29-year-old Mawra Ishaque remembers being overweight right since her childhood. Her battle was not only doing daily chores like climbing a flight of stairs without gasping for air or wearing a cute crop top, but she was constantly fighting clinical depression and eating disorders as well.

When hope started slipping right out of her hand, it was on her 25th birthday that she decided to change her lifestyle to a complete 180 degrees. Losing a whopping 53 kilos was not an easy task, but slowly and patiently she paved her way for a healthy and happy life. Her weight loss journey is inspirational, to say the least. Name: Mawra Ishaque Occupation: Fitness coach Age: 29 years Highest weight recorded: 114.9 kgs Weight lost: 53 kgs Duration it took me to lose weight: 3 years The turning point: I have been overweight for as long as I can remember. To make matters worse, eating disorder and clinical depression accompanied the morbid obesity. From the time I had turned nine, my life had been a constant struggle battling bulimia, depression and the vicious circle of losing and gaining weight.
Ultimately, when I weighed myself in January 2014, the weighing scale showed a whopping 114.9 kilos and that is when it hit me hard. On my 25th birthday, I decided that it was all too much to bear and I decided to end everything for once and all.
So, at 12 o’clock on my 25th birthday, I was glued to my phone, not to check birthday wishes or to take calls but to search for painless ways to commit suicide. It was then that I realised that things have spiraled out of my hand and I needed to take charge of my life. My breakfast: When I am not following intermittent fasting, I have either oats with whey protein and a few nuts or a 4-egg whites omelette with one toast. My lunch: My lunch usually consists of grilled chicken with stir-fried/boiled vegetables or when I'm running late, I quickly make some oats with spices and add three boiled eggs to it. My dinner: It's either just a big glass of whey with poached eggs or one chicken breast. I indulge in: I've come a long way from eating junk food every single day to eating junk only once a month. My cheat meals are mostly restaurant-ordered chicken tandoori or butter chicken. Occasionally, I also indulge in an ice-cream. My workout: I weight train for 5 days a week and I run for 10 kilometres every Sunday. Low-calorie recipes I swear by: I love grilled chicken, scrambled eggs, oats and whey pancakes. Fitness secrets I unveiled: I have tried to lose weight ever since I was a 9 years old. The only reason I was finally able to succeed this time around was because I knew I wasn’t doing it to look good for a party, to get back at an ex with a revenge body or my sheer hatred for the way I looked.
I accepted and loved my current body enough to forget all about the deadlines. I also understood that the whole process is going to take years and I needed to be patient. It took me 3 years to come down from a 50-inch waist to a 27-inch waist. The good news is, fitness doesn't have a deadline so you have an entire lifetime ahead of you. How do I stay motivated? The only thing that keeps me hitting the gym every day is my habit. If I don't go to the gym at night, I feel very restless.
The idea is to envision the goal, envision how you feel after a workout, envision that you're taking control of your life, then putting on some pumping music or YouTube videos and re-start the grind. How do you ensure you don’t lose focus? I love the effect fitness has had on the other aspects of my life. It has helped me deal with depression and eating disorders. Moreover, it has also made me more focused and disciplined at work. What’s the most difficult part of being overweight? The reaction and treatment meted out to me by others were both sad and angering, but I saw a huge shift in people’s attitude towards me after I lost weight. It gave me a perspective of who didn’t change with my number on the weighing scale. I also hated the feeling of being limited. Now I can participate in adventure sports, lift heavy weights and climb a flight of stairs without panting. The best part is that I am not borderline diabetic anymore. In fact, I remember getting a full on anxiety attack before I had to board a flight as I would constantly think what if the seat belt doesn't fit me! What shape do you see yourself 10 years down the line? A better, fitter and healthier version of myself.

What are the lifestyle changes you made? I changed my lifestyle a 180 degrees. I went from eating junk food five out of seven days a week to taking control of my diet by studying fitness and nutrition. I became more mindful of my actions and made my peace with losing people who didn't understand my priorities and goals. For me, my mental, physical, and emotional health came first and my lifestyle is a reflection of that.

What was the lowest point for you? On the night of my 25th birthday, I had no job, I had moved back to my parents' place, gotten out of a long-term relationship and weighed a massive 114.9 kilos. But none of them even compared to that one realization I had that night, which was that I simply wasn't happy with my life.

Lessons learnt from weight loss: Weight loss is temporary, but fitness is permanent.

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Source: indiatimes.com