A little story about how I lost 30+lbs without going to the gym.
Some weeks ago, Facebook reminded me of a memory from two years back where both my kid and my cat were dressed as dragons for Halloween. They both looked adorable.
I was in that picture too.
But I wasn’t adorable.
I weighted over 180 pounds and, sitting down with a mask covering my face, I looked like a big blob. Not that 180 is particularly huge or that I was really out-of-control fat. But I was 30-40 pounds more than I’ve been all my life. And it did something to me that I hated: it made me loose control over my body.
TIGHTS / SPORTS BRA / TOP / SNEAKERS / BAG
WATER BOTTLE / WATCH BANDS / WEIGHTS
At 180+ lbs I couldn’t do push ups. I couldn’t run up a few flights of stairs. I couldn’t run after my kid. My knees hurt, my ankles swelled. Clothes didn’t fit. I couldn’t stop eating. And I didn’t want to put effort into change.
Until one day I had no other choice.
If you follow me on social media, you probably heard this story. One day I posted this picture on Instagram and a very sweet girl, long-time follower, sincerely congratulated me on my second pregnancy. I wasn’t pregnant at all. She didn’t do it to intentionally offend me. But she really thought I looked pregnant. And it finally hit me – maybe, just maybe, my gut became too big and now it was in control, not me.
So it was time to try something new.
A problem for me was that I hate two things – gyms and diets. I didn’t want someone telling me what to eat. And I was too self conscious to go to a gym. So I started thinking logically how to go around this and found a solution to how to loose weight without going to the gym.
JACKET / LEGGINGS / SPORT BRA / TOP / SHOES
MAT / SOCKS / WATER BOTTLE / HAT / FITBIT
My number one issue was the fact that I ate too much. So I decided to tackle that first. You see, I took the phrase “eating for two” quite literally when I was pregnant and even carried it with me into the postpartum period (for another two years or so.) I could easily finish an enormous plate of food and then have an equally enormous plate of dessert. So I put a stop to that.
I cut portion sizes drastically, opting to eat less but more often if needed, thus boosting my metabolism. My goal was to reduce the size of my stomach. Logically speaking, the more you eat, the bigger your stomach becomes. And the bigger it gets, the more food you will need to eat to get full. So I went hungry for a few days eating portions much smaller than I was used to until I stopped feeling that need to eat more and more.
I started listening to my body.
Here are a few simple things I did to help me loose weight without going to the gym:
- Only eat when you are hungry and for no other reason.
- Stop eating as soon as you feel full.
- Don’t eat things that make you feel sick or unpleasant afterwards.
- If you have a craving, indulged but stop once the craving is satisfied (turns out you don’t have to eat an entire carton of ice cream to satisfy a craving!)
SHORTS / SPORTS BRA / TOP / SNEAKERS
JACKET / APPLE WATCH / HEADBAND / BOXING GLOVES
This started working almost immediately- I lost 8 pounds in one week!
I was so excited I started looking for other ways to shrink my belly. That’s when I came across breathing exercises – Something I could do on the go that wasn’t too difficult! I literally googled something like “how to loose weight without going to the gym” or something like that and that’s what came up :))
The idea behind breathing exercises is to tone your stomach by using your abdomen muscles and diaphragm to breathe. You suck your gut in as tight as you can and let all the air out of your body. Then you let go and inhale as much air as you can. Sounds pretty simple but it actually takes some practice. You pull all of your stomach in until you can see an outline of your rib cage, using the muscles in you belly. At first, it can take some effort to even find the muscles you need. But after a while, you begin to do it subconsciously throughout the day.
With breathing exercises came yoga as a natural progression. I’m going to tell you right away that I have very little experience in it. But one thing I focus on is balance. Very simple things like standing on one foot, touching your toes or arching your back without tumbling over go a long way.
My favorite thing in the world became standing in a tree pose (on one foot with your arms up together in the air) somewhere by the ocean and just looking straight ahead. That’s where I found it again – the control I was missing over my own body. I found my balance again. And it made this experience much more worthwhile than just loosing some pounds and buying some new clothes.
I’ve used some products over the last year to help me on this journey. They definitely helped me loose weight without going to the gym. Many didn’t work but the once that stood out to me the most were Anti-Cellulite Leggings (which heat up as you work out and help you shed extra inches and smooth out your skin!) and this waist trainer (especially necessary right after birth!).
Keep in mind that you don’t need to spend a dollar to change how you eat or live your life. But having a new cute pair of sneakers does help get you motivated! Wishing you a productive and healthy start to the year!
