I've never been sold on the idea: with time, dedication, and consistency change follows. It's like a proverb people speak to sound philosophical. So I was pleasantly surprised when change did indeed follow when I made some lifestyle changes to my health and wanted to share my experience with others who might be struggling to start or maintain their fitness goals.
I'm 24 years old, 5'1, 39% body fat, and 160lbs when I started my lifestyle change. After 4-5 weeks I've lost 10lbs. Ideally I wanted to drop down to 125-130lbs and 15% body fat, but as long as I look good I don’t really care what the number on the scale is.
On self reflection, there were some glaringly obvious gaps in my diet: I hate veggies, I ate a lot of rice, ate very little meat, drank lots of coke, and overindulged in sugary treats.
DIET
I started by changing the obvious things in my diet - I cut out the coke unless it was a special occasion or dish. There are certain foods I really like to eat with coke such as pizza. Those times I would allow myself to indulge but I cut back on the portion size - half a can, split with a family member of mine. As I got further in my fitness journey I didn't care much for the taste of coke and I was satisfied after a few sips. Sometimes I would have zero or low calorie sparkling waters in place, which again, only for special occasions. Otherwise I only drank water. Sidenote: I used to find greek yogurt too bitter, needing to sweeten it with honey or syrup, and now it tastes vastly sweeter. So your tastebuds do change and they do adapt. Sweet things will soon taste too sweet and you will find yourself pulling away from them naturally.
I drink 1 cup of water when I wake up and then before every meal. I just try my best to get in as much water in a day as possible. It also helps keep me full, from over indulging in my food, and sometimes I'll find that I'm not really hungry but my brain is a bit confused and I'm really thirsty.
Veggies are something I still struggle with but wherever I can, I discretely throw in a veggie. Ex. Broccoli in my omelets, spinach in my smoothies, etc. I also now pretty much exclusively make salads with spinach since it has better nutrient content than lettuce. My only other suggestion in this department if you don't care for veggies too - chop them up tiny lol. And if you'd going to eat your veggies with something else like rice or chicken, force yourself to eat the veggies first. Otherwise, when it came to veggies I would roast them with olive oil, pinch of salt, pepper, and garlic powder. As long as they were crispy I did not mind them. I tried to include some in at least 2 meals a day and it was a struggle lol
Protein definitely had to go up with plans to start weight lifting (I make sure I have plenty of protein in all 3 meals I have a day and I ALWAYS make sure to hit my protein macro even if I'm struggling with the others. For this, some days I definitely had to supplement with protein powder as I adjusted to eating more food which I will get more into down below) and luckily I could keep eating my rice as long as I portioned it correctly and limited my other carbs. Now there's a lot of back and forth on low carb diets v high carb diets - here are my thoughts: lots of veggies have decent carb content but they're full of fiber so they take time to digest and therefore are good for your digestive tract. You also have simple carbs like cookies and the like which are almost immediately digested down to sugars and go straight into your blood steam so they are not as healthy. In my opinion eat as many veggies as you want - don't worry too much about tracking them. As far as simple and complex carbs, keep an eye on them and remember complex carbs are better than simple carbs.
READ THE SERVING SIZES! I was shocked to see how many serving sizes were in certain products and the amount of calories. Genuinely taken aback. Personally, I have not yet started tracking my macros on a food calculator, instead I use measuring spoons and cups, which for now, do the trick - just the awareness of the calorie content in my food helps me to cut back a lot. If I do want to indulge in something calorie dense, I break my food in half - half to eat at the moment and satisfy my cravings, the rest for another time. As long as you stay on top of things and don't have cravings every hour of the day I think it's totally fine to give in whenever the mood arises. Sometimes I just want some chocolate to get my mouth sweet and 1 reese's peanut buttercup does the trick. The rest of the package goes into whatever dark hole I decide to keep my goods in until next time. Out of sight out of mind. Pizza is another one - I love pizza but it can be very calorie dense. Now personally I prefer veggie pizzas anyway, so I load up the veggies and allow myself 2 slices after which I'm stuffed and have gotten in my veggie count too.
