New Year, New Me? w/Jeff Edwards

Hello. My name is Jeff Edwards, and this is my journey. My journey like most of you has been on a roller coaster. The Wonderful Ride of Weight Loss! This has been my struggle for 40+ Years! Did I mention I am only forty-seven-ish? So, all my life I have been “Overweight.” Naturally, when you are a kid people use the term “chubby,” “chunky” and my least favorite...” Husky.” The nerve of them to even had the size “Husky” written on the pants. You Bastards!! What is even crazier is I was able to fit it if it said Husky. Funny how you grow into adulthood, and they change the phrase to “Overweight.” That is when the problems start. I have always had this vision of how I want to look and feel. I wanted to be great in both areas, but they were never matching up most of the time.
Back to the roller coaster. The ride went up and down, so did my weight. I was overeating under eating, drinking weight loss tea, detoxing, new diet, and old diets plans, and you cannot forget the miracle pills. You name it I have tried it.

For most people, New Year, New Resolution. I am most people. With the shit-show that was 2020, I had a lot of time to think on my life. In 2021 I decided, “NO NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS!” For me, every year I would start something new, and stop after 2 weeks. If I were lucky, I would last 2 months. It was around March when I decided to make a change. I had been watching a weight loss show where the individuals had ballooned up over six hundred and sometimes close to 1000lbs. Most of them had been traumatized by someone or some event in their life. These events in some way shape or form their addiction to food. I could relate to most of them. I realized that my life could have taken a drastic change in that direction, and I could have ended up on this show, or something worse. I declared that I would move in a positive direction every day, OR at least make the effort. Have I succeeded in that declaration? NO! Have I quit? No!

I woke up one day in March 2020 and I started walking. I felt that at this point, I was not ready to become a gym rat, at least not now. I designed a path for ME. I wanted to become consistent at this one thing and work on getting better. My social media presence begins attracting the attention of others who wanted to get moving as well. I had a few friends reach out to me right before the month was up to see if I would be interested in a 10K Step Challenge for the month of April. I gladly accepted the challenge and got to work. My personal goal was six thousand per day, but this was worthy of me stretching my goal to build my resistance to change. It worked. I did not hit my 10K a day, but I did more that I would have in the past. I was happy with my results but wanted more. I want to average 10K steps per day. I will get there because I am determined.

My walks eventually turned into better food choices. I took it very slow. The first step for me was lowering my sugar intake. I went as far as how many cups of coffee I would drink in a week. I was averaging 3-4 cups throughout the week. I went to one cup on the weekends only. I have been like this for a month and a half. That was huge for me, but more was coming. I am a big breakfast eater. I will do fast food every day I worked. I know this is not good as there are a limited number of healthy choices. Again, one day I decided that I was going to try this smoothie thing. I changed to eating the 2-3 times a week. It is still a work in progress as I want to get better at the different fruit and protein combinations. A win is a win is a win! Did I do it every day, No! Again, I am constantly pushing myself to get better. The smoothie morphed into me starting a juice fast. I started on April 3rd and ended on April 7. 5 Days of Juice and water. I lost 15 lbs. but my aim was getting better mentally and physically with what I intake into my body.

I have a personal goal that I am working towards and that is eating fruits and vegetables from Monday through Friday and incorporate meats on the weekend only. Goals! Maintaining a daily healthy lifestyle takes consistency. It is all in the mind. You process thoughts every second. I have not been able to finish projects that I have started over the years, and this is where I want to focus. Computer go through upgrades to perform better, produce more, work efficient, and remove all the bad stuff that prevent them from accomplishing those tasks. We should always be reprogramming our minds. I hope that your goal is to be more consistent on the reprogramming of yourself......To Become a better version of YOU.....To always create new works....To build a better world.....and if in the process of your journey, you are able to impact the lives of others with your work, I say we owe it to ourselves to see this journey through. If you are waiting on a magic date to come and renew your spirit, then you will be waiting a long time. Decide and get moving. A new YOU is awaiting! It is your Motivation Mogul J.E. And Cheers to a new YOU!

Jeff Edwards

Motivational Speaker | Podcast Host, The Melanated Podcast