Shauna Reid gets a Weight Loss WooHoo!

Meet: Shauna Reid (The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl)

Age: 30

Occupation: Writer/Marketing Executive

Where she lives: Scotland

Pounds lost: 175

How long it took to lose the weight: 5.5 years

How long she’s kept off the weight: 2 years

I was surfing around when I first found Shauna’s blog and I was hooked right away! Her writing is candid, brilliant, and often hysterical. And her weight loss story is remarkable – she lost half her body weight! So here’s a Weight Loss WooHoo! to you, Shauna – just FFTV’s fun way of celebrating healthy weight.

How Shauna gained the weight:
“Aside from a chronic sweet tooth, there were a myriad of incidents and issues that led to me using and abusing food for all the wrong reasons from an early age. Food was never just food for me – it’s been a way of escaping from the world; a comfort and a coping mechanism. It sounds ridiculous to say that 175 extra pounds ’sneaked up on me’ but it is strange that once you reach a certain size you don’t really notice another 20 or 30 pounds.”

Wake-Up call:
“There were so many wake-up calls, really. One of the biggest moments was the shock of seeing my giant size 26 knickers hanging on the clothesline beside my sister’s tiny size 8 pair. I couldn’t believe that at just 23 years old that those frumpy undies belonged to me. Denial can be such a powerful thing. But that moment made me realize how I’d been kidding myself that I was happy. I was letting my weight hold me back from living life to the fullest. It was just a quiet realization that it was time to make some changes.”

How she shed the pounds:
“I started out with Weight Watchers as I wanted some structure and accountability. I had a really lovely, supportive meeting. After a year I decided to go on my own as the meeting clashed with my gym classes and I felt I needed to figure out what was going to work for me for the rest of my life.”

“I had many ups and downs but came to realize what worked for me was keeping things simple, eating smaller portions of real food and lots of exercise. Most importantly I finally managed to unravel my relationship with food and develop a healthier attitude to both my body and the way I eat. Seven years of keeping my blog, The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl, has been a big part of that process.”

Weekly workouts:
“When I started I could only walk to the end of the block and back before I had to sit down and catch my breath. I gradually added another block, and built up from there – this year I did a marathon walk. Over the years I’ve tried many different kinds of exercise but my favourite is kickboxing.”

Shauna’s current workout schedule:
Monday: Kickboxing
Tuesday: Weights
Wednesday: Kickboxing
Thursday: Spinning
Friday: Rest
Saturday: Weights
Sunday: Rest or a yoga/pilates DVD

“I’m not a slave to exercise, I just try to fit in what I can and don’t feel like a failure if I have a really busy week and the schedule goes right out the window. Even a short walk at lunchtime is good to get my endorphins going.”

Diet philosophy:
“Just do the healthy thing more often than you don’t.”

Daily challenge:
“3PM at work when the chocolate bars start calling my name.”

Her tips:
“Weight loss is about persistence, not perfection. I screwed up many, many times along the way but managed to succeed simply because I didn’t give up.”

“My other tip is to make sure you don’t put your life on hold for weight loss. Don’t think you have to be a certain jeans size before you can go on that European vacation or go for that promotion – you’re worthy of all those things right now.”

Favorite healthy recipe:
“Now that the nights are getting cold and nasty I’m craving a big bowl of comfort. I love this Comforting Butternut Squash and Lentil Dahl from Mostly Eating. It tastes rich and creamy but it is incredibly healthy and low in fat”

Shauna’s Weight Loss WooHoo!:
“While the clichés like buying clothes and fitting into chairs are obviously nice, the biggest WooHoo is just feeling comfortable in my own skin. I used to feel such loathing for my body, but getting hooked on exercise very early on in my weight loss journey helped me appreciate my body for what it can do, rather than just for what it looked like.”

That last line is a great one – we should all appreciate our body for what it can do, instead of just for what it looks like. Shauna has an amazing story and I can’t wait for her new book, The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl to be available here in the U.S. December 30. You can pre-order it here.