How I lost 45 pounds (and you can too)
Welcome to the Lobeless Method!
Are you ready to lose weight? Are you ready to love you body? To feel sexy? Are you ready to stop feeling so sluggish and have more energy? If you're ready, Give my method a try, fall in love with your body and you're health.
It’s not going to be easy, I can promise you that. If you want results, you have to do the work. There's no pill or anything I'm selling you. You have to make life changes, which can be difficult so go at you're own speed.
Let me preface this method by letting you know, I used to hate working out. To add fuel to the fire, I have a heart problem so I have to watch my heart rate otherwise I’d pass out crushing myself with a weight or falling over, not cute and not helpful. I only started because 1. When I went to the doctor and was weighed about seven months ago, I was a few pounds from 190 and 2. I was being supportive of a friend.
So I originally started with just cardio. I was using the elliptical and doing about 4 to 6 miles while upping the resistance constantly. After I was done, my friend was still going so I moved on to some other stuff. I did leg extensions and leg lifts, bench press, military press, and stationary bike. I would spend the rest of the time stretch. *Important* Stretch before working out. Warm up your muscles. Keep positive thoughts, when you want to quit, remember why you’re working towards the goal.
I did this for a while but due to school and life, I missed a bunch gym trips (we were using the gym at his apartment complex). I also wasn’t noticing a huge difference. I toned up, but I didn’t feel like I was making the progress I wanted. So instead, I did some research and decided I was going to do this my way instead. All I owned was 3 and 5 pound dumbbells and an exercise ball. Using those, that’s actually how I lost the majority of the weight and got amazing tone in my arms and shoulder.
The Lobeless Method was born.
I was a full time student at the time, so I had a lot of free time. Using the dumbbells I would do all kinds of lifts but from research, I also learned that I could alter some of moves, different angles, different lift areas, and sometimes I would find ways to alter the exercise so it would activate different muscle groups.
I would use my exercise ball when doing certain dumbbell exercises. I also used it for push-ups. In all reality, the exercise ball just took up space, I ended up deflating it and put it away. I didn’t use it enough to really justify the space it took up.
I would also spend time stretching and by time I mean twenty or so minutes. While I was slimming down and toning up, I didn’t check my weight. I judged everything by how I felt and how my body felt and looked. I fell in love with moving my body. We take that for granted but if you can honestly fall in love with moving your body, then working out doesn’t seem like a chore. You become grateful for every pound you lift, every rep you do, every set you finish. I would take one to two days off so my muscles could recuperate. On those days, I still did my stretching because it just felt good to stretch. But I would dance. I’m no dancer. It was not beautiful or graceful but it kept me moving.
One of the biggest things to remember is diet counts more than exercise. I don’t like cooking red meat so it would usually be chicken or fish. I would make sure 3/4th of my meals would be vegetables. Stir-fry’s were an easy go to meal. Occasionally Indian food, or my attempt. I, personally, don’t eat breakfast. I’ll usually eat a full lunch or dinner. I may have a small meal somewhere else. Just remember to make healthy choices, its okay to splurge occasionally just remember a splurge can halt progress.
So, that’s the method I used to slim and tone. To make it seem like I wasn’t doing work, I would watch tv while I did it. After a while I would stop counting and keeping track. I looked up home exercises. I tried things and I would save images of charts with exercises on them, I would try new ones but I ended up with the little routine I had.
Let me give you some advice that I wish someone told me.
Find your reason for working out. Do you want to look good in a swimsuit or naked? Do you want to improve your health? If you have a reason and that reason really matters to you, you won’t let anything get in your way.
Don’t use a scale or limit it to once a month, less if possible. The number on the scale isn’t important, it’s how you look and feel.
Don’t give up. If you end up skipping your workout for a few days and binging on treats, it doesn’t mean you have to give up,
Buy cute workout clothes (Old Navy has adorable workout stuff for good prices) so you can look cute while you work out.
It helps to learn what muscle group you’re working when you do a certain exercise and what it does. Does it rotate something, lift your arm up, and bring your arm down? If you know what it does, you can imagine how you can modify the exercise for the best result.
Do workouts you enjoy, if you hate what you’re doing, you won’t follow through.
Limit sweets and soda intake, also be careful of sauces you add to food. Spices are your best bet and you can find a thousand ways to cook things.
No two people will lose weight the same way. Perhaps you lose more than me, or even less. It can be frustrating but remember, you're building a stronger body either way.
I think that’s all I got, but in 7 months, I’ve lost 50 pounds and I look and feel great. I hope if you give it a try, you see some results you want. If you want to be super nerdy about the science and evolution of working out I highly recommend “The New Encyclopedia of Modern Body Building by Arnold Schwarzenegger” It’s an awesome read filled with more knowledge than my brain could handle. I would have to go back to look things up.
So I wish you all good luck! If you decide to give it a try let me know how it goes, what worked for you? What didn't? Did you alter the idea? How long have you been doing it?
Vibe Higher,
Lobeless
