My Health Journey: How I Changed My Life In A Few Short Months

Is this the year you finally say enough is enough and start taking better care of yourself? As for me, 2023 was the year I decided to prioritize my health and start taking better care of myself. I wouldn’t say I liked how I looked and felt, so I changed my diet and started a simple daily exercise. In four months, I completely transformed my mind and body by making a few changes to my lifestyle, and you can do the same. Everyone has the power to change their life at any moment in time. It all starts with making different decisions. In this article, I will talk about my weight loss journey, everything I did to lose weight, and what I learned to help me stay consistent.

Why I Struggled To Lose Weight In The Past

For years, I would make New Year’s resolutions to exercise and eat better, but I never could keep my resolutions. After some days or weeks, I’d return to how I’d always lived. Many people find themselves in this situation. It’s not easy to change your lifestyle, especially if you’ve been so accustomed to living a certain way for so long; however, since I’ve been learning about human behavior change and why and how people change, I’ve learned that there are three main reasons why I struggled to live a healthier in the past.

Three Reasons I Struggled To Live Healthier In The Past

Mindset

In the past, when I tried to eat healthier and exercise regularly, I looked at it as a goal to be reached instead of a lifestyle to be lived. Trying to lose weight, start a business, or do anything in life requires consistency over a long period. My beliefs about what it takes to lose weight and keep it off had to change. In his book Atomic Habits, James Clear writes,

If I didn’t first change my mindset about eating healthier and exercising, I would keep trying and failing over and over again. One of the things that helped me change my mindset around weight loss and living a healthier lifestyle was YouTube. I got inspired and encouraged while watching other people’s transformation and then started my journey.

Habits

I had poor eating and exercise habits for most of my life, so getting myself to make better decisions constantly was not easy at first. I went through stages where I missed my former way of eating and living, but I knew that if I wanted to lose weight and keep it off, I couldn’t go back to how I was living. I had a bad habit of eating way too much carbs and sugar, and I rarely ever exercised. I knew this needed to change if I was serious about losing weight, so that was one of the first things I did when I started. I started reducing my portions, and I became more physically active.

Complicating The Process

Losing weight and living a healthy lifestyle is simple. It’s all about what you do daily. Before I found a routine that worked for me, I used to make the process much more complicated than it should have been. I would try to do all of these workout videos and thought I had to spend a fortune to eat healthy, but none worked for me. The trick I found to lose weight and stay consistent is to make the process as simple as possible. The key to sticking to your habits is to make it as easy as possible to start, so that’s what I did when I decided to start living healthier. I only made three significant changes to my lifestyle and other little changes to support the significant changes.

Some Consequences Of Not Changing My Lifestyle

If I didn’t change my habits, I knew that I would be dealing with some serious consequences down the road. I knew that I had to make a decision. Either continue on the path I was on (poor eating and exercise habits) or make a change (start taking better care of myself.) I wanted to live a full and healthy life, and I knew that wouldn’t be possible if I didn’t like how I looked and felt. I didn’t want to be going to the hospital and constantly receive bad news about my health. I knew that would be my future if I didn’t change my lifestyle. Thankfully, I could avoid these consequences because I decided to make a change sooner rather than later.

How God Prepared Me For The Journey Long Before It Started

Before starting my weight loss journey, I read a fantastic book called Atomic Habits. It was the first book I read on my growth journey, and little did I know it would be instrumental in educating me for the journey ahead. The book taught me about habits and how to build good ones and break bad ones. In the book, James Clear talks about the four laws of behavior change. 1. Make it obvious 2. Make it attractive 3. Make it easy 4. Make it satisfying. When I went on a journey to lose weight, I ensured that my new eating and exercise habits met all four criteria. I knew that if they could meet these four criteria, then they would be habits that last and not something I would do temporarily.

I also had a good idea of how habits formed. In Atomic Habits, James Clear discusses the four steps to building a habit (cue, craving response, reward). For example,

I applied all I’d learned from reading books and listening to people’s stories to my journey. There was lots of good advice, and not everything will work for you, but it’s just about finding what does work best for you. We are all different individuals, and we are all on different journeys. I love this quote by Craig Groeschel. It sums up how consistent you must be at anything to eventually see the fruits of your labor.

“Successful people do consistently what other people do occasionally” – Craig Groeschel.