Don't buy unhealthy food and don't shop on an empty stomach. Have a plan when you shop and don't just give into anything that says low calorie, low fat, zero sugar, etc. Read the nutrition labels. Sometimes extra calories won't set you as far back as you think they will. I cut out milk for a while and replaced it with almond milk - huge difference in calories. But I was getting more protein from my regular milk and I could fit the accompanying extra calories into my macros so it came back in. low fat products might be lower in fat, but because the unpleasant taste the sugar content tends to be higher to compensate. Also, fats keep you fuller longer so they are not necessarily the enemy. Just need to be mindful when consuming them. Finally for zero calorie drinks, just because there are no sugars in them does not mean there are not alternative sugars being used.
Substitutions!!!! I substitute out foods that might have higher calories counts with healthier alternatives to meet my fitness goals while still getting my craving fix. For example, I used to love Doritos back in the day. Over the years my taste changed and I didn’t care much for it anymore and started eating tortilla chips. Now I've discovered pumpkin seeds and they give me the same salty satisfaction, that I prefer them over chips.
I don't do cheat days or meals or whatever. And I certainly don't plan them. It's about balance at the end of the day so if I am craving something I indulge mindfully.
I do however meal plan. Every Sunday I plan out my meals in advance and will even premake whatever I can.
Stop eating foods that don't give you satisfaction even if they are free. This one is something I feel like all of us are bad about. I'll eat whatever you put in front of me if it looks appetizing and it's free. The most dangerous kind of food is the free kind man.
Finally, days that I know I'm going to get be eating out, unable to track my calories, or just really want to indulge I try to fast the majority of the day or half of the day. I also don't eat too recently before the meal. My group of friends do weekly dinner potlucks and parties on Friday nights and dessert is always present. And my weakness with sweets comes down to homemade cake and ice cream. So if I know things are going to get out of hand later that day, I preplan. I also carefully load up my plate with little bits of each dish and after sampling each, will get whatever I really like. This way I'm being polite to all the hosts by trying their dishes and I'm saving calories.
FITNESS
Shopping really does make the heart grow fonder LOL I bought a bunch of awesome seamless leggings and I wear large oversized t-shirts on top so that when I do exercises that require lifting up my arms I don’t expose my stomach.
I started by working out with a friend who was a personal fitness trainer. She kept me accountable and she helped me with the initial gym intimidation. If you have a buddy who loves to work out and knows what they're doing, I highly recommend going with them. Being held accountable to go and not disappoint her was huge motivation for me to get out of bed. Most of the time going to the gym was the problem - not the actual workout itself. Since I was new to the gym game and I needed to be gently brought into the fold, I lifted every other day - usually concentrating on lower body work since I found it easier to pick up on. This gave me plenty of time to recover from the previous day and get into a routine. I also made sure to stretch my muscles between sessions and I did take ibuprofen when the muscle pain became unbearable. I think this process - the deep muscle aches and discomfort - only lasted 1-2 weeks max so it's not a forever thing. My friend taught me the correct form and planned all our training sessions, however, I wasn't doing too much heavy lifting at this time. Most of our sessions were HIIT focused. Unfortunately we were both in college so it was hard for us to keep meeting up, but it was through her I really learned to love lifting. I used to do the treadmill when it came to working out and I hated it. It was boring and I never really saw results. With weights I concentrate on the weight I'm lifting, the muscle I'm training, understanding the motions of the exercise, and my favorite part, seeing my gains.
Once I decided it was time to take my weight lifting more seriously I was very conflicted about how to create a plan and how to train. Since I was home for the holidays I had a lot of free time so I wanted to train 5-6 days a week and decided a lower and upper body split. I came across King Anthony (@bootyking) on youtube who focused on booty workouts. I was intrigued and really liked his ideas and workouts. They made sense and were simple to follow. I really appreciated how detailed he was in his video as he explained each move and how to perfect my form - this is honestly what sold me on him. Eventually, I got lucky and purchased his booty plan for $35 during a black Friday sale and decided to give it a spin. (Sidenote: this is not a promo - just wanting to share what I did. There are plenty of alternatives available)
Ultimately - I love his work out program is split into two phases - each a month long, which repeat, cycling one after the other. He follows an upper body and lower body split like I wanted. They are definitely, however, geared towards the booty - there are a few overall body workouts but definitely a lot of glute focus. I did not however like the upper body days. Some of the moves were just too challenging for a newbie so I decided to create my own upper body plan now that I had his guide as guidance. Here are the videos I used for that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAGfBjvIRFI, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqhDYPDVpHc&t=611s @5:17 lying cable curls superset with standing cable curls. (I also do cable rope tricep pushdowns, tricep dips on a bench with body weight, overhead tricep press, wide grip lat pulldowns, and cable rows).
