MY FITNESS JOURNEY | Weight Loss & Finding Balance

Okay I feel like I have put this video off for the longest time but today I'm going to share going right back to the beginning to where we are now. I've had to write notes for this video not just any notes, highlighted notes. I feel like it's kind of hard because obviously it's kind of like compressing so much and I don't know about you but any fitness journey is just never ever Trying to compress that into a video and thinking of how to do that is kind of difficult so I just want to talk to you about the highs the lows and where it all began. So some background to start with as a child like since I can remember I've always had a really big appetite literally dating back to my baby pictures I'm there with like two ice creams in my hand I always seem to have food or like something sweet chocolate ice cream you name it it was all over my face always in my hands and that's kind of like a joke in the family and I actually think that comes back to my dad because he used to give us all the same portion sizes like me my dad my brother would always have the same size portions so whenever I'd go to like friends houses I remember coming home sometimes and being like oh my goodness I was starving after dinner last night dad like they don't really eat that much having an appetite has always been something I'm aware of and I've always been able to put away like a lot of food so any of my friends and family can vouch for me on this one even now I'm very capable of putting a lot of food away growing up I was quite active like I was sporting school but not sort of someone to do hella extracurricular like activities like I did netball for a while but it wasn't something I did every single week as a kid I had these huge like little chipmunk cheeks and I had like a lot of baby fat I was just quite like a chubby kid I wasn't really bothered I was quite confident happy when I turned about 12 I got really into horse riding I went horse riding one time fell absolutely in love with that and that was like the first proper hobby that I was absolutely obsessed with I would spend all my time at the stables like looking after the horses going like to and from the field so I was very active at that point I started competing doing like horse riding competitions show jumping so around age 12 to 13 I had changed school and everything and I feel like that's when things really started to change in terms of like I became a bit more conscious about like my body I was a bit more aware and I noticed that everyone around me kind of like hit puberty and I was like hang on a sec where's my period at I hadn't started my period and I was quite late I feel like I was still this like chubby little like girl I still looked really young at this point and all my friends had like transformed and here I was like oh my god hello puberty are you coming or what and then boom in weeks I my period started and I literally just like puberty just transformed my whole face my whole body my chubby cheeks just like disappeared overnight basically quite lanky I suddenly went quite like slim and skinny and at this point I was still very active so I think it was a bit of a mixture of like puberty and also just being really active and not really thinking about food because I was always outside with my friends I don't think I was eating enough and probably just under eating as well like unconsciously and I remember constantly being told oh my god you're like a completely different person which is quite weird to hear because obviously you don't see it yourself but I was left right center like family friends friends at school or people like oh my Olivia used to have those big two cheeks like what happened age like 15 16 I actually moved out of home and went through like a bit of trauma I'd say like I didn't speak to my family for over nine months which at that age was like quite intense going through just a bit of like a rebellious phase I'd say but I think all I think we all go through that you know at some point when you're younger and moved in with like this boyfriend I had at the time really weird he was a lot older it was just bizarre I was definitely less active and this is when I definitely put on quite a lot of weight which I didn't really see happening if that makes sense but I was working like a lot of hours at this pub which were quite late I wasn't sleeping very well I had no knowledge about foods or like nutrition at this point probably my most chunky so that takes me like through sixth form I was eating a lot I was just getting like packs of cookies every day like like a four pack you know and big round ones like when I was in sixth form on my lunch break or whatever a long ago on meals and stuff and I just kind of like hit me like a ton of bricks I was like oh god like I've really put on weight and it was the first time in my life that I felt quite chunky around 17 I got a gym membership and started going for the first time like properly or when I say properly I thought I was going properly like I didn't really know what I was doing I had no like plan or structure train lower body like my glutes and just do squats every single time I went to the gym didn't really increase my weight and I'd go and like the Stairmaster do bits and bobs but I saw some changes and like maybe a little bit of weight loss but didn't really back it up with my nutrition like at that point I still had the mentality like oh if I've been to the gym that I can go and get 20 chicken nuggets from McDonald's and I'm still going to either like lose weight or no chicken nuggets are going to go straight to my glutes. At 18 I went to uni to study business management in London and I got my first little studio flat with like a little cooking area and stuff like that probably not the best decision to move like to a studio flat completely on my own um but I'm glad I did it now if that makes sense but at the time I didn't really know what would come with all of that at first I was really excited I'm gonna be able to cook my own meals I'm gonna get in really good shape and I'm not gonna like order takeaways and stuff like that I got my first like cooking book and tried cooking like healthier meals but I just didn't really understand like about calories so in terms of like meals and stuff I remember making like my first few meals in the weeks I moved there and I had like three large avocados with it and I was just spooning it out like a creme egg of a avocado thinking that that was really healthy but they're actually they're really good for you but they're very calorie dense so I think I was eating like big portions and I would make like you know them enchilada kits you can get that like serve I think like four to five people and obviously because I was living on my own and this was the first few weeks I didn't know any people I was just eating the whole serving size and that's