Shauna Reid, a Scotland-dwelling Australian lass, began her fat-busting adventure in Canberra in January 2001, weighing almost 160 kilos. Six years later, she'd lost exactly half her body weight.
She has blogged her ups and downs since day one, and just written a book called the Amazing Adventures of Diet Girl. In this two-part interview, we catch up with Shauna to uncover her secrets…
Q. What was it that made you commit to losing weight once and for all?
A – Shauna Reid. I was hanging my undies on the line, and they were a giant size 26. I hung up my sister's right beside them, and she had these tiny size 10s. And I was looking up at them thinking, "I can't believe I have these granny undies at 23 years of age. These shouldn't belong to me. I really have to do something about it." So that's when I hit rock bottom. Before then I had been in denial about how much weight I'd put on. That's when I decided to take action.
Q. What do you think are the biggest myths surrounding weight loss?
A. There are a lot of myths about exercise. People say you get bulky if you lift weights, but the opposite happens. For me, everything started shrinking when I began lifting weights.
Q. What inspired you to get online and start writing about your experiences?
A. The first time I went to a diet club they told me I was nearly 160kg and I was so completely overwhelmed by that. I didn't have anyone in my life who had a weight problem to that extent, and I didn't feel like I could talk to them about it, so I needed another way to express myself. I started blogging. I used to eat to mask my feelings and now I was actually writing about them. I started getting feedback from people around the world and that ended up turning into a huge motivation for me. Within three or four months, I had about 50 people a day, and the community of visitors started growing. These days it's about 1500 a day – so it's just taken off! This also means that I don't give up because people are tuning in to find out how I am going.
Q. What were the greatest lessons you learnt about succeeding when you're trying to lose weight?
A. The biggest thing I learnt about succeeding was that it's about being persistent rather than being perfect. I used to have this idea in my head that I had to follow a plan perfectly. But I realised that when you mess up, it's about picking yourself up when you fall over. And you will fall over! There are always obstacles: you might have a death in the family, or things are bad at work – and you have to try and work around those things – whereas if you have this dieting mentality, it's always a pass and fail thing. So for me, it was learning that I didn't have to be perfect, I just had to not give up. The other thing is that you do have to change your lifestyle, but your lifestyle itself constantly changes, so you just have to adapt and fit your diet around your life – rather than the other way around.
Q. What were the practical tools that really assisted you?
A. Exercise, in particular, weight training. I started body pump classes when I was size 24 and I was by far the largest in the room, but I had learnt that weight training was good for large people – one reason being because it's simple. I've been doing it for six years now and it's really helped tone my skin. People always ask me, "Do you have loose skin?" but because I've been so consistent with my exercise, it's given my body time to adjust.
Q. What are your best weight loss tips?
A. My biggest tip is ‘don't feel like you have to wait until you're skinny to exercise'. Start as soon as you can. A lot of people start with adjusting their diet alone. At the start I concentrated on my food intake because my eating habits were so bad. Many people concentrate on one thing at a time and get their food under control, but just starting with whatever exercise you can do is great. At first, I was so large that all I could do was walk to the end of the street and back. That was ten minutes! Then I just added another corner, and then a whole block, and just built it up from there. You have to work within your ability, but move as soon as you can.
To read Shauna's blog, check out
http://www.dietgirl.org