I lost 100 pounds, using mindset strategies to stop self sabotage.  These are two of the factors that affect weight loss outside of “eat less & move more”. If you are positive you won’t succeed, guess what?  You won’t!

Childhood

My childhood through adulthood was filled with moments that left me with a less than mindset.  It always felt like I was fighting an uphill battle. I remember my dad’s friends telling me I would be so pretty if I just lost weight. Mom’s acquaintances would whisper she would be so pretty if…

Hell even the doctor said to me when I was 9 you would be so pretty if you just lost the weight.  So let’s fix this and he put me on my first 800-1200 calorie diet.

This story continued until my 21st birthday when I lost 100 pounds in about 4 months.  Let’s just say this is NOT the way to do it! I was bombarded by all the stuff in life I didn’t deal with up to that point.  But I had no way to handle all the changes that occurred to me. The same old mindset mindset was there.

I did meet the love of my life during this time, and we are still together. We were blessed.  But ya know what…those first few years were tough! The weight all came back. I was emotionally immature and I looked to him to make me happy.

This continued for years!  I lost 100 lbs again at 34, but had pretty much the same results.

So why is all this important to you?

This important to you for a few reasons.    

If you are…  

1. losing and gaining and saying you just can’t stay consistent on your weight loss journey one of the biggest reasons is mindset. 
2. struggling to lose the weight because you are sabotaging yourself out of fear, or feeling not enough the journey is going to make you feel even worse about yourself.  
3. able to power through and lose the weight, life will not be fixed unless you do the mindset work too. Losing the weight is only the first part!    

Trying to take on a large weight loss without addressing mindset is a big ole’ setup.

Let’s talk about 3 ways you can help your weight loss consistency by addressing mindset .

I Lost 100 Pounds— I Had to Start Believing I was Enough

This sounds really silly to some.  But honestly I spent a lifetime believing that I wasn’t enough.  As I lost 100 pounds, I worked on my mind. 

If you have read or listened to anything from me you know I had a lot of mantras or affirmations.  I often found my mind going off the rails with all the should’s, it thought I “should be” doing.    

So to calm my mind I would take a breath and say out loud to myself… “Michelle, your doing the best you can in the moment, just stop.” This would help me with the crazy circle in my head that lead to the stomach ache, which led to me wanting to eat to get rid of the pit in my stomach.

Working to stop those old thoughts is a step toward change.

The brain can be rewired. But for them to be effective it requires you to be willing to believe and the only way I could do this was to incorporate breathing techniques with my affirmations.  I share my favorite breathing technique in the Stress Tip Sheet that I will share in the comments.   

https://academic.oup.com/scan/article/11/4/621/2375054 

I lost 100 Pounds by Making Myself a Priority

Do you put everyone above you?    This is a hard one for most women and I’m no exception! I lost 100 lbs by learning to say no, when it was appropriate.

A 100 pound weight loss does take a commitment. And sometimes it requires saying “No” to those you love.

Part of the 100 pound weight loss journey requires change and change is hard. So saying no when you know it just doesn’t fit your plan or your unable to “control” yourself with the food available then saying no is the best viable option to start.  It gets easier but keeping to a plan at the beginning is setting yourself up for success.

It’s okay to make yourself a priority until you get a grip on what works for you.  When I started I sat down with my family explained what I wanted, and why I wanted it and asked for help.  They wanted me to succeed so they did help most of the time.

I lost 100 Pounds by Listening to and Validating the Little Voices in My Head—but I DID Not Cave

I lost 100 lbs because I learned to listen to those little voices in my head.  And no your not crazy!

Those little voices in your head that don’t believe, and criticize you as you are trying to change have many names.  Some call them your inner child, others call them your inner critic or maybe even the angel and devil on your shoulder.

Whatever name you decide to call them, your not crazy. They are there because you have a lifetime of experiences and they are trying to protect you the only way they know how.

One of the best mindset repair activities you can do is to listen to what they are saying and try to understand where they are coming from…

The inner voice in my head was often about 3 years old just wanting everything NOW!  She wanted food NOW, weight loss NOW, and everything to work her way NOW. As an adult with children, as I became aware of the NOW, I started to see my toddler children in my head.  And I would remember the majorly embarrassing temper tantrum my oldest threw in Walmart when he was 3.  

