How I Lost 40 Pounds - Without Weight Loss Products

Weight loss is a touchy topic. It was for me for a really long time. Ever since my sophomore year of High School, I remember being really self conscious about my figure. I'd lost my dad the week before my freshman year of High School. A year later we moved to Tennessee to be closer to family. Through all the changes, trauma, and stress I started relying on food as a form of comfort. Slowly one pound after another I found myself getting more and more self conscious about the way I looked. This past year, I decided I'd had enough. I told myself that 2021 was going to be all about making choices that would help me feel more confident in my own skin.

In the last few months, I've gotten a lot of comments about my weight. Some have been very rude and some very encouraging. This blog post is specifically for those who may be in the same shoes I was in. I've had a lot of people ask me, "How did you lose the weight?" and all I've been able to say is, "Small habits over time." They always respond back by saying, "Come on, for real? Give me your secrets!" Although these are not secrets, I want to share my journey in hopes that it will help even just one person.

In this blog post, I'm sharing exactly what I've been doing that helped me drop the weight. I'll be covering:

• Small Habits That Changed Everything

• How To Enjoy the Process

• Developing a Healthy Relationship with Food

• How I Kept off the Weight During the Holidays

If you're sick and tired of trying to lose the weight with little to no results, I'm hoping some of these little changes will help you start seeing success. It's never too late to begin again. I'm here to tell you from experience, it's possible to start feeling confident again. All it takes is one step at a time. Let's dive in!

Small Habits that Changed Everything

A friend of mine is in email marketing for a large corporation. They work on email campaigns that go out to millions of people everyday. We were chatting about work one day and she said, "Data shows us what isn't working, so we know exactly where improvements can be made." When she said this, something clicked in my mind. I thought, "What if I simply started tracking my weight and my activity each day?" I wasn't planning on changing anything yet, I simply wanted to start collecting my own data to see where I could start making improvements. I started tracking my steps and began weighing myself each day. I found an inexpensive scale that tracks my weight, body fat percentage, BMI, and a number of other things. I'll link it here in case you want to snag it on Amazon!

To my surprise, weighing daily allowed me to see how certain foods were affecting my body. I noticed if I ate a lot of dairy, my weight would go up much faster than when I wasn't. I'll link the Fitbit I've been using to track my steps. I'm honestly embarrassed to share this now, but my steps averaged under 2,000 each day. I started going for walks with my dog and cutting out a little dairy and sugar here and there (but not completely!). After about 2-3 weeks of increasing my activity (5,000 steps per day) and cutting out the dairy, I had dropped close to 10lbs. Seeing this small improvement gave me the motivation to keep trying. Joyce Meyer says, "I'm not where I want to be, but thank God I'm not where I used to be!" Celebrating the small wins always helps motivate me to keep going. Never discredit every small decision you're making each day to become a better you!