The first week or two of the workouts I really struggled to follow along, but after the initial hump, it was a lot easier. I figured out my ideal weights, I had learned the equipment, I felt confident, I understood the correct form, etc. For example, I never thought I'd be able to do plyometric workouts and yet come week 3 I was jumping and hopping all over the place. I did cut out a few of the exercises that were too challenging for me at the time. I figured once I got down the basics when I came back to revise the plan at the end of my initial 8 weeks I'd try them again and see if I could do them then. I also added a few other exercises that I really liked for lower body days such as leg extension, kettle bell swings, and leg press. I make sure my workout has a few compound exercises, isolation work for whatever muscle I want to focus on, and single limb variation for extra burn and to draw attention to muscle imbalances.
As the workouts got easier I added extra bells and whistles to challenge myself more and increase my gain. While I did try to increase my weight by 2.5-5lbs each gym session, sometimes it just wasn't possible for me and I would alter the exercise instead and try to still maintain the intensity of my workout. Typically I would try to aim to make sure at the very least at the start of a new week I had increased my lifting weight by at least 2.5lbs. Otherwise here are a few additional modifications I would make to my exercises:
- Add pulses - great addition for several glute activation moves and squats
- Resistance bands are awesome - I use these during glute activation, warming up for certain exercises, and in working sets such as hip thrusts and squats. I slip them on above my knees. You want to make sure the band is engaged and actually working your muscle. When I started using my bands they were a little snug around my thighs. Now they tend to be a little lose so I have to spread my knees to shoulder width - sometimes a pinch more - to make sure my muscles are being properly engaged. Just remember, your knees should be pushing out against the bands. I personally really like the xbands - I used to use the cheapy bands but the x bands are thick and durable, and most importantly, they come in various weights so I really push myself.
- Add an extra set - if I wanna be extra I add an extra set of reps to my sessions. I usually concentrate on compound movements as they work more muscles so I get a better overall workout. I love using this in hip thrusts, squats, sumo lifts, kettlebell swings, leg press, leg extension, etc.
- Isometric holds are killer - you can add them at the end of every five reps on your leg extension, also on the leg extension after I drop my last rep I'll sit there and let my quads burn, wall sits, etc. Another one I really love for this technique is hip thrusts and hip abductors. At the top of the movement I pause and count 1 second. Afterwards I slowly release and try to count 3 seconds before I let the weight back down completely. Another way I love to use this is for every rep I'm doing, I'll hold it for that long ex. my second hip thrust rep I'll hold it for 2 seconds, the third will hold for 3 seconds, etc.
- Single leg variations - can also apply for single arm variations too of course, but a way I like to use this for example is maybe I have 3 sets on the leg press machine. The last set I'll continue doing however many reps - lets say maybe 12 - but I'll do 12 reps per leg and really burnout my muscles.
- Muscle burnout - I love to feel the burn at the end of my session. Occasionally I'll throw in random bodyweight exercises at the end of my training session and just try to do as many as I can before my body gives. A few I do is after squatting I'll do a bunch of squat pulses with a lighter weight, hip thrusts with a resistance band at the of my hip thrust session (also great for glute bridges), and I do a booty burn out HIIT session - 30 seconds doing a glute bridge against a wall with a resistance band, followed by 30 seconds of abductions. Repeat for a total of 5 cycles.
- Add elevation - this is a nice option if you're struggling to feel a movement in your glutes, especially if you are finding it difficult to push from your heels. You can stick plates underneath your heels for most exercises to help with that. I also love to add general elevation in my exercises using benches or stepping blocks for lunges, elevated glute bridge, sumo squats with dumbbells, goblet squats, etc.
Something else I learned when doing my workouts was it was much more difficult to lift the amount of weight I could do with both legs vs single leg variations, and to do as many reps even at my single leg max without compromising my form. It makes sense - you are afterall using only one muscle. So for these I advise dropsets where you decrease the weight as you go and you can do a muscle burn out with body weight at the end if you like too. Otherwise I try to do progressive sets where I increase the weight as I go. This also helps to make sure I'm lifting more weight at the end of the week.
Upper body day takes me 1 hour and some change to complete. I do some light band stretches and go straight into my workout. Make sure to squeeze whatever muscle you are working here too! It really makes a difference!
