Every time Willie and I end up in the media, the Facebook and e-mail messages start rolling in with people saying the same thing. “HELP! I need to lose weight. Please tell me what to do.” I try to read the messages but honestly it’s just a lot of messages saying the same thing. Reading the messages makes me feel helpless and at a loss for words because I don’t really know what to say. Correction: I know what to say but I know that’s not what you want to hear.
I am not an expert on weight loss. I’m just another person who struggled with their weight and with the support of my best friend and husband, we lost a combined total of 500 pounds! We didn’t follow a plan. It was simply stop eating all the bad stuff and get active more!
The one thing I know about weight loss is it takes a certain will power and determination to really make it work. If you have to lose a great amount of weight you have to really want it! It will consume you and it will become you. Losing weight was the single most important thing in our lives. It was the first thing we thought about in the morning and the last thing before bed. It was almost every conversation in our world. We knew we had to push past many hurdles and obstacles and we were DETERMINED to do it!
Remember: it’s not a diet, it’s a lifestyle change! That means you have to change your habits. That sometimes means you have to cut people out of your life. Yes, you might have to sever relationships with people who won’t support you; people who might want to sabotage you. That means you might have to miss out on some social things, because we all know eating is a social behavior. That means time usually spent watching television will be spent at the gym or being active. That means waking up earlier or staying out later in the evening might be something you have to do. It might mean spending an afternoon prepping food for the week instead of the convenience of eating out. The one thing I know is: it means you life has to change to move into a better future.
So you want to lose the weight? You have to want it and you need to find out as much as you can about making it work for you. What worked for me, may not work for you! I fell in love with being an endurance athlete, you may decide that you want to dance your booty off in Zumba! You have to eat right and get active, but you also have to remember the 80/20 rule of life. Just because you work out, doesn’t mean you can eat whatever you want! Stop with the fast food and soda and get with whole foods and water! That’s the first step! Learn how to grocery shop the right way.
I have linked to some of the most important posts on losing weight on the blog throughout this post. Please take the time to look around the blog and just read. It’s more about eating and working out because there’s a whole emotional aspect to it all. I try to be as honest and open about it as I can. It’s not easy but it’s not hard either. But please remember, what worked for us may not work for you. It’s a learning process and you have to do what works for you!
I hope this helps with all the questions! From here, if you need to vent please e-mail me and I will respond! I can’t tell you how to lose the weight, but I can motivate you by telling my story and experience. I can’t tell you how to eat healthy, but I can help you with the things I learned. Willie and I just did good ole fashion research when we didn’t know the answers. Please remember it’s a learning process that takes a while to get use to. Results will not happen immediately, but the results will come if you keep with it! I promise!
