My journey is more than a fitness one, its spiritual too

Weight loss story from @NeizhaB

After a few previous diets Neizha took it upon herself to make sure she lost weight by changing her lifestyle completely and doing research to ensure that she lost weight.

I wasn’t always unhealthy. However; my entire life has been a fitness battle. I never played sports and I never liked doing many activities. I danced at a younger age but I had my first diet in the 6th grade when I was no longer a part of the dance school and had to do it on my own. June 2013 was my last diet but since I didn’t do my research and learn that muscle made your scale go up I decided that was my last diet and I stopped putting in the effort.

So after a long life of struggling and being a bit bigger than my peers I decided to make the final and official health change. This was my hundredth time trying to do a diet. So, in April 2015 I looked in the mirror and decided to make a change. In this image I was around 190. My heaviest weight being 190.8.

This time when I started back up I decided to research. Everyday I read articles about making it a lifestyle and how to stick to it. When I started working out I was too afraid to go to the gym because I was worried about seeing someone I knew. I worked out at home doing cardio like jumping jacks, jump rope and walking everyday. After about 30lbs down I was officially ready to go to a gym. I got a membership in August. My go to machine was the elliptical. I’m not a big cardio person and for me I could live on that machine. I would workout at least 4 days a week doing an hour of cardio and that was it. My goal was to lose weight I didn’t care about muscle at the time.

My eating took a drastic turn on June 9, 2015. That was the day I tried the 22 day vegan diet. After lasting the full time and dropping an additional 12lbs I decided to create my own workout plan being plant based like what he suggested in the book. I needed a more realistic goal for myself even though his wasn’t hard to follow. I didn’t want to be vegan just continue to not eat meat (I cut out red meat back in Dec. 2012).

In my image on the right I am 141 and barely any muscle. I’m currently 139 with way more muscle and still working towards my goal of 130 and fitness competition ready. My initial transformation took about 4 months. I always say that my health journey is more then a fitness thing but a spiritual one. God is the reason I was able to make it. He’s the only person I could cry to when I was the only person in the house working out or eating right. Everyday is a challenge but this health journey was for me and not anyone else. That’s what changed for me. Deciding to do it for myself and not for the acceptance of anyone else.