The usual story with the usual suspects and the result was too much weight. My winter coat wasn’t even close to fitting, my shirts were tight and the suits were archived. Not today though.  In 2009 I lost three stone, which is 42 lb.

I didn’t join a gym or do some crazy diet. Team work, budgeting, healthy eating, lifestyle and some exercise.

When we set a shopping budget we choose more wisely what to eat. Instead of wandering the supermarket picking up this and that at a whim, we meal planned and took a shopping list. Resulting in a more healthy, balanced diet and a positive effect on our finances to boot!

Noticed I said ‘we’, I didn’t sit there on my own trying to be healthy, my wonderful partner joined in. I found strength through her support. Plus we both are vegetarians which helped. Along the way we started making new meals, discovering new favourites and forgetting the greasy, fat filled meals that we used to enjoy.

Next chuck in a decent amount of exercise. We live on a beautiful island surrounded by beaches, countryside and such like. A stroll or two over the weekend helped and was relaxing, rejuvenating and encouraged my photography hobby… which I am still awful at, but I enjoy taking photos anyhow. Plus we walk when others would pop in a car for short journeys.

Okay here comes a major factor… treats. Our birthdays and on any holiday are exempt from ‘healthy’ eating. This resulted in situations like not eating pizza, chips, ice cream and such like for almost six months at one stage. Then if we wanted to, we could eat them at various times throughout the year. But here’s the thing… we still eat curries, roast meals and a variety of mexican dishes etc. We just moderate, like no side dishes or nann bread and make sure we have plenty of salad when appropriate. Being healthy is about taking control and ‘we’ decided what was okay in moderation and what was a ‘treat’, nobody else.

I used to be a very heavy drinker, but I’ve hardly touched  a drop of booze this year also and over this Christmas have moderated what I did have. Other than four to five glasses of wine and champagne that was it over Christmas and before that I had some wine in August.

So this is how I lost three stone in a year. It wasn’t a crash diet with fast results. Perhaps sometimes weight was put on for a while, who knows? We got rid of our weighing scales before the year and instead used other people’s every few months.

Am I done yet? No I’ve still got more weight to lose, but a sensible approach has helped and no quick rash crash dieting employed.