Newcastle Photographer and Content Creator, Mandy Charlton, Always on a quest for adventure, often seen on buses, trains and planes. On a quest to be happier and healthier. Lives in Newcastle with her 3 cats, Iris, Maggie and Arthur. Loves good vibes, musicals and cakes. Full time professional wedding photographer in the north east of england alongside content creator on Tiktok, Instagram and Facebook

Tuesday, May 24, 2016

Why I'm leaving Slimming World


healthy sushi food, lady eating with chopsticks


Today is the first day of the rest of my life, I hear that so much, it's written all over the internet, probably in about 1 million memes and counting!  If you're a regular reader of my blog you'll notice that I have a completely new look (my blog, not me, I just had a haircut) and I think it's a conscious decision of the direction I'm going. Lots of things have happened recently to make me question who I am, where I'm going, what I'm doing, what I'm trying to achieve and whilst I don't have the answers to all of the questions I do at least know why I'm leaving Slimming World.

Slimming World has been a feature of my Tuesday, nearly every Tuesday for about 4 years, it's something I'll be forever grateful for, 3.5 stone of my life gone forever.  I loved my slimming world ladies, I still do but the time has come for me to move on, to stand on my own two feet and to trust myself not to suddenly become Fat Mandy again.  The truth is that to some people I am probably still fat, I wear a size 14 on the bottom and a14/16 on the top mostly due to my ample bosom, yes I did just say that!!

The thing about Slimming World, the bad thing, is that once you get to your target weight, you become a worrier about every single thing that you eat, especially the day before weigh in, and that's not good, I like to just trust my clothing, my new attitude to food and the fact that I walk 10-15k every day for the fun of it rather than because I feel like I need to.  When you reach your target you have a 3lb buffer zone each way, lose more than that or gain more than that and you have to start paying again, it put me in a constant state of panic and I don't think it helps with your attitude to food. I would quite often not eat on Tuesdays before weigh in, that's not a healthy mindset now is it?  I don't think it's going to teach my girls about the right way to live and eat and after you have lost so much weight and maintained that weight for over a year I believe that by going every week I'm actually doing myself too much damage to continue.

I hate scales, I hate getting weighed but I'll continue to weigh myself just once a week, I need to check that I am maintaining (there or thereabouts) but after a year I think I might have cracked it. I've definitely changed my attitude towards the stuff I put in my body although I'll freely admit I'll never be a size 10 because I just love cake too much but at my last health check (yes, I know, I'm ancient) I passed all of the tests with glowing colours and my doctor thinks I'm a great weight and body shape for my age (11st4 - 11st7, just in case you're nosy, ha).

Another reason for leaving is that I haven't actually been doing the Slimming World plan for a couple of years because I believe that low fat is actually mostly evil and loaded with sugar (yeah, I know, cake is also loaded with sugar but at least it doesn't pretend to be healthy) I mostly try to eat clean, to have animal fats like butter and whole milk and yoghurt and to eat lots of fresh veg and wholemeal bread whilst keeping refined sugars to a minimum, it's the junk food that is the problem, the hidden sugars and low fat is one of the biggest culprits of hidden sugar, I'd rather have natural yoghurt thanks very much!

So onwards I go, beginning a brand new journey of being responsible for my own body, when it comes down to it, it really is about eating the right things and doing a little exercise every day, and whilst Holly Bobbins is by my side it's unlikely I'll ever be able to sit still for too long.

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