I was so overwhelmed, when he did this.  He literally l laid on the floor of the electronics section of Walmart and screamed bloody murder because I said no to him about the game he wanted.  

So what did we do?  

Hubby & I both have Psychology degrees that were completely useless.  hahah We picked him up and walked right out of the store. Not getting a single thing we had gone in to get.

As a parent, the growth in that situation was in the follow up.  🙂 Once everyone calmed down we talked about the situation and in 3 year old terms explained his options in that situation.

Discuss Your Options With Yourself

I employed this same technique and you can too.  When you feel that NOW feeling, discuss options with yourself for future situations.    

These options can become your new goto when you feel that “NOW” feeling, but the key here is being aware and paying attention to how your feeling and why your feeling it.  Writing down the situation and the options really helped.

Let’s Close This Out…

Weight loss consistency and mindset go hand in hand.  Mindset is not a quick fix, let’s be honest… You’ve had a lifetime to build up a belief system.  Every interaction you’ve ever had and every good and bad events have lead you to where you are now.  So changing how you react to given situation can take some time. But it’s doable. 3 Mindset Strategies you can use to help you are:  

1. Believe you are enough 
2. Make Yourself a Priority 
3. Listen to and validate the little voices in your head—but don’t cave  

If you’re ready to take your weight loss journey to a new level and learn what may be holding you back, make sure you join my Facebook Support Group Mastering Weight Loss Losing 100 Pounds for Women Over 40.  I can’t wait to see ya on the inside!

Last week in  part 1 I shared the first part of my plan to lose 100 pounds.  I started by talking about what it looks like to build a weight loss why, how to find you personal weight loss why and how to find love in you that doesn’t depend on your weight loss. 

I want to refresh your memory of the story that led to all this, where I was before–ya know why?

I was right where you are now… feeling like there was no way I was actually gonna hit my goal.  But I did and so can you! I just did it VERY differently than the typical diet.  

I did it differently because all those other systems didn’t work at all for me.

How it ALL Started

Before I ever made a plan to lose 100 pounds, I remember laying in bed with my chest touching my neck, unable to breath, my heart racing and a ringing in my ear.  I felt like I was going to die…

I lay there thinking I wasn’t going to get to see my amazing children grow up, and how was hubby going to support them without me?

The knot in my stomach, just made sleeping even harder… I would stare at the TV and try to sleep. The next morning I could barely get out of bed… my hubby was my built in alarm clock.  He would have to shake me awake, just so I could barely start another day.

I lived this way for several years… It wasn’t getting better, and then my Dad passed… Everything in my world changed.  Ya see he was my safety net, I knew if something happened to me he would make sure they were taken care of.

This is when I made a plan to lose 100 pounds.

​

Make a Plan to Lose 100 Pounds Stage 2: 

Make small changes

In my past big changes caused quick failure… So I had to make a different plan to lose 100 pounds!

You can make really small micro changes. They don’t feel as huge and you can hold on to them longer, they become a part of who you are.

In my week long habit challenge we talk about choosing a goal that has nothing to do with the number on the scale, but supports your goal of losing weight

Some of the small changes I see are:

• Drink X oz of water
• Walk X min an every hour
• Eat X amount of servings of vegetables per day

One thing each of these changes have in common is the little “X” where X represents an exact number.

This gives you something to track and a goal to reach for that has nothing to do with the number on the scale.  But it supports your goal to be healthy, and to lose weight.

How does this Plan to Lose 100 Pounds work?

Well usually when we “diet” we are focused on cutting calories to the extreme, and we want to lose weight as quickly as possible.  

This leads to extremes and then we can’t maintain this pace for 100 lb weight loss and watch out kitchen cabinets here we come… Time to Eat Like We’ve never eaten before… or at least since the last time we did a diet.

Now, when you focus on adding water or vegetables or walking what are you doing?  

If your drinking water keeps then you feel fuller and you consume fewer calories.

