It has been some time since I have written my blog. I do apologise but I’ve been very busy, spent the half term week at my mum’s in Edinburgh and I’ve been really poorly. Lots has happened and I’ve just found it extremely difficult to have any time to just sit down and just put words down on paper.
So I suppose you are wondering what has happened over the past 3 weeks. Well at the end of May an article was written about me in the local newspaper, Cumberland & Westmorland Herald. I was made member of the month at Elite Fitness Gym and I was so chuffed. I shall put the article below so that you can all see what was written. There were a couple of bits missed from the article, I think because they had to be careful so I shall include them in this blog.
Member of the month
Kerryanne Hunter, aged 37, is a Self Employed Cooking & Food Safety Trainer/Consultant, working with adults and children with disabilities, learning difficulties and/or behavioural issues. I am divorced and have 2 children Daryl 15 and Bailey 9, who has disabilities & additional needs. I live in Shap.
Four years ago, I went into therapy, to deal with issues from my childhood and past. Part of the healing process was to deal with my increased weight. I was 21stone 8lbs, and my health was affected due to high blood pressure and general ill health due to the weight. I approached at that time a local gym to me, which was in Penrith, asking them to support me and to work with me on getting my weight down. They took my money and every time I went they were too busy or no one was available to help and support me so I stopped going. I started my own form of diet and just started walking and snowboarding. But it was still very difficult and I was finding it increasingly difficult to continue getting motivated.
Four years later and after losing 4stone, I was having major surgery which I had to pay for myself at a cost of £9,000, a sleeve gastrectomy. I needed to join a gym to help with the pre op weight loss and then the post op weight loss and toning. I was reading the Cumberland & Westmorland Herald and there was a full page spread about a new gym opened in Penrith, so I telephoned them and made arrangements to go and visit the gym and see if I liked it but most importantly, was that they could support me all the way through my weight loss journey and not just want to take my money and leave me to get on with it.
Q. How long have you been an Elite Fitness member?
I joined Elite Fitness on Tuesday 29th March 2011
Q. How often do you visit?
I visit 3 days a week. Usually around 10-11am for as long as my workout takes. I do not go on a weekend as this is quality time with my family.
Q. What classes and/or exercise do you do?
I do not attend any classes at the moment as I needed to work on my cardio fitness and toning. I have a personally adapted workout schedule which was written with my pre op surgery in mind. Chris has worked on all the elements which I needed to be worked on taking into account that I didn’t want any muscle gain just weight loss and toning.
Q. What exercise did you do before joining the gym?
In my younger days, I served in the British Army for 10 years. I played Basketball, Rugby and captained the athletics team. After leaving the Army I haven’t really done any fitness other than walking and snowboarding. Also, my continued weight gain made me more and more conscious about my size and the way people looked at me. So I was frightened to go into a gym and see all these slim people giving it rock all on the machines and I’d look like a floundering whale.
Q. What prompted you to join Elite Fitness?
After meeting with Steve, Emma and Chris on the look around the gym, I knew that this was the right gym for me. They were friendly, warm, inviting and welcoming. They wanted to know about me, my journey and why I wanted their help. They listened and took in all the information I had to tell them and took the time to get it right. They wanted to know about my future surgery and what I wanted from them after my surgery and how I would need them to support me in getting to that goal. I felt like I’d known them forever. I felt like I was a member of their family and not just another gym member. This is why I joined Elite Fitness.
Q. When did you start to notice a difference?
After only 3 weeks I started noticing a real difference. My clothes were becoming looser and my face was looking thinner. Also, a lady which I knew from the village met me when I was out shopping one day and she couldn’t believe how well I looked and how much weight I had lost. (Her words).
Q. What are your future targets?
My future targets are to continue to lose the weight and restart my fitness regime with the help of the staff at the gym. I am now nearly 3 weeks post op and I can start in the gym again. It will be just light gym work for the next 3 weeks then working upwards from there on. I want to lose a total of 6 stone in the next 2 years. This will be a culmination of my surgery and my workouts from the gym. As my weight comes off I want to start attending the classes which the gym holds on a daily basis. So hopefully by September I will be physically fit enough to start this.
Message to others:
For the last 34 years I have struggled with my weight, due to physical, mental and psychological abuse. Now, I am in control of my life and have the confidence, to not let this impact on the rest of my future. I have a new found comfort in my life and that is going to the gym. It has helped to make me strong and determined in mind and body. Finding Elite Fitness is the best thing that has happened to me in such a long time. Their continued support and backing speaks for itself. I feel welcomed and comfortable in the gym when at others I felt an outcast. This is the perfect gym for any ladies or men who have weight issues and want the support and backing to help them to lose the weight and tone up. I hadn’t really entered a gym in 12 years and if I can do it so can you. It is fun and friendly and they are there to motivate you all along the way. Elite Fitness is a welcomed, sparkling gem, in an otherwise dull pot of available gyms. I am blogging about my weight loss and my visits to the gym.
If you’d like to follow this here is the link:
So that was my article and they also included a picture of me with Steve and Lee from the Gym. When the article was put into the paper I was visiting my mum in Edinburgh for the half-term holidays. The feedback from people which I know is very positive and I’m so very proud at how long I have come in such a short time.
