Courtesy of those photographed

Wanting to change things does not mean you do not love yourself

Mika was ashamed to leave the house after the first closure, Vivian forgot what it was like to buy shoes with laces and Jasmine saw pictures from the happiest birthday of her life and did not stop crying.

The three of them together lost 103 kg and changed their lives from end to end, all thanks to one group on Facebook

Anat Nissani

02/06/2022

02/06/2022

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Jasmine, before and after (Photo: Courtesy of the photographers)

Ever since, Jasmine has been a full-figured woman - not skinny, but also not really fat.

Like many women, weight has always been a particular personality for her, especially after she has had two births (one of them of twins), but overall she lives with herself in peace.

About 3 years ago, when she was 33, she was diagnosed with cancer and began undergoing harsh chemotherapy treatments, which destroy the cells and weaken the body.

Throughout the difficult period, food was one of the things that comforted her, but the emotional eating she developed, along with the steroids she received as part of the treatment, caused her to gain weight significantly.

"My 'slap', that is, the 'cap' that made me make the change, was two years ago, after I celebrated my 34th birthday," she says. I'm looking at the pictures from the birthday party with my whole family, supposed to be the happiest in the world, and I'm crying.

Jasmine shared her feelings with a good friend who told her about a Facebook group that might be able to help her: "Mom is back in jeans."

She joined, was exposed to the content and two months later decided to sign up for one of the workshops led by the group's managers - the "Making a Change" workshop.

Within ten months Jasmine has lost 19 pounds, and for more than a year now she has been maintaining her weight and feeling like a new woman.

"When I started I was very tired in the evenings and very weak. At levels. My son was then 6 years old and he knew my mother could not lift him. Then I started doing sports, maintaining my diet, and the change in physical strength is insane. If you see me today you can not even know what I went through. ".

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Mika, before and after (Photo: courtesy of the photographers)

Mika, 33, also knows a thing or two about dealing with being overweight.

When she was in the army she was diagnosed with a thyroid disorder, which forced her to regularly take balance pills, and all her life she was overweight, tried different diets and got used to losing some weight and immediately gaining back weight.

She reached her peak weight after the second pregnancy, which she entered only five months after the first birth.

"It was an unplanned pregnancy and also very complicated. I was on pregnancy guard and gained weight, and then also came the first closure of the corona," she recalls.

"From the beginning I was very significantly overweight, and I just kept going up until I got to a place where I felt really bad. As soon as they announced that the quarantine was over I was terribly ashamed. I was afraid to leave the house after going up so much in that time."

Like Jasmine, Mika also came to "Mom Goes Back to Jeans."

"A friend who worked with me after the army suddenly joined me in the group, and at first I was terribly hurt by it because I have not seen her since and I do not upload photos on Facebook - why does she assume I'm still fat? Maybe I did manage to reset it? "Girls who went through really big changes. Not some person who was thin and shapely. Women who were big, like me, and really went down significantly."

Mika told herself she had nothing to lose.

During pregnancy she was diagnosed with gestational diabetes and pre-diabetes, and felt she was no longer able to cope with the condition.

She also signed up for the workshop and within two months lost 12 pounds.

8 months later she was already 22 pounds less, and in total completed a 34 pound drop.

Today, a year plus after the big drop, she still maintains weight, her blood sugar levels are perfectly normal and her thyroid is balanced, and she no longer needs pills.

In addition, she currently serves as a mentor in the group's workshops and accompanies other women who go through the process.

"There is no better closing the circle, because the guidance I received really changed my life. I am in a completely different place than I was two years ago, and it is a privilege to support other girls because especially when you start with such a high weight, it's hard to see the end."

Vivian before and after (Photo: courtesy of the photographers)

If there is anyone who understands what Mika is talking about it is Vivian, who discovered the group a little over a year and a half ago, weighing 134 pounds, and is just before gastric bypass surgery.