Vegetables have way fewer calories.  If you eat a ton of those you will feel fuller, then your eating less calories and this will give you small steady results.

And if your walking more then, then your burning extra calories.  

So these small changes to your diet and lifestyle will give you steady results.

If these become habits, instead of your diet guess what happens…

Instead of gaining 10 lbs a year, you lose 10, 20, 30…100 lbs

The power in this is stacking these habits, and others like them.  As you achieve  success of completing the habit, then you get a glimmer of hope and belief that you can do it.  

And the more habits you stack, the more weight you lose without actually dieting.  😉

Make a Plan to Lose 100 Pounds Stage 3:

Learn to change the story in your head

​One of the hardest parts of this whole thing is changing the story in your head!

It’s hard to believe, it’s hard to know that you can do this.  After so many tries it becomes this ephemeral wish and dream and it feels like you will NEVER touch that point and stay there….

I had to change this story, I had to find belief that it could be a permanent change and that my life could be different.

I know you’re thinking your different, but your not.  You are the same. Food is how you deal with life, and using food has gotten you to this point of despair.

But I promise you it doesn’t have to be this way.  It is completely possible to change the story in your head… and learn to fight back and raise that inner child.

But how?

The first step is awareness…

We all have automatic thoughts… 

• I’m not a runner (still have this one, lol)
• healthy sucks
• you can’t eat what you want
• I can’t stick to a diet
• I don’t have the willpower
• It’s hubby’s fault because he can eat anything
• by not eating that donut I’m being left out of the fun
• I’ve done so well I deserve a treat….

I could go on but I think you get the point. I could fill 20 pages with all the automatic thoughts I had when I started. Each one of these little thoughts comes with an emotion that has a physical feeling attached to it.

For me that physical feeling is nausea.  

And then you have that little voice in you head that says, just one more… It’s not really automatic it’s like this little child that throws temper tantrums when she doesn’t get what she wants.

So to win this battle, and yes it’s an internal battle… in some cases to the death we must first become aware of our automatic thoughts and change them.  And second, we must figure out how to raise that inner child.

It sounds odd but this is all work inside your head.  😉 Let’s look at each of these internal battles…

Automatic thoughts In a Plan to Lose 100 Pounds:

To change your automatic thoughts you must be aware of what they are… they maybe something negative or positive.  I had A LOT of negative ones I had to reverse.

Journalling is the best way I found to become aware of these thoughts.  Once you know what they are you can formulate your new response. Then when you get that feeling, and thought appears, you say out loud your replacement thought.

Journal Options for Automatic Thoughts

See what I did here… I identified my thoughts, and the feelings associated with it.  Then I came up with a positive replacement.  

As I worked with these I only did one at a time, and yes these are actual automatic thoughts I had and the thoughts I replaced them with.  😉

Awareness is key here.  As you read this, hopefully you identified with a few, so you can start your awareness journey.  

But we have one more area to explore… that inner child and how to raise that inner child.

Inner Child Growth

Your inner child is the part of you that focuses on “can’t”, and I want it NOW.  It’s your impatience and inability to see past the now… 

I know this sounds harsh… but look at a toddler that has been told no to something they want right now.  How do they respond? I have 3 children and I was a firm believer in telling them no, I can tell you there were LOTS of temper tantrums on the floor of Walmart because they didn’t get what they want right now…

So when you want the muffin instead of the healthy breakfast… what goes through your mind?  How do you feel? What choice do you make? I can tell you I just faced this at the hotel breakfast bar…

They had these amazing looking cranberry walnut muffins.  Once upon a time this was my favorite! But ya know what? It’s filled with white sugar and flower and preservative and it would make my body ache once I ate it.  After traveling for the week, I really needed a better choice.

So I looked at the options available, and accounted for my bodies needs and made the best choice available… Now this was not always the case.  But I am proud of my ability to do this now.

So how do you choose what’s best for your journey, instead of what your inner child wants?

To make a plan to lose 100 lbs, it really all starts with awareness.  This is being aware of how your feeling both before and after you make the choice.  When you first start, you inner child makes most of the choices automatically. I call this a habit.

