What I learnt from my weight loss Journey.
As far as I can remember, I have always been skinny, around 70–75 kg. Even after I started working, I was able to maintain this weight despite my poor dietary choices and lack of exercise. My body underwent a lot of changes after I started having children. With my first daughter, I was back to my normal weight in 4 months, which means that as soon as my maternity leave was over, I didn't even look like I had a baby. With my second and third children, I weighed over 100 kg, and what frustrated me the most was how I didn't know how to dress for the body I now had.
In this blog post, I talk about what my body transformation journey has taught me and how my approach to things has changed.
Keep the vision in front of you: The idiom “out of sight, out of mind” is also true when it comes to where we want our lives to go. I wrote down my ideal weight and looked at a visual representation of that on the internet. That picture is in my dream book and my phone wallpaper. Each morning and evening, I look at the picture, and it reminds me of what to focus my time and energy on. How do we get to look like this person? What does she eat every day? How is her workout routine?
100 days of making brings results. I did not see or feel a difference in my body on my first day at the gym or during my first run, but somewhere between days 1 and 100, something changed. If I had given up in between, I would have never seen the results. It is not your first day of eating healthy that the results become visible, but you need day 1 to get to day 100 and enjoy the fruits of your hard work. Challenge yourself to do something for 100 days straight and see if you will not see a difference. You can walk 2 km daily, journal your prayer time with God, do positive affirmations every morning, etc..
A positive mindset is very crucial. When you try to change something, you go through different stages. There are parts of you that will always gravitate towards comfort, choosing that path of less resistance. I could have bought bigger sizes and continued with my life, but deep down, I knew how that extra weight was affecting me beyond how I looked on the outside. When I looked at where I was and where I wanted to go, I didn't know how I could do it. I started having a list of affirmations where I targeted the negative thoughts. The more I said them, the more I started to believe that I had it in me to transform my body. No matter how bad things can look on the outside, when the mind is made up, anything can be overcome.
There is no such thing as being self-made. I was always frustrated and gave up running 5 km weekly when I was alone, but as soon as I joined a running club, things changed. Great runners have great running communities. Great readers have great reading communities. Similarly, a great prayer life can be built by surrounding yourself with greater prayer warriors. If you want to be great at something, you have to have the right group around you.