Don’t Diet, Lifestyle It!

It is 2020, and it is time for us to make goals for the New Year. The biggest problem is that we tend to make plans for the New Year, and fail to follow through on them. Change is hard, and no one likes it, especially because we try to do that change all at once rather than in baby steps.

My goal has been to get into a better, healthier physical shape for sometime now. At my worst I weighed somewhere close to 380 pounds. Not good, not at all. Today as I write this article I weighed 293 pounds.

It took a long time to get here, part of my heavy weight was medication I was on for a long time. The main part though is because I was already headed on a path of being fat. I ate terribly, did little of anything physical, and had no desire to care about my health.

Today I have gotten through losing almost 100 lbs so far by being focused primarily on dietary change, and somewhat on more physical activity. But I didn’t make these changes all at once, I took them in baby steps because otherwise it was too much and I usually failed instantly in making the changes needed. Here are the changes I made slowly over 2019.

The Process

1. I changed what I was eating, I ate less carbs, ate less sugars, and more veggies, fruits and proteins.
2. I cut down on sugary beverages, I went from drinking several sodas a day, most days I drink 0–1 sodas a day, usually in the mornings just to get that initial caffeine kick, and I’ve begun to transition to coffee for caffeine more than soda. I also drink beverages such as powerade, or gatorade for the electrolytes in replacement of soda.
3. My next big step was portion control, cutting down on how much I was eating was huge in getting better, and losing weight. It was uncomfortable at first, but I eventually adjusted to the lesser consumption overall.
4. I move more, I work in media, right now with my position, it is a lot of sitting and staring at screens, that means I don’t move a whole lot. So I’ve made it a part of my day to get up every 20–30 minutes and go for 15–20 minute walks around work. My step count has gone up significantly from 2000–3000 everyday, to between 8000–10000 steps per day. Sometimes more if I am working sets, events or business projects.

Summary

All of this to say, as an individual who has had several health issues, I chose to get better. I chose to start that path not by dieting, but by adjusting my lifestyle, and the progress has been great, and I still have a ways to go before I reach my current end goal. But it never truly ends, even once I hit my weight goal I will still have plenty to keep up in order to maintain a healthy life, which is why it is a lifestyle choice. Lifestyles last forever, diets are temporary.