"My difficulty was everyday. Bending down on shoelaces, for example, I had already forgotten what shoes are with laces, I only bought shoes that could slip the foot into the contents. I could not even walk, I was in the car all day because it was impossible, terribly heavy. Very big, secretly eating, I did not know how to stop. I already went through a bariatric committee and almost made an appointment for surgery but I was really scared to go through it. And zero faith that it will succeed. "

But it worked.

A year and a half later, Vivian weighs 50 pounds less, and from a woman who had difficulty walking, she became a member of a running club that maintains a training routine of 5 days a week.

"This group saved my life. I felt I was getting lost to my children, to my parents, to my husband. It is impossible to continue gaining 134 kilos. It is possible - but where? What will happen then?"

Jasmine: "It's all about the strength of the team. And anyone can do it. It starts with the fact that twice a week you have to upload a picture after training, but you can start with a 20-minute, 12-minute training, it's better a little full to do at all. Then they say Go: Wait, but Friday is Saturday now, maybe you can go outside on Saturday too? And here's a challenge today, who's doing it? "An integral part of you. Suddenly you are looking for hotels with gyms when you fly abroad, a year ago there was also a race they did and I ran 15 kilometers, it's crazy."

Vivian: "When you see that by 10 in the morning 100 girls have already sent a picture of themselves training, and you are in the process and want it, it's hard for you to disappoint yourself and hard for you to disappoint them, so you just do it. I started with 4 minutes of training, and I was done But slowly. The first step was to please. The second step was to sign up, it also takes courage. Then when you sign up there is a commitment, and the key is to persevere. It's important, because high weight also takes time to see the results. Even when you already have a drop of 10 "You do not see it, it is not reflected in the mirror. But what is reflected in you is something that is opened from the inside, the shoulders are stretched, the air enters, you have a sense of belonging, and you slowly collect small plates."

Mika: "And it's much more than weight loss. First of all I felt like I was eating, I do not feel hungry all the time, and there are no prohibitions. You are allowed to eat and enjoy the food. You learn to eat balanced meals, without setting quantities, because it does not make sense "Eat the same amount as someone who weighs 60 kilos, but according to your personal hunger and satiety mechanisms. Throughout the workshop, you learn how to identify them and eat the amounts you really need."

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A post shared by Mother Returns to Jeans (@rona_even)

I assume that you have tried other methods and frameworks in the past, how do you explain that you succeeded here?

Vivian: "The first thing that stands out most about this platform is the inclusion. You feel contained, understood by your insecurity, and it's always with a smile. Re-moving myself but loving and appreciating myself, discovering that I am capable of more, and over time also attaching less and less importance to weight. Be able to do 8km running or add strength training, not weight-obsessive goals.

It's terribly frustrating. "

Jasmine: "All the talk in the team is very positive. There are a lot of methods for coaches for a healthy and fit lifestyle, there are those who will tell you: You do not want to be a cow, right? I once had someone like that. But here in life they will not talk to you in an unpleasant way. You will not talk like that about yourself. I have been in other frameworks but this group, there is something special about it. "To do what they did for me? It opened up a whole world for me. To strengthen myself, to take care of myself as I know how to take care of others, not to treat weight at all, it's not interesting, it will come. Just do yourself a favor."

Mika: "There is no magic, it is hard self-work, but there is a very large support and a very large envelope here because you are not only accompanied by the principals of the group, and by the mentors of each workshop. You have a whole community of women who are more or less in your place And the support you give to each other is something I do not know from anywhere else. "

One of the things common to Vivian, Mika and Jasmine, besides the big change they went through, is that they are mothers, and each of them mentions in one way or another, as part of the life before the change, the tendency to take care of children, work and home and put themselves a little behind.

This tendency is actually the reason why "Mother Returns to Jeans" was founded in the first place, about five and a half years ago, by fitness trainer Honor Ockstein.

When Honor became a mother, it was very difficult for her to dedicate herself solely to motherhood.

