My Beginner Mindset: Fitness Journey week 1–20
How do you visualize a “beginner”?
A. Wide-eyed, curious & ready to jump in
B. timid, fearful & cautious?
Your answer will closely match your own behavior as someone learning or starting something new.
I was (A) and fear-less because I had already hit rock-bottom.
Where do you go when you have already stopped expecting things to get worse? The slowest in any race, the weakest link in any group, the most disease-prone amongst close friends .. My mind was like “let's try working out, at least you won’t need to invest in a bigger pair of jeans”. The absence of optimism led me to hide behind the victim-mindset or “everything is happening to me because of my ill-luck”. Concepts like discipline, consistency, grit had virtually no importance or meaning back then because I spent all of my mental energy pacifying my pessimism.
I think about weeks 1 through 20 very often in order to curate helpful content for my Instagram page — but I can never place a finger on the *one* thing that kept me going back then .. What I do remember feeling strongly during/after those 20 weeks was the “absence of negativity”. Life just felt better than before. Like the early days of a new friendship, relationship or the fresh feeling of getting back to the routine after a great vacation. A dark cloud had lifted and I started hoping that I would have a better day today than yesterday. Quotes like “You can do anything you want to” still didn’t make much sense because I thought those belonged to the lucky gifted kids who already had a headstart in life.
In the first 2–3 weeks I felt my food digest better and felt cleaner inside. I woke up happy on some days, slept effortlessly with a lighter head, my skin looked good and I was in awe of being able to “move” in a way like that. I looked forward to my evening workout. I had set up a basic “bedroom gym” — a Bluetooth speaker for music, 2 pairs of dumbbells (5 and 10lbs each), resistance bands with handles & couple pairs of workout clothes. Every time I finished a workout I looked in my selfie mirror for some noticeable changes. I would pinch fat around my belly, look over my shoulders to see if it spilled over equally on my lower back too.
It was the “act” of doing something (anything) for my body that kept me going. I had no lofty dreams.
My ability to do basic moves like jumping jacks or alternating mountain climbers felt like an accomplishment. Every time I saw Autumn Calabrese (21-Day Fix creator) do a difficult move with finesse, flaunting her toned legs & 8 pack abs, I’d get a little more demotivated. Can the human body really look like that? Did she do these exercises exactly to look like that? Why wasn’t I born skinny? But her upbeat voice-over kept me going. I loved that the 21 Day Fix program had a modifier (a plus-size woman modifying exercises) — but sometimes I couldn't even do those moves.
The last 5–10 minutes of the 30-minute workout sapped my mental energy completely. All the questions kept ringing around my head. Will I ever get there?
Will I ever get lean?
Is this program sufficient for me? Should I workout twice a day? If I do the workout twice a day, will my knees get damaged?
My thought pattern was entangled in fear and anxiety. The simple answer to all the above questions was — yes, yes, yes, no and no. The real answer I should have held on to was “believe in your own hard work”. But often I could not believe that I was indeed on the right path. I cried multiple times after a workout, stared at myself in the mirror as I cried and soon wiped my tears so my roommate wouldn’t hear me. Days went on.
Some days were more positive than others, that’s when I took a post-workout mirror selfie — to remind myself that I did not cry or worry after my workout. I referred to those images quite frequently throughout my fitness journey. They marked the “good” days and I drew positivity from them to continue growing.
I tried to contain my anxiety and worry and limit it to myself only. I didn’t have the courage to share this distraught feeling with anyone. This is why every time I get a DM from someone who shares their vulnerable thoughts with me — I sincerely thank them for trusting me.
When you stare down and see tummy fat rolls or sit down and see your thighs flare out — all emotional control goes out of the window. There has to be another way than tearing up and blaming your luck. I was on a quest to find that way ….
If I were to graph out the progress of my mental attributes across my initial 20 weeks journey such as — “ability to push through” aka mental stamina, “refraining from pitying myself” aka emotional stability and optimistic thinking — this is what it would look like.
Few points to note:
- Emotional stability (refraining from self-pity) was the last to correct itself. Week 15–20 were the hardest cause I was closing in on the 5-month mark & desperately sought significant change.
- Optimistic Thinking was growing constantly thanks to endorphins & feeling accomplished on finishing workouts.
