At the beginning of my weight loss journey, I was disorganized. I was constantly switching around what I was doing. I was vague. I was a quitter. I would be on track for a few days, and then I’d fall off track. Things were not going well. I was not weighing myself. I was too scared to see the number. I woke up late most mornings. I generally felt defeated.
Over time, I got myself on track. In hindsight, I believe the first big step I took in the right direction was when I joined the gym and I started getting myself up at 4 am. How did I start doing that? I was inspired by Arnold Schwarzeneggar. In a motivational speech I saw on Youtube (video at the end of this post), he advised people to sleep faster. I took his advice to heart, even though it was the last thing I wanted to do. I had three kids, ranging in ages from 2 to 8 at the time. Sleep was precious. Regardless, I started getting in bed by 10 or so, and I set my alarm. I woke up at 4 and headed for the gym.
I went every day. I was losing some weight, slowly. Then I injured my back doing a deadlift. Fortunately, my gym habit had started to instill discipline in me. I was getting myself up early every day. I was weighing every day. I kept doing that. I switched from powerlifting to walking six miles a day. And then in 2016 I finally settled on an intermittent fasting plan and I started implementing it every day.
I learned that keeping yourself on track is an intentional act. Part of it is the actual implementation of the plan in your day-to-day life. For me, that meant sticking to my fasting and eating windows. On Sundays, it meant taking the day off. Every day, it meant getting 14,000 steps on the Fitbit before midnight. The other part I had to learn was to check in with myself frequently, to ask myself if I was staying on track. I found it was most helpful to ask myself every morning after I weighed myself if I had stuck to my plan the day before. If I hadn’t, I learned from that and made changes to my plan if necessary. If I had, I gave myself a pat on the back, which gave me encouragement to keep staying on track.
Learning how to do this has continued to be helpful in maintenance, and basically every other area of my life. I’m not perfect. Who is? I fall off track sometimes. The important thing is after that happens, you get yourself back on track. You start taking the action every day, and you hold yourself accountable.