I wanted to make this post because I had a realization today that's really helping my mindset, and I'm hoping it helps someone else too.
In 2016, I was in the best shape of my life. I achieved the "goal weight" I wanted to be and maintained it for over a year almost solely thru distance running (its zen/calming for me), but I still wasn't happy with my flexibility or muscle tone. I had added some weight training and yoga to my routine, but wasn't consistent with them and never got the results on that side of things that I wanted, in part because my muscles really just...seemed to reject my efforts.
I got frustrated with my lack of progress and I decided to "take a break". It was only supposed to be a few months, but it stretched into a year, then several. I got back on the horse a few times for a few months each thru the years, and managed to stay within 15-20 lbs of my lowest weight until about 2020. Then I just gave up, and by the end of 2022, I was at the highest weight of my life and 50 lbs heavier than my healthy weight. I was miserable, and I finally gave myself a kick in the pants to fix it.
I started as a ball of dough: really minimal cardio capacity, really poor/non-existant muscle tone, flexibility ziltch. When I started this time, I thought about where I'd landed the last time I was at a healthy weight and the things I struggled with then, and I decided this time to focus my workouts on muscle toning/development and flexibility with some cardio thrown in rather than the other way around. I've been at it just a little shy of 3 months now, and I've lost 19 lbs so far. However, the biggest thing for me is how happy I am with my progress on muscular tone and flexibility. I can see muscles showing up in my arms, my legs, my calves, even a little bit in my stomach. I can almost get into the side splits on both sides, FAR exceeding the progress I made toward my flexibility goals EVER before. These successes, even more so than the number on the scale, make me feel like I'm really winning this time. I struggled so hard when I was in shape before to attain these goals, and I think because I had built my fitness thru distance running last time, it just built muscles that weren't really intended for the other goals I wanted.
So, for me, starting over has been a huge success so far because it's allowed me to focus on the goals I ultimately want. If you're in the same boat I am, where you've never been able to meet your fitness goals before and are starting from zero, I want to tell you that you can do it too! Figure out what you want from your fitness and go get it!
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/loseit/comments/11ovvzb/nsv_the_pros_of_starting_over/
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