MEMBER STORY - #1 - Verity

Verity's CrossFit Journey

Verity's journey is an important one because there are so many women and men out there for whom food has a hold over them to such an extent they feel trapped in a downward spiral.

Verity demonstrates that by focusing on what your body can do - the amazing things it's capable of - rather than what you believe it to look like, you can free yourself from a cyclical life of punishing diets and guilt.

"The weight on the bar is more important than the number on the scales."

Verity:

"I finally decided to take control of my life at the age of 34.

From the age of around 8 or 9 I started to believe I was fat. No matter what I was told, I believed I was huge.

I used to feel embarrassed with every food shop, eating in public, believing people were looking at me wondering why I was eating because I obviously had some serious weight to shift.

I began to abuse laxatives around 10 or 11 years-old and learnt the fine art of making myself sick after meals. I tried every diet going. The high point being the celery diet! I literally only allowed myself to eat celery and drink tea, nothing else.

My weight in adulthood stayed between 7 and 8 stones. I was constantly exhausted and miserable.

So after finally admitting what my life was like, I took control.

I do CrossFit as it allows me to eat and not feel guilty.

The weight on the bar is more important than the number on the scales.

I've learnt to throw clothes away that no longer fit. I know I'm never going to starve myself to fit into them again. I no longer shop in children's clothes sections.

Do I ever relapse? Yes. Do I sometimes obsess about the fact I no longer have a thigh gap? Yes. The difference since CrossFit? I go and train. Sometimes I can't face talking, I have to just lift and get through a shit workout to realise what my body and fucked up head can push through.


It's not always plain sailing but I'm pretty confident I control food rather than the food controlling me."



Thank you for sharing your story with us, Verity - I'm sure many people will relate to it. If you would like to share your story, please don't hesitate to get in touch.

Release the Dolphins!

My youngest son used to like to tell people all about the dolphins that lived in his brain.  It wasn't until he fell and hurt himself and instructed me to cuddle him so his brain would release the dolphins from the hippopotamus, to swim to his hurt knee, to eat the pain that I realised what he was on about.  

Endorphins!

Endorphins, not dolphins, produced by the pituitary gland and the hypothalamus, not the hippopotamus! 

Endorphins are a morphine-like substance, produced by our own bodies during times of stress or pain or during sex and physical activity and they disinhibit dopamine pathways in the brain.  Dopamine is the reward system used by our brains.  It makes us feel not only content and happy but also powerful and in control.

As dopamine is a reward doled out to us by our brains, it can also be used as motivation.  Therefore, thinking about dopamine triggers can in fact release dopamine as an incentive to go and get said trigger.

If you are addicted to heroin, for example, dopamine is released in your brain when you think about it, in order to motivate you to go and get it and when you look at it in anticipation of taking it, which releases the most.  Your body becomes used to a new level of dopamine that it cannot get naturally and so it relies on regular doses of heroin to remain feeling normal.


If you have had a deep relationship with food for a number of years, in a similar way to a heroin addict, your brain relies heavily on thinking about food, planning what to cook and prepare, looking at food and eating food in order to deliver enough dopamine to remain feeling normal.

In order to break this reliance on food to remain feeling normal, you need to replace your source of dopamine and gradually reduce the amount you need to feel normal.


Sounds simple?  It is!

Lots of things trigger a release of dopamine.

A release of endorphins through pain, for example.  I'm not suggesting you replace food with self flagellation.  But stretching exercises, where you stretch your muscles to a point of mild discomfort can be enough to trigger endorphins and release dopamine. Clearly a more positive way to get a mild high that hitting yourself with a thorny twig.


Social interaction (gossip, to us girls) can release dopamine.

Exercise, lifting weights, going for a walk or a run can also release endorphins and dopamine.  Clearly healthier than a cream bun.

Heroin we have covered...not so healthy.  A cup of coffee, better!

The more you can take control of your body by replacing negative highs with positive highs, the easier it will become to live a fit and healthy life.

So take control of that hippopotamus and feel the power of your inner dolphins!

Krish x

Kids' treats

It has come to my attention that some of you are claiming that you 'fell off the wagon' this weekend because you raided the naughty cupboard.  When questioned as to why there is such a thing in your house as a naughty cupboard, I am given the cow eyes and some flannel about, 'Just because I'm on a healthy eating thing doesn't mean the children have to suffer.  It's not fair to take away their treats.'

First off, healthy eating shouldn't be so hard it feels like you are suffering.  If that's how you feel, you are doing it wrong!

Secondly, how is feeding your children healthy food making them suffer?  How is feeding them all the crap you have decided is bad for you treating them?  What message are you sending to your children if you eat differently to them?

Why on earth would you make one of the best decisions you could ever make in your life to eat more healthily and to cut out all the processed rubbish and then feed exactly that to your kids?  That is not doing them any favours at all!

You want your kids to grow up with a healthy attitude to food, an attitude where they see great nutritional choices as an everyday, run-of-the-mill occurrence.  So practice what you preach!

My kids genuinely love the oatcakes I make as well as the blueberry cupcakes and lemon drizzle cake. They will also polish off a box of chopped up raw veggies as readily as other kids demolish giant packets of crisps.

Stop buying your kids biscuits and crisps and processed mush!  

Not only will it benefit them (and remember, if they are not offered alternatives, they will eat what you give them eventually.  No kid will voluntarily starve themselves) but it will benefit you as there won't be any crap to fall off the wagon onto!


Krish x