Advice for Maintianing Your New Year's Resolution

LosingLaurensWay

New Year’s resolutions, we make them, we hope to keep them and eventually we break them. Giving up on carbs, soda, setting weight goals – if we are honest with ourselves there will come a day when you will mess up. It happens. We are human! This year taught me that in force.
I didn’t set any New Year’s resolutions this year, rather reflected back on 2014. I learned that I am not invincible. Yes, I have lost 140 pounds, however, I struggled privately and over the year I gained 30 pounds. Eventually I lost it again but it taught me that we aren’t perfect. The weight loss journey is not a guaranteed straight line, it is fluid, it requires diligence and resilience.

I learned that sometimes you need to step back, look at the whole picture with a critical eye and make the necessary actions to change it. I asked the MyFitnessPal community what I was doing wrong and realized I wasn’t logging every single thing I was eating and that I wasn’t lifting anymore. Sure it seems obvious now, but at the time I just couldn’t see the answer right in front of my nose. I kept calm and didn’t fall in to the ceaseless downward spiral of “I failed.” I admit for a few months I fell into a frenzy of self-doubt, but I made the crucial decision to ask for help.

So, to those who want to lose weight as their New Year’s resolution I say do it! Just remember that you shouldn’t make a goal to reach a certain weight (it’s always in flux). Instead you should make the promise to be healthier – physically and mentally. If you keep your goal broader you have room for what life inevitably throws at you, as it always does. The more fluid you are, the harder it is to say that you failed. Weight loss isn’t a goal it’s a lifestyle change. You have to make a commitment to that change to reach your goal and maintain it. The changes don’t have to be a complete upheaval. Becoming healthy is a slow gradual progress. If you make smaller changes and increase them with time the changes will last and become second nature to you. Check out my post on the small changes I made to lose 140 pounds here

This year I lost two close family members, my mother became disabled and I struggled through some very personal battles myself. I can honestly say it was the hardest year of my young life. I know what I’m telling you is true because these are the rules I personally live by. At any other point in my life I would have gained over 50 pounds or more and given up. Because I maintained my positive mindset I kept that to 30, proceeded to lose that weight and more. I am now the lowest I have been in seven years. I had to fight for every single pound. I could have surrendered. I could have said this is all I can do. Instead I led a fully scale attack against everything I faced and came out the other side successful.

This year, I was reminded once again that this is my time. This is the time when I will be proud in my own skin. I will show the world what is hidden underneath the pounds. It is not a lazy person, or a disgusting one. It is a strong, confident, sexy woman. There will be more hurdles to come and I will go back and read this post to remind myself… You can do it. You’ve done it before. You will continue to be successful. Have faith.

You can check out more of my posts on my weight loss journey at https://foodtruce.wordpress.com/