On average,45 million people according to the Boston Medical Center go on a diet and are trying to lose weight each year. That is a lot of people trying to become the healthiest version of themself. Don't you think? The sad part is that about 2/3 of the population that live in America are either overweight or obese. Over time, a person's weight can start to cause problems on their health which can include mental, physical, and even spiritual problems. As research on the topic continues to grow, there have been many different ways that people can lose weight which includes; diets, exercise, pills, and a number of other things, but which method(s) are the best ones to use when trying to lose weight with a disability?
In this blog, I am going to share my weight loss journey, what I recommend, and provide you with some ways that will help you lose weight while becoming the best version of yourself.
My Weightloss Journey
I was never really the type of person who thought about my weight very often; at least not on a conscious level. I walked around town feeling confident in what I was wearing, loved how my body looked, and had tons of energy to do the activities I loved to do with ease. I wore a size 12 and loved what my body let me do on a daily basis, but that turned around as I got older.
My weight loss journey, I would describe as a rollercoaster with a bunch of hills. I started it when I was about 15 after I dislocated my knee just rolling over on the trampoline without even jumping, having knee surgery not long after to reconstruct my knee and to put screws in to hold my knee in place since it kept popping out of place after it took the doctors two attempts to relocate it after I dislocated the first time, and on top of that, the times I went clothing shopping for school I gained so much weight that when I found something I liked, they didn't have my size. After a while, my energy level started dropping to the point that activities that were normally really easy for me began to get harder, I felt tired all the time, and felt a lot older than I really was at the time. At one point, when I weighed myself to get an idea of what my weight was, I ended up gaining so much weight that I weighed 204lbs. From this point, I decided something needed to change and searched online to see what different methods there was for weight loss.
For many years I tried doing diets, taking pills, and exercise, but I would either get too tired with how strick the diet was, forget to take the pills, or I wouldn't take the time in my day to consistently exercise throughout the week. Nothing I tried seem to work and each time I checked the scale to see what my weight was, it would go down a pound and then it would go back up. This happened several times and after a while, I got so discouraged that I gave up on trying to lose weight altogether.
More recently though, my mom and I were at a loss with why I wasn't losing weight considering how active I was, the fact that I didn't eat tons of food, and wasn't really into snacking on junk food, from there we decided to get me tested to see if I had a thyroid problem. That same day I got the test done, the test results came back saying I had hyperthyroidism, and the doctor got me on a medication that I take once a day to help my thyroid. Unlike the previous attempts of trying to lose weight, I was more serious about losing weight and came up with a daily routine that will help me lose weight and become the healthiest version of myself.
My Daily Routine
- 7:30- Eat Breakfast
- 8:00- Do a Reiki self- treatment while listening to calming music with a timer every 3 minutes
- 9:00- Do a meditation on how I can be the healthiest version of myself today
- 10:00- Go for at least an hour walk
- 12:00- Eat lunch
- 1:00- Do self-care activity ( for me, I either read or go for another walk)
- 3:00- Work on Alyssa-bilities blog
- 4:00 to 8:00- Family time and dinner
- 8:15- Do a Reiki self-treatment
- 9:00- Do nightly meditation
- 10:00-Bedtime
What I Realized
During the years as I tried many different methods of losing weight, I realized two things;
- You have to be mentally ready before being physically motivated
- If you make working out fun. You will be more likely to stick to it.
When looking back at my previous attempts of losing weight I realized that yes my body was ready to lose weight and to be healthier, but my mind wasn't quite motivated enough to take the necessary steps I knew I needed to take in order to be the healthiest version of my self. Which is why doing diets, exercise, and taking pills were so hard for me. This more recent attempt though I tried new methods, a new way of eating, and found a variety of ways to make losing weight more fun and achievable.
What I Recommend
Losing weight is not easy. If anything it is one of the most challenging tasks to accomplish, in my opinion. Don't you think? When a person is trying to lose weight they put in all this time and effort to try these different methods just for your weight to bounce up or down and then having to deal with stubborn fat that doesn't seem to budge. The thing is with weight loss is that it is not just something you work hard towards, accomplish what you want, and stop it all together hoping that all your work will just stick. Weight loss is more of taking the different steps to develop a new and healthy lifestyle change. As I continue my weight loss journey I have gotten a bunch of helpful advice from family members, other blog sites, reading other people's weight loss stories, and from many news articles on different ways to make losing weight something you can stick with while having fun. Some of the things I recommend doing that have helped me include;
- Using a smart goals template- This method helped me a lot as the first step on my weight loss journey because it helped me organize my goal, is holding me accountable, and it gives me something to look at to keep me motivated to keep going to reach my goal.
- Ditch the scale
When I first started my weight loss journey, I got on the scale at least once a week to see if my weight went down, but what I noticed was that my weight would fluctuate down and I would get excited, then my weight would climb back up, leaving me feeling discouraged. It was a vicious cycle that was not doing me any good, so I decided to say good-bye to the altogether. I didn't throw it away at all, but I decided that I would get on once a month if that and not touch it for the rest of the time. Instead, I resorted to other ways to help me keep track of my weight loss progress by paying attention to how my body looked in the mirror and how to lose my clothing felt.
- Water is your friend
The tricky thing about going on a diet is that they restrict you from a lot of different foods, and yes by going on a diet you can lose weight, but as soon as you achieve your goal weight in which you stop the diet then you end up gaining all that weight back when you start bringing back in the foods you ate before the diet. This is the main reason why I never followed through with dieting. What I try to do on a daily basis is to drink a big glass of water( about 8 ounces) or a full bottle of water 30 minutes before a meal. By doing this, it helps control your hunger so when it is meal time you eat a small portion of food.
- Exercise at your own pace
Have you ever heard the saying " slow and steady, wins the race"? I find this so true in many different situations, but I find it to apply really well when it comes to weight loss. At the start of my journey, I started slowly walking at a regular pace around my neighborhood for 15 minutes, then increased it to 30 minutes, and increased the time by 15 minutes each time up to 60+ minutes until I can walk each of those times easily. From there, I started adding inclines, did some HIIT (High-Intensity Interval Training) which is where a person walks for a certain amount of time and then run for a certain amount of time, but I modified it to do a slow walk for a certain amount of time and then switched to a speed walk, following this pattern throughout my workout. The biggest thing to remember is that starting out slow and working your way up is a lot safer than pushing yourself too far and risk injuring yourself.
Another thing I loved to do that was a great workout was taking a Zumba class with my mom. We went 2-3 times a week and had a total blast as we giggled, sweated, and tried to figure out the moves to each song while looking like total dorks in the back of the class. When finding a workout routine, I highly recommend doing something that involves having fun. For me, as many of you already know I love getting out in nature and moving, so going for walks and taking a Zumba class is the perfect type of activity to do because they are fun and you don't even realize that you are working out while doing them.
Exercises you can do with a disability
All over the internet, there are many different exercise videos, dance videos, and programs for all levels. I knew that there were a lot of videos, but I didn't realize how many they had with modifications for people with disabilities.
Floor Exercises
Chair Exercises
Standing Exercise
With the right mindset, the right exercises, and the will power to stay motivated can make losing weight a much easier task to accomplish. I am still working on my weight loss journey and intend to accomplish my goal of weighing 160lbs. By taking the necessary steps, you can start the journey to the healthiest version of yourself today.
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