The Most Difficult Part of Losing 50+ Pounds

Today I want to talk about my journey of losing over 50 lbs (63 lbs to be exact) and what made it so difficult. Maybe this can give you an idea of what it's like to go on that journey. It took me 2 years to lose all that weight, when some people out there lose the same amount of weight in a very short time. So I wanted to talk about my personal experience of why it was so hard for me.

Hunger

I cut my calories a lot, so I experienced a lot of hunger. There would be days where someone wanted to go eat at a certain restaurant for lunch and I'd end up eat 1150 calories in that one meal. Mostly because there weren't many low calorie options. And then I'd have to manage the rest of the day with only 150 calories left to eat. If I was lucky, I could burn a couple hundred calories in a workout so that I could eat more.

Toward the end of my weight loss journey, I was doing intermittent fasting so I got used to the hunger. I learned to embrace it as a sign that my body was detoxing and burning fat and becoming healthier. The hunger was easier to deal with because I knew at a certain set time that I would allow myself to eat again. So food was going to happen again at a definite time, and I could just push through until then.

Hunger really is mostly a mental game. To effectively deal with hunger, you just have to trick your mind a little bit. If you keep yourself busy, that will help a lot. Drinking lemon water with stevia helps as well. Stevia has no calories and when mixed with lemon water it tastes kind of like lemonade.

Lack of Knowledge

Another thing that made my weight loss journey so difficult was my lack of knowledge. I knew literally nothing in the beginning. I didn't know what made the body burn fat. I didn't know how to read nutrition labels, or what a calorie really was, or what burning calories meant. I really knew nothing about weight loss. There was a lot of learning to do. Couple that with the fact that I didn't know where to go to find the information. Of course I had the internet, but the internet is full of a lot of confusing stuff and misinformation, especially when it comes to information about weight loss.

Luckily, anyone who is reading this now has my blog and my journey to look to for help, support, and advice.

Weight Loss Plateaus

I experienced 2 weight loss plateaus in that weight loss journey which made it hard to continue. The first time I hit a wall, I was extremely confused. Like I'm doing everything right. Why won't the scale move?? It took some learning for me to figure out what was going on there. I could have very easily given up and fell off the wagon at that first weight loss plateau, and then I would have never reached my goal.

But reaching my goal was not an optional. I HAD to get the weight off, because that was the first time I had ever been big. I was used to being skinny all my life. I'm glad I didn't give up, because I learned a lot along the way-much of that I can share with others now to help them become healthier. And that is really my goal: To share what I know in an attempt to help others.

I just want to say whoever is out there, don't give up on your weight loss goals. If you have to take a break, do so, but make sure you at least maintain your weight during that break before starting back. Don't gain it all back and lose all the work you did. Just keep trying.