48:7 Fit with small, steady steps

Welcome to the Trailblazer FM podcast. This is your host Lee, and on today's show, I'm gonna share with you the secret to weight loss. Well, maybe my secret to weight loss, but not the secret. After all, I believe everybody is different, and what works for one will not necessarily work for the other.

Therefore, before this episode continues, let me put in the following disclaimer. This is not dietary or weight loss advice. I am not a dietician. I am not a fitness expert. I am simply sharing my story, in the hope that you will be inspired to change whatever it is in your life that is frustrating you.

At the end of this episode, I hope that you will have something you want to change, and it doesn't have to be weight loss, and you'll be able to set yourself a goal with small, achievable actions that will lead to that big change that you want to see in your life. So let me go ahead and share with you my story.

Over a year ago, I was 222 pounds. For you folks in the uk. I'm gonna hit pause, I'm gonna calculate that so I can tell you what it is in stone. Bear with me, be right back.

Okay, so I'm back and that is 15.85 stone. Essentially for my height of six foot, I was significantly overweight. I was experiencing the effects of that as well. I was often very hot and sweaty. Sorry for the extra details there. We have two flights of stairs in our home, and by the time I'd got up the second flight of stairs, I was puffing and panting, and my heart was beating in my chest horribly.

I found I wasn't sleeping very well, I was always tired and lethargic. Also, just, you know, on a general level of feeling happy in my own skin, I just felt horrible. I felt, um, ugly and, and sweaty again, and, uh, and just, I just felt like a mess. I didn't feel attractive to my wife, which sucked.

I mean, she, to this day is awesome, she doesn't mind what size I am. She still loves me for who I am, et cetera, which is very hard, to process, isn't it? As, as an individual, as much as we know our other halves love us for who we are, we still feel crappy about ourselves. And I was certainly feeling crappy about myself in so many ways, and it was affecting me everywhere.

It was affecting me in business, being able to get work done, being able to focus, being able to show up even on the YouTube channel, I've just felt so mortified about, you know, how I looked, how I let myself go. Um, and, and equally in, in my own family life, I was so tired all the time. I couldn't be as present as I possibly could be for my family.

I was exhausted. I was comfort eating and then feeling worse about myself. Oh my God. It was just this horrible, vicious cycle and I remember so many different times, me walking past the mirror in shops and just not liking what I saw, knowing that not only was I, had, I physically let myself go, um, and that it was affecting me mentally and, and physically in so many ways, but also that I was potentially repeating what my father had done.

You may remember an episode many years ago when my dad passed away of a sudden heart attack. It was a complete shock, and, um, he was unfortunately overweight and had heart disease and died age 62, which was ridiculously young in this day and age. And he was that sort of person who had so much more he still wanted to do. My brother was only 17 years old when my dad passed, so he's missed out on so much time, uh, with my dad as well. And I, I look at my own children and I think, I don't wanna repeat that. I don't want my kids to be in their teens and I'm gone. 

Anyway. Uh, this is a Ramly episode, but hopefully you will, you'll get the, the meat and potatoes from this somewhere. And, I just remember just every year ago we were down in a place called Rushden Lakes, which I like to go and shop with, with the family, and I just, I just turned to my wife and said, "I just feel so unhealthy. I feel so big. Um, I feel so worried about the future and my ability to be there for everybody. I just feel so crap and, and things have to change, and I don't know what it is that I need to do". 

And I shared with her my frustration of, you know, the, the diets I'd tried and the exercise I'd tried and, and how nothing really seemed to work. And it got me to thinking, you know, I really believe that small, achievable actions lead to big change. And I've told people, many times in their agencies that you shouldn't try and run before you can walk. You shouldn't be getting stressed out when your agency isn't turning over a million dollars when it's not even turning over a hundred thousand dollars yet. 

