Hi. I'm Liz Okomba

This is me…heavily pregnant. Maybe 8 months. It is actually the only photo I have of me pregnant. I was 101 kg and more or less retained this size after giving birth. I remember having a complication 10 days after giving birth and I had to go to the hospital. On arrival, the nurse who was attending to me asked me if I had come to give birth. Really??? I had a 10-day old son. I went back to work after 4 months and I could not fit in any of my clothes. I was a social, party animal before getting pregnant but I was relegated to staying home or going to work as none of my size 12 clothes could fit me anymore. I remember one evening we were raving to go out. I showered and started getting ready but nothing could fit, absolutely nothing. My husband came to check on me to see if I was ready and found me in a flood of tears. I had to do something! So I first gave out all my size 12 clothes and my shoes (oh, did I mention that I went up two shoe sizes after giving birth?). My lucky sister benefited from this donation. I then bought size 18 and 20 clothes that could fit me and decided to do something. My gym story starts here.

The Itch

I picked myself up from my pity party and decided to take action. First stop, the gym. I walk into the gym confident that I am finally dealing with my excess weight once and for all. One of the instructors later confessed to me that she thought I was pregnant. I seemed to be eliciting that reaction a lot. Annoying….Nkt! Anyway, I got into the rhythm of the gym after getting over “The Itch”. Let me talk a little bit about the itch. This is a tear jerking condition where I itch uncontrollably on my legs and thighs when I start exercising and I have not been physically active over a long period of time and the feeling is worse when the weather is cold. Winter should never find me walking on any street in Iceland as I will cry like a baby due to this weird condition. I thought I was the only one who suffered from this strange attack until I started talking about it and found out that we are many out there. Horrible! Back to the gym. I became obsessed with it, visiting five to six times a week. I was a gym girl. My favorite activity was aerobics especially the step. If I didn’t go to the gym, the instructors would call me to find out if I was unwell. Weight training was also part of my regime. Did the gym work? I toned, lost some weight, dropped from a size 20 to 16. I believe I would achieve more if I changed my diet. My dedication should have yielded more. I was fit but still not happy with my size. I needed to be size 12 again.