Are you overweight? If your life never quite satisfies you - if you don’t feel you’re as confident, productive, motivated or enthused as you could be, try kick-starting the modifications you wish to make by beginning with your body.

1. Are you overweight? If your life never quite satisfies you - if you don’t feel you’re as confident,
productive, motivated or enthused as you could be, try kick-starting the modifications you wish to make
by beginning with your body.
Seven years ago, I was shy, chubby, lacking in confidence, and incapable of think beyond my immediate
future: going to university. I’d been fatter than my classmates ever since the age of nine or ten. Finally
losing that extra thirty or so pounds I’d been carrying around has had a huge influence on my well being
over the past seven years.
1. Understanding how to enjoy food
I was a really picky eater as a kid and in my teens. I’d sulk in the treehouse in the garden if my parents
tried to make me eat vegetables, and refused anything suspiciously “healthy” on matter of principle -
diet sodas, fruit salad rather than ice-cream, anything which didn’t come with chips.
When I finally made a decision to lose weight, and went on a diet, I had to find new foods which I liked -
things which were filling without being fattening. I also started contemplating nutrition: more
vegetables and fruit, more whole grains, less sugar and fat. Nowadays, I’ll try pretty much anything, and
some of my favourite foods (crispbreads with cottage cheese, vegetable stir fries, raw carrot sticks) are
ones that I’d never have touched some time ago.
2. Being confident in a group
Whenever I had to join in on a new group I found myself checking if I was the fattest person there. If I
was, I would be convinced that everyone else was hyper-aware of this too, and that they were silently
despising me.
Most likely they couldn’t have cared less about my size. But it was only after losing weight that I became
confident enough to take the lead in situations where I had to work with strangers. I joined societies at
university and set up my very own creative writing group. At the office, I’ve delivered presentations and
training to clients; a few years ago, I’d have been nervous about how I looked, but now I really like being
in front of an audience.

2. 3. Dressing well and having confidence in my appearance
Throughout my teens, I lived in jogging bottoms and oversized t-shirts, varied with the occasional
disastrous purchase in an attempt to follow the latest trends and fit in. (One top in particular resulted in
another girl loudly pointing out my “spare tyre”.) I figured that hiding under baggy clothes would
conceal me, but if anything it made me look shapeless and lumpy.
Once I’d started losing weight, I acquired my first pair of jeans. I tried some fitted t-shirts. Hardly the
height of teenage fashion, but my clothes were finally comfortable and flattering.
4. Enjoying routine workouts
“Exercise” was once a dirty word. I hated every humiliating moment of games lessons at school (the
changing rooms, the fitness tests, falling over every single hurdle…) I couldn’t understand why some
friends wanted to play sport or go jogging after school.
Once exercise was no longer compulsory, though, I started to find types of activity which I enjoyed.
Cycling, swimming, and walking all featured prominently. It wasn’t until I went to university that I
nervously crept into the little college gym and tested out the rowing machines, but from then, I was
hooked.