No cuenta calorías ni se pesa diariamente. Tampoco recurre a dietas extremas ni “pasa hambre”. Esos son algunos beneficios de la rutina que adquirió Joanne Petter, una mujer de 42 años que en algún momento se sintió totalmente infeliz con su vida y decidió hacer un drástico cambio para luchar contra eso.

Fue en 2014 cuando Joanne “tocó fondo”. La australiana, que tiene dos hijos, había sido diagnosticada de ansiedad y depresión, lo que dificultaba su día a día. De la misma forma, se sentía muy disconforme con su apariencia física que, si bien ella reconoce que no estaba “gorda”, demostraba lo sedentaria que era su vida, cuenta al portal británico DailyMail.

“Cuando pesaba más kilos no tenía confianza en mí misma. Mi ropa no encajaba bien, estaba muy mal y débil, y aunque no estaba gorda, tenía muy poco músculo en comparación con la grasa corporal”, explica.

You aren’t ‘stuck’ with a post baby body or limited to what genetics has blessed you with. You don’t have to accept it when people tell you that everything turns to shit after 40 or that your body will never be the same. If definitely won’t…. but in my case it’s better than it ever was because I work harder than I ever did. Pic one was taken 3yrs after my second child. This was as good as I thought it was going to get for me. I had just finished 5 weeks on Jenny Craig as a quick fix prior to going on holiday and lost 5 kg which I was soon to put back on. What I was yet to realise, was that there was no quick fix that would actually last and what I really needed in order to actually change my shape was weight training. Mumbum, muffin top and cankles aren’t terminal illnesses and they can definitely be rectified when you persist with good nutrition and exercise. 🏋🏽‍♀️🏋🏽‍♀️🏋🏽‍♀️

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Es durante ese año que, con voluntad propia, decidió que ya no quería llevar ese estilo de vida y cambiaría totalmente sus hábitos. Para ello, comenzó con un programa de ejercicio semanal, lo que fue el inicio de la rutina diaria que tomaría después.

“El primer programa de ejercicios que hice fue el de 30 días de Jillian Michaels (entrenadora), que recomendaría a cualquiera que no sepa por dónde empezar”, dice y detalla: “Es uno de esos programas en los que rápidamente ves una mejora en tu fuerza y ​​resistencia”.

Luego Joanne Petter se preocupó de su alimentación. “Me tomó un tiempo darme cuenta de que la comida era el factor más importante en la pérdida de peso y me propuse hacer pequeños cambios de estilo de vida que me aseguraran poder mantener mis resultados”, señala.

En ese momento, Joanne optó por eliminar la comida chatarra, el azúcar refinado y los productos lácteos de su dieta. “Ahora consumo una dieta a base de plantas y huevos y nunca me he sentido mejor”, admite.

Food diary. M1 – Mocha protein shake (recipe in most of my other food diaries) and coconut rice pudding. This is just 1 cup of coconut milk (can not carton) brought to the boil with a little honey to taste and then add a cup of cooked rice (I used medium grain) and boil for about 5 min. I eat the majority of my carbs pre and post workout and I worked out after this meal. M2 – Lean chicken mince bolognese with pasta and broccolini. I used gluten free pasta and bolognese sauce from @barillaaus which is my favourite brand… while I’m not gluten free, pasta can be one of those bloating foods so this is a great option. S – Hummus and seeded sourdough toast and some watermelon. M4 – Scrambled eggs with lean spiced chicken mince (Kept some aside when making M2) and steamed kale. 👌🏼

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Para que el impacto de su dieta fuera efectivo, estableció horarios para alimentarse. “Como sólo entre las 12 del día y las 8 de la noche. Suena difícil, pero cuando tu cuerpo se adapta, se vuelve fácil y realmente no sientes hambre”, explica la mujer que ingiere alimentos sólo durante 8 horas.

Sin embargo, explica que flexibiliza este horario cuando tiene algún evento social o es una fiesta familiar.

