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Weight loss journey -

In no particular order. I started my weight loss journey in January and went all-in for the first five months. After that initial stage of counting calories, lifting weights, etc.

During those first five disciplined months, I'd developed a good sense of portion sizes, calorie amounts, and protein percentage, and I was able to go about daily life with a general sense of the choices I needed to make.

If I ever had a question, I'd break out the food scale or Google the calories of a common food, but I generally put away the food scale last July and never looked back.

I was glad I'd been so strict for that first stage, because it wound up being a nice crash course that equipped me going forward.

Starting out with that discipline actually allowed me more freedom later in the process. I can't emphasize this enough: Building muscle—not just the smaller muscles in your arms, but the larger muscles in your legs and butt—will turbo charge your weight loss like nothing else and set you up for more success.

The months I spent doing squats, lunges, and dead lifts early in my weight loss process really laid the foundation for a summer and fall of more efficient calorie burning.

I'm not a physician or trainer, but I can tell you that as I watched the number on the scale continue to decrease through the summer and fall, I knew without question that it was largely due to the muscle I'd built. It's like an engine that's always working behind the scenes!

The great part about it is that you can have a day or two or three when you fall off track with eating or exercise, but if you have that strong foundation of muscle, you can climb right back on the bike and not feel or see the consequences as much.

One of the primary things I learned in the initial months of my weight loss was just how off the rails I'd been for years when it came to portion size!

During the five-month period I weighed my food and counted calories, I really broke the spell of eating too much volume and during this process, I trained my body to get used to smaller—well, I should say more normal—portions. The answer "smaller portions" is so lackluster and boring when someone is asking me about losing weight, but it has absolutely held true for me.

Today, as I point out below, I'm eating all the foods I love, but my body is satisfied with much less of it. I avoided and still avoid anything that's sugary or otherwise really caloric. Off limits are frozen drinks such as daiquiris and margaritas, and sweet cocktails that include syrups and lots of fruit juice.

That said, lemon and lime juice are my friend when it comes to booze, and my two favorite drinks are Ranch Water clear tequila, lime juice, and sparkling water over ice and White Wine Spritzer small amount of cold white wine, sparkling water, and lemon slices.

These sparkling water-spiked drinks are great for two reasons: First, they force you to hydrate as you ingest the alcohol or wine! Second, they keep you from drinking too much alcohol.

They also spread out the calories more: In other words, you can have two drinks for the calories of one. Starting in September , when school and football started and I had lots of filming and cookbook events going on, I fell off my disciplined exercise routine a bit. I still did the rowing machine, lifted weights, and did Pilates, but I was exercising only two or three days a week, instead of the five or six days I was doing before.

As I explained in 1 above, I had a good foundation of eating smaller portions and a rock solid haha, just kidding let's say firm foundation of muscle, so fortunately this decrease didn't undo my hard work. However, I found that if I had a couple of days at home when I was sitting and working a lot, it showed itself both in the number on the scale and in the way I felt overall.

So I made sure to stay more committed than ever to using my standing desk, stepping away for frequent breaks, and putting myself in a position to move more. Today, I'm still using a standing desk and not letting myself collect too much dust during the day.

Moving is good! Essential, actually. I realize this can be triggering for some, and I can't emphasize this enough: My decision to weigh myself every day is not about fixating over every pound and ounce.

I've just found that when excess weight has crept on through the years, it has happened when I've chosen not to weigh myself. Before I decided to lose weight last January, I don't think I'd stepped on a scale for two years.

I willfully hadn't weighed myself because I never wanted to know. Without seeing that number go up over time, it was easy for me to tell myself that it was probably just a few pounds.

So part of my routine now is weighing first thing in the morning before water, coffee, anything and logging it in my now-favorite app called Happy Scale. As you'll read in my June post , Happy Scale was an incredibly helpful tool during the past year! Here was my weight chart on Happy Scale from January to June of And here's a screenshot of the chart now, showing January to February 5, You can see the intense, more aggressive period of weight loss in the first half of , but you can also see how it slowly became more gradual through the summer and fall.

