For those of you that have had a good amount of success on your weight loss journey, what would you say are some of the key tenets to your success? Here are mine.

1. Food is energy. We need it to live, to move, to breathe, but we need a lot less of it than we realize. Also the less you move throughout a day, the less you need. Also also if it's getting later in the afternoon to early evening and you really aren't going to be very active the rest of the day, do you really need a big meal for dinner shortly before bed? I'm a big proponent of dinner around 3 or 4 pm and no meals after and just a snack or a few bites of something if you need something later or have plans later.

2. Walking is love walking is life. This past year I lost 86 pounds and the main exercise I got for most of the year until September when I added weight lifting, was walking. This year I walked 2.8 million steps or around 1400 miles. I believe the benefits of your mental health improvement and your breathing improvement with consistent fresh air is just as if not more important than the calories burned through walking. It's literally a life changer. Obviously everyone knows about 10k a day, I personally try to shoot for 16k a day but you can see improvements in as "little" as 4k a day.

3. Don't drink your calories. I cut out all sugary sodas late last year and haven't had one since. All I drink is water, black coffee, 5 calorie lipton diet teas, and sprite zero. Pretty self-explanatory, but I'll make sure to drink a lot of water throughout the day. Many times when you think you're hungry you're just dehydrated. If you are still hungry 10 minutes after a glass of water then maybe look to eat something.

4. For the love of God, fix your sleep people. Sleep is not for the weak. I used to think this. I bragged about how little sleep I got. I hated sleeping. I was also super obese and hated everything else so it makes sense lol But seriously sleep is when you have success. Sleep is vital to recovery and building muscle and losing weight. I go to bed around 9 every night and get up around 4 every night. That's just cause I need to do that for my work but as long as you are getting at least 6.5 quality hours of sleep every night, preferably up to 8 but I don't even get that so I won't preach it, you will see improvements.

5. And finally, weight lifting. I lost about half my weight this year from January to September. In September I started weight lifting in earnest, and lost the other have of my weight in 4 months. So I lost the same amount of weight in just 4 months with walking, weight lifting and dieting, than I did in 8 months with just walking and dieting. Weight lifting is a game changer. Muscle burns calories just existing. The more you have, the more you will passively burn. Also its much easier to build muscle than it is to lose fat by just trying to diet, so it's much easier to replace the fat with muscle and lose weight that way. I'm not a workout guy, I don't really know what I'm doing, I'm constantly asking reddit on what to do, so I won't recommend anything but I'll just say do something. You don't have to sign up at a gym, dumbbells are literally all you need to get started. There are SO many full-body dumbbell workouts out there you can look up and see if you like anything you see.

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