Barely 2 years ago, I woke up and admitted the brutal truth; I was overweight, overworked, and severely depressed. It was January 2007 and after I weighed myself, I was horrified to discover the scale said I was 265 lbs. I knew I’d put on a “bit of weight” the last few years, but it was not until that moment in time I looked in the mirror and actually saw myself. I was shocked. I had always had a few extra pounds but I never thought I was that big or unhealthy. Looking back it was easy how 5 pounds this year and another 5 pounds the next year never really seemed all that much at the time, but over the years, it had severely added up.

I spent the next 3 days reflecting on my life and what had brought me to this point. With no general clear answers as to how I had ended up here, I started to put in place a plan to change my situation and bring me to where I am now.

I decided I needed to get moving. It was a simple idea but harder than I ever imagined. I couldn’t even jog one block as it left me gasping for air. I had no idea I had become so unfit. I decided to educate myself. I looked for inspiration… I spent a lot of time researching information on the internet, every fad diet I came across I scrapped as a bad idea - I’d both been there and done that in the past, none of them had really helped! I ended up at the body builders websites, and theorized that if I wanted myself to be lean and healthy then maybe I should take a page out of their book.

I began with a simple plan. I made sure I walked every day, I signed up at a local gym and I went every chance I got. I already knew that doing a thousand crunches wasn’t going to get rid of my weight, so I got into real weight training workouts. They were hard, my body often ached and the last thing I usually wanted to do the next morning was get up and go for those walks. On top of this I designed my own eating plan; I took the information I had learned from my research and applied it to myself. I started eating breakfast and I actually started eating 5 to 7 times a day - this was a concept that was completely alien to me, considering in the past I was lucky to get in 2 meals a day.

After one month I could already see results, my clothes no longer fitted me and I got to move down a clothes size. This gave me the inspiration I needed to continue on and work harder at losing the weight! Every workout saw me getting more fit…the results started to snowball. My eating habits improved…I always kept it simple! I continued to set and update my goals. My life took on its own direction…it needed to be healthy!

After 9 months I had lost nearly 90 lbs and every day I had someone who knew me asking me how I did it! I finally knew what new direction my life was going to take, I realized that if I could do this, then I could help and inspire others to do the same thing, I’m not going to say that it wasn’t hard work and that at times I didn’t feel like giving up, but I realized that the major reasons that had defeated me in the past was lack of good education on the subject of fat loss!
I enrolled in the master trainers program at the Australian Institute of Fitness, left everything I had known behind and moved to Sydney to complete the intensive training! After Spending 3 months in Sydney and losing another 35 lbs I returned to Broken Hill to take up my new career as a personal trainer. When I walked down the street people didn’t recognize me, on more than one occasion I had to stop people I had known for years and tell them it was me - it was really the most rewarding exhilarating feeling!

And where am I now? In less than 12 months from the time I had started, I lost half my body weight. I changed my career and I moved half way around the world. I have gone from a girl that could barely run a single block to the girl who just ran her first half marathon. There is not a day that goes by that you won’t find me out and about being energetic and active and enjoying all the benefits of what my hard work has given me.

-Jaclyn Delacroix