Convince yourself to start fighting against FAT - By Uncle J

It has been a year++ since I started to fight to lose fat! More or less, I have learnt something from workout and gained some experience on fat loss.

Here, I am not going to talk about kinds of workout, methods, foods that can help you losing fat and I don't think that I am qualified and professional to tell about those yet.
I would like to share some thought of mine which move me forwards and little knowledge of mine that bring me forward step by step, hoping that it can at least help you if you are reading this😁

Let me brief a little bit about my fat loss journey, or you can read my previous post😀

• I am Malaysian Chinese, 30 years old (2017), standing at 163cm 😑.
• I was an active bboy when I was at my college (19-25 years old).
• I started to gain weight and flabby when I started working.
• I got dad bod at my 27 and 28.
• I started a real fight against my fat at 29 years old 😆

The above-mentioned are brief stories about when did I get fat and when did I decide to make a change. How to start? You have to take your first step out.

First Of All - The reasons to choose fitness workout

Tired of being called a fatty, I decided to make a change. So the first thing of all, you have to ask yourself: "What do you want to do to slim down?" I believe there must be a lot of answers. In my little knowledge, there are options such as: Slimming companies, slimming products, diet plan, sports, and etc. Among many answers, I decided to go for fitness workout. In my humble opinion, fitness workout is a good choice for me because of following:

I can do it alone

Some sports or exercises may need you to gather partner or group to start and play. My job may send me to work in different places which may be far away from my friends. So, I have to learn to live alone😢

I can do it with little or no equipment

It is arguable. I will need a lot of gym equipment to really build muscle and look good. But I can complete many kinds of workout without ZERO equipment too. Other than that, some sports require balls, rackets, or etc.  

I can do it anywhere, actually

As above, having workout in gym give me many varieties of training, but there may not be any gym nearby. So I can actually do it at home, parks, garden, kid's playground or etc at neighborhoods. Beside that, other sports need a pitch/sport ground to fulfill the activity which may not be available everywhere in Malaysia.

Time

I used to think that I was quite busy with my daily activities. I did not believe that I have much time to spare for exercising. 

1. 8:00am-8:45am: Wake time.
2. 8:46am-9:20am: Driving to work.
3. 9:21am-6:00pm: Work...
4. 6:00pm-7:10pm: Driving home + Traffic jam.
5. 7:11pm-8:00pm: Short rest at home + shower.
6. 8:00pm-9:30pm: Dinner (including driving/walking to eat outside)
7. 9:31pm-12:00am: Meeting friends / Rest at home after a long day.
8. 12:01am-7:59am: Approximately 8 hours sleep.
9. Repeat~ 

This is my daily routine during working days. So you can see that I have free time after 9:30pm (as per wording in Blue). Okay, now ask yourself, do you see any spare time in yours?

Everyone has own reasons and excuses. Before I really started, I had a few excuses also:

• I am tired after working all day long.
• I need a rest.
• I need to relax myself after a long day.
• I should not increase my stress after all the pressure at work.
• I have to spend some time with friends.

Do you agree? 

If you insist that your lifestyle is fixed with standard daily routine and can not make any spare time, you don't have to expect any change. How can result come without any effort?  

All you need to do is: Try to figure out, "What can I let go to go for a workout?" Your daily routine is totally under your own control. You are the boss to fill in activities at different hour. It is not an easy choice, but the decision is on your own. You can arrange to workout 2~3 times in a week, and you still have 4 days to hang around and enjoy your life.

Mental Preparation

If you have convinced yourself as I did like above, you should have been one step closer. I can still remember how did I feel and what did I think at the beginning before I went to gym. Based on my personal experience, there are a few "Frequently Think Question"😆:

• Will there be someone laughing at me?
• Will there be anyone bullying me?
• Is it embarrassing enough that I started to workout in this body shape?
• Am I started too late to do this at my age?
• I know nothing. What can I do?

I wonder if anyone has the similar worries, but I personally thought of these when I started and I realized some of my friends did so. It is normal for a newbie but these thoughts must be forgotten soonest possible because they are something unnecessary. Everyone has to start somewhere. All you have to do is to focus on your aim when you are on the way to somewhere for workout. You should think that you are in a mode of "I AM ON FIRE! NOBODY CAN STOP ME FROM TRANSFORMATION", and you just don't give a damn about how others' view.

Of course, you have to do something if you really know nothing much. You may look into following:

• Personal trainer
• Experienced friends who can teach you workout
• Research
• Copy from what others are doing😆

I started my workout alone and I prefer to workout alone actually. 
Without much experience, I just did some research online, searching at Google and YouTube. Occasionally there would be some posts about workout at my Facebook news feed. I made a record of those workout variations and gave a try in front of my laptop/phone to find out if I could do it. 
I strongly recommend to start with beginner workout if you are alone, then slowly increase the difficulty when getting stronger 😊 It is to ensure you are not over-stressing yourself when you are still not sure how strong you actually are.

Conclusion

The beginning of something new is actually very challenging. People are interested in it but tend to give excuses to avoid it because of unfamiliarity. However, I made my move, and I believe everyone can do it too. I share my thought above because I hope that It can at least help someone if it is read. 

If you are having similar worries as I did, I hope that this post is able to make your mind and convince you to make your first step. Thank you for reading.