Hello, my name is Neda,

And I think it's never too late to become fit and embrace a healthy, empowering lifestyle.

I've been trying to lose weight since I was 17 years old. I was always chubbier than my friends and classmates, and the first time I became conscious of that was when I was 9 years old, though I’m glad I did not try to lose weight at that age or though my early teens because that can have a devastating effect on health and growth. When I started my weight loss journey in my late adolescent years, I did not have the slightest idea how long it would be.

Over the years, I've tried everything from calorie deficit diets to different fad diets and none of them worked. The calorie deficit diets would leave me starved and really unhappy, especially because at the end they could never keep the weight off, and it would always come back with a revenge. For years I tried to eat healthy without starving myself, and do a lot of exercise, but that method also did not get me far. I managed to keep my body from going completely obese but my weight would fluctuate all the time and never be as low as I wanted it to be. I was starting to feel hopeless and frustrated. All I had managed to do was learn how to hide my weight. I would wear jackets and cardigans to divide my shape into smaller pieces, and any chance I got, I would hide my body by putting my arm in front of me or crossing my legs. I see now that I was in denial.

I was not ashamed though. I truly believed my efforts were for me and I did not care about what other people saw when they looked at me, but the truth is that I was in a battle against my body, and deep down sad because of my failure. All I had achieved was to learn to deprive myself from eating the food I like, and to turn my face on how my weight kept going up and down all the time, leaving my body in an unstable, unhealthy and challenging condition.

This picture depicts those frequent fluctuations well. I had bought this jacket a few months before this picture was taken, and it had fit perfectly. That day I wore that jacket without even thinking about whether it still fits or not. Of course I must have felt that it didn’t, but my mind wasn’t going to accept it so I overlooked it. Only when I saw the picture did I realize how on the verge of exploding this poor jacket had been.

This is while I almost always deprived myself from eating everything I like including the food I had grew up with, and exercised a lot too. The excessive exercise finally became too much for my body and I got my back injured and could not work out for a long time. It was a stressful time in my life as well, and the combination of those things got my weight really out of hand.

I don’t have any picture from when I was my heaviest, because I was determined not to see that, not to admit the complete defeat, and certainly not to document that failure.

Just when I was getting used to the idea that “it’s just in my genes, I can never lose this weight”, the keto diet became a trend in social media. I had heard about low carb diets such as Atkin’s but had never tried it because I thought I couldn’t keep it for a long time, given that I had grown up in a carbohydrate rich lifestyle and found it too hard to abandon those foods entirely. However, hearing other people's stories, how all of them had given up something they liked, how it had finally worked and they finally managed to reach their weight loss goals, I decided to try the keto diet as well. And it worked. For a few weeks that is. My body went back to the starting square one more time, but I did not give up. I stayed on a keto and low carb diet for about two years. The result was that I had very little energy, and taking supplements including minerals that apparently helps in this situation, and I still wasn’t feeling well. I added intermittent fasting to the diet, and it just made it worse. I’m not suggesting that it’s a bad method, or that keto diet is bad, but they did not work for me. Later came across research that suggested IF can be too harsh for women’s bodies, at least for some, and that IF can cause hormonal imbalance. It made sense because I had completely lost the ability to sleep, and I had become anxious and restless, so something clearly was not right. One more time I had only thought of reaching my weight loss goals without thinking about what was best for my body, fighting it and trying to change it according to the ideals in my mind.

It wasn't until I shifted my perspective from battling my body to taking care of it that I finally managed to lose the excess weight. I realized that I needed to start listening to my body instead of trying to force it into a mold that didn't work for me. I started paying attention to how different foods made me feel and adjusted my diet accordingly. I started letting my body decide what it’s good for my health, instead of dictating to it what I wanted. I also started managing my stress by practicing EFT in the evening and making sure I would get the day light by going for walks every day, which made my sleep situation improve a lot. I also started doing daily exercise again, but this time I listen to my body and never try to do too much. I also added visualization techniques and energy work and finally I reached my weight loss goal.

One of the biggest lessons I learned on my weight loss journey was the importance of self-care. I used to think that losing weight was all about battling my body and pushing myself to the limit, and whenever I failed, I blamed myself thinking I wasn’t fighting my body hard enough, or that I wasn’t forcing myself into the programs firmly enough. But the truth is, it was with taking care of myself mentally, emotionally and physically with the right nutrition and exercise that were good for me and I enjoyed that I finally succeeded.

Through all the ups and downs of my weight loss journey, I learned that it's never too late to start taking care of yourself. It's never too late to start living a healthier, happier life.

I created this website to help other women on a similar journey. If you are struggling with weight loss like I was, I wish to support you and accompany you through a part of this fabulous journey in the hope that something here might inspire or smooth your way toward celebrating not only achieving your weight loss goal but also becoming a happier, more thriving version of yourself. Remember, it's never too late. If I could do it, you can too.