to have introduced me to the idea of health alongside providing amazing training and fitness programmes. If I'd have never joined, I would still be turning up to uninspiring classes at Franchise gyms hoping one day to be thin and eating all the wrong things! This place WILL change your life, and for the better! I also have to mention Craig Dixon, who also co-owns it with Luke and mainly specialises in Sport therapy and recovery. He is an incredibly inspirational person, and has helped my friend Jane so much with her goals of getting back into fitness after a hip replacement. Its amazing how much you can defy medical boundaries with the right advice! Its so refreshing to finally have one place where you can be given the right advice, in all areas of health and fitness and if I may say, for an incredible price! I cannot praise everyone at C5 enough for what they do, but as I said, I've been there 2 months and it's turned my life around. You can't argue with living evidence!

VISIT THIS LINK, ITS THE BEST THING YOU'LL EVER DO! http://www.c5fitness.com

(if you have any questions, feel free to ask me!)

So theres my ridiculously long post on my relationship with my body, and I will no doubt be blogging on my progress in the future, as health is a never ending journey (well until you die ;)!)

And who knows, if this all works, I may have to change the name of this blog since I'll no longer have thunder thighs!

Goodnight! xxx