But as you progress on your plan to lose 100 lbs, and learn what you “need” to do to be successful, most people try to change “All the Stuff” their inner child is demanding.  And this becomes uber overwhelming! Keep the changes small and manageable–One at a time!

When I started this journey, that muffin would have won along with the other pastries in the continental breakfast.  

So how did I get to the point of being able to make the better choice?

I learned how to educate my inner child, and taught that inner child just like I did my 3 children.

When I made bad choices I paid attention to how my body felt.  I took stock of the consequences of my actions and I mentally prepared myself for the next time I had a choice to make.

I then experimented.  I tried making better choices and taking stock of how I felt.  I felt sooo much better! This motivated me to make better and better choices.  

When my inner child threw fits, I listened and explained to myself… slowly my inner child learned that the better choices got her what she wanted.

But I had to be prepared to say no even when she really wanted the pastry.

To be honest, it does get easier.  Why? Because changing small things over time becomes your new habit.  But trying to change too many things at once leaves you starting and stopping over and over.

Let’s Close This Out…

When I started my journey for the third time, I was no longer looking for a quick fix.  I wanted change that would last. My plan to lose 100 pounds, the third time was to make it permanent even if that meant a little slower. In the end it took me 18 months to lose 120 lbs.  Keeping it off for 5 years has been the bonus that keeps on giving.

I started with figuring out a “Why” that would keep me going (and this does change over time), loving myself, making small changes and addressing both automatic thoughts and raising my inner child.

Each of these elements required time and effort because I also had to learn about nutrition, and figure out fitness for the first time in my life.  But the time it took didn’t make it hard, it was actually somewhat easier as I learned new ways to live.

Everything that I did here plus some more is included in my 100 Pound Weight Loss Framework Coaching program.  I am so excited that this program is going through it’s first beta round now.

Before I ever made a plan to lose 100 pounds, I remember laying in bed with my chest touching my neck, unable to breath, my heart racing and a ringing in my ear.  I felt like I was going to die…

I lay there thinking I wasn’t going to get to see my amazing children grow up, and how was hubby going to support them without me?

The knot in my stomach, just made sleeping even harder… I would stare at the TV and try to sleep. The next morning I could barely get out of bed… my hubby was my built in alarm clock.  He would have to shake me awake, just so I could barely start another day.

I lived this way for several years… It wasn’t getting better, and then my Dad passed… Everything in my world changed.  Ya see he was my safety net, I knew if something happened to me he would make sure they were taken care of.

This is when I made a plan to lose 100 pounds.

Make a Plan to Lose 100 Pounds:  Build a Why-What it Looks Like

​

The beginning is a little overwhelming.  Making a plan to lose 100 pounds is such a mental game, I’m not gonna tell ya it’s all sunshine and roses.  I know your sitting there thinking no kidding… but hang with me and I will give you a path, ok?

I started off looking and really digging into why I wanted/needed to lose the weight.  To be honest the fear of dying from being so overweight started when I was 9.  

That is when I had chest pains that I was too terrified to tell my mom about it… so obviously that wasn’t going to change my path. You know what I mean, right?

I had to step outside my little box to find a why and then find something bigger… 

But I really didn’t know what, until I did a lot of searching to  find it… 

Maybe you’re thinking I have my why, and it’s not doing much for me, or I just want to lose weight… I don’t need a “why”, bigger than that!

But let me tell ya, this doesn’t work in the long run…

If I lose you here, that’s okay, but read a little more, I’m not being woo-woo, just REALLY honest.

How a “Why” Makes a Difference

Let’s talk a little about my why…

As a child, my mom didn’t do anything with us.  She sat and watched. Looking back now, I know for her she was depressed and suffered from horrible untreated depression her entire life.  But this still wasn’t the type of parent I wanted to be.  

My mom’s inability to participate left me feeling less than… I can’t really explain what I felt less than… but I wanted my children to feel they were whole and loved and part of that love was me doing things with them.

But I was doing the exact type of parenting my mom did.   And I was doing it because I hurt, I didn’t have any energy and there was no way I could get on the floor and get up easily.

I knew this had to change!

This was my step 1… This was me digging deep into my hurt to find a why, that really meant something to me.

