Source: Unsplash
My friend Tatiana Regan was sat talking to me this time two years ago about the possibility of going into hospital for a gastric bypass operation. When we met at school Tatiana was already pretty big and despite her efforts in recent years she just hadn’t been able to lose the weight. I voiced my concerns over this and told her that this seemed very unnatural and very final, to be playing around with organs like that. Tatiana Regan then agreed that she would give weight loss one last go, and then decide afterwards, and here is how she did it.
Routine
The first thing that Tatiana implemented was a routine, each day, sleeping at the same time, eating and drinking at the same time and exercising at the same time. This routine would help her to stay on top of her food and fitness goals.
Professional
Exercising when you are overweight is not easy and in fact it can be potentially dangerous. For this reason Tatiana Regan decided to pay for the support of a personal trainer, who custom-made a workout plan for her week by week. This was a really smart move because she had someone pushing her and someone who was constantly updating her fitness plan to match her progress. Another reason this was positive is because Tatiana was paying out for this service, so she had to use it.
Snacking Tips
Part of her preparation for her day would often involve a lot of snack prep, Tatiana was so used to picking throughout the day that she had grown really used to this habit so she had to make sure that she planned well for it. Instead of changing the habit, she simply changed the snack, so instead of crisps or sweets or chocolate, she would take containers filled with fruits, dried fruits and nuts, as well as salad veg such as cucumber, carrot sticks and celery. She tells me that this was the best decision which she made as it allowed her to keep picking through the day, with the weighty consequences.
Small Goals
In the past when she tried to lose weight she would give herself lofty goals such as losing 10kg, invariably she would fail at this and then feel bad about herself for not achieving her goal. Instead of doing that this time, she decided to set herself far smaller and more achievable goals. She would still have her eye on the 10kg mark for example, only she would be chasing that figure down 2kg at a time.
Meditation
Something which I didn’t know about until after she had lost the weight was how important meditation was to Tatiana during this time. One of the biggest issues she had in the past was a lack of focus when losing weight, which is why she decided to begin meditating in order to keep her focus.
And so the solution for Tatiana was to take ownership of her weight, outsource support via a personal trainer, implement a new routine, change her snack game and work on getting her mind focused, maybe you can do the same.