Lower body days definitely take longer at 2 hours but I can cut them down to 1.5 hours if needed. It takes time to warm up my muscles and some time is also lost putting on and taking off plates.
- Lower body days I do 5 minutes on the bike before I start my workout to get my blood pumping to the areas I'm training.
- I used to not care much for glute activation as some fitness folks argue that by the end of your second rep your glutes are probably already activated. I did not find this to be the case for myself and it really helped me to get better gains by doing them so I do include them in my workouts. I do 2 sets of 15 of clamshells, donkey kickbacks, straight leg kickbacks, fire hydrants, glute bridges, or lying leg raises, all banded. I pick 4 from the mix and go slow to stretch the muscle, focus on mind muscle connection, and get a great squeeze in my booty as I prep for my working sets. If I have trouble feeling my glutes I'll lightly touch my butt to bring awareness to the area in my brain to try to help with the mind muscle connection.
- After I do my warm up session, I focus on completing compound movements first. Then follow up with my remaining workouts. That way I finish the biggest bang for my buck exercises early on in case I have to cut my workout session short and since I'll have most energy at the start of my workout, hopefully, my form won't be compromised.
I take between 1-2 rest days, sometimes more if my body isn't feeling it, but I do try to make them active rest days and do some light walking or moving around. I also use those days to do stretches: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLy2rYHwUqY.
OTHER
For a while I was trying to do intermittent fasting and fasted cardio as well. Intermittent fasting was great for clearing my head and keeping me energized - I used to do this unintentionally when I was in highschool and lost a lot of weight that way. I still used it on days I know I'm going to be eating out a lot but my weight training takes precedence. I just love seeing my gains too much and idk if it really gives me as many weight loss benefits as it used to with all the changes in my life right now. Same thing for fasted cardio - though I never saw huge results with it I prefer working out on an empty stomach. Now I just eat whenever I want as long as I hit my macro goals and I'm able to complete my workout. I do plan on eventually trying intermittent fasting again with my new diet and weight lifting goals.
Speaking of macros, a big boo boo I made was not meeting my calorie goals during my training. I was unintentionally eating under 1200 calories a day - something I used to do when I was trying to lose weight before weight lifting. I was also definitely not hitting my protein requirements. And yet I was still hitting the gym and doing weight lifting plus cardio on top of that. I was jeopardizing my own gains - considering how much I was working out I should have lost a heck of a lot of weight but I didn’t and come week 3 ish I was really struggling with my workouts - I didn’t have the energy to complete them. I was slumped over after 5 reps. The minute I increased my calories to 1600 and made sure my protein was being met, it's like my butt grew overnight and that's when the changes started coming. I'm pretty sure I was in metabolic breakdown or whatever because along with lifting I was doing cardio at the time too. I definitely killed my metabolism. A trick to overcome this is to figure out your calorie count and try to force yourself to eat to meet those calorie requirements for a minimum of 10 days. After this you'll find yourself uncomfortably hungry when normally you wouldn't be.
I scaled back my cardio a lot. I do have plans to add 2-3 days of HIIT (30 second sprint/1 minute rest for 10-15 cycles on the treadmill. A fitness friend said that anything shorter than 1 minute rest would not give me enough recovery time and what I would find happening is my whole workout would eventually become a sprinting session vs HIIT. For this really focus on intensity) to my training, but a lot of fitness experts suggested waiting to add cardio until I hit a plateau and just focus on my diet for now. So I have officially cut it out for as of right now but how I used to do it was I would walk 20-30 mins on the treadmill on non upper body days on an incline. I would increase the incline if I felt a plateau or if I wasn't being challenged. Since I don’t need it right now I've removed it for the time being and will add it back in later. A fitness friend of mine suggested keeping to the same cardio machine for a month before switching a to a different one. Cardiovascular health adapts quickly and it's much easier to just increase the intensity vs switching machines all the time which is something she says many people do.
My favorite part of the journey so far is how much these changes have helped me in my day to day life. It's fantastic to be able to lift my 50lb checked in luggage into my car or heavy carry on into an overhead bin without a sweat. It's fantastic to slip my hands into my back jean pockets and feel by butt bulging out. I'm also extremely happy to note that some of the stretch marks on my thighs and back of my arms have started to lighten, and the worst of my butt cellulite is starting to fade. I cannot wait to add onto this post in the upcoming months and share what other changes I start to experience. Until then, thank you to this community to all your support and love. I hope this was helpful to someone.
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