Baby Steps or Massive Action

Just do something.

 Crawl if you have to.

I recently posted on social media my past 6 years of transformation. It was a short post with ‘before and after’ photos. The before photos I was extremely overweight and exhausted. You can literally see my sunken eyes, even though I was smiling my eyes said it all. I….WAS….EXHAUSTED. I was unhealthy. I wasn’t taking care of my body. I wasn’t listening to my body. I kept going.

I also added a more recent photo of me. I am “bigger” than when I lost all the weight 6 years ago but not as overweight as when I began. During covid lockdown I decided I was no longer going to keep colouring my hair dark brown to cover all the grey. I shaved the sides and back of my head to nearly bald. I bleached what was left of my hair and began to turn it white, then pink, then white, and so on. My hair even transformed. It has been so much fun changing the colour and style.

However, one thing the before photos do not show, or maybe they do if you look closely is my stress level. Even though I am ‘smiling’ the weight of the world seemed to rest on my shoulders, or at least it felt that way. Can you relate?

You see, what I do not want to ‘show to the world’ or to my friends who take time to look at my posts, is that I only changed my eating and exercise habits as if weight was the only thing that needed changing. The weight was only a biproduct of what was going on inside.

I made a decision to take massive action.

I started with a vision. I envisioned what I would feel like once I lost the weight. How I would enjoy shopping for clothes again. How my IBS would be manageable (little did I know it would go away). I envisioned having energy to make it through the day without a ton of coffee (which doesn’t help IBS by the way). It sucks when you go out and think, “Let me make sure I know where all the toilets are.” Sorry, not sorry. IBS can be very debilitating. I won’t even go into the daily headache issue or my inflamed joints.

I envisioned SLEEP. As an insomniac of 20+ years, I envisioned what that might feel like to sleep. To sleep through the night. It was hard to envision all of these things but I was desperate. I was sick and tired of being sick and tired.

 I literally envisioned the FEELING of knowing I worked hard and it paying off. I envisioned being able to share with others who struggle with their weight, stress, life, energy, self-love, self-esteem, self-worth. I envisioned sharing how my value doesn’t lie in the size of my jeans but also sharing how much better I felt that my jeans were smaller.

I envisioned sharing how we should not ‘fat shame’ anyone. Even as I type this, I know some will feel that I am fat-shaming. I am not. I am also not shying away from being healthy and too much weight is not healthy. I have too much weight and I am working at getting rid of this.

I imagine some would be offended by my post, my photos. I imagine some may say, “Easy for you, you don’t have… (Fill in the blank).

I admit that I am a person of action. Talking, processing, grieving, laughing, talking and more talking is important. I do it a lot, just ask my best friend. However, I believe in action. If you do not take action, even baby steps, it’s just talk and nothing changes. Taking small actionable steps, even if it is a baby step or crawling like a sloth to the next step, who cares. You’re doing something that is one step closer to breaking habits that no longer serve you.

It starts in the mind. It started in mine. I had a vision.

Let me be clear, I am NOT promoting skinny. I am NOT promoting obesity. I am promoting health.

My desire, my “why” is to encourage, motivate, inspire, and give hope knowing if I can do it, anyone can.

If you read my ‘about me’ on my website www.holisticlifecoaching.org.uk you will understand it was not just the physical weight that I needed to change.

You can eat all of the kale in the world but if you are in an unhappy relationship, a toxic work environment, surrounding yourself with negative humans that bring you down, or if you saturate your mind with the “we are all going to starve and die” news feed, you will struggle to be healthy.

Health is not just what is on your plate.

I have a long way to go to reach my goal. It can be an uphill battle. Taking small baby steps sometimes is all I can do. A massive step for me is that I no longer beat myself up for “only” taking small baby steps, this is a 35-year-old habit I have broken.

Sometimes staying in bed and watching Netflix is a baby step. It is action for that day, a day of self-care, rest and recovery. Word of warning, give yourself that time but then get up! Many times, I take MASSIVE action. I am learning to, as Mel Robins says, “Give myself a high five every morning.”

I believe my calling as a Life Coach is to help others rebuild, transform, and take action to create the life they were meant to live.

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