Critical errors to stay clear for on your weight loss journey.

Good luck with your journey 👍. You got this.

Everybody who has struggled with their weight at one point have decided at some point in their life that they want to make a change. Trust me, I have been there and still there to this day. Even though I have lost over a hundred lbs in the past year and a half. The journey is not over, and the struggle continues, but so does my drive. What also comes with my drive I have also made a lot of mistakes in my journey. But you live and you learn.

TRUSTING THE SCALE

This is not your friend

Every morning when you first wake up after a long day of working out and dieting. You are excited to see the progress, and to your disappointment, you don’t see the results that you were hoping for, and that sends you on a trail of depression and sadness because you didn’t hit your goal. But here is the honest truth. You are making your goals, you are working, and the scale is not keeping up with your muscle gain. Do work yourself to death where you hate your journey and give up. I almost did that a couple of times but then decided to leave the scale behind, and it was the best decision that I made on this journey.

NOT GIVING YOUR BODY TIME TO REST

Ignoring the signs

You are in a mode where the light switch never turns off even after the signs of exhaustion, but you have to hit those goals, right? Sure, you can achieve them, but you can also hit an injury from the wear and tear on your joints and muscles you continuously ignore on a daily basis. Sure, you can go that route, and / or you can take the time, relax, and enjoy taking some time off from the grind and rest and come back stronger. I decided to ignore the signs of lower back pain until my luck ran out and injured my lower back, where I couldn’t get out of bed for almost a week. Those damn squats kept calling me and calling, and I answered with multiple lower back issues and gained some serious weight back. So do not ignore those warning signs.

AND THIS IS CONNECTED TO THE LAST ERROR. WORKING OUT INJURED.

Like i added in my section, working out with a injury is a critical mistake that can send you back…..way back and you really dont want to go back, do you?

STARVING YOURSELF

This will not help at all.

Yes, it is true you work out more than you put in calories. It is a big step to weight loss, sure, but imagine thinking you could get back up and do it all over again with no fuel in your body. See how far a car can get with no fuel. Test faith and see what it brings to you when you have energy. I bet it would not go very well for you.

Maybe these lessons might not work for you, and you have your own set of rules you set up for yourself, or maybe somebody else has better input that you may dive into more and that is cool too but at the end of the day, you want to be happy whether that is losing the weight for a image change, health choice, challenging yourself, impressing people. Whatever it is, I say good luck with this journey because that is what this is what you are going on, and I wish you the best of luck. Do not lose yourself and your goals. If you gain weight, remember you can also burn it off with dedication, determination, consistency, and a good mindset. You got this, and I know you will achieve those goals.

If you are reading this and what to share your goals, achievements, set of rules, or whatever your journey brought to you, if it was good, great, or bad. Lessons you learned and passed along to others. Thank you for taking the time to read and good luck on your journey.

Dicovering your inner strength

1. Discovering new challenges

If you think you are weak and considering giving up on yourself, I must tell you that would be a mistake on your part. Trust me, I have gone through my pains, my struggles, my defeats, my misery, and my pain, and will continue to go through that every day as I go through my weight loss journey. I let my excuses and weaknesses get in the way of my goal. But one day, I looked in the mirror and told myself, “No more excuses.” It was time to really work. Put in work, do the work, and stop complaining about the work. And damn it was when I rediscovered my inner strength underneath my weak spirit. My spirit grew stronger. Now, I am not finished with my journey by a long shot. I will always be working progress just like every person on this earth. But, finding my inner strength has been the best thing for me, and I can’t tell you how much better I feel about myself. The steps I take.

1. Accepting new challenges.

2. Physically challenging myself

3. Mentally challenging myself

4. Never accepting defeat

5. Removing toxic energy.

There will be a thousand more steps you can take for your journey of inner strength, but for me, those are some of the few steps I take, and there will be more to come. You will grow, and you will learn, and you will endure to build a new you. During the height of the pandemic, I grew scared of the world. I was letting my anxiety defeat me every day. Missing out on great moments and feeling sorry for myself and just eating fast food every day. I’m sitting on my butt watching youtube clips and playing Madden all day. I was wasting away, and here was the real sad part. I had a gym membership and was doing nothing with it. One day, I talked to one of my best friends, who was helping his mom while battling throat cancer. But she kept fighting, not letting her cancer be an excuse, and we had a heart to heart talk, and she told me, “I am very concerned about your health, Devin.” She was talking to me like a concerned mom. And of course I gave her the old classic “I’ll work on it”. She looked me dead in the eyes, held my hand, and said, “No, you won’t.” It broke me because deep down, I knew she was right.

Something in my said to me, “This is your last chance,” and I kept listening to her in my mind with those words, “No, you won’t.” And kept hearing it over and over, and honestly, I got sick of it. I think she knew those words would drive me to do something, and thank goddness, she said those words. The first thing was to help with my mental health, so I seeked therapy. It was a major help. Then, I decided to use my gym membership and push myself to limit that I never thought I could reach. I wanted more; I wanted to keep pushing challenges, pushing for more, and more. I was done with fast food. I began hating my couch, lol. I just wanted to see what limits can go past.

1. 3:30 am 1 hr yoga session

2. 2 hour work out session at gym

3. Finding new challenges

4. Meditation

5. Work on new projects

6. Strict diet plan

7. Do it all over again.

8. Never give up on the goals

9. Endure punsishment and defeats

10. Learn from that punishment and defeats

A little sweat never hurt nobody, and a deafeat doesn’t mean you have to stay defeated. The struggles and losses were massive, but I wanted that, not for the excuses to give, but I wanted to learn. I didn’t mind embarrassing myself at the gym. I wanted to come back to prove myself, “I can f***ing do this.” Everyday, I told myself that and still do. I guess the reason why I am sharing this is because there are people out there going through the same struggles that I am going through, and I want to tell you and all of you. YOU CAN F***ING DO IT!!! All you have to is just get up and try.

Thank you for taking the time to read this blog, and if you have experience, please share your story, give helping tips, or just give a motivation speech. Anything for positive energy helps. But in the meantime, thank you and have a good day. Peace.