“No cuento calorías. Simplemente prefiero comer tantos alimentos enteros como pueda con una variedad de proteínas, carbohidratos y grasas saludables”, añade y cuenta que sólo se realiza un escáner de composición corporal cada seis meses.

Una rutina diaria

A pesar que hace ejercicio seis días a la semana, no tarda más de 20 ó 30 minutos en hacerlos. Su rutina consiste en tres ejercicios de resistencia y tres ejercicios de cardio.

En su casa, Joanne tiene pesas de todo tipo, mancuernas (de las que recomienda las hexagonales porque no ruedan), bandas de resistencia y antes usaba una bicicleta elíptica mientras veía la TV, pero admite que ya no ve televisión. También tiene guantes para tomar las pesas. Todo lo obtuvo a través de internet.

“Principalmente uso videos de ejercicio en YouTube y también he creado mis propios entrenamientos HIIT para cardio y me gusta hacer ejercicio en ayunas ya que me da más enfoque y claridad”, relata.

Happy New Year everyone! 💫💥🎊🎉 I’ve spent the last few days down at the beach with family and I’ve had time to reflect on how far I’ve come over the last few years and think about what I want my 2018 to look like. Health and fitness is a lifestyle for me now and the key to achieving consistency was accepting all my stuff ups and learning to get back on track as soon as possible. It’s as much a psychological battle as a physical one and letting bad days turn into bad weeks or months is what needs to be avoided. Now is the time when so many people are fully motivated by their New Year’s resolution to get fit and healthy but it’s usually only a matter of days or weeks before most resolutions get abandoned because people aim for perfection and throw in the towel the first time they fall off the wagon. I fell off it myself many times but picked myself up just as many times to the point where I now know I’ll always get back on track because I always feel much better for it. There are very few things in life we have control over but we are the ones who get to choose how we look and feel in 2018 by the goals we set and the way we treat our bodies. Feeling very excited about making 2018 my best year yet and hope you all are too. 🤗🙌🏼

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Hoy Joanne Petter no es “ni la sombra” de lo que era antes. La madre confiesa que ya no sufre de depresión y ansiedad (o al menos han disminuido sus niveles notoriamente) entre otros beneficios físicos, que van más allá de la tonificación de su figura y pérdida de peso. “Mi piel y cabello también han mejorado inmensamente. A través del levantamiento de pesas también pude aumentar la densidad mineral ósea”, dice.

Todo este proceso la mujer lo ha registrado en su cuenta de Instagram, en donde suma más de 121 seguidores y comparte sus “tips” y fotos de su físico y comida en cada publicación.

Revisa aquí algunas fotos de su “antes y después”.

Ok, so we all know by now that it’s the diet that needs to be the focus for fat loss, not exercise. It’s also the diet that is the hard part. Even if we do commit to clean eating, we can often eat too much of a good thing and still see no results. A lot of you already know that I’m a big fan of intermittent fasting (IF) and have been doing it for years. It’s not a diet, it’s a tool and I just wanted to talk about WHY it works for me as I do really consider it the game changer in my fitness journey. Nothing else has helped me get the weight off and effortlessly keep it off. I was already working out regularly in the first pic but wasn’t seeing much progress despite trying my hardest to eat clean. I now basically eat all my meals between 12-8pm whenever I can, which has become easy and I don’t get hungry prior to this. What the fasting has done for me is eliminate all the cravings that used to derail me. I would pig out on chocolate, ice-cream and large bags of potato chips. I no longer crave any of them. Eating an early breakfast also opens up my appetite so even if I am eating clean, I end up eating a LOT more over the course of the day. I also feel more focused when fasting and my energy levels are higher – like anything new though, it does take an adjustment period but it really does become easy, to the point where I really can’t even stomach the thought of eating first thing in the morning. 😃

