If you live in the UK, you would probably know about Katie Hopkins. In a survey, she was voted as the second most loathed person in the world, right after Vladmir Putin. Ouch!!!!! But you know what, she probably doesn’t care. The woman has no filter. Like zero. She thinks it, she says it. End of. So, she undertook a project where she put on 3 stone (19kg) in 3 months and then lose it in 3 months to prove that if you eat less and move more, anyone can lose weight. No truer words. The documentary looked at her life before she put on the weight, while she was putting on the weight and her weight loss strategy. I picked up quite a number of things, and it inspired me to share my own story, if I can call it a story.
Hands up, I know genes are involved, hands up I know my metabolism is fast, hands up, I am not one of those skinny judgemental people. As someone who has recently put on a bit of weight, yes friends of Dunni, roll your eyes, but I know and feel different. Looking back to how it happened, I can tell you exactly why it happened, and I know I will drop it back down in a short period of time. Even with the genes and metabolism, if I can still pack on the pounds, it means I am not totally immune from weight gain.
The popular phrase, “whatever works for you”, I will tell you what works for me. Eating Nigerian food. Back track and read it again. Nigerian food, and that comes with the golden tip, cooking your own food. I look back at 3 and a half years ago when a friend was getting married. My weight ballooned to 69kg. The heaviest I have ever weighed in my entire life. You know how that happened? Let me tell you. While I was a student, money was very very tight, and eating out or treats were not on the budget, so I always cooked my own food and my weight stayed the same 58kg. Fast forward to getting my dream job and suddenly having all this money, I started “flexing muscle”, and eating out at restaurants, grabbing snacks outside of work, feeling lazy and picking up a takeaway on the way home from work and the weight just piled on. When I got back from Lagos after the wedding, I joined a gym and only lost 3kg in 3 months. WTH!!!!! So, I quit the gym and went back to what my body understands. Nigerian food and eating my own cooking. Nothing not cooked in my kitchen, entered my mouth, and within that same 3 months, I went down from 66kg to 59/60kg, without my gym membership. I basically just went about my every day life but ate only my own food, and my metabolism kicked back into gear, at optimum capacity and the weight fell off. 6kg worth of weight. I didn’t even realise it was happening until a shop assistant inadvertently gave me a size 6 dress in the changing room.
When I think back again to a brief time in 2012 when I had to save every penny I had towards a project, I found that during those months and the months after that, my body was a lean slim machine. What did I do? Not eat anything I didn’t cook. I couldn’t afford not to. Lol. Nigerian food gets a lot of flack for being fatty, unhealthy, oh it has all those carbs, oh, the oil, I can continue but what we don’t necessarily see is the fact that it is organic, very very nutritious, plus the best part, you are cooking your own food, you are in control. You can modify the contents to your taste. Best of all, you are eating what your body has been designed to metabolise since you were born. When I lived in Nigeria, I was averaging between 56 – 58kg. My hair was long, full and thick. Never reached 60kg in my life before until I moved to the UK. Now, I am at 63/64 and I am pissed. The goal is to go back to my 58, and be healthier too, because even at 58, I was out of breath after going up two floors.
So, this January, in fact yesterday, I threw out everything in my freezer I didn’t cook myself, or can’t cook myself. So, while Katie Hopkins kinda inspired this post, I am not on a “I am going to prove” so so so, but I am going back to strictly Nigerian food and home cooking, and a re-weigh at the end of the month, and subsequently every month end from then. You know I promised on Jan 1st, more Nigerian food on the blog, well I am moving in line with that ministry. Nigerian food is not as evil as you think it is. You see that health bar you just picked up, or that low fat, low carb, low all that jazz you bought at the store, your efo riro would probably do your metabolism more good. All you put into your Efo, your metabolism already recognises. Big Oladunni has been on my case to eat more fruit and veg, so the only extra I will be doing is consuming more of them through smoothies. I am not a breakfast kind of person, but I will use the smoothies to substitute. Yes, I will be eating my Eba, my semo, my pounded yam, my buka stew and all the soups I cook, even the Nigerian snacks too. Sharp intake of breath, yeah, yeah, yeah. Look back and your skinniest, and critically try to remember what you were eating during those periods, now fast forward to your heaviest current state and also examine what you have been eating. So, this is my #fitfam plan. Unconventional I know, some of you may read this and turn your nose up, but you are welcome to join me.
- The Stunnababez Smoothie with my twists
- Keep to my cooking methods. All that use cooking spray, measure 2 tablespoons of oil pledges have never lasted long. When I force the plan, I fall off the wagon
- Nigerian food all the way. Cut out everything processed, except if I have to make things like puff puff where I need flour and sugar
- Eat as I normally would. I have found that when I deliberately portion control, I feel even hungrier. So, I am keeping my portions the same
- Because I have taken to be following Supermodels on Instagram, bad idea, I know, or maybe a good thing. I am going to try to build muscle in my abdomen and thighs using Sean T’s Hip Hop Abs for 25 – 30minutes every day. I aint mad enough to do Insanity. Like Never. I have also joined a local running group and they have a Couch to 5K program for 9 weeks. I will know by next week if I have been accepted, as spaces are limited. If I don’t get in, I will just do a 1 hour run 3 times a week.
- Drink lots of water, something I don’t do as much and finally……
- Sleep. When I sleep less hours, I find that my metabolism is sluggish, so my 2am/3am bedtime to be awake by 7/7.30am will stop. I wrote this post at 2.40am on Sunday. Bad idea. Midnight will be my cut off point, and then it is laptop closed, phone kept in the living room and bed time.
My pledge, I aint eating any salads or diet food and all that jazz for anything. I will fall off that wagon veeeeeery fast. Funmi will probably laugh when she reads that sentence. I have tried it before. I am going to try to keep a visual food diary. I may not remember to do it every day, but I will try.
Katie’s motto was Eat Less, Move More. My #fitfam motto is Eat Nigerian Food and Move more. We shall see!!!!!!! Anyone want to join in?????? Don’t be scared. You’ve tried so many things and they haven’t worked, why not try this one.
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