Make a Plan to Lose 100 Pounds:  How To Find YOUR WHY

In the beginning I needed a why that was outside me.  Because to be honest, I didn’t always feel like I was worth it. But I am a momma bear through and through… I will go to the ends of the earth to protect my children, and I was doing harm to them by neglecting myself.

So for you–

What lights your fire?  

What will you go to the ends of the earth to protect and how is your weight affecting that precious relationship?

These will start you on a path to finding your why!  Just keep digging!

There is a path to finding your why… Sit with a journal, and ask yourself why you want to lose weight.  Then ask yourself why that is important, and keep digging about 5 levels deep.  

This is the deep mental work, I will tell ya, every time I do this I am in tears by the end of it.  Those tears are healing tears, so just go with the flow. 😉

Make a Plan to Lose 100 Pounds:  Finding love in YOU

 As I stated, I didn’t really feel worth “it”.  But this had to change! The process of making a plan to lose 100 pounds is not easy,   I’m not here to tell you it’s easy… but I did find things that made me proud and things that I knew at my core made me, me.

I had to do a lot of thinking on this one question… What makes me whole?

For me this was my love of my husband and children. We are not perfect, but we have always been a whacky group.  My hubby and I have worked through rough patches in our relationship and have come out the other side stronger. 

I pride myself on raising participating members of society that know right from wrong, and care about others and have a strong work ethic.  I raise them to have empathy for those coming from a different place and to see the “other side of the story”.

As an “old” parent I see this as unique. And something I held onto during my weight loss.  It sounds odd, but finding this uniqueness helped define me outside of my weight.

I looked for the good in my world, and held on to that.  And I did this knowing that I had made the choice to do these things and this is what made me whole… 

My weight regardless of what it was wasn’t going to change the most important parts of who I was.  It was just going to change the outside.

To make this journey permanent I had to make the inside of me happy and hold on to these things that make me, me. These things had nothing to do with my weight, and yet they grew stronger as I lost weight and they became a shining light in my weight loss…

How can you find love in you?

If your having issues finding love for yourself, then look for things you like about yourself and build that line of hope.  I know your probably thinking, yeah right Michelle that’s a boat load… But really take a moment and look for those things you respect in others, and find them in yourself.

Your “You Factor” is going to be different than mine… maybe you have a crappy marriage and no kids… But there are many things that make you, you! And YOU are amazing just as YOU are…

Weight loss is not going to fix everything.  Sorry, I know that isn’t what you want to hear… but it’s not going to fix your relationship with your mother, cousin, sister or friend.

So… If you’ve never looked for those things that make you, you… Now is the time to start!

• What are you proud of?  
• Do you stand for something? (I hear a country song in my head… You’ve got to stand for something, or you’ll fall for anything…)
• What successes have you had?

We get so wrapped up in the weight we carry, we forget there are other parts of us.  

To start off these can be little… but look for them and look for them HARD.

When you feel that little voice in your head screaming you can’t do this just give up… fight back just a little.  Be proud of that fight, because that fight is you working on changing!

Let’s Wrap This Out…

We covered two different aspects of making a plan to lose 100 pounds…

First we talked about finding a why, and then we talked about finding the love for you and what your happy place is.

Originally, this post had A LOT more, so I broke it into a multi-part series.  It was just tooo much!

But I want to talk about that glimmer of hope that starts to rise out of this overwhelm…  

The glimmer of hope comes from a few different places. 

Once you have your “Why”, and you start to feel worth “It”, you start to see the possibility.  This gives you a big glimmer of hope

The next place is committing to making small changes -micro changes really. And feeding off your success from accomplishing these micro changes.

The third place the glimmer of hope comes from is learning to change the stories in your head.  

Changing the stories allows you to raise that inner child raise it to a full grown adult that can move through life removing the control that food has over you.

As always, sending you love & hugs on your journey.  Comment below to share how your going to find your why, and your “you factor”.

I spent most of my life thinking I couldn’t hit that 100 lb weight loss and maintain it. The first diet I remember was at the age of 9 and it was a 900 calorie diet, that left me starving.  

