I made a new year’s resolution this year to lose weight. I started at 265 at the beginning of the year. I have been making a lot of changes to my lifestyle, and I’ve been working really hard and very slowly losing weight. I am at 246 today, and I feel like my progress isn’t good enough. I spent 10 months really trying, and for what? Not even twenty pounds? I don’t really feel or look a lot different. I put in so much work and I feel really discouraged from continuing. How do you keep going? I feel like I’ll never get to a healthy weight.
That’s actually excellent progress, but it makes sense that it’s hard for you to see - you see yourself every day so little bits don’t seem to add up. I’ve lost 20 pounds in the past year and thought I looked the same until I actually took a look at older progress pics. Soon, you’ll likely start noticing that you need to cinch your belt tighter and things like that (a bunch of my suits now don’t fit right). Can be harder to tell if your wardrobe isn’t or wasn’t form fitting tho.
But the other thing is: remember why you’re doing this. Whatever your reason is, it’s probably not a short term goal. You want to feel/look/move better. All of that takes a lot of time and discipline. You’ll slip up, we all do (fuckin halloween candy), but you have to get back on track and remember this isn’t a short term diet, this is your new way of life. You’re choosing a harder path for a better reward down the line. That means more things that’ll trip you up, and more ways to backslide, but the views from higher up the mountain are worth it. That feeling when you can wear a sexier Halloween costume, or realize your warm up workout used to be your max output, or hell just not getting winded from taking a flight of stairs, nothing beats it.
Fitness is a journey, not a destination.