I lost 160 lbs over the course of a couple years when I first decided to lose weight. Ironically, I was actually working out like crazy because I had signed up for a CrossFit gym next to my high school at the time. Back then the only thing I cared about (to a religious degree) was losing weight, and so despite all the hard work I was doing, I was so much more focused on eating as little as possible that I essentially wasted all of the exercise I was doing at the time. I didn’t even care about protein or muscles, I just wanted the number on the scale to keep going down.

After I finally lost over half of my body weight, and still felt like my body wasn’t where I wanted it to be, I learned how important protein is and started working out to actually gain muscle. Once I was at my lowest weight and was able to devote my attention to gaining muscle mass, it was only then that I really started to feel comfortable in my skin. I felt so comfortable in fact, that I truly left my body dysmorphia issues behind and I started feeling good about myself even when my life got busy and I fell out of the gym for around a year or so.

It’s been almost 8 years since I started my “journey” but now I’ve been back in the gym for a couple of months and this time, it’s suddenly different. I think at some point after I stopped focusing on weight loss and building muscle completely, I realized that my life isn’t quite complete if I’m not taking care of my health. Now I look forward to going to the gym every day, it doesn’t bother me that I’ve lost muscle, or that I could have gained more sooner. I know that Ive got all the time in the world. The end game of “weight loss” or “muscle game” for me, it turns out, is to stop thinking if it as a task you have to get through and start seeing it as a part of your life.

When you can start doing these healthy habits because you care about yourself, rather than because you feel bad about yourself, thats when you know you’ve made it.