So I’m someone with chronic pain and fatigue. A few years ago I started a fitness journey and went from 260 down to 180. Today I’m at 219 after falling off the wagon. I want to start again. Eating healthy, getting active. It’s hard. I recently hurt my back so I’m trying to get that sorted.
Step 1 is cutting all soda and energy drinks. I’m going to flip that switch starting Monday. With Lemmy as my witness.
Consistency is definitely key, even small changes can lead to big results over time. And it’s so easy to break those healthy habits unless you work at it. Here’s to your continuing progress.
Thanks man! I’m going to try to reenforce with some accountability partners.
The thing that people don’t often realize is that bad habits are an addiction. I get it. I’m an addict. So was my grandfather. The only difference is he was addicted to cigarettes and booze and I’m addicted to sugar and caffeine.
I’d love to see updates as you go! Interacting with the community will add a layer of accountability, but also give some content for us all.
Also, I agree completely about habits. You got this, though.
I think an underused tip for dieting is just not buying the food you don’t want to eat in the first place. You don’t want to eat chocolate? Don’t buy it! When you go grocery shopping, just absolutely avoid buying chocolate.
You may be thinking “duh, that doesn’t change anything… I still have to make the decision, it doesn’t change anything!”, but it does. If you have chocolate in your home, you have to make the decision to not each chocolate pretty much the entire day, certainly everytime you go to the kitchen. If you don’t buy it, the only time you have to make the decision is when you are grocery shopping. You are reducing many decisions to one!
I use this sort of “life hack” in many instances of my life.
Getting groceries delivered helped me break this habit. I basically have a list i order online and its always the same; so i never get my vice snacks. However there is something to be said about harm reduction.
I’m sure you know what you’re doing given your success in the past, cutting all that excess sugar sounds like a great start to a new journey! One of the mistakes I made the first time I got back into it after some medical issues was being impatient and pushing too hard too fast. I ended up overexerting myself and straining my body to the point of injury and got stuck once again.
Now I’m focusing on not trying to cram in too much too fast, working hard but also listening to my body and taking rest weeks where I do light exercise when my body starts hurting too much, my nervous system gets to its limit, and my progress starts to stall. Giving the joints and muscles time to heal after weeks and weeks of hard work always has me coming back after a rest week much stronger.
This is just a long winded reminder that rest days are just as important as tough training sessions, so don’t be afraid to back off when you need to repair those muscles and keep yourself from getting injured!
What helped me was switching to the Zero versions of all my soft drinks. The recipes have very much improved.
It’s even easier now as seemingly all soft drink companies and their mother have a Zero version now.
After that it was fasting on one meal a day.
