Over the last 8 months, I have lost 20 pounds and am managing to keep it off. This is the second time I’ve gone through such a transformation, and this time around I am starting to learn some tricks that have helped. Losing weight is a very hard experience, as it takes time, discipline, hard work, and patience. The obvious rewards for losing weight are superficial, but the latent effects have a ripple effect throughout your entire life.
The first time I lost weight seriously was in 2016, when I started going to the gym as a lent challenge to myself. The number one thing that will help you lose weight, is just being active. I always think of it as an engine, when the engine is roaring, then it doesn’t matter what you’re feeding it. By making some subtle changes in my life, I was able to slowly turn that engine from idle, to roaring. I would take the stairs instead of the elevator, standing at my desk, walking or biking instead of driving, running every chance I got, and lifting weights on a regular basis. I would aim to go to the gym every day, and if I couldn’t make it, I was sure that I got by 10,000 steps in that day. This kept me active, so the next step was just finding out what to feed myself. After researching the various fad diets, the one with the most evidence was a protein rich diet. By monitoring my diet, increasing by day to day activity, and drinking more water, I was able to melt away about 20 over 6 months.
I am not sure when it happened, but at some point I stopped going to the gym, and started to have more patio beers. This lead to the slow, lethargic creep back to my old weight. The weight that I was unhappy with and that prompted the change in the first place. It is a disarming feeling having your body pack on pounds when you don’t want to. I was complacent, and complacency stopped me from going to the gym. I was happy with where I was at, and didn’t feel like I needed to get any better, which meant that I was getting worse. Over the next 6 months, I slowly gained back what I had worked so hard to lose. I wasn’t in a bad place, I was enjoying life, working on my career, hanging out with loved ones, but I was just letting myself go.
Fast forward to October 2017, my girlfriend and I decided to go to a new gym and start a new routine. I was able to use what I had learned from the last experience and set a new set of goals to hit. My regiment is always to start with cardio for the first few weeks, and start to form the habit of going to the gym and increase the heart muscle. The habit is the most important step, so just going to the gym for a run was a win, a very painful win. I also started to take the stairs to my office every morning, which was 8 stories, just enough to get a light sweat on and start my metabolism every morning. I went back to eating a protein rich diet, and avoiding sugars in food and drink, which meant minimal beer. After a month of cardio, I started lifting weights and found a training schedule that pushed me each day in a different muscle group. Weighing myself every morning gave me the little reward each morning of watching my weight go down by fractions of a pound, but over the long run they added up. Pound by pound my weight would go down, my desire to go to the gym would go up, and my energy would increase.
Weight loss and the weight loss journey have become something of a passion for me, as it has changed me. Your confidence in your body goes way up, the compliments are validating as your hard work manifests itself in your body. You carry yourself better, and you can speak your mind more clearly as you feel confidence throughout your life. Everyone has their own inhibitions about their body, so everyone wants to change something about them. By learning how to lose weight, and improve yourself, you now have the power over yourself to change for the better, and it feels great.