A busy mum has revealed how a ‘slow and steady approach’ helped her lose 21kg and four dress sizes in less than a year.
Perth mum Jodie Marah, 36, gave an update on her situation when she tipped the scales at 80kg in August last year, which she thought was too heavy for her petite 162 frame cm.
“Overweight and close to obese, I had to make a change,” she posted on her Instagram and TikTok accounts.
“Very well, I will do it myself.”
In a video shared on her social accounts in late October, she revealed the five steps she took to achieve her incredible transformation.
A Perth mother has revealed how she managed to lose 21kg in less than a year by taking a “slow and steady” approach.
She said the most important step was learning to count calories and stick to a “calorie deficit,” meaning she ate fewer calories per day than she needed to maintain her current weight.
She admitted the process wasn’t for everyone, but said it was the main thing that helped her lose weight “of course.”
“I started tracking my maintenance calories, which are the calories needed to maintain your current weight,” she said in a social media post.
“Once I knew them, I calculated my calorie deficit, which is the amount of calories your body needs to nourish you but also to lose weight.
“I also started weighing my food and tracking it in an app for convenience, as well as eating more protein and vegetables.”
Another important piece of advice was to “go slow and set small goals.”
She said that often people want to lose 10kg “immediately” and might get discouraged, but it’s best to set achievable goals and work consistently to achieve them, even just working in increments to lose 1 kg to 2 kg.
“We really need to slow down and take it easy, especially if we want this to be a lifestyle change that we can sustain,” she said.
“I definitely felt more encouraged once I lost those one or two kilos, I felt good and I was re-evaluating the situation and now saying ‘I’m going to lose another two kilos’.
Jodie said counting calories and cutting out snacks were two of the important ways she managed to lose weight.
She said the biggest obstacle she faced in reaching her goals was eliminating “midnight snacks”, particularly chocolate.
However, using the small goals approach ultimately helped cut out unhealthy snacking altogether.
Another thing she recommended was to “find exercises you actually enjoy and change the way you think about training.”
“I never thought I would like to go to the gym, I thought ‘cardio, I hate that’ and I still hate cardio,” she said.
As she tried other things, she discovered she enjoyed resistance and mobility training.
Jodie’s final advice was that “you still have to live your life,” meaning it’s okay to splurge.
To take this approach, she recommended the 80/20 diet, in which careful calorie consumption is practiced 80 percent of the time, with the rest being an opportunity to “let loose.”
