Hi, I'm 25 male.
Over the last 6 months I have been on a journey towards a continously more healthy lifestyle. I am beyond proud of myself for what I've been able to achieve. Today I decided to share some of my experiences with you all.
A few words of backstory. For many years after turning ~18 (I am now 25) I had been struggling with my mental health. To what I would consider crippling. With my mental health on a a thread, I'd also been gaining weight over time. Over the span of last year especially, as I had begun overeating as a coping mechanism. Contrary to years before of starving myself, believing I did not deserve to eat. Regardless, the point is that over many years I had been neglecting anything you'd consider excercise, only biking to my place of work/or where I started volunteering.
The first step and maybe least relevant to this page was improving my mental health. I had a drastic change of mindset after reading a book recommended to me by the psychologist I was meeting with. It was like getting beaten awake from a deep and endless slumber. To me personally this was the most important moment in my journey towards becoming more active, and leading a completely different lifestyle.
I started thinking of myself in a completely different way. I did not any longer think of myself as lesser than others, I did not think others are just able to do something and I am not. If others can do something, and if a treatment works for them WHY WOULDN'T IT WORK FOR ME! - Because of course I am not special, there is nothing extraordinary about myself that makes me function as a human being in a way different from others. In the past I had told myself I did view people as equal, and did not see myself as special. But in action I was treating myself as I had special qualities (negative) that meant I was not able to do the steps, or that treatment would not work for me in my case. Even though I, as others can do all the same things, and benefit from the same things.
With this change of mindset, and in a way an awakening of myself as a person again I started working on myself. I had during treatment reflected on my life as a child, and thought about all of the things about myself from when I was younger that I missed. Parts of how I viewed life, but also how I did the things that I enjoyed doing. What things did I actually enjoy? - There was actually a lot of things I enjyoed, all of which I had been neglecting myself. I had lost touch with all of my friends, I had stopped doing the things I enjoyed. Over time convincing myself I do not enjoy anything anymore, not realizing the cause of what had altered my mind to truly believe those words when reciting them in my head.
I started doing things again that I enjoy. It was a more detailed process over time than I can explain, but in essense I started doing things that I enjoyed. I was able to reach out to my friends, which whom I had convinced myself would only suffer from being in touch with me. This is it turned out to be untrue of course.
There were hurdles and bumps of my own minds creation that I needed to work through, and JUST DO IT. Those words that I had previously scoffed at, that I thought were destructive, that I had thought were not realistic, and damaging. I actually started, and do believe in those words. There is a truth to them, in that you can actually just do it. At some point I realized the most major hurdle in my path, was myself creating arguments inside my head as to why I shouldn't be doing, or can't do something. I was convincing myself of the validity of these arguments. One of the essential things in my journey, was how with a change of mindset I saw these words differently from how I had before. I had nothing to lose by just doing it; I had not even tried, and was convinced that if I even did try there would be no point. At least I had until one point in time, in which I saw things differently. And I just did it, and continued just doing it.
These words as I see them are not meant to push you to doing something that you do not enjoy, that you have experienced as horrible. But they are meant as a means of figuring out, of experiencing for yourself. Maybe you will find out as myself that you absolutely do enjoy, and can find enjoyment from hiking, mountaineering, jogging, sports climbing, biking - or any combination of activities that you enjoy. For myself I do not enjoy AT ALL grinding away inside a gym lifting weights, going on a spinning bike. If I go to this section of the gym it is to use a tool specifically designed to help me achieve a certain goal I've set for myself. The point is that you can find the things you like, and have time for.
Another of the most important things for myself was realizing how much fun it is to do all of these things, but especially with friends and family. Excercise also do get easier, it actually gets easier after only one session of doing it. Maybe it doesn't feel like it, but if you do start doing some excercise, the next one, and the next one will become increasingly easier. Feeling myself improving health and fitness wise was an incredible source of motivation to keep on going.
A few last words I'd like to share, one of the things to keep in mind not only starting to excercise, but anywhere you are on a health related journey. Consistency is absolutely necessary. For myself, and friends that I have talked to being consistent in being active made things; easier, more fun, more improvement, easier etc etc. It helps create a positive loop, in which you are continously seeing results of your labor, and not only seeing it. But feeling the results of your labor. The more physically active I have been too, these activities have just become more fun to me, I've become more motivated to do them. Do not see any of the things I've written as this one thing I need to do, but try seeing the whole picture of many things working together.
Now I'm sick of typing.
Hope you can take something useful from these words I've plastered on this page.
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/loseit/comments/pxqhb0/its_been_6_months_and_i_have_lost_21kg_from_88/
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