While in Edinburgh we went to Livingston to visit Bridie’s daughter, Kirsty and her family. We also, went and did some shopping at the Almondvale shopping centre. I didn’t buy myself anything, but my mum bought me 3 tops at Next to replace all the tops I’ve had to give to her as they didn’t fit me anymore. Bailey got some games from Game station and mum got a lovely new watch with birthday money and I gave her the difference to make sure that she didn’t have to pay anything for it. We then went to Kirsty’s for dinner and a fashion parade from one of her lovely daughters. I truly am blessed to have such really lovely and pleasant friends.
While at Edinburgh, mum wasn’t at her full game. What I should say is that she was keeping very well. I’ve been worried about her ever since I came back. I have been right to worry as she is now on a course of antibiotics and she’s still quite low. She hasn’t been right since she fell out of her wheelchair when I had my surgery in Manchester. We went and did shopping and took Bailey to the Fair at the Meadows. He loved it.
Daryl was staying with his Aunty Tanya’s and Uncle Kev’s over the half term. He’s your typical stroppy teenager at the moment and no matter what you say to him he’s always right, or so he thinks. When I went to collect him Tan said that she took her hat off to me as he was definitely hard work and she didn’t know how I coped with him and his crap. I suppose it’s like anything you just put your head down and get on with it. No point hoping that his father will support me and take him off my hands as he can’t even be bothered to reply to my message which I sent him on facebook. He doesn’t even bother to acknowledge that he is his son and help pay towards his keep. Since leaving the Army nearly 18 months ago, I haven’t had a penny towards his upbringing. When his father has been working for the past year he can’t even acknowledge to the CSA that he is working and his income. Well if he’s on what he says that he’s on, £250-£350 per day, then why can’t he even afford to give me £75-£100 a week towards all the costs of bringing up our son? It isn’t cheap bringing up a teenager. As you all probably well know? I have paid out in the last week alone;
2 x school jumpers £40.00
2 x school trousers £40.00
5 x 1hr sessions at tutor £100.00
Pocket money £20.00
Mobile Phone £10.00
School Dinners £15.00
Bus Fares £2.00
Toiletries £29.00
Repair of Laptop £150.00 (due to Daryl breaking it)
So a sub-total of £406.00
All of that above is before I even have paid for food, heating, washing and god only knows what else. Why do the men in the broken relationship have the better end of the deal? They don’t have any of the crap or the hassle from the kids nor do they have the ever expanding costs of looking after them and bringing them up. Why do us women get left with all the shit of the day? I know I’m moaning a bit but I’m so angry. I’m angry at the fact that my ex-husband Peter Fitzsimmons can’t be bothered his arse to acknowledge his son. I suppose it’s out of sight out of mind. For some weird reason Daryl thinks that the sun shines out of his arse!
I hear you ask how things are going with eating food. Well I have tried various foods now. Steak, garlic bread, prawns, chorizo and even chicken breast, homemade chips chicken curry and homemade beef burgers. So a very varied diet and I’m coping very well with it. I am now going to start on salad this week and then it’s off for my weigh-in on Tuesday of next week. I haven’t been on the scales since the last weigh-in so I’m really excited to see how I’ve come on the past 4 weeks. I have gone down to a definite size 18 now. I even went into Next on Monday and tried on a size 16 jeans and they fitted. A little tight, but they sat on my hips to I was really chuffed. It won’t be long before I can comfortably get into them. I’ve had another clear out of my wardrobes as well, another 3 black bags off to Age Concern. If the weight keeps dropping off this quickly I won’t have any clothes left to wear. I know that this is what I wanted but I really didn’t believe that it would all come off this quickly.
The other day I had a comment left on my 10th Blog from someone called Job Centre Plus. I don’t know what they were trying to get at, their comment didn’t make much sense to me, but I posted a reply so we’ll have to see if they reply. I am now back at the gym, about 2 hours every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I’m loving it and loving the feeling that I get after I’ve exercised. It’s like a drug, I’m hooked but this is a good drug and very healthy for me.
We have booked our summer holiday with the kids, we’re off to London for 8 nights and we are going to visit a lot of attractions. Legoland Windsor, Chessington World of Adventures, Thorpe Park, Madame Tussards London, London Eye, Sea Life Centre and the London Dungeons, hopefully we’ll be able to go to the British Museum and also the Tower of London, Westminster and Buckingham Palace with the kids. Hopefully the kids will enjoy it and appreciate what we have done for them. It hasn’t been cheap but will be well worth it as long as they behave themselves. We’ve still got to feed them and entertain them in between, and get there so I see it costing another £1500 for the time away. So a total of £2700, not cheap when you add it all up but we do have the Merlin Premium Passes for a whole year and can use them up and down the UK, so worth it in the long term.
From tomorrow I will start writing my blog as before. I’ve needed this break, as I’ve had to concentrate on me and my family. I had flu for 10 days and couldn’t shift it. So didn’t have the concentration to even sit and try and type things up. I hope that all those following this blog can understand and see how I had to concentrate on the things which are important in my life, my family and me. It’s now late and I need to get to bed. So I will post this to my blog tomorrow.
