Q & A: Carien Wright – 4th in Women’s Transformation

Please give us a short history of your journey to health and fitness before the challenge.

The last time I was active and healthy was before having my kids. I must be honest, picking up weight during pregnancy was my excuse for living an unhealthy life for 6 years, and then all the excuses that followed after that were: I am too busy, too tired, don’t get time to exercise, to cook.

But I also think the lack of understanding of my body contributed to this as well. All my life I have been a top athlete, playing all kinds of sports and I was always able to eat whatever I wanted. I never really educated myself on portion sizes or healthy choices. But as I got older my lifestyle got very sedentary and my food choices got worse. I used to get takeaways for most of last year.

What prompted you to join the Sleekgeek Transformation Challenge?

A couple of things ignited me to change. My husband for the most part completely changed his lifestyle and the moment I realized that I was not able to fit in a size 38 pants anymore.

I had trouble with breathing and just the feeling of being tired and unhealthy all the time. I have also tried to “diet” and struggle to commit to letting go of my “sugar addiction” so I sat and prayed feeling so defeated after the last “diet”, the Lord spoke to me saying that I should cut sugar for 30 days. I was hesitating but nonetheless, I did what I heard Him say.

Give us a quick overview of the nutrition and eating plan that you followed during the challenge.

I followed the Green List only. I used calorie counting and ate no refined sugar and drank a lot of water.

Give us a quick overview of the training and exercise plan that you followed during the challenge.

Every day I would aim to do 10 000 steps of walking in the morning and sometimes in the evenings. Then I would complete the roadblocks on some days and on other days focus on a particular body part where I would really like to see change using weights and resistance bands

If you could give 3 pieces of advice to future challengers, what would they be?

1. Be honest with yourself and your current situation.
2. Completely let go of all the excuses.
3. Set goals and progress till you reach them.

Why should people enter the challenge?

It has been a great eye-opener with all the knowledge and material provided. You will see results. And the support from a team, email, and Facebook is absolutely brilliant. Why try to do it alone when you can have fun doing it with others.