I don't know about you, but I find inspiration and comfort in the "Average Joe" story of weight loss. No gimmicks, no "programs." Just blood, sweat, pumping iron and the will power to say "no" to glazed Krispy Kremes. Mmmm. . . .
Below is the story of my cousin Eric. One day he decided to change his life for the better through fitness. It's been a year now and these are his wise words of that personal journey.
Eric is one of the kindest and most down-to-earth people you will ever meet. He's an humble hard-worker and it shows though in the post below. I love him a lot and I am so very proud of him.
Read it and be inspired! I know I am! Way to go, cuz!
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| Fitness Done Right! Before (2013) & After (2014) |
Today is my one year fitness-anniversary. A year ago today I decided that I wasn’t going to go on a diet but instead I was going to make a lifestyle change or at least try (big emphasis on try, I originally expected to fail). Since last year I have dropped about 10 inches from my waist and about 75 pounds of fat, and it feels pretty damn good. Really there is not much more to say because in my mind we all have struggles that are hard for other people to fully understand so talking about it a lot of the time I feel falls on deaf ears, but in this case I am going to talk about my journey a little bit in case it can be of any help to anyone else. I was the biggest self non believer ever in this category of my life and I'm here now and I wish I could go back sooner and give myself the encouragement I needed.
The Journey:
You are going to have to do this for yourself. End of story. My original motivations were external (look better to appeal to someone else) but what I have learned is that if you do it solely based on that you will not succeed, BUT it can be a great reason to get the initial push over the edge(In my mind I always like to think "came for the ladies, stayed for the GAINS"…. hahaha). Moving on, as I mentioned before it has to be a lifestyle change, you have to accept some cold hard facts. The fact of the matter is at the end of the day if you are significantly overweight like I was you are taking in too many calories daily and that’s it. It sounds really stupid but I would say it took me a full six months of hard work to come to accept that. I used to eat about four to five thousand calories a day and although that may seem super surprising its really not if you sit down and look at how many damn calories are in food today, especially junk food and fast food. I have not had Del Taco in about eight months and it is a double edged sword…
So to make significant weight loss you are going to have to make a change in your life and almost for sure I can tell you that translates into pack your own damn food everywhere every day. In reality it fucking sucks but through my experiences in the begging I fully believe that one must be extra hardcore in dedication in the beginning. This means, no fast food, NO CHEAT DAYS, and drinking water while you watch your friends eat burgers and sweet potato fries… It seriously sucks, like I can't stress that enough, but do you know what doesn’t suck? Donating old clothes because you literally can make them work because they are so loose. It took me about eight months to lose the majority of my weight and during that time I was really strict with myself, I weighed every single day, I rarely made slip ups (it does happen and when it does you need to focus on not doing it again but be positive, I would always make it a point to tell myself that just because I made a mistake does not erase all of my progress) and finally you need to visualize the prize. At first I was a non-believer as I have repetitively mentioned, but as pounds came off, pants got loser, my double chin went down and I began to see what I could be. Every day still to this day is a fork in the road. Do I want to eat Wendy's for lunch or do I want a more defined chin? I seriously for months about once a week would have nightmares where I snapped and ate a bunch of food and the regret would just plague me and I would wake up and be so happy I didn’t lose all of that progress.
With that being said I will tell the happy part, the happy part is that being extremely strict in the beginning builds confidence in what you are doing and as you learn your body you can experiment a little bit with eating more here and there and still being okay, you can also see that doing XXXXX didn’t hurt you overall by weighting frequently in the beginning. But eventually you will graduate into your new self and that is where I'm at now. I would say it took that full eight months in the beginning but overall my capacity and lust for food has legitimately changed. The constant need to feel like "I wish I could eat as much as I want" is finally gone and when this happens it really feels like you have made it. Sure I eat a lot here and there as some have seen but unlike the past I basically accept calorie for calorie and if I'm going to eat a big meal one time than I make changes to compensate elsewhere because you will certainly learn that, that shit aint magic.
Cons:
The cons to all of this I would say is that everything is certainly not how I expected it would be. I could get really detailed with my expectations but they all point to one thing and that is the thought this would change who I was internally, but it does not. I thought once I got here I would no longer feel like a fat kit but that’s not true. My self-perception has gotten much better but I can certainly say that it is nowhere close to equal to someone who looks similar to myself that was never overweight and I find that to be my biggest shock and struggle today. Still the ends totally justify the means just know that it's not the magic cure to self confidence you might think. I think with time I will grow into my new self more but it has certainly not been what I expected.
Pros:
So since emotionally it is not what I expected I can't tell you, lose weight and you will instantly become the super hero you always thought you would be, but I can tell you all the little things are pretty sweet. Things like doing a pull up with ease, literally doing a pull up and not struggling is almost euphoric to this day. Rolling over in the morning and scratching you back and feeling a defined bone or muscle, it sounds really stupid, but spending you whole life and touching squish becomes only apparent when it is gone and when you notice it is pretty sweet. There are a bunch of small things, but I guess I am forgetting to mention a big one: health. Before I was pretty unhealthy, so much so that my doctor at this young age was threatening to put me on cholesterol lowering medications because I was really high. Recently I got a blood panel done and my cholesterol is so low that its lower than the recommended bracket and all the way into the active prevention of heart disease bracket. That shit is cray.
Final Thoughts:
I have barely put what I could say here because it is really hear to compress something that you think about every day for a year into a small amount of text, but like I tried to say I hope this doesn’t come off as purely me bragging about my self-accomplishment. I just hope one person might see this and be a little inspired because like I said: I was the biggest non-believer, I really thought I couldn’t do this, I honestly expected to be fat and unhappy for the rest of my life and die early because of it and now I'm here. The most inspiring thing I can say is that when you get to the other side it's not even that hard, It looks so hard from the start but as YOU change it just gets easier and more manageable.
