Dear Kayla,
I love your content, thank you for your service š I was wondering if youād consider doing a āfollow along with meā in your weight loss journey this year? I am trying to loose 8 lbs and would love to have a support community likes yours and would be happy to pay a membership
Signed,
Annie
Dear Annie,
Iām happy to hear you enjoy my content. Thank you for watching! I have been documenting my weight loss journey this year in a couple of different ways. First of all, Iām creating a publicly available YouTube video at the beginning of each month where I talk about what my weight did the previous month, including challenges I faced and victories I achieved. (Here are the links for January and February.) I plan to do one each month until I see my 7-day average get back down to 147.54 or less (which will be 5 pounds down from the 152.54 I started the year at.) It might just take me all year. š
The other way people can follow along is by being an Insider on my YouTube channel. On Thursdays, I post a weekly video about my progress (or lack thereof!). Also, every Wednesday at noon eastern, I host an Insider-only live Q&A on YouTube. I take questions from the live chat, and also answer ones that Insiders submit anonymously via a Google form. The Insider membership is $4.99 a month.
I have tinkered in the past with online communities. Hereās the conundrum: a major thing that helped me lose weight and keep it off was getting off social media, and being less dependent on my phone in general. It helped me to worry less, stress-eat less, and to live more fully.
If I want to build and run a successful paid community, I have to encourage people to be online more. To post more, to share more. In short, to think about intermittent fasting more, when I know good and well the thing that makes fasting easiest to be so busy doing other stuff that youāre not thinking about the fasting.
I have have tried to build communities over the years, both free and paid, and have ultimately failed. Much to my chagrin, I have found that some of the most active/loudest members post what I think is the worst advice, or the same loud voices are posting results, but they are losing weight in ways that are (to my mind) quite unsustainable. Meanwhile, itās quite often the lurkers, or those who are not active in the community at all, who are losing weight slowly, consistently, and sustainably.
Despite our world feeling very connected in some ways, weāre feeling lonelier than ever. Community is important. (Yes, I really do believe that, even though I am quite the introvert!) I urge everyone out there: get involved in your physical community, wherever youāre at in the world. I have personally found going to church, finding meetups with people who have similar interests, and volunteering my time to local organizations to be excellent ways to connect.
In my experience, thereās just no substitute for hanging out with real life human beings in the real world. It makes life richer, more enjoyable, and it even gives you some shoulders to cry on when you need them. Alas, sometimes we do need them.
Sincerely,
Kayla
PS: Being active in your community will most likely throw a few challenges in your way. Youāll have to navigate either fasting around people, or deviating from your desired fasting routine on purpose. This is a good thing. It makes your plan stronger. It also makes you stronger. But it’s worth it.
ā