Yea!! Lisa achieved her Big Weight Loss Goal this week…26 kilos was her magic number, this is 57.2 pounds for those of you trying to convert in your head. Lisa started following Justin Thacker’s nutrition recommendations in September and started training in the gym EVERY DAY in the beginning of October, so it took her just over 5 months to achieve this goal.She had the courage to announce her Big Goal publicly on her own blog on 30 October to lose the 26 kilos by 1 March. This week Lisa was flooded with congratulations on her achievement! Many people asked her for “after” photos, which is totally to be expected, but Lisa didn’t publish any, why not?
Short answer; she isn’t finished yet! Long answer; because along the way to reaching her 26 kilo weight loss goal, Lisa discovered that the most important thing about achieving a big goal is that it restores the belief in yourself that you can succeed, that you are capable of whatever you set your mind to and are willing to work for. You can not only reach your goal, YOU CAN KILL IT!
I secretly celebrated Lisa’s 26 goal long ago, way before she achieved it. Why? I celebrated the day she started looking at it as simply an important milestone and dared to imagine herself moving past it. She stopped thinking in the limiting we we all do, ‘if only’. If only I could get to that goal, if only I could lose 26, and then one day she realized that 26 was only a matter of time and hard work. She knew she had this “initial goal” in the bag and started thinking out loud about what I like to refer to as the outrageous “bikini goal”! Now we are talking!
So I am publishing this photo of Lisa(without her permission) to show you what success looks like. It looks like HARD WORK! She is doing Preacher Curls, one of her 2 least favorite exercises, along with hyperextensions. You might consider this a “before photo” because it is not recent. But I see it as a work in progress photo, because even a photo taken only yesterday is a document of a moment in the past. There is no beginning and end, before of after, every day your body is changing. It is your choice to make it a positive change, leaner and stronger anyone?
I am totally new to “the weight loss maintenance game” myself, so I don’t claim to have it all figured out yet! But I think one of the keys to successful weight loss maintenance is to not look at yourself as a before and after, but instead as a fluid “work in progess”! This is why the strength training component is so important. I may have already nailed my weight loss goals beyond my expectations, but there is a workout sheet with my name on it prepped and ready to go every day! I am still getting stronger every day and the hard work shows.
I’m sure you want to know more about the “hows and whys” of Lisa’s success story and you’ll hear much more as it continues to unfold, I promise. She is not only a good friend, but the first Lab Rat experiment of my own. But the more my days become filled with discussions on weight loss and work outs, the more I know for sure that the change happens in our minds. I have become obsessed with understanding why we hold ourselves back and what it takes to break through to succeed.
Have you experienced a “Big Goal Breakthrough” of your own or do you dare to set your big goal now? I’d love to hear about it in the comments!