At the ripe old age of 48, I still get massive anxiety when I’m really hungry.  So if your sitting there thinking you can’t do this. I know you can!

I want to share, what the turning point was for me at 42 that made me lose the weight in a completely different way than the diet industry says you should, and a little about the journey’s choices.  Hang with me, and let’s talk!

100 lb Weight loss- My Big Why

In November of 2013 my world completely changed. My Dad passed away and I looked at my mom.  She was unable to walk from the kitchen table to the counter to get coffee(her first vice). She had an Oxygen cart she had to take with her everywhere.  She had broken her ribs several times just moving clothes from the washer to the dryer because of Osteoporosis. I didn’t want this for me…

The trip to the funeral exhausted me, I had brought my teenage son with me. Thank goodness because he had to help me with carrying luggage, and just keeping up with all the activities a funeral brings.

What does all of this have to do with weight loss?  Well I was 120 pounds overweight. I was 42 years old, and just the act of walking fast in the airport to get to our terminal about gave me a heart attack.

This was the point I knew, if I didn’t do something I wasn’t going to live to see my younger two graduate from high school if something didn’t change.

This was my turning point… this was my internal motivator to change everything about me…

I spent a lifetime sitting on my butt… it was time to become a new me.

100 lb Weight Loss-Changing Who I Was

I had lost 100 lbs 2 times at this point… I knew I could lose the weight, but I also knew I didn’t have it in me to let it become the life suck like I had in the past, and I honestly didn’t think I could maintain it after the loss.

In the past, I did it “perfectly” I cut my calories really low.  I basically starved myself thin.  I would add a little movement, but I wouldn’t take the time to plan for weather changes or life.  

So exercise was always short lived. I also lived on very expensive “diet food“. Which was completely tasteless and devoid of anything one would call nutritious.

What Was My New Focus?

To prevent my 100 lb weight loss from becoming a major life suck, I focused on small changes.

I didn’t try to change everything all at once.  It was anxiety producing because I wanted the weight loss now.  Know what I mean?

I knew I had to take small steps, so my small steps included getting rid of Diet Pepsi and drinking water first, that was my first step for nutrition.

My first step for exercise was not exercise… I just focused on walking more.

The really big changes at first were mindset & habits.  

The first  habit was water.  😉 I had gotten really good at small changes.  That is how I quit smoking.  I worked on cutting back really slowly overtime and replacing smoking with vaping (yes, I still vape-and no I’m not ready to give it up). 

So I used the same process for the Diet Pepsi, and processed foods, and added sugars, and….

I repeated this process for every part of my weight loss journey.  Slow and steady change, that in the end changed who I was and lead to 120 pound weight loss in about 18 months.

Let’s talk about the new mindset…

100 lb Weight Loss-My New Mindset

So for mindset… I had several issues here…

I had always focused on “All or nothing!”  I had to be “perfect”. If I wasn’t….

The big old circle of hate would crop up…

The circle of hate is when you eat off plan and then you kick yourself, and then you eat more off plan, and the circle just keeps going… And as it keeps going you just hate that person in the mirror even more.

So I had to learn to give myself grace.  I had to learn that it’s okay to not be perfect.  It made the scale move a little slower, but it also meant that I was a much happier person.

Focus:  Visualize that I was no longer different.

Another aspect  I had to change was my belief that I was different.

I spent so much time hiding and feeling I was different, I really didn’t know how to fit into a group.  To be honest this is still a challenge for me.

So this part of the journey required me to visualize the new me, I wanted to be… This has definitely changed many times over the last 5 years.  This is not a static vision, more of a guide at that time in your life.

After a lifetime of obesity, it was hard to visualize a healthy me.

Part of me felt, I just couldn’t lose weight and keep it off… it was so deep inside me, the fear kept me from trying for a long time.  

But my strong why for a 100 lb weight loss helped to combat this belief, and lead me to be successful.

This is when I got rid of my excuses and started fighting back!

Focus:  Using your Weight Loss Why

Somewhere within me I found the passion to fight back… many authors call this finding your why… I call it using your why!

