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IT RUNS IN THE FAMILY

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MBABANE - Family is the best support system one could ever ask for.
It is important to keep in mind that it is difficult to lose weight with training only.
To maximise weight loss, you also need to change your eating habits. Often times, parents think that spoiling their children with junk food is the only way of expressing their love, but Happiness Mthethwa made the choice to change both her and her son’s life, Thandokuhle Dlamini, after he suffered a heart attack at the age of 10 due to obesity and was admitted in South Africa, Milpark Hospital.


Traumatic


“It was the most traumatic wake-up call of my life. I almost lost my son and had that happened, it would have killed me too. I felt responsible for his health condition and I made the choice to make amends by forcing him to join me in the gym and supported him in his weight loss journey,” said Mthethwa.


Happiness said they used to be careless eaters and never considered the effects of all the unhealthy food that she used to buy hoping it would make her son happy. Before taking her son to the gym, she said she was already a member of Manzini Striders athletics club.


Happiness was almost 100kg when she decided to lose weight, feeling embarrassed that her biological mother looked younger and stronger than her. Since then she has dropped from 92kg to 70kg.


At the age of 10, her son was an 86kg obese boy, a condition that she ignored, hoping that he would outgrow it with time until that fateful day when he fainted and was diagnosed with heart complications such as ablate heart dysrhythmia focus and associated pre-excitation syndrome due to obesity. They spent 10 full days in hospital waiting for him to recover as the doctors had performed a surgical operation on him.


By then, the closest he got to practising a sport was watching television and walking two minutes to the bus stop but recently after being a committed member of his mother’s athletics club, Manzini Striders, his life has literally changed. His body and state of mind have drastically changed too. He no longer runs out of breath, his muscle strength has increased and most significantly, he has lost weight.


Strength


“I am a totally different person now and all thanks to my mother who has been my pillar of strength. I am now an active athlete, soccer player and taekwondo artist,” said the transformed young man.


The transformed lad, who now weighs 78kg, advised other teenagers who are willing to lose weight to choose any sport they like and be consistent with their gym routine for positive physical, health and mental results.


The mother and son both advised parents to encourage their children to do sporting activities, both at school and on holidays and also support them in their fitness journey.


“Parents must make sure to store healthy food in the houses and encourage their children to adopt a healthy lifestyle. Also shed the calories that your child consumes by engaging him or her with household activities and also engrave in their minds the importance of avoiding unhealthy food so that they can abstain from temptation even without supervision,” she concluded.


Scholar


Dlamini,who is still a scholar, embarks on a 21km long run every Friday and Saturday, while her mother wakes up to a 10km morning run on a daily basis and attends kickboxing sessions on weekends at Studio-Z Ladies’ Gym in Manzini. One major factor attributed to the success of their physical transformation was the change of diet.


Mthethwa said their former favourite foods such as pizza, cakes, fizzy drinks, potato-chips, take away fatty foods and biscuits were a thing of the past. All this was replaced with home blended fruit juice, sweet potatoes, cereals, lots of cooked and raw greens plus Herbal Life products such as energy boosters and nutritional supplements.

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