The moment when I stepped on the scale and saw more than 20 extra kilograms was, for me, a shock! I remember what the scale displayed like it happened yesterday: 87.4 kg. Considering that my normal weight was around 65 kg and I was just 25 years old … the future looked AWFUL!

   So I started working out right then and there, it was 11:30 pm but it didn’t matter, I just felt like I was running out of time. Of course, I chose a very hard workout because then I thought I have to workout until I faint to lose the weight.

   Unfortunately, the road towards the perfect silhouette is paved with despair followed by giving up. Do you recognise yourself?

   In the desperation phase, you would probably do the same things: starve yourself and workout until you feel exhausted. In general, lots of cardio or running are the selected tools for “torture”. The first signs of your desperation will come in the form of strong headaches, stomach ache, gastritis and destroyed joints and wrists.

   Then you go on the Dukan diet, Atkins diet, Dissociated diet, silly AbTronic devices, Thighmasters and Electrostimulators that “workout your abs while you are reading or watching TV”, deadly diet pills, expensive raw-vegan menus delivered to your door because it’s a trend, anti cellulite massages and silly wraps, sauna because it makes you sweat, miracle hot pepper drinks because they “burn your fat”, it doesn’t even matter, you TRY THEM ALL!

If you want to get an idea of another dangerous trend, check out this truth bomb about The Biggest Loser show: “It’s a miracle no one has died yet” https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2016/jan/04/the-biggest-loser-returns-despite-critics-warnings

   Then the giving up phase sets in. It’s been a while, in general 3 weeks or a month, and the miracle didn’t happened, you just lost a couple of pounds. You didn’t loose all the extra weight in 3 seconds just like that X celebrity, the Y diet or the Z weight loss gadget promised. It doesn’t matter it didn’t take you 3 seconds to gain weight, you want the results RIGHT NOW because the industry tells you it is possible when in reality, it’s not. Disappointed with the process, you just give in so you move back in the fridge and then gain back the few pounds you lost. And then you gain a couple more, just to make sure. CONGRATULATIONS, you just completed your first loop in the “diet – gain weight – stricter diet” cycle.

   Me, after a couple of weight loss and weight gains, when nothing seemed to work anymore, I told myself: All right, I lost 10 kilos but I need to lose more. It’s time to talk to an expert!

   And that is how I ended up at a dietitian’s office in my hometown ( equivalent of Slimming World and Weight Watchers ). I started telling my story and said exactly this “Be careful what you tell me to do, I am decided to do this so I will do exactly what you tell me”. The personalised diet that I was promised was printed out 2 minutes after, so nothing was really personalised. I received an A4 sheet fuuuullll of stuff I am not allowed to eat and one with 3 lines that had the stuff I was allowed to eat.

   Let’s pause for a second here an take responsibility. If I had stopped and think, I would have realised that I have to get up and walk away. But unfortunately, when people are desperate to lose weight, they will do ANYTHING and listen to ANYONE. And this is the moment when the false experts that have no clue about health or weight loss take advantage of you. This is the moment when the industry is selling you all the silly equipment, revolutionary diets, miracle exercises and big false secrets. Do you really want to know a SECRET? Nobody can fool you if you do not allow it. Thomas Gray said “Where ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise.”. How many times somebody took advantage of you because you allowed it? So, is ignorance really bliss?

   At the first weight in I was exactly 76.6 kg. Then I started doing what I was instructed to. In the first week I was extremely dizzy, I had no energy and I couldn’t see straight, everything was blurry. It was a struggle to go to work and I wasn’t able to complete my tasks ( I was working in a IT retail store ). I actually went to an optician to change my glasses, because I was looking for explanations in the wrong place. I was following an dietitians plan, an expert that had a diploma, so that couldn’t be the problem, right? Wrong!

   An now, for the embarrassing, but very real, part of the story: on week 2 I got so constipated that I couldn’t stand up straight. The pain was so bad that Friday I had to leave work and run home. I called the dietitian and I was told it cannot be from the recommended diet plan and there has to be a different problem. What followed was a weekend of excruciating pain, suppository, hemorrhoids! After I got better, I continued the plan. Silly me, I actually wanted to believe that a diploma provides more knowledge then my instincts that shouted at me to STOP. Following this incident I found out that actually, because I was being starved, the survival instinct kicked in and my body was desperately holding on to the little food it was getting.

