Maintaining Motivation With a Strong Support System
As we all know, staying motivated is perhaps the hardest part of achieving any New Year’s resolution. At a certain point, the excitement wears off and the daily grind of it all starts to feel monotonous. This is the point at which many people lose momentum. The gyms that were so packed in January and February, quiet down again by March. Dreams are traded for the comfort and familiarity of old habits.
This was not the case for Danny and Lexi. The reason? They had each other. Whenever one was flagging, the other would bolster them up. Between them, they always had enough motivation to keep them set on their goals. Before they knew it, they’d hit the 30-day mark, winning the bet with their friends. They were already looking like different new people.
The Hardest Part of Weight Loss: What to Do About Food?
While working out is certainly important, the biggest part of weight loss comes down to diet. This part of their new lifestyle was just as hard as the exercise, if not harder. All the comfort foods, the restaurant meals, the takeout, and the unhealthy snacking had to go. Everything they were used to had to change and, in place of their old comforts, they had to learn to cook healthy meals for themselves.
We’re sure Lexi thanked her lucky stars every day that Danny decided to embark on the weight loss journey with her. Trying to give up junk food while your partner is indulging on the couch would be next to impossible. However, with each other’s support, the pair slowly learned to cook better meals, all designed to assist them in reaching their goals.
Tip #2: No Diets, Only Lifestyle Changes!
What a drastic change! Clearly, whatever the couple had been doing, was working. Their biggest tip at this point? Healthy eating should never be about dieting. Danny and Lexi saw each healthy choice as being part of a new and permanent way of living. This meant no extreme, short-term fixes, no rushing, and no depriving your body of the nutrients and energy it needs.
Instead, Lexi embarked on a mini-mission: taking all her favorite comfort foods and inventing healthy versions that would satisfy her cravings, while nourishing her body and propelling her forward on her healthy living path.
The Joy of Finally Seeing Major Results
With the results now really starting to show, Danny and Lexi picked up the pace and threw even more energy into their health endeavors. Feeling more confident and less self-conscious, Lexi began taking classes at the gym. With all the new people she met, this ended up being one of the best decisions she made in her weight loss journey. Her support system and accountability network were growing by the day.
Lexi also had a crazy amount of fun in the classes and fun is one of the key components of sticking to an exercise plan. If you’re enjoying it, then why wouldn’t you want to stick to it? Lexi’s favorite class was Pulse, a music-fuelled dance workout. In her words: “we can do a song full of squats and even though my legs are burning, it’s so much fun that I don’t even notice.”
Fears Are Conquered and Stares from Strangers Slayed
With her hard work clearly paying off, Lexi was relieved to discover that her fear of working out in public at the gym had faded away. In its place came a fierceness she never knew she had before. Where stares from strangers had once made her whither, they now gave her fire: “if people were going to stare at me because of my weight, I was going to give them a reason to stare by being the hardest worker in the room.” What a boss attitude!
However, it wasn’t all smooth sailing. As anyone who’s embarked on a similar mission will tell you, there are ups and downs. Weight loss is certainly not a linear progression. While Lexi was losing up to 20 pounds a month when she was first starting out, she hit the dreaded yet inevitable plateau. It’s tempting to let stalled weight loss get you down, but because Lexi had adopted her new exercise and eating habits as a lifestyle, whatever the scale said, she was still doing wonders for her health.