Before and After

“I want to live the good food life”

Britta Møller
Works as a teacher and Ph.D. student in pedagogy and learning at Aalborg University
46 years old
Lives with her boyfriend, and together they have two children aged 10 and 15
Has lost 50 kilos with Sense and has been weight stable for the last four years

Britta Møller has struggled with overweight her entire life. When her body started to protest, Britta knew she had to do something. Meeting Sense changed her life. In a year and a half, she lost 50 kilos and has lived as a weight-stable person for the last four years. Read how she now lives a life that includes both everyday structure and enjoyment.

Childhood Britta Bredballe

From my childhood, I remember always perceiving myself as overweight. As a teenager, this perception became more pronounced. I was the one with broad shoulders, wide hips, and full thighs—a classic hourglass figure. I remember as a young girl scout, I got the nicknames Britta Bredballe and Britta Bigballe. I also remember my classmates laughing at me on a bike ride in 8th grade because my butt wobbled when I cycled.

During my pregnancies, things got worse. I became bigger and bigger and didn’t really address it, even after my pregnancies—it was just the way it was. I could see that I weighed too much, but I carried it reasonably well, so I convinced myself that it wasn’t that bad. I exercised occasionally but didn’t really feel it worked—and then I might as well give up. In my mind, I created the understanding that I was someone who couldn’t lose weight and that exercise didn’t help. So I convinced myself that something in my life made me weigh too much. This way, I completely avoided taking responsibility for my body and health. I thought I ate relatively healthily—at least I had a lot of vegetables with my meals. Today, I see that it was the amount of food that caused my weight to go up. I ate a lot of food and always at least two portions.

The body protested

In 2016, my body began to protest. I started to have pain in my joints—especially my wrists and ankles. At first, I couldn’t understand how I could get wrist pain from being overweight. But I could. The pain in my ankles became stronger and stronger, and eventually, it got so bad that I couldn’t walk properly and had to drag one leg after me. It was embarrassing and made me sad. So I decided to do something. After sniffing around LCHF, which I found too strict, I chose Sense. It appealed to me because there weren’t a lot of rules. It worked. After the first month, I had lost seven kilos, and after a year and a half, the scale said minus 50 kilos. I have maintained that weight loss ever since, with a fluctuation of +/- 5 kilos. For the last four years, I have been weight stable, and I am beginning to learn that the few kilos my weight can fluctuate with are within the normal range.

Throughout the years, I have maintained the same structure and routines. During the weight loss period, I avoided carbohydrate-rich foods like bread, pasta, and rice. After becoming weight stable, I worked on finding a balance where I could include these foods again without going overboard. The fear and anxiety of slipping back into old patterns and gaining back all the lost kilos are always lurking, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to let go of that concern completely.

A food life with room for everything

I manage it by carefully choosing my carbohydrates. I love bread, so I have included that, while rice and pasta don’t appeal to me much. Therefore, I prefer to have a piece of naan bread with my dinner rather than rice or pasta.

When things occasionally slip, it’s always because I eat too much bread. This can happen during busy periods or when my routines are disrupted, like they were during the corona lockdown. Suddenly the kids were home too, and the dinner leftovers with meat and salad that I usually ate for lunch were suddenly eaten by my teenage son, who from one day to the next no longer wanted to eat rye bread for lunch. So it became rolls and crispbread with cheese and cold cuts several times a day.

When routines get off course, I know what to do, namely take a period with structure, where I cut down on carbohydrates and meals and hold back on snacking between meals. It helps me to prepare my meals as much as I can, for example by prepping the vegetables in advance, so I don’t end up choosing a quick and easy solution when I’m suddenly busy and hungry. I know I can prevent my weight from increasing by following the structure of Sense, which I also followed strictly during my weight loss period. It gives me security to know that I always have the tools with me.

My life shouldn’t just be about structure and planning. I love good food, and for me, it’s precisely about living the good food life, where there’s also room for a glass of red wine, a piece of cake, and holiday food now and then. I don’t want to compromise, so sometimes I have to tighten up when there has been a bit more enjoyment. At the same time, I make sure to live an active life, where I walk and run a lot. Sense makes it possible to have room for everything—both everyday structure and the more enjoyable elements, which are also an important part of my life.

Find inspiration for a healthy lifestyle in the many recipes and meal plans from SenseMyDiet.