I was finally at a point just a few months ago where I felt I was really ready to take modeling seriously. I mentally thought I was all there but during my little break, for which I will identify as my “carne asada fries detour”, I gained a good amount of weight. All of a sudden over the course of a few months, I gained about 13 pounds.
After all these unsuccessful diets, quick-fix solutions, and even getting a trainer, I realized it was a lot simpler than I thought. I actually learned quite a lot from my trainer over 5 weeks. But what she didn’t advocate to me was to count my calories. I began counting calories and restricting myself to about 1000 per day. I almost always broke it though, especially on the weekends but I ended up losing about 10 pounds over 6 weeks.
It wasn’t easy. I realized right away that nutrition and eating healthy was much more important than just counting whatever calories I consume. Over those five weeks, I started losing a lot of body fat. It was a bittersweet feeling though. I loved the fact that I was being healthy and working out 4-5 days per week but I hated this 1000 calorie a day diet. It just affected all parts of my life. I LOVE to eat. Cooking, experimenting, and just plain ‘ole eating good, healthy and sometimes unhealthy food. As a result, I became envious, frustrated, and cranky. Remember that I was trying to lose weight as fast as possible; normally I wouldn’t need to restrict myself so much. Especially on the weekends, I loved having some drinks with friends and since those are always calorie filled, I needed to eat much less throughout the day to save up for drinks.
Also, I was constantly measuring and weighing myself and it would stress me out when I didn’t lose enough weight or if I gained some weight back. It was such an overwhelming and exhausting experience filled with such good and bad lessons. And after I lost some weight, I realized I didn’t want to lose all the required weight I was told to for modeling. I didn’t want to be a size 2 or 0, I was happy being a size 4 and why wouldn’t I? But like I said, for those who really want to pursue this, and if you are faced with this challenge, I would highly recommend the following lessons I learned. Not only are they good for you if you want to lose some weight but also if you want to maintain the weight.
So here are some of those lessons I learned:
1.) Buy groceries and learn to cook. Even if you don’t end up modeling, at least you learned how to cook and be healthy. This is the best way to avoid cravings and fast food.
2.) Go to the gym because you want to be healthy and fit, not because you feel guilty.
3.) Buy inexpensive whitening strips and good exfoliating pads to avoid spending a lot of money on teeth whitening at the dentist or facials at the spa.
4.) Get a trainer if you want and just sign up for a few sessions, learn the basics and develop your own work-out routine.
5.) Work out early in the day if you can and mix up your routine at the gym so you don’t get bored and so your body will keep progressing.
6.) Try calorie counting. I have it on my phone and try to be accurate with everything I eat. It’s the most effective method I’ve tried to monitor my nutrition.
Forget about all these quick solutions they try to sell you and focus on the long-run.
