Well here’s my story, timeline, and some valuable lessons that I’ve learned along the way that should save you from making the same mistakes I did…
If you’re just starting out, here’s what’s important to remember…
Everyone’s story has a beginning, and everyone’s journey is filled with challenges that must be overcome.
Who you are today has nothing to do with who you can decide to become tomorrow…
And me?
Well that brings us to Chapter 1 in my journey… Which is basically six years of struggle, after struggle…
I got my first taste of what good nutrition can do and just how precious your health really is when I witnessed my boyfriend fight for his life with cancer.
It’s an incredibly sad story, he eventually lost his life this awful disease but the whole experience did something to me that I’m forever grateful for.
It taught me to value my health at such a young age. And I thank God for that perspective because at the time I was almost 50% body fat and my doctor told me I was in the obese weight range.
So I started out just like most people do. Cut out sugar, switched to a semi-whole food diet and started exercising…and it worked pretty well.
I lost the first 10 kilos of ‘easy fat’ in just 4 months.
But then it really started to slow down, eventually coming to a complete plateau.
No matter what I did I couldn’t seem to lose the weight.
I tried many different diets, hired personal trainers, joined weight loss groups, took weight loss and appetite supplements but none of it worked for long.
And to the merit of everything I tried, I did get lots of different pieces of the weight loss puzzle but nobody could show me how they all fit together in an overall weight loss strategy.
I stayed in this cycle for 6 long years and my net loss after all that time was just 8 kilos.
During this time I had met my now husband Nick and my wedding day was right around the corner.
I had always had in my mind to be at my goal weight by my wedding day.
The wedding was only 7 months away and I still had 10 kilos to lose. That was more weight than I’d managed to lose in the last 6 years.
It seemed like an impossible task.
So I did something totally wild….I intentionally bought my wedding dress 2 sizes too small. That way I had no way of backing out.
I literally had to find the answer to my stubborn weight.
And I did. I was introduced to the right person at the right time.
He was my first introduction to helping me see that my struggle was potentially a hormone problem.
Even though I was eating healthy I was still triggering way too much of this hormone called insulin and it was making it impossible for my body to burn fat.
What made this so significant is that He was finally someone who was telling me something different, and it touched on something that I was very interested in, that there may be a greater underlying cause to my weight gain, which was affecting my weight loss.
And in 7 months dropped, 2 dress sizes and according to my husband, looked like a movie star in that wedding dress.
But this is not the end of my story….
I still had one more problem.
Even though I made it to my goal weight, I still wasn’t happy. What I could hide in my wedding dress I couldn’t hide in a bikini.
My body was still holding onto fat around my hips bum and thighs.
And I hated it.
I started telling myself all kinds of stories, like…. “it was impossible for me to lose.”
I started buying into the idea that it’s just how my body was supposed to be, “I must be genetically predisposed to holding fat there.”
I’d even gone so far as seeing a plastic surgeon about liposuction. Without a doubt in my mind the fat was going, even if I had to get it sucked out.
It was at that point I had a choice:
Either I could figure out why my body was holding onto the fat on my lower half
or I could take what looked like the quick and easy way and just have the surgery.
Well thankfully I decided not to go ahead with the surgery. I just knew I had to find another way.
So I decided to look for a solution… and I found something that would change my life forever.
And that was learning about Hormone Optimisation
Essentially Hormone Optimisation is the biology of the endocrine system and understanding the hormone and gland connections in your body.
After consuming every book and course on hormones that I could find, I realised there were other hormone imbalances I needed to correct for my body to release fat from my lower half.
Once I learned this everything changed.
Within a few weeks of focusing on these other hormone imbalances I started to see results.
In the summer of 2014 I was finally able to reach my bikini goal without having to get surgery.
So after all of that effort I decided to get pregnant.
What was supposed to be the most amazing experience of my life turned out to be the worst.
My first trimester was a complete right off, morning sickness all day and night and I regained almost all of my stubborn weight.
