My own experience with getting UNstuck

*This post is my own personal story of Getting UNstuck and is a bit long, but I hope it’s an encouragement to others hoping to get unstuck in their life. Next week, I’ll be sharing the lessons I’ve learned from my experiences the last six months.

At the beginning of last December, the scale topped of for me at 220 pounds. To start this year, I decided that I really need to rededicate myself to losing some weight.

Now, this wasn’t anything new… I’d been doing this for years…

…and for years I had failed miserably. Here’s just one example from April of last year.

But I did make a decision to do something different this year. I decided to focus exclusively on my diet rather than trying to change my diet and recommit to the gym at the same time. Though I didn’t understand it at the time, I think this was the most important decision I made, and I tell you why a little later.

So in January, I started what I called, “The Obvious Diet,” which was essentially this: If something was obviously bad for me, I didn’t eat it. I know that sounds rather silly, but if you think about it, it’s amazing how much stuff we put into our bodies that is 100% bad for us and we know it.

The other decision I made was no cheating. No “It’s Friday Night, I’m going to feed my face” sessions. I decided I needed a clean break and I had to dive in 100%. Most will tell you this is a bad idea, but I just felt like that if I was really going to change the relationship I had with food [see yesterday's post for more on that] I had to go all the way.

Three months later, the scale read 195.

25 pounds with all diet and no exercise… which was great. I was feeling good, and after three months, I was really comfortable with the diet that I had been practicing and starting to feel like I could make this a lifestyle change rather than a short-term project.

So, then, and only then, did I decide to take the next step: Getting back into the gym. I fiddled around a bit with a gym I had actually been a member of for a long time. I did some work on the Elliptical, some free weights, and some Ab workouts, but I didn’t really have a plan. I was just kinda “floating” around the gym for 30-45 minutes without a real direction or goal.

And so I decided to ask for help. I talked to a friend who is a personal trainer and she gave me some “routines” to try out. This was a step in the right direction, but I still felt like I needed a bigger push… So I decided to venture out and try out a different gym. I checked out 24 hour Fitness, decided to join, and went through the usual interview for brand new members with the trainer. During that initial conversation, when I shared what I did for a living and what Church I associated with, the trainer told me she had heard so much about our Church and was really interested in checking it out.

So I bought a three pack of personal training to I could tell her more about the Church!

Now, I’ll be honest, I always thought personal training was a waste. I thought it was for people who had absolutely no motivation at all and just needed someone to yell at them. I certainly didn’t think it was for me. It’s amazing to me how wrong I was about the entire experience. It’s made a tremendous difference, and I’ve ended up extended my training time because I’ve achieved results that I am 100% convinced I could never have achieved on my own.

Which pretty much brings me to today… I’m currently 38 pounds below where I started six months ago and down to 20% body fat as opposed to the 35-40% I was before. My goal is 16% and in about ten days when I’m back to full strength, I’m planning on going pretty hard for five weeks in order to hit that goal.

If you want to hear more, I hope you’ll check back next week for the lessons I’ve learned from this experience that I want to be sure and remember, and I hope will be a source of encouragement for someone else as well.

Categories: Healthy Living, Message Resources