As I mentioned in last week’s blog, by the time I was 14 years old, I had developed a full blown eating disorder. I wasn’t bulimic. I wasn’t anorexic. But without a doubt, I had a terrible relationship with food in general.

I remember walking to school on an empty stomach and going the entire day without eating anything until I got home. And when I did eventually get home, I would usually just have a bowl of cereal or piece of toast, and that would be about it for the day. I was essentially living off less than 500 calories a day for months on end. I started taking ephedrine to help curb my hunger pangs, as I heard it had worked well as an appetite suppressant. I figured that now that the summer was over, I wouldn’t be able to exercise as much and therefore had to come up with a strategy that would allow me to maintain all the weight that I had lost. Foolishly, I thought starving myself would be the answer. And regrettably, I was absolutely wrong.

FOLLOWING THE FADS

Fad diets have been around for decades. Some even come around full circle and regurgitate their generic garbage every few years to the younger generations to buy into. Unfortunately if you’ve ever tried to lose weight, you most likely have at one point in your life followed a Fad Diet. Look, there is no shame falling victim to these FADS. I mean they look sexy on paper. And some of them actually even produce real results (albeit not long term results). However when I was trying to lose weight, the popular FAD Diets at the time didn’t seem appealing to me. They all promised a 2-3 pound weight loss each week. But I wanted  to achieve a 1 pound weight loss each day! And so I created my own diet in order to achieve my goal, which at that time I honestly didn’t find too difficult to follow. Unfortunately even though my plan wasn’t too challenging for me to follow, it also wasn’t realistic for me to follow for a prolonged period of time either. And so as soon as I started return to a somewhat “normal” nutritional plan after months of severe dieting, my body started to respond in unpredictable and negative ways.

WEIGHT LOSS 101 – WHAT NOT TO DO!

As a Personal Trainer/Online Coach, I’ve always believed that unless someone has a thyroid issue or is taking particular medications that can cause weight gain, then EVERYONE CAN AND SHOULD BE ABLE TO LOSE WEIGHT. Going down a number on the scale is not rocket science. However that doesn’t mean it’s easy to accomplish though. Losing weight is not just physically challenging, but more often then not, it’s actually more mentally challenging for most people that I work with.

And because of this mental barrier that most people have when it comes to “dieting”, I believe they look towards the FAD Diets because they offer “quick” and “easy” results. And this is why FAD Diets DON”T WORK in the long run!

An effective weight loss program DOES NOT offer “quick” results, because the quicker the results come, the faster they leave once the diet has finished.

An effective weight loss program DOES NOT offer “easy” results, because like anything in life, if you don’t work hard at what your trying to achieve, then you will never fully accomplish your goals.

An effective weight loss program DOES NOT drastically cut calories, eliminate certain macronutrients, or force you to drink green smoothies all day, because this is not sustainable for life.

An effective weight loss program DOES teach you how to eat correctly.

An effective weight loss program DOES allow you to have a healthy relationship with food.

An effective weight loss program DOES stop you from putting all the weight you lost back on within a few short months.

The problem was that at the time, I just hadn’t found that effective weight loss program yet……

HOW BODYBUILDING SAVED MY LIFE

The first time I set foot in a gym I was 15 years old. At that period in my life, I weighed a whopping 110lbs!!! My diet at that time consisted of Puffed Rice Cereal, Skim Milk and Bouillon Cubes. I was running an average of 20 miles each day. To say I was lean would be an understatement. In fact, I was too skinny. I was so underweight that I actually started to get made fun of by some of the very same people who had previously made fun of me when I was overweight!

Tired of being called a “weakling” for my lack of weight, my motivation now had shifted to putting on some size. I wanted to get big. I wanted to be powerful. I wanted to grow muscle. But just like when I wanted to lose weight, I had no idea how to do it.

But that all changed the following Summer. I took my time off from school to learn anything and everything I could about weight lifting. I read books, I skimmed through magazines, I watched videos (VHS back then), I educated myself to the best of my ability to put myself in a situation where I could achieve my next goal – to become a bodybuilder!

There was only one problem though. I quickly found out that in order to get big, I had to eat big. And due to my rocky relationship with calories that I had built up over the past few years, I was now afraid to eat because I was afraid to get fat again. My eating disorder had now become a bigger problem than I could ever imagine.

And it was now about to become my biggest problem I had ever faced.

Check Out Part 3 of “The Day I Got My Shit Together” next week!

Yours in Good Health,

Nick Cosgrove
Forever Fit Performance