something I've always had from being younger like if I've ever had stuff in like whether it was a cake it's never there for long it's always fully eaten that was a bit of a struggle that I never really knew about until I lived on my own I wouldn't have any like self-discipline to just like have a small portion I'd just eat the whole lot in terms of fitness at that point I did have like a gym in like the complex where I lived and stuff it was pretty minimal and and it was pretty much the same like I used to do like some lower body exercises mainly all like glute focused and I'd just run on the treadmill just no sort of structure then the party lifestyle commenced and I was just drinking all the time getting lots of takeaways like after nights out just living off like fish fingers chicken dippers all of that the weight just piled on pretty quickly which I think is quite normal for a lot of people when you first go to uni because it's such a big like drastic lifestyle change mentally physically every kind of way then after that whole stint where I'd put on quite a lot of like noticeable weight and I was just feeling really lethargic I had the worst like cystic acne which really got me down and I didn't want to leave like my room for so long I had like oh it was awful and I think it was just a mixture of like bad diet my diet basically consisted of like a lot of carbs I didn't have any like proteins or fats in there got myself quite down and really low 18 19 was when I just sort of knew something had to change I walked past a new gym that was opening on the same road as me and it looked so good it had loads of equipment and I thought right this is it I really want to join this new gym that was when I started really looking into fitness and like what style of fitness I wanted to do tried a lot of like HIIT stuff before I'd done some like weighted stuff but mainly just like for lower body hadn't even thought about doing like shoulders back or like training anything else and I kind of wanted this impossible figure at the time which was to lose a load of weight but also to grow a bum which is very much like two contrasting things and I think that's probably what slowed my progress down for a long time I was yo-yoing between the two learned a lot just by going on YouTube watching how to do the moves and sort of like learning that way and then I was doing some cardio on top of that so I was doing a lot of like full body stuff still like a massive glute focus I remember seeing a little bit of progress and I was absolutely hooked from there like the way the exercise made me feel for the first few times I still remember that now like mentally it completely just changed everything really it did get a bit excessive so once I've seen that first little bit of progress I was like oh my god I want more like I wanted to lose more weight so that was when I became quite obsessed with losing weight I was down that gym like two times a day and I really started like excessive exercising I lost a lot of weight and like my family noticed it and they were like oh my god what are you doing I was like oh I've just been going to the gym so when I really lost the weight and so many people were telling me like oh you look amazing uh you look so much healthier blah blah blah and I was feeling a lot happier that was when I became really worried about putting the weight back on and I didn't want to go back to that because I didn't really actually know how I'd lost the weight or like what really worked for me when it did probably just come down to I wasn't eating as much and I was doing a lot of ridiculous exercise that was when I became very obsessive with food so I turned to kind of like restricting myself which was so so ridiculous I would make these like ridiculous rules up about chocolate I wouldn't be allowed like carbs for a few days and then I'd have I'd end up having a big blowout or like I'd get a friend to come over we'd get a takeaway I'd end up eating like a whole large pizza to myself and like four cookies all at once and then a bottle of wine or something and then I would feel rubbish about doing that just felt a bit not happy with like how things going I felt like I'd lost like my bum altogether and I felt like that was quite flat I was still doing these like low body workouts and I was couldn't understand why I didn't have this huge bum and it was just like a lack of knowledge looking back and a lack of awareness it did get quite bad because I then decided to do a season in Marbella in Spain with one of my best friends just like a party season basically and before we're going now I was like oh I'm going to be bikini all the time so I wanted to lose more weight and have like a flat stomach I wasn't eating much I remember days like I would just have like a pack of like rivita biscuits or something like that and then like loads of diet drinks that went on for a good few months I did the season in Spain where I was just like drinking all the time that was the first time obviously since I started like going to the gym where I didn't go to the gym at all and so I was very worried that I was going to put on a lot of weight so I think that's why I didn't eat so much whilst I was over there tapes me up to coming back from Marbella going into my second year of uni and I was about to move back down to London when things kind of changed I didn't want to go back down there and I remember feeling like oh I can't go on like this and I had a real mindset shift and I'm so thankful that happened because that can be quite a difficult place to sort of get out from but I knew I just I wasn't I wasn't happy my body wasn't happy being skinny wanted to get into a better place of eating because obviously when I was a kid and stuff I never used to think about food so that was where it all began and around 19 I met Mason and he's been a professional player he's qualified PT but like very knowledgeable he studied biochemistry so the first few weeks we met him went to the gym together and I looked at what he ate and I really sort of like had a massive influence on my mindset and I spoke to him a lot about food and it really showed me how I just had a lack of understanding I never really looked into the biology of like muscle gaining weight loss you know calorie deficit so that's where all of that kind of started really looking into more of the like biology side and I found it really interesting as well and that's when I was looking for a really good like PT course to do that kind of thing so that's where my knowledge really took into place which was the best thing I ever did you spend so long like dipping in and out trying so many different techniques listening to so many people's opinions when it just comes down to realizing you do kind of need to try stuff but do what works for you because it's not a one size fits all initially Mason set me a gym plan and also like we looked at my diet and