How I will lose 35 pounds in 3.5 months
For months at a time, I was facing clinical depression and gaining weight. Over a very short amount of time, I gained 45lbs. I was asked by a friend that I hadn’t seen in a long time: “Oh, you gained the Covid 15?” I said, “No, I gained the depression 45!”
Eventually, as my depression got a little better, I managed to lose 10 pounds over the course of a few months. More recently, I luckily started to feel completely out of my depressed state. It was then that I decided I wanted to drop down to my ideal weight, which would mean I would need to lose an additional 35lbs. Not only that, I wanted to lose this weight as fast as I could . I decided I was going to lose 35lbs in 3.5 months. How? I shall explain!
Step 1. For starters, I cannot realistically expect to make all the necessary changes at once. My goals need to be big, aspirational goals but at the same time, they need to be achievable. I started by telling myself that I’m going to predominantly prepare my own meals and aim for 10k steps a day.
Step 2. Once that goal was satisfied, I moved on to focusing on being as plant-based / vegan as possible with a daily exercise on top of the original goal of 10k steps per day. I find it challenging to lift weights so I did two things: (1) most of my exercise came from dribbling and shooting a basketball, which I find to be fun. (2) I signed up for a personal trainer to keep me accountable for strength training on a bi-weekly basis.
Step 3. Next, I made it a goal to average 20k+ steps a day. This involved 1v1 basketball against a close friend for an hour a day, as well as walking across the city a lot. My strength training goals remained the same: 2–4 sessions a week. However, I added more time to stretch and roll out my muscles to avoid soreness.
Step 4. Now that I am down ~20 lbs and 1.5 months in, my goal will be to average 30k steps a day and eat mostly all nutritious food with small portions. I will also strength train 4x a week.
Step 5. To close out this journey of losing 35 pounds in 3.5 months, I will focus on ensuring that I do yoga, stretch, strength training, play sports and go for long walks (average 35k steps) every single day!
To help support this effort, I will also use a cognitive behavioral technique: reviewing advantage cards. Advantage codes are small cards that include multiple bullet points on why it is important to reach your goal, for example, “I’ll be able to beat all my friends in every sport” or “ I will look more attractive.“ I will aim to review this card of motivators twice a day.
The last motivator is that my close friend told me that if I do not lose this weight in time for his wedding which falls during this journey, I will no longer be invited to his wedding!
I think I got this! If you have any questions or want support, feel free to reach me at shahshaan@gmail.com or 6309651807.
