A mother of two who lived off her emotions has revealed how she lost 123 pounds in just 11 months and turned her life around.
Ashley Zablocki, 28, said the exchange with her son over chocolate made her question her own relationship with food.
Zablocki says she’s always had a “bad relationship” with food, her body and her mental health, and it only got worse when she turned 18, had more freedom to buy her own food and had her first child.
“I would have at least one piece of chocolate. I would snack throughout the day. Whatever the kids didn’t eat, I would eat. And I wouldn’t eat lunch or breakfast so I would eat a huge meal for dinner,” Ms Zablocki told news.com.au.
She said that when the family orders takeout meals from McDonald’s, she and her husband sometimes share the meal with the family.
“I was dealing with my emotions with food,” she said, adding that she was lucky if she walked 1,000 steps a day and wasn’t exercising at all.
“Having kids was like an excuse to myself: ‘I’m a busy mom, I don’t have time for this.'”
The woman, from Victoria, said she weighed a maximum of 121kg. [about 267 lbs] However, looking back at the photos, she realised she was “a lot fatter” than that.
But when Cadbury launched its new Caramel Slice Block, she was pushed to her breaking point.
“I loved it. I was buying it at the store and my son snatched it away and broke it in half,” she said.
“I was so upset because the block just wasn’t comfortable for me anymore. That’s when I realised my relationship with food wasn’t good. I went home and looked in the mirror and reflected on how I felt. I thought, ‘I can’t do this anymore’.”
Zablocki’s father had died of cancer at age 57. Her mother had suffered from heart disease her whole life, and the young mother suffered from gestational diabetes and preeclampsia during her first pregnancy that nearly cost her and her daughter her life. It all came crashing down on her, and she knew something had to change.
After thinking about it for a week, she told her husband that she wanted to start walking but wasn’t sure about the physical fitness of walking outdoors, so instead they bought a cheap treadmill on Facebook Marketplace.
“I just started walking. I could only walk for 10 minutes at a time, but I did it every day,” she said.
“Then I realised I had to change my diet. If I didn’t improve my diet, no matter how much I exercised, I wouldn’t lose weight.”
She slowly started eating smaller portions, eating three meals a day instead of snacks and one large meal, switching to sugar-free soft drinks, and drinking more water.
Zablocki also started intermittent fasting, but she couldn’t give up her favorite desserts.
“I weighed myself for about three weeks straight and found I’d lost three kilos. [6.6 pounds]”I thought, ‘I can do this,'” she said.
“I started noticing that I could walk an extra five minutes.”
A friend encouraged her to try it. 28 Sam Wood She discovered dance classes on a fitness app and gave them a try, but at first she found herself out of breath after five minutes. Now she dances every day and runs a few times a week because it’s so much fun.
In just 11 months, Zablocki has lost about 123 pounds and now weighs 143.
“I feel great. I feel so much better mentally and physically. I can get out of bed and I’m not in pain,” she said, adding that before she began her weight loss journey, she began seeing a psychologist to address her emotional triggers and find coping mechanisms that didn’t have to do with food. She also found ways to address her lack of confidence in her appearance.
“I went to a play centre with my kids and we went to a different place than we usually go,” she said.
“I said to my husband, ‘That slide looks so fun. It’s so big,’ and we went up on the playground and went down the slide with our daughter.
“It felt amazing.”
Now, in addition to running and dancing, Zablocki has started weight training in the hopes of getting stronger, and she says she hasn’t given up her love of food, just that she’s enjoying it in a healthier way.
