Success, relapse, now looking for success again

coffeebydesign

My interest in a healthy lifestyle formed about 2-3 years ago when I tore my ACL playing soccer. I never had weight issues prior to then, but since I was immobile for a long period of time, I started packing on pounds. Eventually I peaked at 188 lbs. Being only 5ft 8in tall, I was approaching a weight I had never thought I would reach. I know some of you will look at 188 lbs and say, "oh that's nothing", but in actuality, for someone of my height that is actually obese enough to have major effects on ones health. Gradually as I started to heal from my injury, I started exercising again, but had little motivation which led to even less success. Then, one morning, I woke up, looked in the mirror and realized it was time to change. I ate all of the junk food in the house in the matter of a week, which was very effective as planned, because by the time I was done with it all, I didn't want junk food for quite some time. After it was all gone, I did some research on healthy foods and filled the fridge and cabinets with them, bought Men's Health, Men's Fitness, and various other magazines which I both read and would keep on the coffee table. Even though many people told me not to believe everything I read, that didn't matter, because the most effective part of these magazines wasn't what was inside, but rather the picture on the front cover. It was a constant reminder of my goal and what I was striving for, and that visual representation played a major role in my life over the next months/years.

Over the next month or so, I still struggled with getting a routine underway, until I received the most influential advice to this point. My friend told me that there were things that were necessary for me to succeed: goals, a schedule and discipline. This may seem rather obvious, but when I sat and thought about what he had said, it occurred to me that nearly everyday, we are missing one of these three. We may have a goals and a schedule, but lack the discipline to stick to the schedule and therefore do not accomplish the goals. Or we may have the goals and the discipline, but no schedule of how to reach our goals. So, I wrote these three things down on a post note and stuck it on my desk at my computer (a place where I would see it numerous times daily). I developed some goals, laid down a schedule for my workouts and a meal plan, joined fitness forums, read about nutrition and educated myself on the nutritional information on any and every food that I could, including even fast food. Knowing what fast foods were better for you than others was extremely essential, because there will always come times when you may have to grab something fast, and knowing what to get at which restaurants is extremely important. Through self-educating myself, I realized how motivated I was becoming, and I notcied my lifestyle changing drastically for the better. I made sure to stick to my schedule and made working out and eating right, a top priority. In many cases, I had to sacrifice some leisure activities in order to work out, but that is just what you have to do sometimes. That is normally the place where I think most people stray, because they don't realize that just like in all other areas in life, sometimes to get what you want, you have to give up something else.

Over the next 6 months, I stuck to my workout schedule and started to notice a drastic change in my lifestyle. I had more energy than I'd ever had before, I was no longer craving junk food. Whether I was home or out somewhere, I mostly ate salads, fish, lean meats, veggies, whole grains, and once evey week had a cheat meal. At fast food restaurants I would eat only salads and/or grilled chicken, and never ate burgers or fried chicken. I was noticing the positive effects that this lifestyle was having on my body, especially physically. Seeing the physical effects taking place, was THE most motivating factor from that point forward. Finally during the 6th month, I reached my goals. I weighed approx 140 lbs, with less than 10% body fat, and I was eating right and living the kind of lifestyle that had me full of energy everyday. Here is a picture of how I looked at my goal weight, which was about a year and a half ago or so.

http://i1199.photobucket.com/albums/aa470/dmoney7777/0226091110.jpg

About 6 months after that, one of the trainers at my gym told me that I needed to start eating a lot more so I could bulk up a little bit. So I took his advice and started eating more and working out just as hard as usual. I started to see some good results, but ended up injuring my shoulder in the process and had to have my labrum repaired. However, at this point, it was extremely difficult to cut out all the calories that I had now become used to eating and wasn't able to exercise because of my surgery, and now a year later, I am back up to 170. So now I'm on the track back down to around 145 lbs. I started about two weeks ago working out regularly now that the shoulder is feeling better and I have started gradually reducing my caloric intake. While I have less free time than I did three years ago, I am still motivated and making the necessary sacrifices to make sure I stay on track. I've done this before and know I can do it again, and reading all of your blogs is also more inspiration and motivation to achieve my goal. Good luck to all of you as well!