On Not Giving Up When You Want To See Change In Your Life

Six weeks ago I started a fitness program (Core De Force MMA workouts, and food changes) with thoughts of changing my life. I wasn’t too hopeful though because nothing ever worked. I have hormone imbalances, and health problems that make losing weight, and being fit a very difficult thing. The longer you have the problems that I do the harder it becomes. I have been battling this for the past 19 years.

I tried many diet, fitness, and lifestyle changes over the years, and nothing worked for long. I had hope a few years ago when I took a lot of foods out of my daily diet, and lost 30 pounds, but slowly the weight came back, even though I kept the diet changes. A few years before that I practically ran myself into the ground exercising. I would work out with every hardcore course I could find. I worked hours every day. I gained two pounds, and didn’t go down even one size. This has been going on most of my adult life.

As a teen I was athletic, fit, and full of energy. Then one day I wasn’t. I just became more sick over time, and my body never fully cooperated again. It was a sad, hard blow. One that I never fully got past, which is why even though the doctors said they didn’t expect me to be able to return to that lifestyle, I still tried.

So when I started this new program I thought that I would be happy if I could lose a little weight or at least tone my muscles so I could look leaner. I was surprised, and very anxious when I started to see changes in my body, and the way that I thought.

The anxiety comes in when I start to worry about it all coming back. I worry about this being a fluke that will stop. I worry about always feeling like this. I’m not great at trusting the process. The process has let me down before. I’ve lost only to gain again. I’ve made changes that only worked for a short time. I have talked to doctors that say I will never be able to loose weight, or be completely healthy. Some days I even accept that.

This new program is different. It’s a lot of muscle work, very little cardio. I have weight trained before, but somehow this time has been different. It uses MMA moves to get you into shape with your own body weight. One of the first things I had to do was change how I ate. Not what I ate mind you, but HOW.

You see I forget to eat, I ignore my body, and I refuse sometimes to eat. I am the opposite of an emotional eater. So when they told me that I had to add 700 extra calories onto what I usually ate, I was scared. I understood needing more fuel for such a high burner as MMA, but to me food equals fat.

I have seen it over and over again in so many people I know, Food=Fat. I had tried to change my mindset years ago, and tell myself that food is fuel. But, I always went back to the old mindset, and cutting calories, staying just on the edge of eating enough not to go into starvation mode. But I made the changes that they asked of me. I took my calorie intake up, and was worried.

Let me say that so far it has paid off. I have been watching the scale go down, my clothes have become baggy, and I see muscle definition that was never there. I feel good in my body, strong. Maybe even a little badass. Will it continue? I don’t know, but for now I am making progress, and am seeing changes. Change produces change. I haven’t given up hope yet.

So if you are here, and there is something you aren’t sure you can do. Do it. It will be hard. It will cost you something. But, you will gain so much more. Write that book, do that program, take that hiking trip, whatever it is. Do it.

Don’t forget to tell me about it! Spread the encouragement!