We as humans want to get to the results really, really quick, and by doing that, we actually get so disillusioned with the process that we give up along the way. And I realized that that's exactly what I was doing with my weight loss. I wasn't accepting that I was not going to lose 40 odd pounds that I probably needed to lose overnight, that it was going to take time, and that I had to therefore learn to be happy in the skin that I was in, and then slowly, take my time in losing the weight through small, achievable actions, which is a phrase I so often say in agency life. You can build your web agency through small, achievable actions that lead to big change. So surely I could also lose weight through small, achievable actions. 

Therefore, Here is my exact secret that worked for me. 

Step one was quite simply to go onto the NHS website, tap in all of my details with regards to my height, uh, my weight, et cetera, and find out what my ideal weight would be, which was apparently 180 pounds. So that gave me a target. I was 222 pounds. I was grossly overweight. I had about 42 or so pounds to lose. 

Next I found an app which would allow me to calorie control. I could enter in all of the food that I was eating on a daily basis, and I could set myself a target. So that app actually gave me a target for losing about 20 pounds over six months. I recognized I wasn't gonna lose 40 pounds quickly, and I thought maybe it was reasonable to lose, say, 10 to 20 pounds over six months. It suggested I, um, have 2000 calories a day as my cap, and I now realize I was probably eating nearly 3000 calories a day through snacks. And like, you don't realize how many hidden calories there are that you're eating. It is literally insane.

And then the final thing I decided to do was to set a goal, a streak essentially, of walking 10,000 steps a day as well. So I downloaded the STEPS app, which you can have on your phone. It also syncs to my watch. And it tracks how many steps I was taking. I keep, um, joking nowadays to my wife that I should launch a diet program called the LeeJ 2k 10k. Essentially it was me, Lee Jackson eating 2000 calories a day and walking 10,000 steps per day. 

So I, I kept it up. I kept it going and three months later I didn't really see that many results. I could see I was losing a few pounds and I recognized and reminded myself this was going to take time. So I celebrated every pound as a win and I kept going, kept monitoring, but just kept going.

Lo and behold, by the end of six months, I had lost a significant amount of weight. I had lost the whole 20 and probably some more, which was amazing, and I was already starting to feel so much more confident, so much more energized.

I could even start to see the results in my clothes because things were now baggy. I could fit into clothes that I hadn't been able to get into for such a long time. So already, by losing 20 pounds over six months, over a long period of time, I had seen that results can happen over time. Those small, achievable actions I was doing were leading to significant change and sure it was taking a long time, but I was, I was being consistent. I was doing it. I kept doing it. 

Well, fast forward to now nearly an entire year, and I've actually reached my ideal weight. I'm anything from 179 pounds to 182 pounds per day, depending on when I weigh myself and how many cups of tea I've had. Uh, but essentially I have hit, the ideal weight that I want to be, I don't want to lose any more weight. And about, uh, four months ago, the LoseIt app, uh, once you hit your target, then suggests what you should eat to maintain. So I'm usually eating anything from 2000 to 2,300 calories per day. 

Hey, and the other cool thing is throughout this entire time, because I've been doing steps that has been burning calories, so even though you've got this 2000 calorie, quote unquote limit, it will give you bonus calories if you've burned calories, which means you can actually eat a little bit more food. So psychologically for me, it wasn't that hard. I wasn't cutting out tons of food and sitting around starving all day. I was actually able to eat because I was also moving. And by moving, I was burning calories, which was giving me those calorie credits. 

So anyway, that's. That's essentially it in a very long nutshell. I calculated what my ideal weight would be based on my bmi. I set myself a calorie limit using the LoseIt app. I will put a link in the description. I also used the Steps app. I will put a link in the description, uh, to make sure I walked a minimum of 10 K steps a day, and then I accepted that it was gonna take a very long time, a minimum of six months to even start to see any sorts of results. Once I accepted that, I just kept doing it and kept doing it, and kept doing it, and kept doing it. Low and behold. Six months later, I already started to see significant change, and as of the last few months, I have been my ideal weight. 

