Feb 12

Feb 12 4 WAYS TO MAKE LOSING WEIGHT EASIER: This Helped Me Lose 120 Pounds!

Warning: Adult language

Please do not read any further if you are offended by adult language. There are F-Bombs ahead.

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I was morbidly obese for over 10 years. Everything I tried to lose weight for those 10 years didn’t work. So what finally happened? How was I able to finally lose my weight, all of it, all 120 pounds? I started reading everything I laid my eyes on… articles, weight loss stories, and anything at all related to health and weight loss. I researched every night. I figured I better actually learn about my body: how it works, how certain foods react to it, what kinds of processes happen inside of it. I also started studying everything involving exercise: how different types of activity affected the body, what burned the most calories, how to lift weights, how to build muscle.

I can't even tell you how many hundreds and hundreds of hours I spent reading. Every spare moment, my face was either in a book or a screen. Finally it was time to stop reading and get off my ass! It was time to put my knowledge to the test. Once I started, I found successes and failures, excitement and frustration, short-cuts and derailments... and a slew of other emotions and conditions. I've taken all of my experience and I've narrowed down my success into four of the most valuable lessons and pieces of advice that saw me through my journey. The four things that made it possible for me to lose every bit of my weight. Believe me, I'm going to save you a shit-load of time and ass-ache by sharing this with you. Please, please learn from my mistakes.

Are you ready for your Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free card?

Okay, let's start where I went wrong. For 10 years I kept trying the same thing over and over again to lose weight. I would cut my calories drastically, only eat fat-free or low-fat foods, and my only exercise would be cardio. Finally I had to be dead ass honest with myself and realize that it wasn't working... and it never would. I had to learn the right way, which is also the longer way. I had to stop trying to find a quick fix and just buckle down and swallow the pill (no, not the diet pill, stay away from that shit). Yes, I had to come to an acceptance that losing all of my weight was not going to happen lickety split (yes, it's a sucky realization).

I had to stop going on a diet... and start going on a journey.

A journey. Damn, that sounded daunting. It also sounded like it was going to take forever. But you know what? It also sounded like it could be something good, like something I would learn from. It sounded like something that could heal me and mend my soul.

Now, as for tips and tricks to lose weight, I could talk your ears off! In fact, if you would like to read a shit-ton of quick and easy weight loss tips, check out my most popular article:

"REAL WEIGHT LOSS TIPS: From Someone Who ACTUALLY Lost the Weight!".

But in this article, I'm talking more about my most helpful lessons rather than tips. For me, there were four lessons learned that proved to be the most helpful throughout my journey and proved key for making my success permanent. Without these lessons, I would have NEVER been able to lose my weight. Ever.

If you follow these four schools of thought, you will breeze through your weight loss journey MUCH easier! I promise that your journey doesn't have to be dreadful. You will have to work hard, yes. But you will also find countless beautiful moments along the way. You'll learn to love you for exactly who you are in this very moment and you'll also discover who you want to be in the future moments ahead. Let's find out how to make this journey a wonderful experience, shall we?

MY FOUR BIGGEST PIECES OF ADVICE:

1. LEARN ABOUT NUTRITION AND WEIGHT TRAINING

A true turning point in my journey was when I really starting to learn what proper nutrition did for my body. I think we all have an idea of what we should be eating, but most of us don’t know why we should be eating it. This proved to be monumental for me. I’ve always been a fan of the sweet stuff. I have a bastard of a sweet tooth. When I learned how our bodies react to sugar and how addictive it is, I started to look at things differently. I was amazed to find out that white breads, white pastas, and white rice are processed in our bodies as sugar. No wonder I loved it all!

Did you know that when you take a bite of white bread, it already starts digesting in your mouth?!

I was so grossed out by this. I mean, ew.

Most foods need your powerful stomach acid to start digesting and breaking down food but white foods, refined foods, and sweets have no subsistence to them. They are void of any nutrition or meaningful properties. By the time they hit our bellies, they are already digested and have nothing to offer us. This is why we get so hungry so quickly after eating these types of foods. Our body needs something meaningful and it'll keep telling you that you’re hungry to try to get you to eat real food.

