Hi, I’m Nyny, and here I will share my story and experiences with weight loss attempts and trying to lose weight to become healthy. Learn more about me on my About Page. I hope you stay here with me for a bit as I share my story, which can help you with your weight loss journey.

I know in this busy world, many of us sometimes are pressed for time. If that is your case, feel free to scroll down to the end of the page to find out how you can learn more about my journey and what worked for me right away. However, I would love to have you stick around and engage in reading and digesting my story and journey to find the best way to lose weight fast since it helps you understand why what I did worked. I also share what I do now that is working for me. So, now that I have you here, whatever you do, let’s get started.

It is widely known that obesity, which is the same as being overweight, can make us unhealthy and unhappy. Did you realize that this means that being healthy involves our mental state? I was always trying to find the best way to lose weight fast. But was that the best way to achieve my weight loss goals? As I asked myself that question, I decided I needed to look at what my health really looked like first. At my present age, 48, it is expected that weight would be more challenging to lose. At this stage in my life I had to reassess where I was with my health.

A Look at My Overall Health

For a lot of stages in my life I have been unhappy because I have not felt like I was at my ideal weight. Many times, I came to the conclusion that I needed to lose weight to become happy. I then understood that once I found a good way to lose weight, I would be in a good place with myself which would contribute to my overall health.

We don’t realize sometimes that our state of mind also speaks to our health. Is being unhappy is also a sign of being unhealthy? If it is, I obviously was unhealthy at two different levels already since mentally I was also not ok.  Let’s examine that for a minute. To do so, I am sharing the meaning of health here.

What is Health?

According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary, Health is a condition when your body, mind, or spirit are sound, when you are free from diseases that manifest physically and free of pain. It is also a condition when someone is doing well also referred to as well-being.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “Health is a state of physical, mental, and social well-being in which disease and infirmity are absent.”

Experts agree that to maintain health we should practice a healthy lifestyle. It is believed that physical and mental well-being contribute to this style of living.

The WHO stated that health is not just a state, but also “a resource for everyday life, not the objective of living; it is a positive concept, emphasizing social and personal resources, as well as physical capacities.”

Some ways that people can improve their health is by exercising, getting enough sleep, maintaining a healthy body weight, limiting alcohol use, and not smoking.

I have experienced a yo-yo effect in my weight all my life. I was slim as a young kid until about 13 years old when I had my first diagnosis involving my hormones. Apparently due to an imbalance my menstrual flow did not stop for two consecutive months. Our Physician prescribed Oral Contraceptives to remedy the problem. After that I experienced a constant change in weight. Then I ballooned to a size 12 in clothing when I was only 18 years old. Throughout my life I have had hard times losing the weight and I have had miraculous episodes when my weight has dropped almost without me trying very hard.

I also remember that in many stages in my life most of the time my health was not to its optimum. In fact, many of these times that I was either too heavy were because of consuming some type of medication. The times when I was slimmer were because I had become ill. It took me a while to realize all this, but I finally did. So, while I was trying to find a method that worked for me to lose weight, I was also fighting things that had made me ill, that had pushed my weight to numbers I was unhappy with and had impacted my overall health.

Other Reasons Why I Wanted to Lose Weight

So, you are hearing that being overweight made me unhappy. That of course made me feel sad. Sadness is a mood and emotion that begins in the brain and it affects our mental state. Therefore, I was also unhealthy because I was not in a state of well-being and was not sound in mind. In fact, I am sure many times I was about to fall into a state of Depression. Depression is an illness and one to be reckoned with. Luckily my insistence on finding stories of other people who were experiencing the same thing gave me the motivation to fight off the thoughts that could get me in that state. I did not allow them to consume me for long periods of time. I usually bounced back and tried again to see if I could lose weight. I wanted to be happier, so I continued trying to find ways to shed the pounds.

Being overweight can also cause the development of some diseases. Some of these are known as chronic. Heart Disease, Diabetes, High Blood Pressure, and many other diseases can develop when you are overweight.

