Thanks to everyone that clicked on my post from yesterday, read it, posted a comment, and shared a suggestion. It has been an exciting 24 hours. I just hope I can keep this up…..I need motivation, and you all are keeping me motivated!

So as promised, I will share tips on how I lost most of the weight I set out to lose in three and a half months (actually, three months, cos I hit 81.3kg by the end of March, 2016).

What I will like to start with today, is the need to Find your motivation.  

Find your motivation.

If you are anything like me, you have probably done one or more of the following: a) Paid for an annual gym plan, and barely made it through three sessions b) Found and paid for a personal trainer, who after the first time he trained you, you found all the excuses why you couldn’t keep up with the lessons c) Tried out a diet plan….‘The whole 30’, ‘Cambridge diet’  and many more that I can’t even keep up with, which worked very well initially, but all the gains made have fizzled out d) Bought diet supplements to blast the fat in 9 days, or one month or whatever, which worked somehow, but you couldn’t really tell the difference e) Enrolled in a yoga class, Zumba class, for swimming lessons, at a tennis club e.t.c. The list goes on, but yet very little progress made.

I woke up this morning at 5.45 am to keep an appointment with my tennis coach for 6.30am before catching a flight to Lagos for a very good friend’s wedding. My average tennis session includes: at least a 1.5 mile run (15-18 mins), some stretching exercises, and intense tennis practice for at least 45 mins.

You’d think I am preparing to play Serena Williams or Victoria Azarenka at one of the grand slams later in the year. Sounds crazy, right? I know. Considering that I didn’t sleep so early, I really would have loved to lie in bed for a couple more hours before heading to the airport. But I got up anyway, and hit the National stadium where I practice. I have seen the benefits of the workouts, especially early morning workouts, and while they are not fun to start, they are great once you start! But it was not always like this……….For one, I have a very hectic work schedule, and so every opportunity to sleep or just chill, get away from my laptop and emails for a few hours, is most welcome. Secondly, I, like many other people (probably reading this post) could not just be bothered. As my brothers from Ibadan will say “Mi o le wa ku. Aye la wa je”, meaning, I cannot come and die, we came to this world to enjoy (Literal translation).

Back to the matter at hand, the point I am trying to make is that for weight loss, like anything we do in life, you need to find your motivation. We all go to school because our parents or the society tell us that if we go to school, we will become professionals and we will succeed. I wish my folks had told me to act more sha, maybe I would have become a Nollywood star or a singer like all these young boys and girls of nowadays and still make money…LOL! We all work because we want to get paid (at least the majority of us, some work because they want to act like they need to when we know that for the next seven generations in their families, they will never have to work). We sometimes get married because we want to start a family, raise children, make your parents happy and the list goes on. Why then should you lose some weight? Well, you need to lose some weight because it is good for your health! Period! Easy as ABC. Hehehehehehehe…..I wish it were that easy! But as we all know, not until you are on that hospital bed and told that you need to take your health more seriously, most of us don’t take weight loss or being fit that seriously. May that not be your portion o, Amem! (sic)

So how did I find motivation to do this, after many years of trying, making excuses, and trying again? I will share four things that helped motivate me:

1. Set a target: As I mentioned in my previous post, I was told that I could never reduce my weight to 80kg. Basically I was dared, I was challenged! Fortunately for me, I was challenged by someone that I felt I had to prove a point to, as well as any other Karishikas  that may have been aiming for my spot……(Gaskiya!). So I took on that challenge. When you set a particular goal for yourself, inspired by having something to prove to the world or to someone, you will do everything you can to achieve that goal. So I started my real journey towards weight loss. To be honest, this is the only New Year’s resolution I have ever made that I kept, and it was my only resolution for 2016. It also helped that I had a specific weight target, and a seemingly unattainable target. So pick a target weight and start from there. Be realistic about it as well – how much weight should you lose to reach your normal BMI? How much weight can you lose without killing yourself, when you are not a magician? Think about it. When you have set your target, also set realistic timelines. When I started, I lost 4kgs in the first three weeks, another 5 kgs the next four weeks, then i struggled for about two weeks to shed an additional kg, before losing 6 kgs in the following three weeks. I am currently struggling again to break to the next level and drop below my 80kg mark. Point is, don’t expect to shed all the weight in the first month except there’s a pathological disorder. So manage your expectations.
2. Buy a tracker: As usual, I am very slow with adopting new technology. I am usually the last to step up to the new fad. There was a time almost all my colleagues were acquiring the Fitbit trackers, and I couldn’t understand what the craze was about, but I still inquired about them just for the knowledge of it. When I decided on the morning of Jan 1st, 2016 that I was going to aim for my target weight, the first things I bought were the Fitbit charge, and the Fitbit Aria weighing scale. Trust me, those things work like magic. Not that they physically reduce the weight for you, but they make you compete with yourself to lose the weight and meet your required daily targets which you set. I remember when I bought the charge, I was sure that 10K steps would be a small feat.

