In January of 2017, I started my weight loss journey. I know some of you may think that thirty pounds in two years isn’t a lot, but I have never been happier. In previous attempts to lose weight, I always set a date for myself, like, “I will lose X amount of pounds by June 1st” or “I will lose X amount of pounds by Christmas”. This time around, I set no date, and it was so freeing! By not setting a deadline, I don’t get discouraged as easily. I don’t see that “I only have 1 month left to lose ten pounds, how on Earth am I going to do it??” I’m going to share 10 tips with you on how I’ve lost 30 pounds so far (as well as a few embarrassing before pictures, so please bare with me).
Please note that this post isn’t sponsored by anyone and all opinions are my own.
Believe in Yourself
First things first, you need to believe in yourself before you embark on this journey. I spent a lot of time going back and forth – can I do it? Can I not do it? I eventually just ignored all my thoughts and started one day, just like that. There was no, “Oh, I’ll start on Monday.” One day I just woke up and signed up for weight watchers. I had a fruit smoothie for breakfast that first day and that is when my life officially began to change. I was determined, and therefore believed in myself.
Find Your Support System
There are days that you will get down about yourself or your progress. It happens! You are only human. This is when having a support system is vital. My main support systems are my mom, Weight Watchers, and my boyfriend Tom. My mom has been a great cheerleader for me when I’m feeling down. I also live pretty far from her, so I don’t see her very often in person, but when I do, it’s always nice to hear her go, “WOW You look amazing!!!” Especially when your coworkers don’t notice. They’ve noticed now, but it took them about twenty-five pounds before anyone said anything – expect for nobody to say anything for a long time! They’re probably just afraid to ask. When I have questions or want to brag without being shamed, Weight Watchers is great! You get your own profile and can post whatever you want (but keep it friendly, please). I’ve also posted on there when I’ve had my plateau periods and the community is great about keeping me upbeat and positive! Finally, Tom is the best support system out there. Whenever I feel like I’ve failed, I tell him how I’m feeling and he tells me all the ways I’ve been killin’ it! He, like my mom, also wow’s at me sometimes and makes me feel beautiful every day, even on the days that I don’t. Having just one person in your corner makes a world of difference!
Cook! (If You Don’t Know How, Learn!)
I will preface this with some honesty – after two years, I still hate cooking. I hate it! It’s a giant pain in the butt. You have to cut all your meat and veggies, take the time to cook it (sometimes using multiple pots and pans), and then you still have to do all the dishes after! It’s super annoying. However, cooking at home is way healthier for you than eating out or ordering takeout all the time (or having snacks for “dinner” as I used to do). When I started this weight loss journey, I barely knew how to cook anything. I’m more of a baker. However, it’s pretty simple to learn! As long as you follow the recipe exactly, you’ll be fine. It’s all about using proper measurements and making sure you cook it at the instructed heat and length of time. I get 99% of the recipes I use off of Pinterest. Skinnytaste is a really great website for healthy recipes as well! I intend to do a future post of my top 10 favorite healthy dinner recipes, so stay tuned for that!
Take Measurements
I can’t stress enough how important it is to take measurements of your body! The scale is not always accurate. Sometimes it may look like you gained weight, when in reality maybe you’re just carrying a little extra water weight or you put on some muscle. In the beginning of my journey, I only measured my calves and my belly, the two areas I felt most insecure about at that time. I wish I had measured every part! Learn from my mistakes. It feels great to see how many inches you’ve lost. All you need is some measuring tape and Google. I usually just google how to measure parts of my body to make sure I’m doing it right, and more importantly, consistently. I also measure myself first thing in the morning before eating so that my measurements don’t have bloat as a variable. Another benefit to measuring is you see exactly where the weight is coming off. The body is weird. At first, I lost a lot of weight in my chest. Then it started coming off a bit on my stomach, butt and face. Then it stopped and started coming off of my arms. Then my calves. Yes, you read that right – one of my body parts I was most insecure about took the longest to lose weight. I consistently measured them for over a year, and they would measure the same each time. As you can see above, however, I’ve lost an inch off my calves so far! Woohoo! Since February 2017, I’ve lost 5 inches off my belly (measured 1″ below my belly button). Since March 2017, I’ve lost 4″ off my thighs. I’ve also lost about an inch off my biceps. Measure, measure, measure!
Face Your Fears
Losing weight can be scary. Especially if you are going to the gym for the first time. You just have to face your fears and go! When I started this weight loss journey, I had definitely been to a gym before, but it had been a while. On my first day to the gym, it was me and two other guys there. I was doing the leg press machine after running on the elliptical and the guys started whispering about me and laughing behind my back. I could hear them! They weren’t exactly being super quiet about it. I even turned around to look them in the eyes and they just laughed again. I could’ve quit. I could’ve gone home crying and said, “Never again!” Instead, I decided I wanted to make those guys feel bad about laughing at me and continued to go back at least three times a week. Guess what? I never even saw those guys again! If I let them get to me and I had quit, it would’ve been for nothing. Another fear I had was of the cable machine at the gym. I had never touched it and was afraid if I tried that, again, people in the gym would laugh at me. Guess what, guys? There are how-to images on the machines! Nobody will judge you if you take the time to read the instructions. I faced my fears and used the cable machine, and now it’s my favorite machine in the gym!