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I’ve found it quite hard to accept getting older… sometimes I wish I could turn back time but then I look at some of my old pics and think nah I’m doing ok! 😅 It’s not all over after 40 or after you have kids. I didn’t start my fitness journey till 6 years postpartum with the second so it really is never too late to start. The biggest tip I can give is eat right to make your workouts count. I used to workout and all I would think about at the time was what I was going to reward myself with at the end. 🤦🏽‍♀️ I exercised for a whole year this way and saw no physical results until I changed the diet. There are many ways to do it but I recommend one simple lifestyle change at a time. Find healthier alternatives for things you eat that aren’t so great. Once the food is under control, the rest is easy. 👌🏼

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At the beginning I used to compare my back progress and all I ever really cared about was whether the back fat was in check. I never cared about whether I had strong back muscles or any definition but that’s really all I care about now. I feel back can easily be overlooked by women but it’s the muscles along our spine and lower back that need to be strong in order to have good posture and be able to hold our stomach muscles in. One of the best things about starting the gym a few months ago is that I’ve come to love back day whereas I really didn’t enjoy it at home when I was using free weights and therefore didn’t push myself enough to see too much progress. Some of the exercises that I really enjoy are lateral pulldowns, isometric pulldowns, TRX rows, cable squat rows and cable plank rows. One of my goals for this year is to be able to do 10 pull-ups and I know all the work I have to do in order to get there is going to really strengthen my back muscles. I think if I had to go back to home workouts for back I would definitely be focusing more on pulls up and chin ups and would recommend a pull up bar to everyone. They are so inexpensive and just go over a door frame but pull-ups would have to be one of the best bodyweight exercise you can do. 👌🏼

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A 5kg fat loss was enough to turn my frown upside down. 😂 I often get asked for advice regarding fat loss and especially belly fat and I can only talk about my experience with this. As we get older, our bodies naturally want to store fat around the mid section and it is harder to lose. So many people tell me they are doing everything right but they can’t shift it. The body is a funny thing and if you push too hard too fast with fat loss it can have the opposite effect. Under eating and over exercising as well as lack of sleep can all impact fat loss. Anything that raises cortisol (stress hormone) too much can lead to storing fat. That is why you should aim to remove as many stressful things (including people) from your life. In terms of nutrition, what works for one will not necessarily work for all but everyone should aim to eat nutritious whole foods and eliminate as many processed and pre-packaged foods as possible. This is what we refer to as clean eating. What worked for me was focussing on eating lean protein, increasing green vegetables, eating healthy fats and replacing white starchy carbs for healthier options like sweet potato, brown rice and oats. I find that when I cut back on carbs I am much more likely to lose fat. I feel like a broken record when I talk about intermittent fasting but it was a game changer in that it was the tool that eliminated cravings for me and made fat loss easy. I won’t go into details here but eating all my meals from roughly 12-8pm gave my digestive system a break and got my body to use stored fat for energy. In terms of supplements, I find protein powder to be the one I can’t live without purely for convenience. When it comes to fat burners I won’t touch anything but natural ones like black coffee, green tea, chilli and cayenne pepper. Cardio can be great to aid nutrition in burning a few extra calories and fasted hiit cardio is preferable to me when not doing too much other strenuous exercise. I now however only do low intensity steady state cardio (walking) as I lift weights 5 times a week and I just want to help my body recover on my rest days rather than raise cortisol further. 😊

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The most asked question I've had is 'how long did it take to lose the belly fat?' The one question I've never been asked though is how long I've kept it off for. We all want results yesterday but results are only kept long term when the changes you make become a lifestyle. The top left pic was nearly four years ago. I was already exercising but not consistently and I hadn't yet made the necessary changes to my diet in order to see results. My workouts didn't get more intense, in fact I workout less now and do less ab exercises but the one factor that got me steady results was that my diet got progressively cleaner with less processed food and junk. I remember when I originally posted the pink bikini pic (bottom,middle) in Feb 2016 – this was the first time I felt I had accomplished my mission of seeking abs… but looking back on that pic I'm not a fan at all. I have more lean muscle now giving me a fuller look and I much prefer it. . . #motivated #dedicated #lift #weights #train #bbggirls #fitlife #cleaneating #eatclean #diet #nutrition #fitfood

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