   

   Omo, after climbing steps up and down the office, walking round the compound ten times more than I normally did, I was yet to hit 2K steps; then I knew there was a problem! The best part of it is;because your tracking device is showing you all the stats and you can track your progress by the minute, it actually motivates you to try and do more. Just to give you an idea of how much 10K steps takes, you would need to walk round Westfield White City mall for about 3 hours, take the tube to Canary wharf, and take the tube back to Brentford and walk home to clock that number of steps (You cannot but burn some fat). Or to bring it home, you need to walk for about 8km to hit 10K steps. Roger that! So I will definitely recommend you get one of those and if you already have one, actually use it! There are many different ones out there, including the new Smart watches that are reigning now! As for the weighing scale, I will definitely recommend that as well. I think it is an essential component of your weightloss program, as weighing yourself regularly helps you measure early progress and motivates you to continue to press hard.

3. Surround yourself with people who are fitness minded or have similar weightloss goals: This one is super important especially at the beginning. Fortunately again for me, it appears that everyone in my family decided that 2016 was going to be their year of weight loss. From those competing with the Nike app to run 30kms a day, to those aiming to walk 10K steps a day, and for those that changed the diet plan to one week smoothie, one week no-oil diet, I was surrounded by people who wanted to do something about their weight. Great! I also had a group of colleagues at work, who ideally should be worrying about other problems other than weight loss, because they will all give Angelina Jolie a run for her money, who chose to make 2016 their year of the ‘FITFAM’ . It just so happened that I was the fattest among the group, and I joined them. So what started as “I’m trying to hit 10K steps a day” turned into a routine 3 days a week walking program, and eventually became walking/running program, but I will tell you about that later.
4. Enroll in a physical activity program that you enjoy: For me it is tennis (lawn tennis). I stopped playing tennis for many years and picked it up again early 2015. But I was lazy about it, and just did it cos I liked it. When I decided I was going to lose some weight, I hired a professional tennis coach to train me, correct my technical errors, and improve my game. This coach is wicked though, because he must have been trained in the days of IBB when sports was still big in Nigeria, and the guy had no mercy. He worked me like crazy and had no pity. Yet he will call me “Aunty Funke”. My first few sessions with him were hellish, and I could not avoid them since my money was involved, and I must chop my money including the change…But he is very good. He always showed up on time, went through the practice sessions for the day, and was very disciplined. Once I tried to take a class off because I had a meeting that was going to end late and he asked if I could come in at 6am instead of that evening. Who does that? No be grand slam challenge o! On top of my own money again. So if coach can wake up to train me at 6am, who am I that I cannot make it for the session? Aside from the coach factor, who mainly took my game to the next level, I was committed to my practice sessions because I truly enjoy playing tennis. I am happy to run up and down the court in my spare time just hitting that yellow ball all over the place. Now I am trying with keeping the ball within the inner court. Whew! So, go back to that physical activity you enjoy doing and will not mind doing at every given opportunity, be it yoga classes, pilates, dancing, running marathons or half marathons, swimming, wharever! Just make sure you are enrolled in something you love, and it will be easy to stay committed to it and find time for it. It also makes you happier in the long run.

Lastly, nothing motivates more than positive results/outcomes. The first time I lost 1kg motivated me to lose the next, and it didn’t take too long for people to start noticing the signs, even when I had only lost about 4kgs. The mere fact that the signs became noticeable and most people were quick to show surprise at the progress I was making, was enough to keep me going. So go for it. The first time is the hardest, but it only gets easier. The first week is the toughest, but it will get better. Once you stand on that scale and see that your efforts have started to pay off, you will aim for more and continue to strive to meet your goals.

Before I kill you with too much information like a lecturer, I will pause for a bit here. Find your motivation and feel free to share your discovery or new purchases! (Fitbit had better read this post o…..with all this free marketing campaign).  In my next posts, I will get into the how I did it, and the required lifestyle changes.