The Start Of My Health Journey

For a year and a half, I had been on medication that made me gain a significant amount of weight, among other things. While I was on the medication, I was not too worried about the fact that I was gaining weight like crazy. It bothered me a little bit, but I just thought that once I got off the medication, the weight would naturally just come off. When I discovered that wasn’t the case, I would eventually take matters into my own hands and start doing the hard work of slowly losing weight. I was the heaviest I’d ever been in my life at 175lbs. I was unhappy with the way I looked and felt. Once I realized my body wouldn’t revert to how it was, I started learning all I could about losing weight; I started applying what I was learning and eventually started seeing excellent results.

Who and What Encouraged Me To Change My Lifestyle

My incredibly supportive family and friends encouraged me to change my lifestyle. When I started my weight loss journey, I told only a few people, but the people I did tell were incredibly kind and supportive. I’m incredibly grateful for their support. I can’t thank them enough. Words of encouragement do go a long way. Also, learning from others about how they lost weight was inspiring and encouraging. It made me believe that weight loss and a healthier lifestyle were possible for me, too.

Thank You, Dr. Berg

Throughout my journey to lose weight and live a healthier lifestyle, there is one YouTube Channel in particular that I watched for all things weight loss and healthy living. Dr Berg’s YouTube Channel was an absolute lifesaver for me. With thousands of YouTube videos on all things related to health, I couldn’t get enough of his videos. He has videos on just about every health topic. His channel was instrumental in my decision to start walking and intermittent fasting. These two habits and diet changes mainly contributed to my successful weight loss journey. I am incredibly grateful for all his tips and teachings. I’m also grateful for the many YouTubers I learned from who were brave enough to share their journey and stories with the world. I highly recommend you check out Dr. Berg’s channel for videos on health, fitness, nutrition, and more.

The Exercise That Transformed My Mind, Body And Spirit

There are a ton of exercises out there that you can do to lose weight. However, one, in particular, has worked exceptionally well for me and seems to be the only one I’ve been able to stick to long-term. It meets all four laws of behavior change, as I discussed earlier, and whether or not you want to, it’s something most of us do every day already. If you haven’t already guessed what exercise I’m referring to, I’m talking about walking. Walking every day has helped me in so many ways. I feel happier when I walk, have more energy during the day, and listen to podcasts on my walks, so I’m learning while walking; I have improved my mood and spend quiet time with the Lord. Sometimes I pray, and sometimes I listen to the Word. There are many ways to make walks more interesting, and I’ve found quite a few. My transformation also inspired my family to walk, so sometimes they go on walks with me, which is even more fun. Walking outside and enjoying nature has many benefits. If you want to get more physically active, go outside and walk. You won’t regret it.

Five Habits I Started To Lose 45 Pounds In Four Months

Walking

As discussed in the previous paragraph, walking daily was instrumental to my successful weight loss journey. I love being in nature and enjoying God’s wonderful creation. It’s been incredibly healing and therapeutic to get outside every day. Until I decided to lose weight, I’d never gone out for walks. Now, even after I’ve hit my weight goal, I still go on walks every day because I genuinely love it. Getting into the habit of walking daily was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

Eating Healthier

If you’re trying to lose weight, what you eat matters greatly. I could have walked multiple times a day (which I did sometimes), but if my diet hadn’t changed, I’m positive I wouldn’t have seen results as fast as I did. I had to cut out many unhealthy foods I’d gotten used to. My diet was extremely deficient, and I knew if I were serious about dropping pounds, I would have to adjust it. Thankfully, plenty of healthy food options taste great, too. I love eating salads, but my salads aren’t boring. They are jam-packed with many healthy condiments, making them taste excellent and filling.

Intermittent Fasting

Intermittent fasting was highly beneficial in my weight loss journey. Eating less frequently gave my body time to heal and recover from all the overeating I was doing during the months that I was on medication. At first, intermittent fasting was a huge challenge because I was so used to eating three times a day and snacking in between meals. But, over time, my body got used to not eating for extended periods, and it soon became a way of life.

Tracking My Progress

Shortly after I started walking daily, I knew I wanted to track my steps, calories, and how far I’d walked. I bought a simple smartwatch that allowed me to do just that. At the end of every week, I’d record in my notes app the steps walked, calories burned, and miles walked. I tracked and recorded my progress for fifteen weeks straight. By the end of those fifteen weeks, I’d walked millions of steps, burned tens of thousands of calories, and walked hundreds of miles. This statement in Atomic Habits perfectly sums up why tracking your goals can be beneficial in achieving them.

