It feels like forever since I sat and wrote something from my heart for Love My Dress. For such a long time now I’ve simply not had the time – running my business has frankly had to take priority. But this has made me sad, as I love writing personal posts – they help me stay connected with my readers and they help Love My Dress feel genuine, honest and real.
Thankfully, I’m in a place now where I’m really starting to feel the benefit of having the most wonderful team support me in running Love My Dress on a day to day basis. I’m finally able to start writing about some of the issues that have been occupying my mind for a while – one of which is the subject of general health, wellbeing and weight loss for brides.
Now, as much as I adore my job, fact is that a lot of the time, blogging involves sitting on your backside doing very little physical activity bar flexing your finger tips as you, well, blog. Typing typing typing – if there was an olympic sport for speed typing, I’d win gold medal every time. All day I sit and type – I write posts, I respond to emails, I schedule content, I make lists – but I sit and type all day long from start to finish. I reckon my nimble fingers are pretty fit and healthy. The rest of me however has rather a spot of catching up to do.
As glamorous as it can often appear, blogging is pretty damaging to your health – and I’ve come to learn the hard way that you really must make time for exercise and being active in between the long bouts of typing, typing and typing. I need to confess to you that I’d let myself become rather unfit and sloth like (winces at the truth) and acknowledging that I turn 40 at the end of September, I figured I better darn well start doing something about it. I was weighing heavier than I ever had and wasn’t feeling good about that. Worse still, some of my favourite items of clothing were getting to be a little uncomfortable. All in all, not a great place to be when you’re about to enter your 4th decade of existence and ride the wave of potential mid-life crisis.
So, three weeks ago, I started juicing and I started exercising. Having spent far too long thinking how much fun the idea of juicing sounded, I finally caved and after much thorough research (I spent hours researching and even signed up to Which Magazine), I plumped for the Sage by Heston Blumenthal 1200 watt ‘Nutri Juicer’ (which we paid £135 for but that is now available for £119.99 on Amazon).
My adventures in juicing above
My lashings of marmite on hot buttered toast lunches (because I can’t be bothered don’t have time to make anything else), have been replaced with a glass of organic juice and a serving of fresh fruit or organic live natural yogurt. I LOVE juicing – there is an almost ineffable sense of reward and achievement seeing beautiful, earthy, organic root vegetables that are still covered in soil, transformed in to a delicious and nutrient charged liquid lunch in a matter of seconds. The whizz and pummeling sound as the juicer does it’s thing is immensely satisfying and the resulting nectar is equally pleasurable on the taste buds. I am a juice junkie. A total convert.
Instead of crisps, I’m snacking on fruit or nuts and breakfast frequently involves organic porridge made with almond milk and topped with a dollop of local honey or maybe a slice of toast made from spelt bread and served with organic peanut butter and grapes. At one time I’d have never dreampt of eating any of this through fear of gorging on too many calories and gaining weight. These days, I’m more concerned with getting the right fats, oils and nutrients in to my body.
My love for my old friend ‘exercise’ has been reignited too. We’re hanging out almost every day, if only for 30 minutes of intense relationship building, thanks to our mentor Jillian Michaels and her no-nonsense 30 day shred. It’s safe to say that in just 3 weeks, I’ve altered some die hard unhealthy dietary and fitness habits and re-discovered my mo-jo.
And so I come to the point of this piece and that is, the weight thing.
Red faced after a work out and sans any make-up at all
How many times have you gone to weigh yourself only to find you’ve not lost any weight or worse still, gained a little? We’ve all experienced the crest-fall haven’t we? That sense of personal failure and worthlessness. It’s usually followed by a nose-dive in our motivation levels as we head for the self-destruct button. And the biscuit tin.
For the first time in my life, I have no desire to stand on the scales and weigh myself. I see no point in this self-inflicted ritual of torture. I feel good, I feel healthy and I don’t believe my newfound sense of wellbeing needs to be endorsed by the measure of a scale. Stepping on the scales should not be an exercise in validating your efforts to become fitter and healthier. Besides, it’s a fact that regular resistance training and a healthy balanced diet will lead to muscle, ie, weight GAIN.
I’m reminded of when I tried to lose weight and feel great for my own wedding. I got so busy planning, DIY’ing and enjoying the run-up that I totally lost interest in how much I weighed (I’d set up a spreadsheet to chart my weight loss week by week). I remember walking in the sunshine the day prior and having a really strong sense of wellbeing and feeling great. And I actually remember being asked after the wedding, ‘you looked great on your wedding day, how much did you weigh?’. I’ve no idea.
As brides, we’re placed under way too much pressure to lose weight and ‘be our best’ on our wedding day. I get so disappointed at this time of year when the PR companies bombard me with weight loss campaigns – I’m just not interested and Love My Dress will never be that kind of blog. Having been there and done it all myself however, I really do understand the desire to be as lean and light as you possibly can be as you walk down the aisle. We are indoctrinated by powerful mass media messages from a young age, to believe that success is thin, success is size 8/10, that laziness and lack of fitness is size 14 and 16 and that outright gluttony and obesity accounts for all those size 18 plus. And that if we are are not successful in this context, we are failures.
Total rubbish.
Don’t get me started on bridal boutiques that make ‘plus size brides’ feel intimidated or have no style options to offer those in the upper size ranges bar a strapless, badly cut and unflattering non entity – this is fodder enough for an entirely separate discussion post.
Of course weight and good health are intrinsically linked – keeping weight down helps to reduce the risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke and diabetes – but if we’re honest with ourselves, if we were at risk of any of these things anyway, I’m pretty darn sure we wouldn’t be feeling ‘good’ or even remotely healthy.
Monitoring how you feel and taking a note of your sense of happiness and wellbeing is far more important in my view, than killing yourself to make that dial or digital read out on your scales hit a certain number. The only number you need concern yourself with is number 1, ie you. Ditch the scales and let your brilliant, clever brain decide if you’re achieving success with your health and fitness efforts. It is way more fine-tuned a verification tool than a set of bathroom scales.
It might just have been 3 weeks of effort on my part, but I feel incredible – clean and healthy, fitter and stronger, I’m more focussed and I’m working better. Fact. I have no idea how much I weigh and I don’t care. I’m going to carry on as is. Cliche aside, I will feel fit and fantastic at 40.
I’d really love to hear your thoughts lovely ladies. Are you obsessed with measuring your weight using scales? Do you feel under pressure to lose weight for your wedding? Are you trying to fit into a dress in a size or more smaller than you are now? Or are you embracing a more holistic approach to fitness and wellbeing in the run up to your wedding?
Love Annabel x
