Midlife Fitness ‘Eating more protein helped me lose two stone’

A few changes to her routine helped Katie Marshall, 41, shed her lockdown weight gain

It makes my heart race to think back to the summer of that first lockdown. I was trying to run my business while home-schooling my two children, and everything felt very overwhelming. I wasn’t sleeping and life felt out of control.

I was also eating badly – relying on sugar to give me energy – or totally stopping eating when I felt stressed. I gained a lot of weight and felt out of shape. But I didn’t know how to change.

Then I met the nutritionist Dr Mike Molloy, founder of M2 Performance Nutrition, and he looked at habits formed in childhood, such as the way I used to wolf down my food at school, along with newer habits that I’ve picked up, like having an alcoholic drink every night. Dr Molloy has worked with me to change the way I view food.

His advice was to track the macronutrients in food – or the percentage of carbs, protein and fat I ate over the course of a day – rather than counting calories. Like many women, I needed to increase the amount of protein I eat; and I started taking a protein shake. He also encouraged me to move more.

I used to do a big run one day, then sit behind my computer for three days; he encouraged more consistency. I had started doing TRX workouts online during lockdown, which I really enjoyed, so I invested in a personal trainer session once a week, which really accelerated my TRX progress. A final thing that really helped was a course run by the life coach Alister Gray; he taught me the power of prioritising the things that make you happy and healthy. For me, that is morning exercise, usually after I have dropped the children at school and before my first call of the day.

These have all been quite small changes that I have easily integrated into my life, yet the impact has been enormous. As a result I’ve lost nearly two stone (12 kilos) and I feel great. I lost it over 10 months, and it was two dress sizes – yet despite getting smaller I wasn’t always getting lighter, as I was building muscle. My muscle mass is so much higher now so I have tried to ignore the scales a bit as the muscle is heavier.

But the best thing is that my children see how much I love exercise; my 11-year-old daughter says she wants to be strong like me.

MY WORKOUT WEEK

I use the Jennis fitness app, which recommends what kind of training you should do around your menstrual cycle. I exercise every day: I do a TRX workout once a week with my PT, Tom CuffBurnett, and do group sessions online three or four days a week, as well as Pilates classes. I also make sure I walk 10,000 steps every day.

WHAT I EAT IN A DAY

Breakfast A high-protein yogurt with a bit of granola.

Post-workout snack A protein

smoothie.

Lunch Salmon fillet with a big salad and quinoa.

Dinner One of our family favourites is sticky chicken with soy sauce, honey and garlic, served with beans, broccoli, spinach and rice.

LIFESTYLE RULES

Diet It’s all about macro counting and focusing on a higher protein diet.

Alcohol We have tried to stop drinking altogether in the week and just drink sensibly at weekends – unless there’s a party.

Guilty pleasures Occasional pizza, which to me is the most delicious thing.

Loving exercise: as well as changing her diet, Katie Marshall started doing workouts online during lockdown