“You can do this! Every day you will get stronger and better…”
 
DDP’s voice faded out as I completed my first DDP Yoga session. March 20th, 2016 I decided to make the biggest change of my life. I decided to try, I started to hope and I began to believe again.
Before I played that DVD for the first time my life was not in a good place. Physically I was in the worst possible shape I had ever been. Mentally I had zero motivation to change anything, logically I knew how I was living wasn’t good for me, but it didn’t matter. And worst of all emotionally I didn’t feel like I deserved any better.
There were many moments in the months prior to starting DDP Yoga which I could pinpoint as being my ‘light bulb’ moment when I decided to take on this challenge. The time a girl smiled at me in a bar then turned to her friend and stuck her fingers down her throat, the time I sneezed and my arms went numb (and what I discovered from Googling why this happens), or maybe it was waking up on my 24th birthday alone and realizing I didn’t want to be me anymore. I wish I could tell you exactly what it was which changed everything because then I could be a millionaire, but all I can say is eventually something inside you begins to believe, and belief is a powerful, dangerous and glorious tool.
Playing ‘Energy’ for the first time and reading the food guidebook DDP mentioned time and time again how you get out of this what you put in. He didn’t know me from Adam yet he seemed to genuinely believe in me. I hadn’t believed in me for so long. It seemed like an impossibility to ever reach my goals, but DDP’s infectious positivity just filled me up and I decided to roll with it.
I started to become obsessed. I told nobody at first. It was my new secret life. I would roll my yoga mat out first thing in the morning and let DDP talk me through sweating and swearing. I’d then stick to my meal plan through the day and go to bed with a glow inside me. It felt like a secret shield under my skin I had as if I’d been given a secret no one else knew. Maybe just maybe I could do this.
After my first week, I lost 5 lbs. I was deliriously happy. I remember it was raining, April showers, and I was like Gene Kelly as I jaunted to work that morning. That first 5 lb. showed me it was possible, and for the first time it wasn’t just DDP who believed in me, I did too.
From that week on my life kind of went like a movie montage. Sweat on the yoga mat, salads and protein, friends seeing me after a few months greeting me with shock and compliments, family giving me support and helping me with food choices, people giving me advice (both good and bad), clothes shopping in regular shops, bumping into my ex, seeing each pound come off and celebrating, cursing myself when they didn’t move as quick as possible…. It all became a blur as I sprinted towards my goal.
And here I am. One year removed from that very first time I completed ‘Energy’. When I look back to 12 months ago my life is so much fuller now. I have so much to do and so little time to do it! Back then I felt like I had nothing to do and eternity to wallow in. Not now. Every day brings another challenge, everything I put in my mouth takes me either a step towards or a step away from my goal. I now live by 6 rules, which make the ‘new’ me stick around and keep back the ‘old’ me.