One common trait among successful people is that they have a strong “why.” Successful people know what they want and why they want it, and their “why” motivates them to keep going after what they want. My “why” for my weight loss journey was that I’d been through so much in the past year and a half, and I knew God had so much more planned for me. If I wanted to live the life that God has planned for me, I knew that taking care of my health needed to be a priority; for a more detailed explanation of your “why” and how to find your “why,” check out this article.

Five Habits I Stopped To Lose 45 Pounds In Four Months

Eating Sugar And Snacking Between Meals

Cutting out sugar was the most challenging step I took at the beginning of my weight loss journey, but it was necessary, and it was so worth it. I’d been so used to eating sweets all my life, and I never thought I’d be strong enough to give it up, but for a whole month, I did. Giving up sugar at the start of my weight loss journey helped my body reset. Going without eating sugar for an extended period is something I want to get into the habit of doing every once in a while. In addition to cutting out sugar, I stopped snacking between meals. Also, another challenging step I took. I was so used to snacking between meals that cutting out snacking was difficult. I had to be incredibly intentional with how I was eating to see success in my journey at the pace that I did.

Focusing Solely On The Outcome I Wanted

Whenever I want to achieve a goal, in the past, I would always be focused on the end result. When I wasn’t seeing results fast enough, I would typically give up. However, during my weight loss journey, I was determined to make sure that every decision I made was one I would stick to. I wasn’t on this journey solely to lose weight; I wanted it to be a lifestyle change, a lifestyle choice. I knew if I would make a lifestyle change, I needed to find ways to enjoy the process and my journey. That’s why I made sure that my food was delicious and that walking every day was the most effortless and enjoyable exercise.

Expecting Perfection

My weight loss journey was far from perfect. There were days when I accidentally ate something I shouldn’t, days when I didn’t feel like walking, and when my weight fluctuated and I regained some weight. In the past, when I’d tried to lose weight and live a healthier lifestyle, I’d always started with an all-or-nothing perfection mindset. I didn’t give myself grace to be imperfect and make mistakes. Once I made a mistake, I would quit and give up entirely. Expecting perfection kept me from making progress in the past, and I was determined not to make that mistake anymore. During my weight loss journey, I started with the mindset that it’s okay to make mistakes and that even if I don’t progress in a particular week, I’ll keep going. I wouldn’t let one bad week or day hinder my progress.

Setting Unrealistic Goals And Expectations

At the start of my weight loss journey, I didn’t set any goals for myself. I wanted to see if I could do this for the long term, but as I tracked my progress weekly and eventually monthly, I could see how many pounds I was losing; then I set up a realistic goal of losing two to three pounds a week with a total of eight pounds a month. Sometimes, I met my goal, and other times, I didn’t, but either way, I kept going. In the past, I’d set unrealistic goals and expectations that I could never achieve. This time, I made sure that my goals were realistic and attainable.

Waiting Until January 1st To Make A Change

Everyone’s favorite time to set goals and change their lifestyle is during the New Year. But the truth is that a date on the calendar doesn’t matter if you are truly serious about changing your life. I went on my first walk in late August of 2023, and I’ve been going on walks ever since. Once I stopped waiting for a date on the calendar to change my life, that’s when I knew I might see this through. In the past, I’d always set New Year’s resolutions to “be healthier,” but not only was that vague, but it was also everyone’s goal. When you set goals, they need to be specific. I like to use S.M.A.R.T. goals when setting goals. S.M.A.R.T. stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. I used smart goals during my weight loss journey, which worked great.

How My Health Journey Has Made Me More Resilient

Until August 2023, I’d consistently failed at the health goals I set for myself. I never took them seriously, and they were always vague. While on this journey, not only did I prove to myself that I can be disciplined, but I also proved to myself that I really can do almost anything I set my mind to. God strengthened me throughout this journey. I couldn’t have accomplished what I did without the Holy Spirit helping me. Spending time with God on my walks kept me going when I didn’t feel like it. Nature is healing and therapeutic, and being outside restored my mind, body, and spirit.

“The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in Him, and He helps me.” Psalms 28:7

Words Of Encouragement For Those Who Want To Lose Weight And Or Live Healthier