But losing the weight this time was different. Because I understood my body and hormones I knew exactly what to do.
In just 5 months I lost 12 kilos, regaining my pre-pregnancy body back even though I was hardly sleeping or exercising.
Since learning about hormones and their connection to stubborn fat, my approach to weight loss has never been the same.
I learned that you must tailor your approach to your specific hormone weakness.
In my case it was my estrogen dominance.
I had never considered the health of my ovaries before and how they related to stubborn fat.
When I think back now it seems so obvious. At age 16 I’d had a large growth removed from my left ovary.
The doctors put me on the birth control pill to reduce the chance of recurring cysts and in hindsight this was one of the events that triggered my stubborn weight gain.
I wanted to find a way to teach everything I’d learned and experienced so I started my health coaching and nutrition practice in 2010
There are 2 primary reasons for me doing what I do which stem from problems I want to see solved in my lifetime.
Number 1. I want to free women from the cycle of dieting and all the associated symptoms that come with hormone imbalances, and help them to get their life and their body back.
Every woman deserves to have the energy to do the things she loves, with the people she loves and feel fantastic in her own body.
The average woman spends 17 years of her life dieting and only 2% are ever successful at achieving and maintaining their weight loss goals.
So what does that tell you? They’re operating off incorrect information.
We’ve been lead down a path by the diet industry who continues to address weight gain as the problem rather than the underlying cause which is a hormone imbalance.
It’s so destructive and downright demoralising when you’re constantly dieting. And I would know, I did that for 6 long years.
I’m achieving my mission by changing the approach to losing stubborn fat by addressing the underlying cause of weight gain.
The reason why I’m so passionate about doing this is because for the 2 years that Cameron was sick I watched his parents search with all the resources they could find, for a cure for their son.
Finding true underlying causes I believe is a key piece which leads someone to their true cure.
I went from program to program but was never able to create lasting change because no one ever taught me about my body and how health is created.
Generation Health stands for freeing women from the the cycle of dieting, and providing a clear path to getting her life and her body back by addressing the underlying cause of weight gain which is a hormone imbalance.
I want you to have the same breakthrough I had and I want to equip you with the same knowledge and tools that had to achieve my goals.
It wasn’t until I learned how to create health and how fat is burned was I able to achieve my goals with my health in tact.
This really is the secret to achieving lasting results. You’ve got to keep your health at all costs but unfortunately most of the mainstream approaches to fat loss cause more harm to your body.
Number 2: I want to affect the health of future generations (hence the name Generation Health)
A mother in the household who has the energy and vitality to thrive and live life to its fullest, feeling confident in the body she’s in. Can move mountains, including the business she runs of managing the household.
I’ve seen that a woman who is the opposite to these things is really suffering through the day to day of life.
I believe the difference in her health creates a ripple effect into the family, and therefore in the future generations to come.
I put this down to a lack of education and awareness from within the household. When you work with me and take my course, my chief primary aim is to empower you so you can be an agent of change in your family.
I’ve found my life’s purpose in health coaching. Freeing women from dieting, and helping them to get their life and their body back has become my passion.
When you take my online coaching program you don’t just purchase another program. You join a community and a movement to bring about change in the world.
In summary, there are many more moments in my highlight reel that I’m incredibly grateful for and would never of had the chance to experience had I not learned to achieve my goals: like speaking at parliament, writing articles for NZ Fitness magazine, running a half marathon, writing a book, being a model for a day and getting my pre-pregnancy body back after just 5 months…it’s been a hell of ride so far.
But what I’m most grateful for over the years, has been the little things…
Like having energy to be a great wife and mum, like being present for my newborn baby and being attentive to his needs, and still feeling rested even though my sleep has been broken.
If you’ve managed to make it through my story here, I would just like to say THANK YOU.
Thank you for your attention, and your support.
I’d like to invite you to take my online program. I’ve poured everything I know about health and weight loss into that program and I walk you through the entire process.
Tarryn Thompson