Running can help towards your weight loss goal- it helped Lauren Smith lose 35kg!
I have been concerned about my weight ever since high school. I didn’t eat too badly since I come from a healthy family and there were rarely chips or chocolates in the house. But I didn’t exercise either, and always seemed to weigh a few kilos more than I should have.
Straight out of high school, I went to the US to au-pair for a year and found myself in a house filled with chocolates, ice-cream, biscuits and junk food. I wasn’t used to this kind of eating. I didn’t even think about limiting myself — if I wanted something, I ate it! I didn’t really notice how much weight I was putting on and since the clothing sizes are different in the US I did not realise I was buying much bigger sizes. When I arrived back in SA and forced myself onto the scale I was shocked: I had put on 45kg!
My health hit rock bottom — I had never been a sickly person before, but now it seemed I was rarely not sick. I was a walking example of what junk food does to your body, and to make matters worse I had taken up smoking. Another thing that hit rock bottom was my self-esteem. I had been an outgoing person at school, but now I was ashamed of how I looked and avoided friends and social situations. During my first month back home I lost 10kg simply by eating proper, home-cooked meals again. I then joined a weight loss group, which helped me lose another 10kg. But since I wasn’t exercising I struggled to lose more than that. It took me four years to finally pull myself together and face the inescapable truth: I would have to start exercising, for my health as well as my weight. My sister convinced me to do a half marathon with her, which was a daunting prospect given that I had never run before, but I needed a goal to work towards.
I had no idea how to start training for it, so I went to the Sports Science Institute of South Africa’s website and found a group programme advertised to help beginners run 10km in 12 weeks. I signed up immediately and haven’t looked back since. Getting support from the group kept me going and I went from being someone who shuddered at the thought of exercise to someone who missed running on our rest days.
My first 10km race was in April and after that I signed up for a 21km training programme. In July I completed the Knysna half marathon and felt fantastic! Thanks to running and going back to my weight loss group, I lost 17kg in four months (and over 35kg in total). Running has become a part of my life — and healthy habits go hand in hand with it. I have quit smoking, my blood pressure and resting heart rate are down, and I’ve lost about 15cm around my waist (the danger zone for heart disease). I am hooked on the natural high running gives me —if I can do it, so can you!
Motivational tip:
I live by a motto I heard at a motivational talk: think of healthy eating like brushing your teeth. If you get home late one night and fall into bed without brushing your teeth, do you wake up in the morning and say, “Oh, I didn’t brush my teeth last night — I’m obviously not a tooth-brusher, therefore I may as well never brush my teeth again”? No — you get up and you brush your teeth. Think of healthy eating that way — if you slip up and eat something you normally avoid, who cares? Just get back on track the next day.
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