Have the Right Attitude
Strive for progress, not perfection! This is an up and down timeline. Pictured above is my weight tracking for the last six months. I can’t name a single person who lost weight consistently every week. You will have your weeks where you gain, and weeks where you will lose – but it’s okay! You will be okay. On the weeks where you gained a pound, take a deep breath, accept it, and promise to do better the next coming week. Something I see often is that at the first sight of a gain, people quit. I will admit, I’ve been tempted to quit a few times. The thing that keeps me from quitting is knowing that if I quit, that means I will go back to eating untracked calories, whatever I want, and gain all the weight back. I’d rather accept one measly pound than go back thirty. Also, I see people sometimes post online, “Aw man, I’ve only lost three pounds this week!” That is awesome! You should be proud of yourself! Cheer for yourself even if you only lost 0.2 pounds that week! Changing your attitude to be positive will make the journey so much easier.
Go on Workout Dates and Make Working Out Fun
Make working out fun and try to incorporate it into your dating life! Some fun workouts I’ve done on my own include playing Just Dance, swimming, or lifting weights (something I’ve discovered I like fairly recently). Since Tom and I go out anywhere from 2-3 times a week and dating usually includes eating out at fatty restaurants, we try to work in some healthy habits. On week nights, Tom eats at my apartment and we eat my homemade healthy dinners. We also try to incorporate workouts into our dates sometimes! Often times we end up going to a trampoline park where we jump around and also joust each other above a foam pit. It’s super fun and a great workout! The photo from above is when we went rock climbing. Another great date and great for toning your muscles! Most importantly, a workout isn’t going to be fun without music. I set up a super fun upbeat Spotify playlist that I listen to every time I go to the gym. Feel free to follow my playlist!
Count Your Macros
What are macros? I didn’t really learn about macros until maybe about six months ago. They are your macro nutrients, or in other words, the amount of fat, carbohydrates, and protein that you put into your body. How do you track macros, though?? This is why I love myfitnesspal. In case you are unfamiliar, myfitnesspal is an app you can download for free on your iPhone or Android. You can set your profile to how much you want to lose a week, your current weight, goal weight, height, age, sex, and how many times you workout a week. Once you set all of this up, myfitnesspal automatically sets up your macros for you! By default, it sets you at 50% carbs, 30% fat and 20% protein. It will tell you roughly how many grams of each you should be consuming a day to hit these percentages. Since I am now trying to gain some muscle, I adjusted my macros to be 30% protein and 20% fat. I know that counting your macros can be super intimidating. I believe that Weight Watchers, another app I use, is a great stepping stone into learning about macros! Since WW uses a point system instead of calories, you automatically start picking up on healthy habits. For example, eggs and chicken breast are both 0 points. They aren’t 0 calories, obviously, but both are made up of healthy proteins and healthy fats. Without counting the grams of protein and fat you are ingesting, you are still learning about eating healthy macros – healthy carbs, healthy fats, and healthy proteins. If you want me to dive deeper into macros, let me know in the comments below!
Get Over Your Pickiness (If You’re Not Picky, You’re Already a Step Ahead!)
I am sooo picky. It sucks. Getting over pickiness is such a hurdle. Thankfully, I started forcing myself to try to get over my pickiness in my last two years of high school. I used to not like any kind of meat, not even chicken! And I used to only eat my pasta plain. Now I love Mexican food, Japanese food, Chinese food, Italian (with sauce), American and more. These last two years my main focus has been on vegetables. Vegetables were my weakness! I’ve been experimenting with ways to make them more tolerable to me in a healthy way. For example, I discovered that Broccoli tastes better to me if it’s been roasted in the oven with garlic powder or maybe some paprika! And I looove string beans when they’ve been cooked in olive oil and garlic. I really love garlic in case you couldn’t already tell. I still don’t love zucchini, but I can confidently say that it’s OK and I will eat it if it’s served to me. I used to hate it! I just forced myself to eat it enough times until it became tolerable. Are you a picky eater? What’s your greatest struggle with it?
Have a Reward System
In the beginning, it was particularly hard to keep my motivation up. Once you develop your habits, it becomes a lot easier to stay motivated. However, the beginning is particularly hard. For this reason, I came up with non-food related rewards! For every five pounds, I would treat myself to something. After losing my first five pounds, I could get a manicure. After ten pounds, I could go to the salon and get my hair styled (or dyed – I love dying my hair and I’d make myself promise to wait until I hit that weight goal). After fifteen pounds, I could buy a top to bottom new outfit. The list goes on! Find what makes you happy and promise it to yourself, but keep it as rewards. If you are the type of person who gets manicures every other week, that probably isn’t a good reward for you since you do it anyway. If you love flowers, but never buy them, that could be your reward to yourself one week! The possibilities are endless.
Finally…
My most important piece of advice is to treat this more like a lifestyle change than a diet. This is how you will maintain your weight loss, but more importantly your happiness. I couldn’t imagine going on the paleo diet, juice diet, or whatever fad is out there these days and to not be able to eat any kind of chocolate! If I actually made it through, I can tell ya right now, I would binge eat all the chocolate once the diet was over. By treating this more like a lifestyle change, I eat healthy foods, but allow myself to have bad foods too (I prefer to call them “good for the soul foods”). I can go to a party and have a slice of pizza guilt free. In the past, I maybe would’ve eaten 3 slices plus cake. It’s all about balance. Sure, have that brownie for dessert after dinner! You were good and ate veggies and chicken all day. If you have any questions about the topics I covered here, or maybe didn’t cover, feel free to comment below! And please, remember to love yourself every step of the way. Ultimately, we are just doing whatever we can to appreciate our bodies in the way they deserve to be treated. <3
Cameron Butler
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