I've just had a really great day of body confidence (despite not being fully at my "ideal"), I am extremely happy with where I am at. I'd like to thank this sub and others r/fitness r/running r/nutrition r/HydroHomies r/EatCheapAndHealthy and probably others, for keeping me on track and helping me make healthy sustainable changes that have changed my mindset for the better, got me regularly active, got me a better aesthetic, gave me more energy and overall made me more "healthy" both physically and mentally as a result.
For some credibility of my claims, I have lost 20+ kg (Remember muscle is heavier than fat though, for me I was previously morbidly obese person, who had very low levels of activity). I now have a healthy level of body fat/stable weight, keep myself active and I have way more energy.
I've never really posted here and I would like to try and give back, here's some of my top tips from my perspective:
- Getting healthier takes time!, this process has taken me 6+ years of hard lessons, many mistakes and lots of time spent trying to build good habits. habits take a long time to form! Some studies suggest that habits can take between 66-254 days to form depending on how difficult the habit is Source, small sustainable changes are way better with this in mind. Crash diets are not sustainable imo.
- Stay away from crash diets, by this I mean the miracle diets, the lose/gain weight quick diets and anything that seems too good to be true!, be careful who you take your advice from, a lot of people make great money dispensing terrible advice, please value professional advice, people study for years to get qualified and gain valuable experience on the way.
- Find things you enjoy, if it's going to be a regular part of your life, if its not enjoyable the chances are you just won't do it!, do give things time though, some things become better when your body and mind adapt to them and you become proficient. Some great advice I heard from here, that has stuck with me is that "exercise is a celebration of what your body can do and not a punishment for what you ate"
- Find the balance, be kind to yourselves, everyones journey and goals are different, not one model will fit everyone, its quite a personal journey. I'm not a professional, I just want to stop people falling down some traps that negatively affected me.
- Value your health, one thing that really worked for me was assigning more money/time for my health, its paid off in the form of better mental health, increased confidence, increased physical appearance.
- Discipline over motivation, something I heard from the fitness threads that has really helped is that "Motivation is temporary and discipline is permanent", Motivation is still great though, I recommend surrounding yourself in positive messages and browsing such memes you need on reddit.
- Remember your mental health, putting too much pressure on yourself, obsessing over metrics such as how many calories you eat for everything, weight, BMI, how much/how hard you exercise and many other things. Can have a huge negative impact on your mental health. There are a time and a place for the things I mentioned for most people (Not everyone, I wish I had consulted more experts along the way). Please seek expert advice if you are unsure, I'm not an expert, part of the reason I am writing this is because I've made many mistakes and some of these have had huge negative impacts on my mental health, for me it was being obsessed with weight, calories and exercise. I've got a much healthier balance now. Credible professionals are out there and will save you lots of stress, time and probably even money in the long run.
- Don't beat yourself up if you make mistakes, doing this can easily put you back into old negative habits. It will take time, you will make mistakes, but if you can learn from them you will go in the right direction.
- it's not all about the numbers!, there's many ways to measure progress and some ways of doing this are commonly misunderstood and can give a false impression that you are going nowhere (weight, BMI, I'm looking at you). Building positive habits is a thing that should be celebrated, so should maintaining them too!
- Remember where you started, some examples from my own personal experience are not being able to run a mile, not being able to lie on my back without my stomach crushing me, constant thigh chaffing from having fat legs, being sweaty from being physically unfit and a bunch of other things I will probably think of later. It's very easy to forget these later on down the line. Despite being where I am now, I can sometimes be unhappy with it, which can be ok in moderation to push me forwards (if it's realistic and needed), but sometimes I need to remember where I was and where I will be, if I keep going steadily progressively forwards in sustainable healthy steps.
This is by no means a comprehensive post. I just got back from climbing and wanted to feed into the positivity and helpful community from this subreddit and related ones I have benefited from over the years. They have been a huge help for me in changing my lifestyle and I owe many many people on here quite a lot. If anyone has any questions please feel free to ask them, I really like reading comment sections and talking about sustainable weight loss and related topics.
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