And now, I'm settling in just below the original goal weight I imagined for myself—which, by the way, was intentionally realistic! I wasn't striving for pre-marriage, pre-baby, pre-thirties weight! During the first five months of my weight loss, I was more strict. I did not drink alcohol, and I largely stayed away from foods that had added sugar.

While I did eat small portions of all the foods my family was eating, I also ate a higher amount of high-protein foods such as egg whites, chicken, fish, lean beef, plain Greek yogurt, cottage cheese, Swiss cheese, and dark, leafy greens. Now, a year later, I eat pretty much all the foods I love, with two big differences: First, my portions are much more reasonable.

Second, I do still pay attention to the daily proportions I'm devoting to both high protein foods and foods with wasted calories. I'll carry this thought over into the next paragraph.

And a correction: Bananas are the one item on my list of banned foods. I'm so grateful for that initial five months of nutritional boot camp I put myself through, because in addition to resetting my whole understanding of portion size, it also made me much more aware of wasted calories, and the importance of minimizing them as a percentage of my diet.

Foods that I consider wasted calories: sugary soft drinks, cookies, cake, potato chips, doughnuts, and the like. In my June post, I gave this example: "If I am eating X calories today, do I want to blow of those calories on a doughnut? Or do I instead want to spend 50 of them on a piece of good dark chocolate to get my fix, then keep eating things with more nutritive content?

Using the doughnut as an example, some days I eat half the doughnut. Some days I decide not to eat the doughnut. Other days I'll pinch off a bite of the doughnut. Heck, there will be a day now and then when I will eat the whole doughnut. There's no hard and fast rule, but I'm just more mindful of it now, and I try to factor the doughnut into the day as a whole.

In the old days, I might eat three doughnuts and not give it a thought. Another example I gave in my June post: I still eat chocolate cake; I just eat a Rhode Island sized piece instead of a Texas sized piece! Looking back on the past year, I'm glad I started out pretty aggressively and had the wedding as an initial motivator, because it compelled me to tackle my weight loss from several different angles.

I can continue all of these over time, or I can emphasize some more than others, or choose some over others. This has expanded my options and made me feel like I have more control over the inevitable ebbs and flows over time.

There's something about the word "lifestyle change" that I have always resisted. I would hear people say "Losing weight is about changing your lifestyle" and I'd think, "But I don't want to change my lifestyle. I just want to wear smaller jeans.

I think that's what always made me bristle. Maybe it would be better to say perspective change instead of lifestyle change. Because that's what it has been for me. During the first five months and in the ensuing months of my journey, I experienced a seismic shift in my perspective of everything I've mentioned: Portion size, calories, daily movement, sitting vs.

For years, Tanisha Commodore left no stone unturned when it came to weight loss tactics. After trying countless workout programs, and weight-loss plans like WW and Medifast, she became desperate.

The influencer began entertaining the idea of going to Mexico for weight-loss surgery when her friend happened to recommend the keto diet. Intrigued, she tried it and saw immediate results. Over eight months, Commodore lost 80 pounds and has been able to maintain her weight loss ever since.

Tanisha documents her journey on Instagram and uses her platform to provide weight loss inspiration and resources to those looking to try the keto diet themselves. After having her third child, fitness blogger Maggie Fierro began to feel disconnected from her body.

So, she decided to start Kayla Itsines BBG Bikini Body Guide program to help kick-start her weight-loss journey. The convenience of being able to work out at home, combined with following a regimented healthy eating routine, helped Fierro figure out a lifestyle change that worked for her — and she couldn't have done it without the BBG community.

You need to develop discipline and commitment for the moments when you don't feel like it. Now a certified personal trainer, Cookie Miller spent years struggling with her weight.

At pounds, she was diagnosed with acanthosis nigricans — a skin condition that causes dark, velvety patches to appear in the armpits, groin, and neck of people who are overweight.