We also have sugar crashes after eating these foods because our pancreas has to spit out a bunch of insulin to process all of the sugar that we just released into our blood stream. This leaves us tired and sluggish.

There are thousands of other facts that will allow you to look at food differently. When I started to truly learn how our bodies react to the good foods vs. the bad foods, my mindset started to change. Up until then I had a very unhealthy relationship with food.

I used to look at food as a medication. I would eat my feelings.

Now I look at food solely as fuel for my body. This shift in my mindset set me up to succeed and win battles over my cravings.

In all of my years trying to lose weight and failing at it, I was missing an essential element, weight training. I used to think weight training was what the Arnold Schwarzeneggers of the world did. I thought weight training was like what you see in the Strongman Competitions with all the grunting and lifting cars above your head.

I couldn’t have been further than the truth. Let me tell you something. If you drop down to your knees and do five modified pushups, you just weight trained. If you pick up a set of one pound dumbbells and lift them over your head 10 times, you just weight trained. It’s not as hard as you think.

Weight training is anything and everything that taxes your muscles and makes them grow. You don’t need a gym membership to weight train, you just need your body… and I’m pretty sure you friggin have one of those.

My advice would be to learn about weight training. Not only forms of it that you can actually do but learn why it is so important. Read about it and expand your knowledge. The more knowledge you gain, the more confidence you gain.

Building lean muscle mass is key to losing weight, avoiding plateaus, and maintaining your weight loss.

The more lean muscle you have, the more calories your body burns up, even when you're sleeping! Seriously, how awesome is that shiz? Muscles demand a lot from our bodies. They constantly need tended to and fed. Our body burns mad calories taking care of our muscles. Fat requires nothing from our bodies. It just sits there like a blob.

Cardio is also important, but we all pretty much knew that already. In fact, cardio exercise is the only exercise most people think of when they hear the word exercise. Cardio definitely is a piece of the puzzle in losing weight, but it alone cannot get you to where you need to be. I went wrong here all those years. I only did cardio. I thought the faster I danced or jumped or ran up the steps, the more I would lose weight. I was like Richard Simmons on crack. Well let me assure you, you cannot sustain a crackhead-Simmons-cardio-level for long. After a few weeks, you're knee deep in chocolate at the Willy Wonka factory scarfing shit down like all those Golden Ticket kids. Then a few weeks after that, you start ballooning up like Veruca Salt.

Cardio is good. Cardio is needed. But so is muscle-building activity. You gotta do both. Cardio 3-4 times a week and weight training 2-3 times a week is a good schedule. Don't forget to take a rest day! Very important!

2. THROW THE SCALE OUT

Please, please, please forget about that devil scale! I cannot tell you how long it took me to learn my lesson on this one. OMG, I could fill up a swimming pool with all the tears I cried because of that fucking scale! It got to the point where my husband was so upset at seeing me devastated time after time, that he threw the scale out. I was so mad at him at the time, but it ended up being the best thing ever! It became a pivotal turning point for me. After that, the tears stopped and so did my self-doubt. I wasn't going to let a hunk of plastic ruin my damn life anymore. Screw that.

Here’s the deal. The scale has no idea what is going on inside your body. When you start exercising, particularly weight training, you gain muscle. When you gain muscle, you look smaller. But even though you look smaller, muscle is a very heavy tissue and it fucks with the scale... and your mind.

Muscle is much more dense (three times more) than fat but it takes up much less space. For instance, let’s say for four weeks you've been working your ass off and doing everything exactly right. And let’s say in this time you've lost fat but at the same time gained some muscle. This is absolutely amazing, right? Right! And that means you’ve been working hard, right? Right! Well guess what? The scale won't budge. You'll probably weigh the same. On the inside of your body, these incredible and miraculous changes have occurred. Changes that you busted your ass to make happen and that you should be so insanely happy over. But according to that devil scale… you’re a failure.

You think nothing happened. You think all of your hard work and endless good choices were for nothing. Well, you’re wrong… and so is that bastard scale.

Forget the scale. It does nothing but lie to you.

If you were to be standing in front of me, you’d never guess I weighed 140 pounds. I look much smaller. People don’t believe me. My own mother didn’t believe me for months on end. She swore I was no more than 115 pounds, maybe 120 pounds soaking wet she would say. I had to get on her scale to prove it.

Lean muscle is where it’s at. Trust me on this one.

To track your progress, take measurements.

Measurements don’t lie.

If you’re smaller, then what you’re doing is working. If you’re not smaller, take a look at what you’re doing and tweak it. In the end, the scale will say what you want it to say, but in all that time from now until then, the scale is deceiving, misleading, and especially discouraging.

Measure yourself either bi-weekly or once a month. I recommend once a month. It allows your body enough time to process all of the constant changes and it gives you a truer reading. It’s best to have someone else measure you but in the case that you don’t want that or don't have that option, just make sure you measure in the same exact place every time. Just a few inches higher on your thigh or further up your arm can be off by 1-2 inches.

And for the love of God, do NOT take measurements when you're on your period or just about to get it! Hormones wreck havoc on women's bodies. We bloat up like the Goodyear blimp and we hold more water than the Atlantic. At any given time during our cycle, we can hold up to six pounds of water.

3. USE VISUALIZATION

People look at me like I’m crazy when I talk about this, but I cannot stress enough how much visualization helped me throughout my journey and even still to this day. Any spare moment, in the shower, at a stoplight, in line at the bank, or when I lay my head down for bed, I would close my eyes and envision what I wanted my life to look like. I would visualize how I wanted my body to look, how I would dress, and how my husband would look at me. I visualized running in the backyard with my kids, playing in the snow, and swimming at a public pool. I envisioned my girls and I laughing and giggling as I chased them around at the playground. I envisioned their little arms being able to fit the whole way around me. I envisioned all of this… and so much more.

In the beginning, I was so far away from the life I dreamed of that I found solace and happiness going to that place in my mind. It gave me a taste of what it was going to be like and it gave me a glimpse of who I really am and who I‘m supposed to be, someone who was vibrant, energetic, and strong.

Before my journey when I would think of these things, it made me even more depressed and hopeless. I'd tell myself I'd never be able to lose 120 pounds. It was just too big of a mountain to climb. I wallowed. I told myself I could never live the life I dreamed of living. I bought into my own bullshit.

Once I was on my journey and started visualizing, I'd get so excited when I went to that place in my head. It lit a fire that burned so hot and so bright inside of me that I couldn’t imagine living any other way. I was determined to make that life happen!

During the course of one day, I’d go to this place in my mind numerous times. I loved this place. I used visualization the entire time I worked out, every single minute of every single workout. I envisioned my body lean and strong as I was doing all the moves and steps. I envisioned myself as a badass warrior, doing hardcore workouts and pushing her body to the limits.

All the while I was really this morbidly obese woman nearly dying in her living room and gasping for air… but in my head I was a force to be reckoned with.

Quite honestly, that was all that mattered. I believed in myself. And if you got that going for you, you’re golden. This may seem crazy to you but I swear on my life, I could not have gotten through my journey without using visualization everyday. I have no idea if it will work for others as much as it did for me, but it was my salvation.

Seeing the life I wanted when I closed my eyes made me work that much harder when my eyes were open. I wanted it so bad. I was not going to stop until I made my dream come true.

Visualization single-handedly made me believe I could do this because in my mind I already had.

I saw myself EXACTLY how I wanted to be. If you put something in your mind and you see it with your mind's eye over and over again, you start to not only believe it... but you start chasing it down like a friggin bloodhound.

I saved the most important piece of advice for last.

4. DON’T PUT YOUR HAPPINESS ON HOLD

I’m the kind of person that doesn’t believe in regrets. I believe that everything that happens in our life is either a blessing or a lesson... and often it’s both. From all of my struggles and losses throughout my lifetime, I have gained knowledge and perspective that has better equipped me for future tribulations. In all of my forty three years on this planet, I have very few regrets.

One of my biggest regrets is not seeing my worth, importance, and beauty BEFORE I lost my weight. I felt that if I was able to let myself get so fat, I didn’t deserve praise of any kind. I felt weak and defeated. I truly believed people saw me as ugly and worthless. How could I be worth anything? I couldn’t even go a day without overeating. I couldn’t muster up the strength to even go for a short walk. I was afraid people would see me and think horrible things of me and then go run and tell everyone they knew “Hey, OMG, you’ll never believe this, Gabby got soooo fat! I mean big-as-a-house-fat!” I thought I’d be the talk of the town and the butt of everybody’s fat jokes.

Here’s the truth. NO ONE GIVES A SHIT ABOUT THE SIZE OF YOUR ASS!!

The most that was going to happen if someone did see me was they might tell the first couple people they ran into, who also knew me, that I got fat. Who cares? I did get fat. If they get true enjoyment out of that, then that’s someone I shouldn’t care about in the least. After they'd tell one or two people, it’s old news. Because the next week when they were out, they saw someone else who got fat, or so-and-so’s husband cheated on her, or Billy down the road was in a car wreck or… well, it goes on and on. Nobody is fixating on you and your weight for more than ten minutes.

Everybody has lives to lead, problems to deal with, and busy schedules. Nobody has time to make your fatness the center of their world. And as for those who love you, they love you for you... not because you can squeeze your ass into skinny jeans. I so wish I would’ve known these things while I was heavy. I truly regret not seeing it.

There was so much life I didn’t live because of these negative and destructive thoughts. All the times I wanted to go on the dance floor but was too embarrassed of how my body would be jiggling, all the times I told my toddler we couldn’t go to the public pool because I was embarrassed to be in a swimsuit, all the times my husband wanted to take me out on the town and I said no because I was embarrassed to let all of our old friends see how fat I’d gotten. I not only stole moments away from myself, but I stole happy moments away from my husband and little girls.

If I could go back in time knowing what I know now, I would hop my jiggly ass onto that dance floor and shake it for all it was worth. I’d sashay through the pool gates and plop my glorious fat booty down right next to the skinny moms and start up convos. I'd go out on the town with bells on, just like I used to do before I got fat and just like I do now.

If there's only one thing that you get out of this article, I want it to be this:

DON’T FUCKING WAIT TO BE HAPPY.

You'll regret it if you do.

Don’t think that your happiness is sewn into those size 6 jeans or into that itty bitty bikini. It’s not there. Don’t deem yourself unworthy of happiness just because you’re overweight. Don’t steal your moments like I did. You never know how many you have left.

Live your life right now.

Do fun things and go fun places.

If you stay the course on your journey, the skinny jeans and the swimsuits will happen in the end. And when it does it’s great, it really is, but it’s not what makes you happy. Those things are just the ’hip hips’, they’re not the 'hooray'. The hooray is how you feel on the inside, not how you look on the outside. The hooray is that fiery passion you have to live life to the fullest. You see colors more vibrantly, you hold your head up proudly, and you feel unstoppable.

But here's the dealio.

You can have the hooray now.

Yes, the outside stuff will have to wait. You'll have to work your ass off to get it and it'll take time. But that happy inside feeling? That shit can start right now. You just have to make the decision.

Choose to be happy on the inside while you're working on the outside.

It took me until the end to finally realize that all of this strength and confidence and beauty was there the whole time. I just refused to believe it. So, the next time you look in the mirror, don’t look at the outside. Look into your eyes and find that person who has been screaming bloody murder in there. The one who is dying to come out. Let her come out and live right now. Don't make her wait even one more minute.

Don’t make her wait to be happy.

{ This article is an edited excerpt from my article, "PART 1: HOW I LOST 120 POUNDS". }

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*The information on this site is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. All content in this article is for general information purposes only. I am not a doctor, nor am I a dietitian. Talk to your physician before making any changes in your diet or exercise regimen. The information found in this article is from various sources which include, but are not limited to, the sites listed above. I encourage you to do your own research and talk with your physician before making any changes in diet or exercise. What has worked for me may not work for you. This information in this article or on this website should never replace or serve as medical advice.

NEVER DISREGARD PROFESSIONAL MEDICAL ADVICE OR DELAY SEEKING MEDICAL TREATMENT BECAUSE OF SOMETHING YOU HAVE READ ON OR HAVE ACCESSED THROUGH THIS WEB SITE.