- Mental Stamina grew in waves, but there were periods where it got harder to push myself. Eg: Week 4–9 was hard because I felt no progress emotionally as well. I remember constantly boosting myself with positive quotes, 10 min motivational videos on youtube, seeking casual support by talking to friends & family but I kept going because the post-workout endorphins kept the negativity at bay.
The boosts in red & green happened every time I broke something within & began the process of fixing it. Building new habits is far easier than breaking old patterns of thought & action. Eg — eating something sweet with every meal was a habit I broke at week 8–9 and once I managed a few meals without a sweet-dish, I felt mentally stronger. I felt I was able to push harder & not give in that easily. Around the same time, I compared my progress pics and saw visible (not significant) differences in my side profile: this fed into emotional strength & overall mood-boosting thought processes.
Fear stops you from achieving anything positive — learning, growing, changing — it completely cripples your ability to take action because there will always be “fear” to fuel those reasons to NOT do anything about it. Eg: I chose to not fear the 10 lbs dumbbell. Using it felt uncomfortable & painful at first, but I chose to not think of all the ways a dumbbell could hurt me. If you look up incidents of exercises gone wrong — you will find equal failure stories as success stories. Data exists for both sides of the coin. However, being cautious is not giving in to fear but defending it. Eg: I took twice as long to use weights while squatting than most people do. I simply did not feel ready. Every time I tried to grab a weight and squat, I felt my knees hurt. I tabled it for the moment and moved on.
When I look back on that incident today (2.5 years later) — it was a very wise move on my part. My hip mobility was very weak hence I felt the weight in my knee joint. Since I was working out regularly my hips opened up and I developed the flexibility to overload my squat. I observed my body adapt to exercises and began understanding that I am getting “stronger”. This helped me build the confidence to try a different exercise — possibly a more advanced one. This is how I moved on to the 21 Day Fix Extreme program.
My goal was no longer simple — I wanted to see if I could do all the exercises in the new 21 Day Fix Extreme program. But before that let’s discuss what workouts I was doing during the first 20 weeks :
- Cardio (walking, jogging) in my apartment gym treadmill — 2x a week because I feared to burn my knees out.
- 21 day Fix workout — I didn't follow her time table in the program. I just picked a workout I liked. Each workout was 20–30 mins and included warm-up and cooldown. Straightforward moves but quick-paced. I found myself pausing the video several times just to learn what was going on.
- 2 rest days.
Food-wise I struggled to throw out the Indian snack packs from the Indian store. I swapped rice with quinoa, changed from regular to 9-grain bread, cooked simple lentils, okra, cauliflower veggies and experimented with spices to keep myself interested. Every night I would crave the Indian snacks — some times I found the energy in me to resist, other times I had to force myself. But I distinctly remember giving-in one of the nights and instantly regretting during my cardio session the next day.
I had started jogging by week 5 and was trying to increase my pace … I felt heavy and big as I tried to move my legs on the treadmill. I blamed myself for giving in the previous night. I knew that that particular greasy processed food was hard for my body to digest and was sitting in my belly as I tried to run.
I took this photo and uploaded it on my private Instagram profile — to remind myself of how I felt after “cheating” the previous day.
Small incidents like these fueled my fire to not give-in and not give-up. I had started enjoying my workouts and improving daily on my form, strength, and mindset. Here is a photo of my before/after for the within the 20 weeks :
I don’t have pics of week 1 or week 20 because I only took mirror selfies to remind myself of a particular emotion I felt that day.
P.S: This dress is from Forever 21. It was so revealing back then (and now too) that its only purpose was to help me see my body shape change. I did funny things like this back then — it makes me smile today.
You really can do this. You really ARE capable. You will feel sad and look for shortcuts to help avoid the pain. But if you live through it, if you decide “I am not giving up this time no matter how HARD it gets” you will see light at the end of your dark tunnel.
Week 16 me doesn’t look like a supermodel and doesn’t even now (160+ weeks later) — but she now has the confidence to believe in her hard work. And my friends, that's the real secret.
You just have to believe in your hard work.
Follow my 100 Week Fitness, Mindset, Lifestyle Transformation Journey on my Instagram page @iwillgetlean where I micro-blog my daily grind of self-cooking, working out, caring for my pup & punching the right keys at Microsoft.
I’d love to hear from you about your fitness wins, lifestyle goals & areas where we all need a cheerleader from time to time! I’m here for you :) #leanwithtanvi