After giving birth she started looking for women like her, who not only talk about breastfeeding, feeding and anesthesia, but asking where they are in all this stuff.

She searched for relevant groups on Facebook, found lots of breastfeeding and buying groups, but not the content she wanted, so she decided to start a group herself.

The group's content came naturally mainly from the fitness field, with Honor's goal being to start motivating the women in the group, to get them out of the house, to remind them that even though they have children, they are still there.

"The group gained momentum very quickly," she says, "it was really a wide open space, there was no one who spoke that language at all, who told the mothers that they could also take time for themselves, which is not a bad word. And it just went by word of mouth."

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A post shared by Mother Returns to Jeans (@rona_even)

At this point, Honor wanted to add to the group complementary professional content from the world of nutrition, and published a post in which she wrote that she was looking for a nutritionist to join her to manage the group.

One of the responses to the post was by Rona Even, a clinical dietitian who joined the group from the beginning.

The two met, and it was love at first sight.

"I remember there was an initial acquaintance conversation," says Rona, "Honor asked me how old my children were, and from there we quickly moved on to talking about ourselves, about where each one sees herself. It's one of our strongest connections - we women are very caring For themselves. "

Although the group is called "Mother Returns to Jeans", it is not exclusively for mothers, because as most of us know, our tendency to give up on ourselves sometimes exists long before children arrive.

"Moms, and women in general, it's an amazing machine," says Rona.

"We do things with a very big love - when we raise children we give of ourselves, when we work at a job we love we give of ourselves, and sometimes we give so much that we forget ourselves. We have such great bridal capacity, that we sometimes just name "We're in second place, whether it's because the child needs us or the job."

Today, the group numbers close to 185,000 members, and about three months ago won the title of the most influential women's community on Facebook.

The group's workshops, led by Honor and Rona under the name "Making a Change", are attended by thousands of women every month, many of whom make the workshops routine and return to them again and again.

"Lots. And I'll tell you more than that," Honor says, "they sign up to lose weight, but they do not understand what the after effect of it is, and that's the crazy thing. "Suddenly, they prioritize themselves. A lot of things change in their lives, beyond appearance."

Honor: "This is what is called the power of community. Our flagship workshops are held through closed Facebook groups, and each has more or less between 250 and 400 women sharing their process. So there are a lot of women around you who are fighting just like you, not all of them easy, and See how they get through it, where they break down and how they get stronger.It gives a lot of inspiration.In addition, every workshop has mentors who are graduates of our workshops so they know exactly how it feels so there is a lot of support.

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A post shared by Mother Returns to Jeans (@onorfitness)

Rona: "One of the things that comes back to us is how to eat more properly and not what to eat. We really teach how to eat properly, how to deal with emotional eating and overcome impulses, improve abilities, change the mind set, all sorts of things that are beyond eating, and that's what differentiates "From other workshops, we manage to touch women in the emotional places as well. It is indeed Facebook but also very personal."

Along with the Facebook workshops, Honor Verona also created a WhatsApp workshop, a short 5-7 day workshop, fitness training for all levels, and in general they adapt themselves to the needs that arise in the group, so that there is room for every woman, no matter where she comes from or where she wants to go. .

"One's starting point is not another's starting point," says Rona. From a place that was not good for her. And for me, wherever it is good for her to stop there. Instead of going up and down drastically I prefer someone to say to me: At the moment, I encourage that. For us, too, Mom is going back to jeans, but these jeans are not size 34 or 36, there is a wide range of sizes here. "

"It's also important to say that there is now a trend of loving yourself and coming to terms with yourself, which seems to contradict the whole health issue," Honor adds. "It's really not contradictory. Because you love yourself you want to eat healthier, you want to exercise, take care of yourself. From there mom comes back to jeans. From the place of women who forgot themselves, regardless of weight. ".

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• Mothers

• Facebook

• women

• psychology

• Body image