It’s no secret to anyone that weight has been a crazy struggle for me over the years. When I played tennis, it was less of an issue, but as I got older and less active work wise, the waistline just kept growing and growing. Being diagnosed with issues such as PCOS hasn’t really helped although being on the Pill has moderated it to a point.

Over the years I have tried things like the gym (lacked motivation / other gym goers were intimidating), Noom (the hipster talk kind of annoyed me) and F45 (actually worked well but on hiatus due to shoulder surgery) to help me get back to fighting fit. Some progress was made, however, this all fell off a cliff when I was admitted for shoulder surgery for a full supraspinatus tear repair that ended up being close to a shoulder reconstruction (yay). That resulted in 12 weeks of doing nothing except eating, sleeping, no physio and getting, well, fat.

Once I was out of the sling and starting basic physiotherapy, I started moving (walking) but the stubborn fat would not budge (I guess that’s why they call it stubborn.) Once clearance from the physio was given to return to futsal (the scene of the shoulder tear) but to take it easy. First few weeks were great – just the occasional bruised finger from goalie duties, but nothing serious. Until I started becoming bolder as goalie and running out to clear stray balls and collided with my teammate’s knee straight to the shin. Ideally what I should have done in this instance is go straight to hospital, given that my leg was swelling more and more by the minute. However, this was also the early days of COVID-19 where the first case resulted in the patient spending time at Monash Clayton, and with my penchant for continually getting injured / sick / screwed up, it was definitely not a good idea to go. So over the next few months, rounds of antibiotics persisted and slowly, the cellulitis (of which docs couldn’t even figure out where it came from) slowly subsided, until it struck again a second time. This is where the weight plummeted of a cliff as I was given Prednisolone to counteract the severe case of hives I had developed taking penicillin based antibiotics. Total weight gain after 5 days? 10kg. Enough to push my already severely overweight self into the triple figure club and shattered my already tenacious grip on my mental state.

So I tried Noom. It marketed itself as a psychological change and that it would work etc etc. It seemed reasonable enough at about $110 for 4 months access including a coach assigned to you and a team coach. Sounded great. 10 minutes a day to change your life.

It didn’t work. Because the $110 was an access fee. If you wanted the semi-personalised meal plans and exercise plans they were an additional cost. I cancelled the Noom program after the 4 months had run its course, realising that the only psychological change I had made was jumping on the scales every day and beating myself (mentally) up for the smallest of changes.

During this time, I was not allowed to exercise due to issues with my shoulder and infected leg, so switched to the F45 Challenge menu to try make some food based changes. Only issue with it was as a full time university student and small business owner (struggling in COVID-19 lockdown), I barely had time to cook the very intricate menus with finicky weights and obscure ingredients. I know they were good for me, but time is really an issue for me, so that went out halfway through Week 1.

So this is where Aston RX comes in. I was aware of Donna Aston’s work (I used to work nearby her studio and a lot of her clients were customers) and had heard her talking on the radio a few times to promote her program. What she said made sense to me, but I was always too reluctant to fork out the cost of the program to join. Having scored a few little wins here and there in lotto, I was able to afford the program starting from June 22.

As usual, prior to clicking purchase, I had my usual run of reluctance to start and guilt about spending so much money ($470) but forced myself to press “purchase” amidst a reminder to myself that there goes a lot of Pimms. What happened next was interesting. First up, you go through a series of questions designed to understand you, your daily routine and what your target weight loss for the 28 days will be. I set my weight loss target for 12kg and admitted to being less than sedentary at best of times. (I was still kicking the last bit of cellulitis, you know). Within 48 hours I was sent via email, a pathology script requesting a fasting blood test to check cholesterol, Vitamin D, iron and insulin levels, so off I went. I generally have these checked (excluding the insulin) every 3 months anyway so it kind of fit in well as I wasn’t able to test these on the antibiotics and subsequent steroids.

Once this was done, a few days later I received some supplements in the mail from Bioceuticals – a Blackmore backed professional range of supplements that require a prescription to be purchased. I was looking at a bottle of UB75 probiotics and a Blackmore Professional range Bio-Chromium which were to be accompanied by a Vitamin D supplement throughout the program.

Then the blood test results came through. High cholesterol runs in the family, and when I have played less sport or dropped my workouts, I always end up with an elevated reading. This one wasn’t too bad, but at 5.9mmol/L it’s definitely starting to ring the warning bells a bit.

Next up was the iron readings and as someone with Thalassemia minor, it’s always going to look a touch lower than normal. 10.2umol/L on a scale of 5 – 30 was good enough for me.

The insulin reading and HOMA score were a surprise to me though. Insulin scoring ranges from 0-17 ulU/ml and the HOMA score (standard for insulin resistance) is 0-2.5 on the ratio. Not to disappoint, yours truly managed to score 28 and 7.1 respectively.

Not looking too great there, are we?

Day 1 rolls around of the Aston Rx program and suffice to say, I’m a little nervous about starting. I have severe commitment issues as well as a chronic case of ‘short on time’ which means that unless a plan is flexible and open-ended, we are not going to last longer than a week. Fortunately, logging onto my dashboard was a pleasant surprise.

Program participants are given their timelines for taking supplements and eating timeframes as well as dot points outlining the general rules of the program which is essentially no snacks, no coffee after midday, drink 3 litres of water a day.

Then you have this:

The drop down menus allow users to change their food plan up but how you cooked your food is totally up to you. There are a plethora of simple recipes available to help you out, but I am very much one of those people who just wing it. And that’s not just due to food. Life applies too! Below is a sample of some of the dishes I was able to have over course of the program:

Looks good, doesn’t it? Fortunately I have a very simple palette, so I have no issues with eating simply cooked foods with salt and salt alone. Though I did splash out at Costco for the fancy Maldon sea salt and gave the Kirkland brand pink salt a rest.

The program requires 3 weight based sessions a week as well as walking at least 10,000 steps every day. Admittedly I slacked off on the weight training component as gyms were closed and weights were sold out practically everywhere, but the cans of corn I had stashed in my cupboard worked a treat for basic curls and lifts. I actually focused on more of a resistance band program due the the continued rehabilitation of my stubborn shoulder but I do miss the crazy weights I used to lift at F45.

The second half of the program introduces the intermittent fasting component of which a few times a week you are asked to skip dinner, but keep up hydration and bone broth. I struggled a bit the first few instances, and it was explained by Donna and the team that the hunger eventually becomes less noticeable as the body reaches into the reserve tank to burn for fuel. Whilst I was waiting for that to happen, I was drinking bone broth by the litre. Fortunately, mum’s broth technique is second to none and with a generous sprinkling of sea salt, I was both sated and warm.

I set my original target for the program to lose 12kg. However, towards the end of the program, due to uni starting again the walking slacked off and the steps veered down to the 6-7000 mark and I had a few dodgy days due to my birthday. The final weigh in showed a loss of 8.2kg in 28 days. I was pretty happy as my super comfy jeans stopped cutting in around my waist so that was certainly an improvement.

I still have about 40kg to lose, so I have signed on for the maintenance program where the program is less strict (I can drink occasionally, eat fruit and starches and bread yay) at the cost of $40 a month which works out to $10 a week. The progress will be slower, but I am starting to incorporate a super light high rep weights program into my schedule and will look at some home based cardio programs to get the weight moving. Also, I have learnt more about insulin resistance, how to eat to trigger weight loss in my body and generally how I can still indulge occasionally throughout the week, but maintain a 95% good diet for the long term.

I’ve set my target for the weight to be lost by around Chinese New Year next year, so remind me, if I forget, to check back in and update you on my progress!

Stay safe x