Creator1

How I lost 100 pounds in less than six months

Shortly after retiring from the military, I found myself at almost 300 pounds and largely immobile. Everything in me ached, I was extremely depressed, but didn’t realize it. I struggled to get up from the floor and couldn’t play with my kids because of my weight. With small changes, dedication, and movement I was lost 140 pounds in 7 and a half months. I know that my fitness journey is different and others may not lose weight that quickly. Here are steps I took to begin my fitness journey:

Walking: The first steps to fitness, literally!

When I made the decision to start losing weight, I couldn’t safely run, especially not at a sustained interval like I wanted to, so I walked. Every morning, and sometimes also at night, I would walk at least 30 minutes. Eventually, I started incorporating longer walks, and small jogs during these walks. For me, this was one of the most important parts in my weight loss journey. This trained my mind and body to get used to movement and eventually crave it. If you aim to improve mobility and fitness, walk steadily. Steady walking also boosts your health. After only 3 weeks of walking like this, I was already losing weight and could jog half a mile without stopping! Keep in mind, I hadn’t been able to run at all the month before. I found it helped me cope with and process things that happened during my day. Walking gave me a distraction free time to focus on myself.

Investing in a good treadmill

One of the ways I showed commitment to myself was purchasing a treadmill. I thought, nothing would guilt me into running more than buying a treadmill! Be careful with this, as it can lead to resentment of running if you don’t use it!
For me this worked, with my little success and improvements I was seeing from walking, I was eager to get running. I ordered myself the Nordic Track Commercial 1750 Treadmill. The 1750 is a super nice treadmill, with a 22″ wide belt (I ordered the wider one due to my size at the time). This thing has been my enabler to fitness. This treadmill inclines and declines and can reach speeds of 12 miles per hour. It also has iFit capabilities (Nordic Track’s training platform) which tracks my speeds and progress as I moved from walking to running.

Portion control and diet adjustments

As many have heard, abs are made in the kitchen, harvested in the gym. Well, the same is true for obtaining a baseline level of health and fitness. This was one of the most difficult parts of my fitness journey, as it is for most people. My wife and I made some drastic changes to our diet, we limited eating out and fast food drastically (only once a month, eventually this became slightly more frequent, especially to scratch our craving for Mexican food.) One of the changes was we incorporated many more vegetables (broccoli, cauliflower, zucchinis, squash, and leafy greens. Then was the meat, we limited red meat, and ate mostly chicken, turkey, and fish, this was only difficult for the first 2 months or so, now red meat hurts my belly if I have it too often. Lastly, was I limited unnecessary sugars, specifically soda and alcohol. All of this was mentally taxing, because we had these huge, square, porcelain, obsidian black plates that made it very visually obvious that we were freaking’ starving ourselves with our portion control. We started using our kids’ plates, if you want to not feel like your starving, these are a must! Even with our portion control, our plates now looked full and it helped significantly with the mental game of restricting food.

It’s important to also highlight how I’d eat when I was overweight. For me, I wouldn’t realize when I would be truly ‘full’. I realized that I ate more than my body actually needed, but in the beginning, it was hard to stop eating (my wife makes amazing food.) My approach would be to eat half of my plate while we watched our show, then put the plate physically away from me. I would wait a certain amount of time, at first it was 10 minutes, then it became 5, only allowed to drink water during that time. I would then evaluate if I was truly hungry or not, and if I still wanted more food, it was only a bite more or two.

In my opinion, this mindful eating, was my key ingredient to my weight loss, it enabled my weight loss and mobility.

Choosing the right shoes
Once I began to run, it was clear my shoes I’d been walking in were not going to cut it. As I’ve become an avid runner, I have found that your shoes will make or break your runs. Having bad or ill-fitting running shoes won’t just make your running experience miserable, but it can cause serious injury. Injuries such as shin splints are the bane to new runners journey. After several pairs of various brands, my favorite running shoe is the Brooks Ghost 16, I prefer the waterproof version as I enjoy trail runs as well.

Music and motivation with quality headphones
Lastly, and of equal importance was a good pair of headphones! Even when I would do my walks, I would often listen to my favorite podcast or audio book, now it’s all music noise!

There is some debate about whether to use over the ear or earbud headphones, I personally like over the ear headphones, even when running. I think the sound quality is generally better, as is the noise canceling capabilities.
My trusty headphones are (even years later) are the Bose QuietComfort headphones.

But if you’re an earbuds person, or cannot stand having something over your head, I recommend the Apple AirPods Pro 2. While not as good as my Bose headphones, they serve as an amazing alternative. I use them when I forget to charge the Bose, and they’re also great for running in races.

Final thoughts: Your fitness Journey

If you’re on a fitness journey, best of luck to you, and I hope this post was helpful or encouraging! Remember consistency is key to success, much like the stock market it’s more about your time in it, than how much you put in.