One year ago I signed up for my first Bod Pod test. A Bod Pod uses air displacement to measure body mass and can tell you, pretty accurately, how much lean or fat mass your body carries. It also gave me my RMR which is the amount of calories my body burns at rest; my true starting point. Add in exercise and you can gauge the amount of calories you should consume to lose or gain depending on your goals. Today, I had my 2nd test done and I am pretty excited about my results. I lost 2.3% or 6lbs of fat (FAT, not water, fat!), and gained a little over 2lbs of muscle. Contrary to what many people believe, muscle is not easy to build so this was exciting to me. Additionally, I raised my RMR which means that at even at rest, I'm burning more calories than I used to, and my Total Energy Expenditure (my average daily calorie burn during activity) by 450 calories! This seems like a lot of numbers but the bottom line is that small, daily efforts truly do lead to long term, staggering results. Healthy is not just about what the scale says; and if you think it is, you've set yourself up for failure and you're not in the game for the right reason. Healthy is about healing yourself from the inside and taking care of all of your parts, not just the outside.
One year. The time passed whether I wanted to put in the effort or not. Today I could be sitting here disappointed in myself for what I didn't do, but instead I did what I needed to, and received positive results that said that everything I'm doing is working. And I look forward to seeing what each year will bring!
So, will you put in the time and effort and invest in yourself? Will you be able to look back a year from now and be thankful for the work you put in? I believe in you; I know you can. Now go, get to it!