«My transformation» — story of Elmira Salimova

The subjects of fitness, beauty, food , and generally sport, were interesting to me from school time, when I was in 5th grade, 10 years old. Also, because I was a “big” girl, and most often at this age you start to compare yourself to others, and to form for the certain standard of an ideal figure which is "90-60-90". As most of other girls, I dreamed of having the model’s figure. 



When I was 10, my Mom brought me to ballroom dancing classes, which I successfully took for 10 straight years practically up to graduation from a university.
At the 9th grade, being 14 me with my girlfriends started being engaged in evening jogs, I remember, even our experiments with diets and fasting days. It was the time when I decided to exclude butter and sugar from my rationale, and I am still faithful to this habit. Of course, all this for children and young people was just for the development, understanding the tastes, and the body aesthetics. More seriously I started being engaged in questions of food and weight in 2010 when I worked in Atyrau for nearly 2 years and returned to Almaty with breaches of a hormonal background because of stones in a gall bladder. I still don’t understand what was the reason for such condition, perhaps, the ecology in that region. In total from 2008 to 2010 my weight increased from 55 kg to 72 kg.

That was shocking for me; I didn’t understand what was happening. The scariest part was that I didn’t feel myself overweight at all, and even felt mad when my gamily told me that I need to go on a diet. The crucial moment was when my nephews, he was 5 then, told me when I met him at the airport, from long stay in Britain – "Hey, Elya, you became so fat …". Since then everything in my consciousness turned upside down. I told myself: “If now, being 30, I won’t make myself look fit till 35, by 40 I will become really fat, and not a beautiful woman”.



In 2012 I made the decision to use the help of the center which practices a question of weight reduction on the developed system of calculation of calories, as I didn't manage get any progress doing it myself. Thanks to this system I nevertheless could reduce my weight from 72 kg 61 kg, 11 kg in total. For me it was a big achievement. I learned how to distinguish healthy food from unhealthy one, and changed the attitude towards fast food, chocolate, fried, to farinaceous food, pies, etc. I don't eat some meals and products in general. Simply I excluded them from the diet (potato, fried dishes, pasta, hamburgers, the course hotdogs, doners, chocolates, candies, etc.). Of course, it is impossible to constantly count calories therefore when I returned to the usual food regime, my weight with 61 kg, returned to 65 kg, approximately from 2013 to 2014. I did not like that weight and how I looked too. I wanted to not simply lose weight, but to make a beautiful body.

 

I also continued to attend different seminars about healthy nutrition, went to a gym, participated in group trainings, when in the end of 2014 I discovered Cross Fit, and got acquainted with the one of current trainers Erlan Manatayev whose results of transformation I was amazed by. Such feeling that I saw two different people, before and after. At that time he was about to open his own gym I couldn’t wait for it. For myself I decided that it is that sport that I was looking for, as regarding intensity and the load.

 

In February of this year when I started being engaged actively with this sport, the new program was born, that focused on transformation of people including their physical state. I entered it without a second thought. And the whole three months we were exercising actively, and ate by the principle of a paleo diet, and system of starvation 14/8. It when you eat only various grades not of fat meat, vegetables, fruit, nuts, it isn't a lot of, but you exclude dairy products, flour and sweet. 14 hours from the last meal you are in process of starvation, and 8 hours you can, there are not forbidden products. The principle consists in that meal to focus for a while after trainings, and to be engaged on a hungry stomach. 



When transformation ended, that, of course everyone had enormous results, someone lost 14 kg, someone 25 kg in 3 months. Thanks to this scheme, and in general the mode of trainings I lost 5 kg, and I improved the general physical state, there was endurance. My weight was 60-61 kg. Having stayed in this weight, in September, I began the second stage of transformation, and I want to reach the desirable weight of 50 kg. I started working with experts in the field of healthy nutrition who help me to develop my own model of nutrition, to change habits, and learn to keep the necessary weight. Because it is very important to understand from what you gain weight, to realize that you eat both as you eat and as it is correct to eat always to be in good shape, to find that method which suits you the most. For the third time I already successfully lost 8kg, and got way skinnier, and not to notice results, even to me it is difficult. Now I come nearer to the treasured purpose, and I am happy with the results, my weight is 53 kg today.

 

Process of my transformation is still on, and will continue until the spring of next year on weight reduction, and of course on for the rest of the life I will try to do it in order to keep the present results and achieve more. It is very important to realize that having made the decision to be balanced, and in a good physical form, it is not short-term result, but a way of life, and it is necessary to show the will power, patience, character, and discipline itself. Perhaps, some people even should ask for the help of psychologists to understand that we hide behind a habit to eat a lot. Everything is very interconnected, and nothing can be excluded. The emotional and internal state of the person very much has its mark on one’s weight. 

 

Being healthy and fit is a strong decision, and a hard work. And having followed this way once, it is already impossible to turn back. It is important to begin and take a satisfaction from it. Life has way more pleasures than just delicious food.