Throughout these past few years, my fitness journey has been up and down. In high school I was always active with sports year round, but when I got to college, I didn’t have practices to go to anymore and I could do whatever I wanted, which meant not being as active. I would get consistent for a little bit, then fall off track, then get in a rhythm and a groove, then fall off track again. It was this endless cycle of “Yes, I’m going to start working towards my dream body!” Then a week and a half later, I’d either get sick or super busy with school and wouldn’t be working out anymore. I have so many photos on my phone of “before pictures” because I would really mean it this time when I say that I want to work hard and strengthen my body and get fit. These photos would be where I could look back and say this is what I looked like before I got fit. I’ve been doing that since 2017. It wasn’t until this year that I set the goal of working out five times a week and I’m proud to say I’ve still kept it up.
I can’t imagine going a day without working out because it really does help keep my sanity. I love my body, but it isn’t where I thought it would be nine months down the road of consistently working out. In February, I was losing inches off my waist and hips, but then I got sick and gained it all back. Ever since then, I feel like I haven’t had much progress of losing anything. I’m still the same weight and I don’t know why. I haven’t missed a workout and I’m super proud of that accomplishment. And it’s not intense training five days a week. Three days are dedicated to strength training with a 10-20 minute cardio warmup. Two days are strictly 30 minutes on the bike or stair-master. This is detailing a perfect fitness week. However, some days I can only do a 10-minute ab session or, if I’m really not feeling like an intense session, I’ll do some yoga. There is flexibility in that routine and I love it and want to think that it’s working. I really try to listen to my body and eat intuitively. Recently I’ve been thinking of that lyric from Lorde’s song Supercut, “In my head I do everything right.” I workout consistently and I drink 3 liters of water daily. For the past 63 days and counting I’ve had 10,000 steps a day. I don’t eat out all the time. I always try to eat whole foods. Yes, I have a portion control problem and can stuff my face with food, but I have self-control most of the time. So why am I not seeing any difference?
I’m wondering if maybe my body is just not liking the foods I’ve been eating, especially since I took the food sensitivity test that said I had moderate to high reactions of eggs, gluten and dairy. But I’ve really tried to cut back on those things these past few weeks. It just feels like my body is holding onto all the fat it can and it just does not want to go away. What am I doing wrong? Am I just not eating the right foods 100% of the time? Men can cut out one thing and they seem to immediately lose weight, while women have to cut out numerous things to even lose a couple of pounds.
I need to specify that I’m not writing this post to drag my body. I really do love my body and how it is capable of doing so many things. I’m so grateful I can do the things I can do. I’m just confused and discouraged. Maybe I’m just doing too much cardio or trying to do too much in my strengthening sessions. I just feel like my routine needs a revamp and maybe my mindset does too. I shouldn’t be focusing solely on the physical, but the mental too. I should focus on how working out makes me feel and rid the thoughts of not seeing any changes. Maybe all this time when I thought I wasn’t doing enough cardio and strength training I was really doing too much of it. I think I need to scale back a little bit and make a change from the inside out. One thing for sure that I need to do is not overthink it.
I thought I would write this post to show that every fitness journey takes time and that it’s different for everybody. Sometimes you think you are doing everything right in regards to your health and fitness, but nothing shows for it. Thanks for reading my little rant on how I feel at this point in my fitness journey. I am super curious if anyone has gone through this of just not seeing any results to the amount of time and effort you put into taking care of yourself. If you have any tips or suggestions, please leave them in the comments below!! <3