we realized I was just living off carbohydrates basically still have a lot of carbohydrates now but I've got a lot more like proteins and fats and it's so much more balanced so this was when I did my first ever book because I wanted to grow my lower body and increase my strength with like my lifts and stuff and I'd gone from I was constantly feeling lethargic like before all this and Mason helped me form like my first sort of like bulking plan I set my calories for the first time which I hadn't really done before but because I'd come from like feeling like I was quite restricted before I didn't want to like go back into that mentality but obviously like in a different frame of mind if that makes any so I would probably say I did quite I ate a lot more but I was more intuitively eating and like kind of like a more like a flexible diet I would say and I did gain quite a lot and I was quite comfortable with that so it was very invigorating or like I felt a lot healthier within myself my skin got better so it was a big transition and I'm just so glad that like my mindset really changed because I think you've got to want to change from within so that worked out basically a full year of bulking and putting on size muscle mass which I'm really happy with like how that went training split back then was following like a weight lifting program back then was training legs like three times a week which is pretty intense and then two upper body days which was quite a new thing that I hadn't really trained like specifically upper body before but I'm so glad I did that because that's helped so much with like creating a physique you see there were so many ups and downs like whilst I was doing that it was quite tricky when I was bulking and seeing that I was gaining I didn't really look at the scales too much I've never really been obsessive with scales to be honest bringing that to 2019 where I was probably the biggest I've ever been but I felt like I put on some good muscle and I felt really good from within which I think is the most important thing like my mindset is the biggest transformation out of all of this I would say 2019 I did travel quite a lot so I was training where I could when I can to try and cut in 2019 but I don't think I was very consistent with it and I was calorie counting but I didn't do my proteins carbs and fats and I didn't really experiment with them to see what worked for me so I still probably had like a lot of carbs and not the most balanced meals like meal plans didn't really get on with those I tried like a few different ways of eating it just I haven't really found my my thing yet which is absolutely fine which brings me on to this year where we are now where I've had the most progression I've put some pictures on the screen and that has really come down to like a few different factors one I will always say like just being consistent consistent and having a goal in mind making sure that goal's for you not swapping and changing every two minutes I want to say this year's where I've really seen the most results which has been a result of obviously the book that I did where I gained some good muscle mass but also doing what works for me like so Mason obviously had a massive influence when I first started out and I took a lot of what he's found like works for him into my own like nutrition and workouts which is great but some of those things don't actually suit me because we're all so different we all have different ways it's not a one size one lifestyle because at the end of the day I feel like with fitness it's not a diet or a workout that's going to change or get you results it's literally a lifestyle that you find enjoyable that you can actually sustain so this year I just focused on like a few things for example I love having chocolate every day you can always incorporate the things you enjoy the most into your nutrition and diet you should never exclude like one solid food group it's not one solid food group that's the enemy it's your whole mindset towards all of that and not having a restrictive diet this is probably in the first year that I've been able to have like whatever I want in my cupboards before I used to struggle to have chocolate bars in because I'd be wanting to eat the whole thing at once and so yeah again it's a lot of like mind work just creating a lifestyle that you really enjoy making sure your workouts are like what you enjoy there's so many different ways there's boxing there's hip workouts there's like plyo doesn't have to be just weight lifting but find what you actually enjoy what your body responds to so something quite new that's been a massive game changer is realizing that I wasn't living the most active lifestyle during the day because I mainly sat on my laptop working away and I'll get one you know like my workout and I work out like five times a week and I was thinking why I'm not seeing much progression it was mainly just from not really moving during the day so much so increasing my daily step count has really helped me like in every way mentally as well it doesn't have to be like just getting outside on a walk you can clean your house or like do your gardening or take your dog out on a walk there's loads of ways to increase like your activity level because I think a lot of people make that mistake that they'll go off someone else's calories or calorie someone else's calorie deficit and think that that's going to make them lose weight when in reality we all have very different activity levels so since combining my obviously like my workout split with my nutrition so I calculated obviously like my macros and stuff like proteins carbs fats made sure all my meals had those three in and just had more like balanced foods I wasn't feeling as hungry all the time I got a lot better results I have really found that having a high protein diet really suits my body so they're things that have really helped me in so many ways by no means am I saying like if you're someone who's not got the healthiest or best relationship with food at the moment to go and start tracking your calories macros whatever so that's my approach to it all there's so much to it I feel like I hope I haven't missed anything that was like a big point but it's a tricky video to do but let me know if you would like to see any more like sit down videos like this if there is anything else you would like to know yeah I really hope you enjoyed this video and I hope it's helpful and everything so I think I have mentioned everything I wanted to I hope I haven't forgotten anything because there's so much to cover in this kind of video do let me know if you'd like to know anything else about like my fitness journey or anything that would be helpful for you right now I'd be really happy to do so I'd love you to stick around and join the fam subscribe and if you haven't already don't forget to like this video and I'll see you in the next one