STELLAR STAR OF THE MONTH - NOVEMBER, 2018
My name is Paris, I am 24 and relatively new to the Stellar Fitness community. I moved to Wellington, from Dunedin in February 2018 to begin my new job as a registered nurse. It was an exciting time, but also stressful and difficult. Fitness and healthy eating was put way on the back burner.
I saw the 12 week Transformation Challenge sponsored on Facebook, I'd been looking at joining a local gym, and somehow the internet knew what I was looking for and introduced me to the Stellar Community. I saw the challenge, emailed Kat for some details and a few hours later I'd signed up. It was a very spontaneous decision, but a great one!
I put all my effort into the challenge, I wanted to kick start a new healthy lifestyle and push my self in terms of exercise. I aimed to attend 4 classes of Kat's a week, and go for a walk a couple times a week...Which was a big step up from the zero exercise I was doing prior!
I learnt a lot about healthy eating habits throughout the challenge too. I focused on calorie counting and pre planning my meals, which is something Kat had said is a great tool.
I am a bored, emotional, tired, lazy etc eater. So, by buying only the food I had planned to eat for the week I was able to stop the unhealthy eating. And I've found so many new healthy meals that I enjoy eating (I never thought I would like salad, but turns out if you just put the healthy food you like in it, it turns out great every time).
I ended up winning the challenge, which was very exciting and shocking. By the end of the 12 weeks I'd lost 11.9kg, and over 12% of my body weight. I noticed a massive difference in the way I looked and felt. I have muscle where I have never had muscle before, I feel stronger and overall healthier. Family and friends were noticing a difference too, which added fuel to the fire. I wanted to keep going and push myself further.
The new challenge I have set myself is to find a healthy middle ground, where I can include all the skills I have learned from Kat and her community, into my everyday life - for the rest of my life, and still enjoy the odd treat and fish and chips night. I somehow have ended up doing the Festive challenge, which I am going to use for accountability to myself and Kat, and not let myself fall back into bad habits.
Thanks to all the lovely people I have met and who have supported me throughout the challenge, and I know will continue to do so (in particular Kat, Jeannette and Kirsty) because I have every intention of sticking around!