This year I decided to make a lifestyle change that resulted in losing 63 pounds in the first six months. I had tried to lose weight in the past and while I would lose about 10 lbs each time but I had a tendency to abandon the journey and gain it all back. I knew I had to do something different if I wanted to actually make a difference in my health.
Motivation
I realized I lacked a 'why' every other time I attempted to lose weight. I knew if I wanted to get serious about losing weight I needed a new mindset, a 'why' to drive me. I was surprised at how my reason for losing weight evolved as I started seeing the pounds come off. My initial motivation was quite superficial, I wanted to lose as much as I could before a cruise that we had planned in late March. I pinned a photo of the ship on my bedroom door so I would see it each morning. This helped me get started and I believe having the constant reminder in the form of the photo on my door was key in getting my ass to the gym and keeping my diet straight at first.
After COVID hit our cruise was canceled and while it was a bummer, I knew I needed to keep my weight loss efforts up. I no longer had the motivation of the cruise, but I was able to find motivation elsewhere. I started noticing improvements in my health, I had way more energy, less back, knee and hip pain, and I was no longer waking up feeling like shit due to what I had eaten the night before. Continuing to improve my health became my prime motivator. I also have a Fitbit to track my progress, seeing that progress was also very motivating.
Diet
I am not a fan of fad diets or diets that require a lot of effort like keto, so the focus on my diet was to eat less and to incorporate more vegetables into my daily consumption. Overeating was obviously the reason I was fat, I had associated food with feeling good so I would eat until I was overstuffed and ended up feeling like shit. I was stuck in a negative feedback loop of eating to feel good, then feeling like shit.
Since my main focus was to eat less, I didn't shy away from things that I normally would overconsume like pizza and ice cream. As long as I was in a deficit I told myself that I could eat whatever I wanted. I think this was a key factor in why I was able to stick to the diet. In the past I would restrict certain foods like pizza and try to eat super healthy which would ultimately set myself up for failure. When my diet failed, I failed, and I quit the journey. To hold myself accountable, I counted every single calorie that I consumed every day for the entire 6 months. I would occasionally estimate the amount I was consuming when I didn't have a scale but I always tried to overestimate. I couldn't recommend getting a food scale enough, it was much easier to accurately track what I was eating when I was able to weigh it.
Exercise
I was once told that losing weight is 80% diet and 20% exercise so I put more effort into making sure I was on top of my diet, but still wanted to improve my fitness with regular exercise. I decided to get a gym membership at Planet Fitness right from the start. I always hated the gym but felt much more comfortable with the atmosphere at Planet Fitness so it was easier to push myself to go. I was able to force myself to go consistently enough that I built a habit of going to the gym. As my energy levels increased I felt a need to move my body and actually had 'cravings' to go to gym when I hadn't been in a few days. Going to the gym at this point became subconscious, rather than having to force myself to go. At the gym I would focus more on cardio for calorie burning, but if I had time I would do strength training as well.
During this time I also started hiking long distances. I quickly fell in love with hiking and I was doing 10-15 mile hikes once, sometimes twice a week on the weekends during the colder months. When the gyms closed due to COVID and the temperature started to heat up, I picked up cycling for exercise. I developed a similar passion for cycling and I try to get on the bike 3 times a week. It is much easier to ride bike for an hour in the Texas heat than it is to hike 10+ miles.
Conclusion
I feel like this weight loss journey has made me more mentally mature and I've realized I am able to do anything within my means as long as I put my mind to it. Not only has my physical health improved but I feel like my mental health is stronger than ever. I have more self confidence and am less worried about my appearance.
I plan to continue my journey but I want to shift more focus to strength training. I plan to stop counting calories now that I know how much I need to be eating in an attempt to maintain/continue losing. My goal was to change my lifestyle and it worked. I surprised myself how easy it was to lose weight once I got the hang of it and it became my new normal. Waking up and deciding that something needed to change was the best thing that has happened to me.
Thanks for attending my TED talk.
*I decided to recreate this picture from my 22nd birthday in 2018 for my 24th on June 28th.
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