At that point, she realized her health had to become a priority. Over the course of the next 18 months, Miller lost pounds by following a regimented food and exercise plan. What helped her stay accountable was the progress photos that she shared with her Instagram followers.

At her heaviest, fitness blogger Irvy weighed pounds. In , after yo-yoing with her weight for years, she finally decided to make a change once and for all. That said, it took a while for her to figure out that to make a long-lasting lifestyle change, the desire had to come from within.

Now, she goes to the gym six times a week and meal plans, which has helped her lose pounds. At one point, Denita Elizabeth weighed over pounds and couldn't remember what it felt like to be healthy. Today, Elizabeth is not only a personal trainer but is also an instructor at SLT.

Fitness aside, Elizabeth also switched up her food intake. Even though she's lost pounds, Elizabeth says the scale is the least of her worries. Being a mother comes with a plethora of responsibilities. And Erica Lugo knew something had to change when she couldn't uphold them because of her weight.

She could no longer play with her son, because at pounds, she simply didn't have the energy. That's when she decided to lose weight by sticking to a simple plan.

She signed up for a Planet Fitness membership and focused on reducing her calorie intake and increasing her activity level. When she began to see results, she realized that her greatest motivator was herself.

Not with a trainer or fitness guru," she wrote on Instagram. It'll be that moment your head and heart say give up and that passion and want inside of you fights back.

In just a year, Lugo had lost pounds , but it took her another two years to reach her pound weight-loss goal. Lugo a fitness trainer and wellness coach helped people kickstart their own fitness journeys — following the same back-to-basics approach she used — as a trainer on Season 18 of The Biggest Loser.

Alice Fields spent years focusing on cardio , thinking it would help her lose weight. She also maintained a strict eating plan, but still wasn't seeing the results she wanted.

It wasn't until she switched to powerlifting and started consuming a more wholesome diet that she began losing weight and reaching her goals. She realized that it wasn't the numbers on the scale, but how she felt that truly mattered. Not just that, but having more muscle gives you that 'toned look' a lot of women want.

At age 25, Kassidy Riekens weighed pounds and started to struggle with her self-confidence. While she was determined to take back control of her life, she knew she had to fix her bad habits first. For workouts, she did cardio three to five times and week and it helped to have support from her friends and family.

With time, she's learned to do things in moderation and found creative ways to stay motivated. She also took progress pictures. Despite trying multiple diets and exercise programs, Katie Bolden couldn't move the needle on the scale. Even after being diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome PCOS in , she struggled to make a change.

It wasn't until she went partially blind and was diagnosed with early symptoms of multiple sclerosis , a chronic neurological disease, that she was forced to reevaluate her lifestyle. So, Bolden started using the weight-loss app MyFitnessPal to track her nutrition intake and began adopting healthier eating habits.

Simultaneously, she started swimming and hiking and eventually felt comfortable running and lifting weights. In three and a half years, Bolden lost pounds and credits her family for her weight loss motivation. After suffering from a herniated disk in her lower back, Misty Mitchell's life fell apart.

She lost her job and home and coped by drinking a lot of alcohol. It wasn't until Mitchell stepped on the scale that she realized how much her health was suffering. In just over a year she lost pounds and now weighs a healthy pounds.

Jokrney Weight-Loss Journey — find Mental focus training how real people lost jkurney of pounds. Diets and bariatric surgery didn't help, and she had an elevated A1C. What finally worked was semaglutide. IE 11 is not supported. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. SKIP TO CONTENT. Weight loss doesn't Mental focus training just by amping up your cardio and Wdight down dessert. Jurney deciding to kickstart a Venomous snakebite treatment options journey and become Weiyht than Venomous snakebite treatment options Weihgt, these women Resting oxygen consumption there was one motivating factor that helped them reach their weight loss goals. Here, each of these women including "The Biggest Loser" Season 18 trainer Erica Lugo share their personal weight loss success stories. They also offer the simple changes they made to achieve their long-term health goals. Find weight loss inspiration — and some bigger lessons — in their stories.