The key to Rosemary’s weight loss? Doing it for herself

Life is busy and all too often, it becomes normal to put the needs of family, friends and work before our own.

Keeping up with daily demands can mean that we find ourselves allocating little time to taking care of ourselves, which can have negative effects on our physical and mental well-being. 

It’s a story familiar to 60-year-old mother of 6, Rosemary. After a lifetime of putting her children first, she began to realise that she’d forgotten to prioritise herself in the process, leading to weight gain and several health concerns that go hand-in-hand with excess body fat. 

Thanks to a holistic and sustainable approach to weight loss through Juniper’s Weight Reset Program, however, Rosemary has become one of our most vibrant stories of what can result when the decision is made to take back control of your health, for you. 

We caught up with Rosemary at her Melbourne home to find out more about her successes since being on the program (14kg and counting!) and finding joy in her newfound health.

Diets and exercise don’t always work

“I’ve got 6 boys so of course, 6 pregnancies means 6 lots of weight gain — plus going through a divorce,” Rosemary explains when talking about her fluctuating weight in later life. “When they were younger and all living under the same roof, it was like cooking for a dinner party!”

As weight gain related to pregnancy and the subsequent hormonal changes began to take effect, Rosemary tried out several diets and eating plans which led to varied (and more often than not, unsuccessful) results. 

And she’s not alone. A recent survey with people on the Juniper Weight Reset Program found that 99.5% of women had tried other weight loss methods before starting our program [1]. 

Traditional meal plans had little effect

When asked in depth about the different diets and meal plans she’s given a shot in the past, Rosemary begins to laugh. “So I've tried the soup cabbage diet… disgusting,” she says. “Weight Watchers has come and gone many times in my life. I've also done Jenny Craig; it was expensive and I still had to buy my own food as well as the food they offer. And I was hungry!” 

When these diets didn’t work, Rosemary turned to naturopathy for further advice but found that the guidelines presented to her weren’t the sustainable approach to weight loss she was truly searching for. 

“I've done really restrictive diets with naturopaths and I just can't…. what I was looking for is something that I can not cut out a whole bunch of foods – that I can still eat normal foods, have a balanced diet and just live.”

COVID and rapid weight gain 

When COVID hit, Rosemary – like many of us – began to indulge in home-baked goods and sweet treats in an attempt to stave off the boredom, however, this only reaffirmed her relationship with food that saw unhealthy options as ‘rewards.’

Coupled with a move from regional Victoria to Melbourne that she says meant “pizzas and takeaway Uber became my new best friend” and a penchant for “homemade bread with lashings of butter” during lockdown, and Rosemary found herself gaining more than 40 kilos; an amount which had taken her years to lose.

In addition to these new changes in her physical health, Rosemary says that a downturn in her mental health followed suit. 

“I didn't realise how depressed I was until I noticed that I'd been pretty much sitting on the couch for a couple of weeks at a time,” Rosemary recalls. “My antidepressants weren't really sustaining my mental health. I knew that I needed to do something and I just was not motivated at all.”

The tipping point

The catalyst for change came for Rosemary came during her annual health screening at her GP’s office, where test results revealed that her weight gain and backsliding into poor diet and exercise choices had resulted in elevated blood sugar. 

A blood sugar level reading of 7.7 indicated to Rosemary that she had entered the diabetic range and was at risk of further health complications. 

“Surprise, when you eat all that crap!” Rosemary laughs now. “That was the motivator to say that I had to do something, but emotionally and physically, I just wanted to sit on the lounge.”

‍After speaking with her GP to discuss an appropriate path forward, Rosemary was left feeling despondent and as though she had exhausted all options. 

And although Rosemary was determined to take charge of her health for her own sake, being a devoted mother meant that she was also experiencing what many people with children will know all too well as ‘mum guilt.’

“Being overweight really did impact on my ability to parent in the way that I wanted to parent,” she says. “I wasn't able to do a lot of physical games because I was too tired.”

Finding hope online  

So, she took to the internet to see if there were any alternatives out there and upon discovering Juniper’s scientifically-backed program that also focuses on holistic lifestyle changes, she began to feel as though there was still hope for her weight loss journey. 

After speaking with a Juniper doctor who determined that Rosemary was the right candidate for Juniper’s Weight Reset Program, she began to receive at-home deliveries consisting of daily weight loss medication, along with online health coaching, dietitian support, and access to a private online community of women on the same journey — the latter of which she found an unexpected benefit of the program, for a single mother with busy sons living both in and out of the family home. 

A supportive community

It’s in this community where members of the Juniper Weight Reset Program share tips, advice, recipes, and most importantly, celebrate the wins experienced along the way, and encourage during any plateaus that may occur on the weight loss journey. 

“I don't have any physical support or really emotional support at home, my focus is very much on our sons,” Rosemary says.

"I really needed something just to be able to read, to glean information from others and that's where the community has come in really handy. I mightn’t necessarily comment, but I do read all the posts that people put in and I've found that it's really good and mostly very supportive. In fact… it's all been supportive!” 

Wins on and off the scales

While Rosemary's motivation to join the Weight Reset Program stemmed in part from a desire to be the best parent for her sons, her 14kg (and counting) weight loss to date has been transformative for her. 

Along with wins on the scale, Rosemary has found small victories in both the mental and physical changes that have begun to occur in her daily life, including a renewed sense of joy in physical movement – and a love of yoga. 

“I used to have to have a nanna nap, nowadays I'm up in the morning, I'm moving, I do my exercise which I enjoy,” Rosemary says. “The advantage to yoga for me, it gets my heart rate up but also with the breathing it's relaxing and it just sets my mental health up for the day.”

The hours once whittled away on the couch have also been traded in for walking the dog, or choosing to do errands on foot, rather than opting to drive. “I’m a lot more happier, a lot more motivated,” Rosemary says with a beaming smile.” My mental health is actually really, really good.”