Simoné - it's possible

By the age of 18 Simoné had already made a name for herself as an international champion athlete. She was the All Africa junior record holder for both shot put and discus and represented South Africa at the World Junior Championships. However, at this stage in her life she weighed 126kg and had 38% body fat.

As far as her doctors were concerned Simoné was clinically obese and she was on the verge of developing diabetes and serious liver issues. “I never thought that I was sick though. I weighed a lot but I was strong and could throw really far. However, the doctors told me that I was unhealthy despite my active lifestyle and the fact that I regularly worked out for shot put and discus competitions.”

Simoné's doctors advised her to undergo drastic weight loss, which required a total change in mindset and lifestyle. “The way I thought about food had to change completely and I had to train myself to eat less. I also had to start doing more cardio, which was new to me and proved to be a shock to my body.”

According to Simoné emotional eating was her biggest problem. “Alternating between binge-eating and starvation was just one of the paths I took to try and find a balance in the beginning, which was definitely not a healthy or sustainable way to achieve the results I wanted.

“I also had a mental battle on my hands. I would wake up every morning and had to choose to listen to the 'fit-person' inside me and not let the 'fat-little-girl' get the better of me. I really wanted to love myself more and feel healthier, and I wanted to fit in and conform with the societal norms of what people considered to be pretty and acceptable.”

Having created the picture of what she wanted to look like in her mind Simoné went about changing the role food played in her daily life, she stayed disciplined with her training and she did what she needed to do to maintain her motivation and achieve her ultimate goal.

Simoné soon started to see the physically noticeable changes that were happening to her body, which provided the extra motivation she needed to keep going with her training and stick to her healthy eating plan. “While I still felt tired a lot of the time, I became addicted to training and working towards my weight loss goal. Thankfully I also had a great deal of help from my family. They were always supportive, gave me credit for every kilogram I lost, acknowledged my accomplishments and hard work, and even changed their own diets to make it easier on me.”

Simoné continued to work towards her weight-loss goals throughout her time in the United States, where she atten
ded the Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas, Texas, on a full sports scholarship. As she continued to shed the kilos her sporting prowess improved too. At the end of her collegiate career Simoné had amassed an impressive resumé of titles and distinctions, including SMU's Most Valuable Sportswoman, Sportswoman of the Year, C-USA Field Athlete of the Year, C-USA Freshman of the Year and she became a US National Student champion in 2011. She had also transformed her physique.

She has since returned from the US in the best shape of her life and has taken on a new marketing role for the sports department at the University of Johannesburg (UJ). “I now want to help support and inspire other young athletes to achieve their dreams and fulfill their aspirations, which my role at UJ enables me to do,” she explains.

Having overcome her greatest challenge off the sporting field, Simoné also has a wealth of insight and experience to share with athletes and ordinary people alike. “The first step to making a meaningful change in your life is realising that you have a problem. From there it's a matter of setting measurable goals and taking baby steps towards achieving them by first cutting out the foods that your body doesn’t digest and getting into a good, healthy routine as soon as possible. This should include daily exercise, cutting calories, drinking lots of water and staying positive.

“The hard truth is, there is no instant result. In order to finish what you started you need to understand that it is going to be a challenge from the first mouthful and then work hard to stick to your plan. If it was easy then everyone would be thin,” she concludes.