How I lost 50kg / 121 lbs

Hi! And welcome to my personal blog! I will dive straight into business here, I have lost 50kg in a little bit over a year's time and decided it has become time to start about blog about how much my life has changed. I wish I started this from the very beginning, but if I have learned anything from this journey, it is that it is a process and it's never too late to start! So here goes:





My name is Natasha and I am a 28 year old South African living in the Netherlands. I am also a mommy to a nearly 4 year old and a 14 month old.I currently weigh 60kg (132lbs). I used to however weight 110kg (242lbs). This is how I lost it: I grew up in South Africa and I always played sports and we ate like a normal average family would. I was always abit chubby and bigger than my friends, but as I participated in sports my weight never seemed to be a concern. When I finished school I moved to Germany and here I continued to play hockey but I kept piling on weight (thank you pretzels and beer!). During this time I met my husband and eventually we moved to the Netherlands. We enjoyed going out for dinner often and our kitchen cupboards were always filled with chocolate and chips. I got pregnant and then offcourse saw this as an excuse to stuff my face even more as I was eating for 2 after all. I had an extremely tough labour and delivery with many complications and I do believe that my weight played a big part in this. Being a new parent was tough, I was constantly tired and this lead to convenience food and basically eating crap. During this time I believe I was the heaviest I have ever been but I never stepped foot on a scale so I can't be sure exactly but I estimate that I was weighing around 125kg (275lbs).






I decided to join a gym and I even joined weight watchers (this lasted for 2 months before I gave up!). I did however continue going to the gym, I was mainly doing group lessons like Club Step and Spinning. I did lose some weight but again I would not know as I never weighed myself. I then unexpectedly got pregnant again. This time I decided that I did not want to eat as much as I did the fist time round and I continued doing Step aerobics up to 37 weeks! The pregnancy was alot easier on me, but I did however need a c-section this time. 5 weeks after baby 2 was born I was back in the gym and I am not sure what made me do it but I decided to weigh myself. I got on the scale and i looked down in horror as it showed 111kg. I knew I was heavy but I never expected to see these numbers. My thoughts were that people on TV-shows like obese and the biggest loser weighed this much and I didn't believe that I looked like any of those people. I started doing some research and I came across a Facebook group called Sleekgeek. Sleekgeek is a South African social community offering support on healthy lifestyle goals. I joined the group and was amazed at all the unbelievable transformations people had already achieved. I started going to the gym more regularly (I was still only doing group lessons) and I decided to start paying attention to what I eat. The weight quickly started dropping and I was enjoying going to the gym. At this point I was eating clean unprocessed foods and this was a big struggle as I constantly craved my usual yummies like Oreos and pizza. I would end up binging and then after feeling guilty I would change back to my clean eating habits. I was still however steadily losing weight and starting following fitness related pages and people on Facebook and Instagram. I desperately wanted to look like these girls and from my research I learned that lifting weights was the way to go to achieve this. I never sat foot in the weight section of a gym and always believed it was only meant for men. I mean women who lift weights are sure to become big, scary and overly tanned bodybuilders? I am unsure of what convinced me to try this, but I decided to give it a try. I was offcourse still terrified of the man-section of the gym, so I decided to get a personal trainer. This poor man has had to put up with me moaning and cursing for the last year, but I am so grateful to him! He opened a whole new world to me and slowly the men with their big dumbbells and huffing and puffing noises started to become less scary. He introduced me to flexible dieting aka IIFYM (if it fits your macros). I was training with him 2 a week and I was continuing with my group lessons like Step Aerobics. The weight started coming off and I started to see definition in my body. I slowly started trading in my group lessons for an hour of training in the scary man part of the gym and my weight continued to drop. 10months into weight lifting and I feel amazing-strong and lean! (And I have not turned into a overly tanned big and scary bodybuilder chick yet!) I am in the gym 5-6 times per week and I am in control of my diet. Flexible dieting has kept me from binging as If I feel like having chocolate I can calculate it into my macros and this has worked great! My original goal was to get down to 75kg (165lbs) but I have gone down to 60kg (132lbs) with ease. For me the weight does not matter as much any more as I just want to become lean and strong. Also a visible 6-pack would be great. This is my story of how I lost it, now follow me in my journey as I maintain and improve!