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Back in the day, when I experienced all of my weight gain, I went from being a petite size 2 to this:

My brother and I at Christmas

 Oh did I mention that it happened within 5 months? 

You would think that I would have realized pretty quickly that I was gaining weight, right?   I mean my boobs were growing at an almost uncontrollable rate, my pants were getting tighter, but you know what?

I was in denial.

I made every excuse possible…

Oh, I must be having a “boob-spurt”.

The stupid dryer made all of my clothes shrink!

Oh, it’s just a few pounds, I’ll be able to knock them off in no time.

Do these sound familiar? 

I wish I could say that those days are long behind me, but now I am seeing those closest to me struggling with the same issue (I won’t drop names). Announcing regularly that they’ve lost 10 pounds, even though those 10 pounds were lost 1 year ago and they’ve added the back plus some over that time.

It’s not that she is lying, its not that any of us are lying… it’s just that we’re in denial of our bodies. We want to keep celebrating a time when we were successful and sometimes accepting the opposite is hard.

Weight gain is a extremely difficult thing for women to accept. As long as we can do the “wiggle” to get our clothes on, then there is no problem! Forget the extra baggage hanging over or that we feel miserable. In our head we say: They zipped up! That’s all that matters.

Source

Studies Show Denial Is An Epidemic

In a recent study published by the University of Washington it was found that most people don’t have an accurate image of their bodies. Most participants when asked about their weight fluctuations said they had lost weight, but yet research shows obesity rates continue to climb.

Instead of losing weight, most of the 775,000 people surveyed had actually added 1-2 pounds within the year. That might now sound like a lot, but adding 1-2 pounds per year consistently can make a huge difference.

Here’s an interested quote from the report:

She {Sharon Zarabi} added that, “many people are in denial about their weight and as obesity rates rise, larger body frames are becoming more socially acceptable. Citizens are taking less personal responsibility and use the excuse of work hours, stress, and food availability as obstacles to managing their health.”

Make A Full Denial Recover

Are you in denial of your current figure? Have you noticed a few of your clothes starting to fit a bit tighter or a bit of extra jiggle when you wave good-bye? Maybe deep down you know, but you don’t want to get on a scale.

I don’t know why weight gain is such an embarrassing issue to talk about.  Most of us have been there, in fact, over the past year I put on about 8 pounds… you might have noticed on Youtube but this is the first announcement I’ve made. Oh it feels so good to get it off my chest!

While some of it was muscle, some of it clearly wasn’t. About 3 months ago I finally stopped denying it and took action. Okay, see now that wasn’t so embarrassing.

Step 1: Awareness and Acceptance 

First push aside the idea that gaining weight is embarrassing so that you can fully acknowledge whatever changes have happened to your body.

Now that you’re being honest and you’re stepped out of denial it’s time to take action.

Step 2: Set a plan.

What can you do to:

1. Stay out of denial
2. Work towards losing the fat and getting back to what you want
3. Keep accountable

All three of those things are going to be crucial for helping you keep your eyes open to what’s going on with your body.

While I am not a big fan of using a scale to track your progress (read here), I am a huge fan of tracking progress with measurements, photos and self-awareness (honest self-awareness).

To be able to track all of the above and expect results, you have to have a plan. Don’t just read this questions, answer them… on a piece of paper (such as a workout notebook).

• What changes are you going to make to your current eating habits?
• How many times are you going to work out this week?
• What workouts will you do?
• Who will you “check in” with to help keep accountable?

You can read about health and fitness and nutrition here at Lifting Revolution all you want, but please take what you read and use it. Put together a clean eating plan and workout program- both of which can be found here .

Step 3: Time to take action.

You’ve laid it out now follow your plan. Seriously, it’s that easy. When you lay it all out there, you know step by step what you can do to improve your body (and health) all that is left is to actually do it!

Need a workout? Try this one for the week:

How did I lose the recent weight? 

I made it a priority. I stopped making excuses to have a second plate at dinner and I made sure that each workout I did, I gave it everything I had. My issue was that I had gotten a bit too relaxed and forgot that even healthy foods have calories. Eating too much of anything can add the weight on.

It’s all about awareness. Awareness to your body, to the foods you put in your mouth and the activities that you do from day to day.

I promise, you can accomplish your goals. You simply have to be aware of where you’re starting and where you want to end. You’re at the starting line now… what’s your finish line look like?

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