I have always been concerned of my health because I have always wanted to be healthy. At some point in my life I realized that to feel well I needed to be healthy. Throughout my life I have had episodes when I feel pain because of being overweight. Sometimes swelling especially in my entire body has caused me pain and discomfort. It has made it difficult to walk sometimes. I have felt back pain because of being overweight. Limited movement due to the weight has stopped me from exercising which I also know is a contributor to good health. This means your daily activities are limited. This too can impact our mental well-being.

As you can see, there are many reasons why your weight, and being overweight, can have a negative effect on your health. Therefore, it was very important for me to reach my ideal weight. But what was my ideal weight also known as healthy weight and how could I reach that goal?

According to the Centers of Disease and Control and Prevention (CDC), “the key to achieving and maintaining a healthy weight isn’t about short-term dietary changes. It’s about a lifestyle that includes healthy eating, regular physical activity, and balancing the calories you consume with the calories your body uses. Managing your  weight contributes to good health now and as you age.”

Eating Habits – Is It Really About What We Eat? Is It About the Power of Will?

Have you seen the TV shows where people who morbidly obese and want to undergo a surgery to reduce their stomach size are asked by the physician to lose some weight on their own before they can undergo the operation? The physician provides an eating plan and sends the patient on their way to begin a weight loss journey on their own. To ensure the patient is successful the diet plan provided includes specific foods. Not only is the physician trying to see if the patient will succeed by following his plan and changing their eating habits, but also if they have the will power required to meet the goal.

Health is usually achieved when we lose weight. You may not be healthy because you are overweight. From my experience, to become healthy and feel good, I have had to change my eating habits every time I tried. And I have had to dress myself with some will power to follow a diet plan.

It is said you are what you eat. Although my blog is about health and weight loss, this also encompasses many things including food. If you are like me, you enjoy food. For most of my life, when I included too many carbs in my diet, I gained pounds. And my culture absolutely includes the yummy and tasty foods made of it. Every time I resorted back to eating carbs or high sugar foods, or cheated for too long, or just stopped following a diet low in carbs, body pains and inflammation returned.

There is also a saying that goes, if you are doing the same thing repeatedly and it is giving you the same result, that means you must change what you do to get the result you want. So, if resorting to carbs, high sugar foods and eating what is known as unhealthy does not work for us, then why do we keep going back to consuming the same things?

There is no question we have the power of the mind to control what we decide to eat, so is it what we eat? Is it will power? The answer in my opinion is both. We can control what we eat and how we eat because everyone has the will power to do it. And yes, what we eat also matters. We envision diets as a bad thing because we think they will always be this bland, not flavorful food that we will grow tired and bored of eating daily. We hate the connotation of the word diet because it sounds as something restrictive. Yet, I found out that there are things we can eat, that we can make to taste incredible, are healthy for you, and can help you shed some pounds. It may be called a diet, but it does not feel that way.

My Weight Loss Journey – Coming Up Next – The Many Things I Tried to Lose Weight

With that note, I leave you to begin learning more about my weight loss journey. You will learn what I experienced and the many things I tried including diets, weight loss pills, natural and organic herbs, vitamins, and supplements until I reached my goals and thereby became healthy again.

Everyone who struggles with weight has a story to tell. The more we learn from the experience of others, the more we too can succeed in achieving our own goals.

Check out my next post on my weight loss journey.

If you are pressed for time and would like to learn more about how I have lost weight and maintained it, you can visit my Best Foods to Lose Weight Post. In it, I describe the best foods and diet that have helped me and the two things I added to my daily routine to help me shed the pounds. I still suggest you review my entire blog so you can get a better sense of why what I did worked and what I am doing now work for me, why it may work for you, or not, but I do understand time is precious and very valuable for most if not all of us. 

I hope you return and visit often as I continue posting updates and other great information that can help you on your weight loss to become healthier journey.

Wishing you all the best,

Nyny