I even had an entire class breaking down how to find your why… 

There is a lot to finding this elusive why… but the big thing is finding the one passion that is SOOOO big, so that you can use it to fight back.   

Use it when you feel yourself using excuses to go back to the old comfy way of dealing with life.

If you have found yourself in this big circle of fighting yourself and making your weight loss about something other than your relationship with food and movement… you might need a bigger passion than a new smaller set of pants.  

If you cave to every trigger and enter a circle of hate, that passion may be missing from your weight loss journey. 

Why do you really want to lose weight? 

Do you really believe you can lose the weight? Deep down? I know I didn’t really believe it…

As you can probably see… I had a lot of brain stuff going on in this process.  Adding working out in the beginning wasn’t high on my list… but I did eventually add it.  

I added working out, because of a new mindset issue….

100 lb Weight Loss-When & Why I added Working out (HINT: Loose Skin)

In the beginning I didn’t add working out…

Primarily because I couldn’t walk up the stairs without help, and tying my shoes was an ordeal (slip on shoes anyone?)

As I lost weight I was able to add more and more walking.  But I didn’t do more than walk until I had lost about 90 lbs.

The journey left me with a lot of loose skin and I went in a search for a “cure”.  I was still living in the imperfections of my body and really didn’t Love what I saw in the mirror.

By the way, I never found a cure to lose skin.  LOL But I am slowly learning to love the me I am now, loose skin and all.

But this journey, did lead me to lifting weights.  I. Fell. In. LOVE!

Each step on this journey leads to a new adventure.  This was one of the best things ever… it lead me to get certified and show up here!

I do believe everyone should be active.  But I also believe there are different ways to achieve this, and part of the journey is learning what works for you and the new lifestyle YOU want to build.

100 lb Weight Loss-My Current Journey & How I Maintain

Sadly 80% of the people that lose weight will regain it… this statistic terrifies me! And for those tackling a 100 lb weight loss that statistic is even higher.

But being aware of this, and knowing that my weight loss journey will never end… led me to choosing a healthy lifestyle and creating healthy habits, so that I don’t feel like I am dieting for life.

I focus on moving my body, eating whole foods made with love, and actively keeping my mindset positive.

I did go through a period of time where I thought I wanted abs, and I did all the stuff… basically I lived in contest prep mode.  This was NOT maintainable, in my world. 😉 But I am happy I did it!

100 lb Weight Loss-Creating My Own Support System & Having People Rely On Me

,One of the best things I did was create my own support system.  In the beginning I joined groups, now I lead a group of women over 40 that have 100 pounds to lose.

Not only do I help these women, but they unknowingly help me.

Having a support system, both online, and in your daily life is huge. 

I hear all the time that, my family doesn’t support me and their food choices “make” me go off track.  This is where having a support system of people like you comes in…

I am blessed (LOL) to live in a house of naturally skinny people.  My husband can’t gain weight so save his life…  He can eat anything and everything… I used to eat right a long with him. 

Guess what?

That does not work!  So having a support system of people like me was VERY important… particularly when he was diving into ice cream or that bag of chips… 

I will leave this section with this thought for you… KNOW it’s possible, EVEN IF…!

Let’s Close This Out…

Overall, the journey for a 100 pound weight loss is just as much “brain” stuff as it is nutrition and fitness.

Once I realized it wasn’t just my nutrition and lack of fitness that was the issue, the change almost felt easier.

I was premature when premature babies didn’t live, the doctor told my mom to feed me so I would live.  This turned into feed me for every problem I ever had.

Her favorite was Hostess treats we had a freezer full…

I had a lifetime of solving my problems with food to overcome, and a lifetime of rollercoaster dieting to learn how to break. (Mindset….)

6 years into this journey I am still learning… But it is worth it to me…

It has led to a passion of helping other women that are ready to make this change too.  

Quick Review:

I think it’s really important to notice, that I did work on my nutrition and fitness but they were a very small part of my BIG FOCUS.

My 100 lb Weight Loss Focus:

• My Big Why
• Changing Who I Was
• My New Mindset
• When & Why I added Working out (HINT: Loose Skin)
• My Current Journey & How I Maintain
• Creating My Own Support System & Having People Rely On Me