   I was told I had to workout 10 to 15 minutes a day. 2-3 pushups, 2-3 squats, 2-3 ab exercises, nothing too demanding. I did exactly that in the first 2 – 3 weeks because my energy levels were low so I wasn’t really able to do more. After that, I started working out on average 45 minutes a day and I was told „Wow, where do you find the energy? Everybody tries to get out of it and you reached 45 minutes a day?!”. What can I say, from the beginning of my weight loss process I always liked working out and on the plus side, I really wanted to lose the weight.

   I was going back to the dietitians office every Monday with a piece of paper that had all the information about what I ate and what I did. At one point I was told “If every client did exactly what you do and actually stick with it, everybody would lose the weight”. I did my best, I was actually proud of myself. Then I got on the scale again and I was told “I cannot understand why are you not losing the weight like you should”. On week 9 I was 73.6 kg, exactly 3 kg less.

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   So after these 2 months, I discovered and article that explained in great detail why is it GOOD FOR YOU to eat one of the foodstuff that I wasn’t allowed. Right then and there, I just woke up! That was the last drop that made my cup run over. I realised that I was actually PAYING SOMEONE TO RUIN MY HEALTH! I was giving the money I worked for to someone that was teaching me to exclude important nutrients out of my diet just so the number on the scale would drop. Oh how stupid! But let’s keep this real, I CHOSE to be blind. Because I was desperate.

   That was the moment when I decided I am going to be my own health coach. No more silly articles, no more false experts, no more wrong info, no more damaging my health in the name of the “perfect slim silhouette”.

   After one week and a half after I got back to my normal diet, I was 76.6 kg, so you can see that wasn’t really fat loss, but rather tricking the scale. So I was exactly the same weight that I had 2 months before, when I started going to the dietitians office. Another loop in the “diet – gain weight – stricter diet” cycle. Another 2-3 months wasted and another time I shot down my metabolism like it was a felon. But this time, I PAID someone to mock my health and my body.

   Since then, I have dozens and dozens of sleepless nights where I read and re-read all the books that looked full of good information, watched all the documentaries about health, obesity and nutritional diseases. Since then I started comparing, testing, listening and questioning and I haven’t stopped and I will never stop. Because I REALLY WANT TO HELP, I do not want to be a part of that group of people that just have a paid diploma and no professionalism. I do not want to just know one thing that worked on me and that’s it, I want to learn new things everyday. And most important, I want to be able to help people get their health back, not just slim them down to a number on a scale. Interesting enough, I tend to attract people that have different health problems, some of them even so big that other personal trainers refused to work with them. I like a challenge, we learn from challenging events and situations.

   Since I have been a Personal Trainer, I have met other people that tried the same dietitian. I met a man that lost a lot of weight so fast that looked like he just got out of the hospital’s intensive care room. I met a young lady that was so starved that her reproductive system just shut down and the doctors had to tell her she might just probably not be able to have children. Sadly, she didn’t even know how it happened until I explained it to her and when she realised it, she started crying.

   BE CAREFUL who you listen to or who you chose to learn from about health. I would love to be able to go back in time so I can start the process again. Because I am sure this time I would lose the weight slowly but surely, on the first try and in a healthy way, without developing gastritis, without losing and internal organ, without destroying my wrists, my body and my metabolism. I know that this time I will lose the weight in the safest and healthiest way possible so the ex fat girl would not still show on my body. A damaged metabolism means a very tricky and slow weight loss process, because getting out of the “diet – gain weight – stricter diet” cycle is very difficult.

   Some people consider that because I am a a Personal Trainer, I should be ripped and have a flawless body. Some actually told me I am too fat. But the only thing I want is to have a normal and healthy weight because I finally understood: I want to be HEALTHY, not skinny!

   Don’t make the same mistakes. Be careful where you get your information and who you choose to help you in your weight loss process.

   PS: I am not trying to insinuate that every dietitian or nutritionist is the same, there are good professionals out there and there are the ones that only paid for a diploma ( and sometimes they don’t even have that ) and try to make everybody starve because they have no clue about health.

   The goal of this article is to raise awareness and help people make good choices in picking up someone that actually knows what they are doing and have a genuine interest in their clients health, not their money.

I wish you good health! 

Ada Florea

Certified Level 4 Personal Trainer

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