My personal take on weight loss, and how I am now fourty pounds down.

It’s time for me to take a step back from the table. Inactive, eating incessantly and letting my life control me all caused me to put on a considerable amount of weight. Tipping the scales at nearly two hundred and fifty pounds I was unsightly at best, unhealthy to say the least.   Eventually, and I do not recall the moment of change, I woke up and decided to do something.

Deciding what to do for weight loss:

Once the decision was made that action was necessary the first decision to make was what to do. Analyzing my personal state of affairs I had enough sense to know that running was out of the question. I have always enjoyed the act of cycling, but the amount of time it would require I simply did not have to spare. Strength or weight training was what I needed, but the first thing I needed was to loose the fat. Walking, briefly at first, was the best solution I could come up with. Short, twenty to thirty minute walks began by journey back to a “reasonable” weight.

Be honest with yourself:

Proper assessment of you and your body is essential when coming up with a weight loss strategy. Nothing is worse than deciding to take on more than you can handle and ending up injured. With me loosing weight has been a lifelong goal. Trying this or that, with some success. At one point I was riding my bicycle too much. After spending a minimum of two hours on my bike per day, five days a week I ended up injured. My knees just could not take the abuse any more. Running, or jogging, was great while it lasted however after my hip began to bother me I was left on the sidelines once again wondering what I could do without injuring myself. Loosing weight in my thirties has required a lot more thought, planning and dedication then it did when I was eighteen.

Gaining momentum for my weight loss:

Eventually I found work again, and that forced me to utilize more of my stored energy. Propelling myself to and from work with my own two feet allowed me to increase my mobility and my semi-active job began to build muscle and come back into my old self again.

Gaining energy I found ways to increase my energy output all the while reducing my caloric intake. Loosing weight felt good. I began to notice a difference in myself and continued on the journey. I got back on my bicycle again, started to jog and became even healthier and watched the scale slowly go down.

A gradual increase in activity was key at this point. There were still times where I had aches and pains however I knew enough this time that if something began to bother me to stop and allow my minor inconvenient injuries to heal rather than my old plan of powering through them and ending up being worse off for it. When I first got back onto my bike I had times where my knees began to hurt, but I knew enough this time to stay off of the bicycle so that I did not hit the point where I could barely walk up the stairs. If my knees or hips started to bother me due to jogging, it was time to stop for a week, and then go back at it at a lower tempo or a shorter distance. I was not only gaining momentum from the drop on the scale, but also overall momentum from learning from my past experiences.

Diet plays a large part in weight loss:

More than finding ways to increase my activity levels, having a strict mindset on what was going into my body was arguably the most important change that happened. I am not going to say that I never ate a cookie, or swore off carbohydrates but everyone knows those food choices that are “good” and those that are not so beneficial. More fruits, more vegetables and more water were all choices I made, and propelled my weight loss journey.

Cooking and eating for weight loss:

Once I had the quality of my diet under control, I next had to focus on the quantity. Anyone can get fat eating fruits and vegetables if they eat enough of them. Slowly I began to evolve and eat only when I was hungry rather than when the clock said I should.

Learning as you go with weight loss:

Getting to know my body was key at this stage. What does it want? What does it need? How can I make it better? When facing caloric restrictions, nutrition plans, or any change for that matter there will be good pain and bad pain. Research was the key at this point. I spent countless hours looking into how the body, my body, worked on a fundamental level and adjusted things accordingly. How does food actually break down in the body? How is fat truly stored? How can I burn, or utilize, the fat stores within my body?

I may not have reached my end goal as of yet, but I am surely on my way. Over the last year and a half I have managed to drop fourty pounds off of my five foot six frame! I am not a doctor, nor a nutritionist, I am just a guy who decided to do something and thought you may benefit from some insights I have gained during my weight loss adventure. After loosing that much weight I am now finding myself approached by peers, asking how I have managed to loose the weight. So why not write a few articles on what I did, and how I have gotten here. Possibly even a few based around what I am continuing to do to loose even more weight while managing to live the life of a husband and father. I still do eat, I still will write, but let me take you inside the mind and mentality of what it has taken, and will continue to take to shed those pounds in the coming weeks.

Related Reading: