Tips For Getting Fit

I’ve been dealing with struggles in weight for a long time. Growing up, I was never confident about my weight. In fact, I remember being as young as six or seven and not being comfortable in my own skin. Over the years, I have started and stopped diets, tried different exercise routines, and tried to get healthier several times. I’ve lost some weight, then gained it back, and the cycle just kept continuing in that way. It wasn’t until this year that I seriously focused on eating healthier and getting more exercise, and actually started seeing results.

Here are a few of the things I’ve learned so far on my weight loss journey:

1. Be kind to yourself

As someone who considers herself to be a bit of a perfectionist, this is something that I realized slowly over time. When I don’t see immediate results in anything that I’m doing, I tend to get discouraged and disillusioned with the whole process. While I have been steadily losing weight since October, it’s been about one or two pounds a week. I know that this is technically a healthy way to lose weight, but I couldn’t help but compare myself to other people that I’ve seen on Instagram or in magazines. There are amazing stories of people losing 100 pounds in a year and dropping the weight rapidly. While these have served as inspiration for me and I love hearing about other people and their weight loss journeys, I’ve had to learn to be kind to myself and not compare myself to another person’s journey. I am proud of the weight I’ve lost so far, and I have to remember that when I start comparing myself to other people.

2. Stay organized

I think organization is something that is incredibly important in every aspect of my life, and my approach was no different when I started thinking about getting serious about my health. For me, MyFitnessPal has been an amazing tool to be able to organize how I’m going to go about eating and exercising every day. At the beginning, I was very strict about counting calories and figuring out exactly how much I could have for each meal. I don’t think strict calorie counting is necessarily the healthiest way to go about tracking your meals, but especially in the beginning it was helpful to see how many calories I should strive for. Now, I use it just to log how I’m doing and to see how many calories I really need to feel full at each meal. I have been seeing a food coach since October, and I would recommend that to anyone who is starting a new healthy lifestyle because it will give you great ideas on how to lose weight in a healthy way.

3. Accept and embrace support

Something that was difficult for me in the beginning was being able to accept support and encouragement, especially from my family. When I first started focusing on losing weight, I was a little embarrassed with myself and wondering how I had fallen so far off the wagon when it came to healthy eating and working out. Although I have never been the most fit person, exercise has been pretty important to me for a while and I was ashamed with myself because I knew that I had been slacking and it showed. I guess I didn’t feel like I deserved all the encouragement when I was first starting to eat healthy and work out again. Like I mentioned earlier, it’s been a slow process in terms of results showing, and I felt like I could do better.

However, I think the support and encouragement I’ve received from my friends and family has actually motivated me to be better. Whenever I lose another pound, I have my family to celebrate with me, and that makes me feel really good. Although losing weight might seem like an independent and solitary venture, I think having input and support from others has made all the difference.

4. Switch things up. Don’t make it boring!

Another thing that I’ve learned on my weight loss journey is that I need to switch things up to keep it interesting. Around Christmas, I received a new blender as a gift. For about a month after, I had smoothies every morning and I was obsessed! However, having the same thing every day got really boring after a while, and I finally decided to switch over to eating oatmeal one day.

This taught me that although I had found a healthy and nutritious breakfast, I shouldn’t just settle for having the same thing day after day. The same thing happened with salads. I think throwing together a salad is the easiest way to get a good amount of veggies in, and this became my go-to for lunches and other meals. I quickly realized that having plain old salad was boring, and I needed a variety of vegetables and fruits to make it a balanced and exciting meal.

The same thing applies to exercise. For the past few months, I’ve been really focused on walking on the treadmill and increasing the incline as I get stronger. I think this has been a great way to get back into exercising, but now I’m ready to switch things up and try something else out. One of my major goals for the next year is to run an entire 5K. This week, I am planning on adding in a little bit of jogging into my normal workout routine. I am absolutely not a natural runner, but I am excited to give myself a challenge and try to reach this goal of running an entire 5K.

5. Celebrate the small things

Finally, the last thing I’ve learned so far in this journey is that I need to celebrate the small things. I should celebrate each pound lost, even if it doesn’t seem like a big deal. I should celebrate when that shirt that was uncomfortably tight is now fitting a little looser, even when I think I should be fitting into another size by now. I think it’s easy to get caught up in the major things and try to focus on the big goals, but it’s just as important to celebrate the tiny victories. Losing weight is not a cakewalk by any means, and it often takes a long time to get to that goal weight. Like I said above, I struggle a lot with whether I’m doing enough, and I still need to remind myself to think about the small ways I’ve become a healthier and better person in just a few short months.

I hope you enjoyed this post, and that this advice might help anyone who is on his or her own weight loss journey. Feel free to leave your own realizations about weight loss below. I want to hear about your journeys!