New mindset and lifestyle equals new body
PULENG MOLOI AND MARITSA MARITZ On the road less travelled to getting fit and eating healthy food.
Losing weight is never easy, yet with the correct mindset it’s achievable. Making that shift from being flabby to firm – toned arms and abs start from within. The decision to change your lifestyle could be motivated by a health scare or a prospective vacation. Puleng Moloi and Maritsa Maritz both took it upon themselves to stop complaining about the way they look and put some effort into creating a better version of themselves. This is how they did it: easy part of the journey. The hardest part of this big change was eating as healthily as possible.
As I love food and cooking, I channelled my passion into making fantastic meals for myself like smoothies, roast vegetables, meat and fruit snacks. I eventually started to prepare meals every Sunday by cooking for the work days to avoid the temptation of eating unhealthy food or going to a drive-thru to get fast food.
Once I started following the formula of eating, sleeping and working out, my body thanked me and I lost weight. I’m 18kgs lighter. Of course, there are times when I sabotage myself and go back to my old habits, but I have learned that you can’t hide it forever, especially when you closet-eat.
I went through a six-month plateau and decided to do eight weeks of the SleekGeek Ultimate You Chal- legs, weights and core boot camp (full body workout) road running boot camp (full body workout) arms, weights and core 5km park run hiking/ weights/HIIT training/ meal prep lenge for which I had to submit pictures of myself and body measurements. This was a shift from obsessing about the scale. Now it was all about the centimetres. While doing the challenge I decided to share my workout routines and meals on Instagram, documenting the journey and activities to inspire myself when I didn’t feel motivated. It became fun and I made it into a lifestyle. I researched health tips and articles, downloaded fitness apps and signed up for newsletters to immerse myself in the goal of changing my lifestyle. I also created a bucket list of fitness things to accomplish and ticked them off one by one. I crossed off pull-ups, hiking up Lion’s Head, buying active wear, doing a clean push-up and running a 5km race. It was difficult to make a lifestyle change and I still have another 18 kg to shed. But when I look at the fitness levels I can push to and the clothes I can now wear that I hadn’t been able to fit into it’s the best feeling and the biggest confidence boost anyone can get. As clichéd as it sounds, being consistent was the only way I managed to achieve my goal.
Read Maritsa’s story on page 16