Things I have learned

Part of the point of this blog is to help motivate others as well as keep myself motivated and reflect on all that I have done over the last year and a half. Losing weight/getting in shape takes a ton of time, effort, motivation, & commitment. I would like to reflect on what I have learned about myself over the last year and a half as well as some general things I have learned (in no particular order).

1. I can do anything I put my mind to. It may take some effort on my part to get into the right mindset, but once I do there is no stopping me.
2. I function best with a scheduled routine. I go to the gym every day during lunch and right after work. I actually don't feel fulfilled if I have skipped one of my workouts.
3. Losing weight takes a lot of time and patience. A couple pounds a month would come off and I would always wish it was more.
4. Nutrition is very important. I wanted to do all this without changing what I ate at all, but after losing 20lbs I realized that I needed to change my diet. A few small changes and the last 10lbs came off.
5. Weight training is also very important! I always thought that I just needed to do cardio to burn the most calories, but adding weights in helps tremendously.
6. I love having a personal trainer. It gives me someone that I have to report to every week. Also, he has provided me the guidance that I have needed all along the way.
7. I whine and complain about EVERYTHING that my trainer has me do. For some reason this makes me feel better and gets me through my workouts. My trainer deals with it pretty well, just shakes his head and ignores it. I have heard "quit whining and just do it!" a ton. The ironic thing is...I really enjoy my workouts with him. He pushes me to do things that I would NEVER do, and sometimes I am surprised that I can actually do it!
8. I really enjoy taking classes. My gym is really small and they only offer a few classes so I do as many as I can. It provides variety for my workouts, and I enjoy have the other people there working hard and sweating with me. Our classes are fairly small, the most is 10 people.
9. You need to keep yourself motivated any way that you can. One of the things I do is I take before/after pictures. It is amazing to see the difference and is something that I don't notice when I look in the mirror, but when I put the pictures side by side I am always floored by the difference. Eventually I will post some of my before/after pics.
10. Anyone can do all this! All it takes is commitment. I know my workouts look like I am crazy workout girl, but this is what I have built up to. I started out much slower, and as I got in better and better shape I have had to add time/intensity to my workouts in order to keep them effective.