Leader Spotlight: Lisa Rowe

Hi, I am Lisa , a mother of one and married to Mark for 23 years. We live very happily in Kildare almost 19 years now but we shall always be blow ins from Dublin 😃 Grab a cuppa while I take you back over my Unislim journey…..

I always carried weight, even as a kid, I was bigger than my two brothers. I was told, fondly, that I was just “big boned”, and that was all fine with me because as a child I didn’t really see any difference between me and my friends. I was a very happy child who got on with everyone. I was very active, forever up a tree or climbing walls, I guess what you would call a typical Tomboy. Looking back now I can see I was the heaviest of my friends and of all my cousins. I was blissfully unaware that I was overweight until it was cruelly pointed out to me by a boy as I walked down my street. That comment still replayed in my head decades later.

I was what you would call an “emotional” eater. My dad passed away very suddenly when I was 14. It was at this time that the binge eating really took hold, a habit that stayed with me for years. I tried of course to curtail it, but I found that the slightest trigger could set me back and I could binge eat for days, weeks, even months.

I started my first weightloss class age 22 and for the next 24 years I yo-yo dieted , getting great losses to binge it all back. The emotional eating turned from a coping strategy to a response to any emotion, good or bad. When I would lose weight, well meaning people would comment, and that would make me feel so self conscious and pressurised that I would regain the weight from the never ending cycle that I was in. That boy’s mean words when I was younger would resonate in my head over and over. This destructive cycle continued when my dearest brother lost his battle with cancer at a young age, and the binge eating amplified ten fold. I knew that if I continued as I was, I was going to eat myself to death.

Christmas of 2018 I hit rock bottom when I brought my son to Old Trafford and I couldn’t get the seatbelt to close on the airplane, I had to force it and it cut into my skin. Then, when going through the turnstiles in the stadium… I got wedged, and I mean WEDGED. I was panic stricken, looked up and saw two stewards laughing at me, immediately again I was transported back to that young boys cruel taunts on my street and somehow I forced my body through and my thoughts were … “that’s it I’ll never get on a plane again” (not for a second did I want to change my eating habits, in fairness I didn’t know how). After the trauma of that holiday, I increased the binging to try block out the pain I was feeling and to silence the noises in my head, I knew food was a temporary fix but I couldn’t stop. Until……..

Feb 2019; A text arrived from a girl I knew; “Do you want to join Unislim?” It was fate….I agreed on the spot and the very next week I arrived to class, I tried to talk myself out of it but so glad I didn’t. From day one it felt different, I looked forward to every week, the approach was so different to other classes. I was not only learning what to eat or when to eat it was about WHY I was eating the way I had been and the topics that made such impact on me. Every week, light bulbs went off, I was learning so much and losing and trusting the process and really enjoying it. I knew I had found the way I should have been eating my entire life it really brought me to life and I am forever grateful, and I totally mean that I may be a leader now but first and foremost I am a member and I always will be.

I got to target losing 9st 1lb in the summer of 2020 when classes were just open. I was so delighted to finish my weightloss journey. I still at that point I had no idea of the turn my life would take. I decided to give some thought on becoming a leader. I thought of the support I wanted to give people who are in the shoes I once wore, so I became an online leader first, and soon after I opened up my class in Tallaght. I never thought anything could top the feelings I had by losing my weight and changing my life … but helping someone to overcome the obstacles weight can bring and to support them to create a happier healthier life for themselves really spurs me on to do better myself. 

I really have the best job in the world , it’s so flexible I now run 3 classes and still fit them in around my full time job. I wouldn’t change a single bit of my life. I had to go through all I did to become the person I am today and I am living my best life.

Thanks for reading… Lisa x

To join my one of my classes, click here