Now, let me just share as I wrap up some of the benefits of this. Essentially it's the opposite of what where I was. I now actually feel really attractive again, and it's boosted, I won't give you any details, but it certainly improved the relationship that I have with my wife, which was really, really important to me. You know, I feel confident and happy around her and she knows that and she appreciates that and, that's improved our relationship tenfold.

It's also improved the relationship I have with my children because I've just got so much more energy. I can go for long walks with them. I can run around the front room with Edison and just go crazy for hours and not get tired. I can stay up for longer. I don't have to go for naps. I don't have to go to sleep early. Just, I've just got so much more energy and I'm enjoying life. And also psychologically for me, I, I know that I'm doing my very best not to repeat, what happened to my dad. 

I'm, I'm hoping that other than being hit by a bus or something that I just can't control. I should be around for a very long time for my family because I'm making sure I'm being healthy. 

But equally in the business, so much has changed. I am, I'm like a, a new person.

I'm energized. I am excited about what I'm doing. I'm really focused. I'm no longer avoiding doing things where I have to show up as me again. I was pretty much hiding cuz I, I didn't want people to look at me. Um, Which is really sad, and I shouldn't be ashamed of who I am and what I look like at any size. But we are our own worst critics, aren't we? We are our own worst enemies. We put ourselves under, uh, uh, such high standards and an incredibly harsh spotlight, and I was certainly doing that to myself. 

However, the results of this have, you know, allowed me to feel a lot more freer. Um, and express myself again through, uh, the business. I'm just so excited about the potential for the future because I feel like I'm finally in control of my weight. I'm finally in control of my health. Um, I'm finally enjoying my family life again. I'm more present. Therefore, I can also enjoy the work that I can do so, so much more. 

It's really hard really to express in words, isn't it? The impact of what something has over your life and when you're able to break that, the positive impact that it has in so many areas. So I guess you're just gonna have to take my word for it, because I cannot formulate the words. 

Biggest takeaways? Hmm. Biggest takeaways would be number one, small achievable actions lead to big change.

Number two. Big change takes a long time. So just accept it and go with it and don't try and rush. 

I think that's my two biggest takeaways. That's the two biggest takeaways I've taken from this. You can apply that to business. You can apply that to weight loss. You can apply that to anything in life that you, you want to change.

So what do you wanna change in your life? What's your goal? Do what I did. Calculate what you want, what's your ideal? So for me it was the ideal BMI. Then set yourself some actions that you can do on a daily or weekly basis that will help you towards that goal. For me, it was setting a a calorie limit and walking 10k steps per day for as long as it took.

So what do, what do? What's your calorie limit? What's your 10 k steps per day on whatever it is that you are trying to achieve? Let us know. There is a link in the show notes and you can join us on the website. Sign up for completely free and please comment and share what your secret to success is. What is your secret to weight loss? What is your secret to conquering those vices or achieving those things that you really want to achieve in life? 

I hope this was a helpful episode. Thank you for bearing with me as well cuz I've said a few times I kind of hid from social media for an awfully long time. I am back and on that my Twitter is looking rather sparse. We unfortunately, lost our Twitter account because I thought I was deactivating it. Didn't realize I was actually deleting it after a period of so many days. So please follow us on @TrailblazerFM on Twitter. We're currently as of recording at 151 wonderful followers and I would really love to reconnect with you, um, if I have lost touch with you because I "deloted...deloted?? aahh" because I deleted a whole load of my social accounts cuz I was kind of hiding.

So I really do love everyone. I would love to reconnect. I will also put a picture of me on the website with holding up proudly a pair of shorts that I was wearing just over a year ago, um, versus what I look like now. So head on over there, link in the show notes, go and uh, have a laugh of that. Share your thoughts in the comments.

I hope you're enjoying this kind of new, more chatty style of podcast. Uh, there will be some more interviews coming up. We've actually recorded several of them, so we're editing those and they'll be coming out soon as well. Um, if you wanna be involved to let me know in the comments or email lee@trailblazer.fm.

If we don't see you in the comments, if we don't see you in my inbox, and if we don't see you on social media, then how about we see you in the next episode.