How I Turned My Life Around (Emotional)

Summary

• I understand the pain of being ridiculed for being overweight; I've been there too, almost 100 pounds over my healthy weight at one point.
• My journey began in my youth; being called "fat" by family and peers was a harsh reality that impacted my self-esteem.
• During my early teens, I took action—losing weight first felt easy and brought a lot of positive attention, which was encouraging.
• However, I've also experienced unhealthy weight loss, eating very little and exercising excessively, which is not sustainable.
• College freedom led to losing control of my diet, increased drinking, and weight gain, spiraling into more unhealthy behavior after a breakup.
• A moment of humiliation at a party became a catalyst for change; fed up, I decided to transform my life completely.
• Joining Planet Fitness was a starting point due to its non-intimidating environment; it was less about the gym and more about taking action.
• I initially lost weight through simple changes, but eventually felt isolated from friends who didn't support my healthier lifestyle choices.
• Seeking support, I hired an online coach, focusing on balanced nutrition and regular workouts, resulting in significant weight loss.
• Positive reinforcement from my coach and others in a similar journey motivated me to set new goals, like competing in a bikini competition.
• The discipline required for competition preparation was challenging, but my focus was on doing it the right way, even if it took longer.
• Financial and emotional struggles during training were real, but my commitment to change kept me moving forward.
• Posing practice revealed ongoing body image issues; accepting my transformed body was a tough mental battle.
• The competition day was nerve-wracking, posing on stage felt terrifying, yet I placed second overall—an achievement beyond my original goal.
• I learned that reaching a big goal doesn't change everything overnight; life goes on, but with a boost in confidence and conviction in oneself.
• My advice for anyone struggling with a bad habit is to realize that change is possible, don't overcomplicate it or wait for a perfect time, and understand that hardship is where you develop skills for change.

Video

How To Take Action

I would suggest starting with easy and meaningful steps to make changes in your life, just like I did. If you're feeling like something isn't right, whether it's your weight or any bad habit, take the lessons from my experience and put them into action.

• Don't Wait: Don't put off starting. Tell yourself that today is the day for change.
• Simple Changes: Begin with small changes that don't feel overwhelming. This could mean cutting out one unhealthy snack or adding a short walk to your routine.
• Find a Non-Intimidating Environment: Like I joined Planet Fitness, find a place that makes you comfortable to work on your goals.
• Seek Support: Look for a coach or a supportive community that can guide and motivate you. It can be an online coach or a local group of like-minded individuals.
• Balanced Approach: Avoid extreme diets or workouts. Follow a well-rounded plan that includes nutritious food and regular exercise.
• Positive Reinforcement: Surround yourself with people who positively reinforce your progress. This could mean joining groups or finding friends who understand your journey.
• Set Realistic Goals: Don't rush to the final outcome. Focus on small goals that lead up to your big goal. For example, if you want to compete in a competition, start by learning to eat right and exercise properly.
• Acceptance and Patience: Understand that change doesn't happen overnight. Accept who you are now and be patient as you progress.
• Embrace Challenges: Know that it's okay to have a tough time. This is where you develop the strength to keep moving forward.

Remember, it's about doing what's right for you. Never mind the perfect time or the perfect conditions. The important thing is to start, learn from any hardships, and stay committed to your path of self-improvement.

Quotes by Leila Hormozi

"If you're not getting better, what are you getting? You're getting worse"

– Leila Hormozi

"My anger was so useful in that moment because I was so fed up with myself that I was motivated to change"

– Leila Hormozi

"You say that to yourself enough times and you just continue down that path"

– Leila Hormozi

"I knew that I wanted to keep going. The reason I was doing this was not so I could look like a bikini competitor, it was almost like ceremonial of becoming a new person"

– Leila Hormozi

"You can't avoid the hardness; you can't avoid the hard time. The hard time is where you create the skill to overcome the thing"

– Leila Hormozi

Full Transcript

have such a good face and you're so cool but you're just so fat now and I remember just being like so shocked because I was like huge by the age of 19 I allowed myself to get nearly 100 pounds overweight today I want to share with you how I got there what I did to get out of there and how I ultimately ended up losing the weight and placing second in a national bikini competition so if you're in a spot where you feel like you don't know what to do maybe it's losing weight or any bad habit that's gotten the best of you I hope that this story applies to you and can help you so I want to preface with this is that I don't blame any part of my childhood for why I got overweight later on in my life but I wanted to add it in here for context for people the first time my life were like food or my weight or like anything like that was like a thought to me it started very young because I was pretty chubby I remember people in my family calling me overweight and fat I remember kids call me overweight and Fab and thinking to myself like oh wow I am actually pretty overweight like as a kid like I look at other girls and I would be like wow they're a lot smaller than me not to mention I'm also a little taller so like that didn't feel good either I just felt like I was just a big [ __ ] [Music] [Laughter] when I got into high school I actually started Googling how to lose weight like I remember thinking like I want to learn how to get in shape I want to be healthy like when I go into high school I don't want to feel like I'm fat still what happens is what happens for a lot of people which is like the first time that you try even like remotely to eat a little bit less you make better choices the weight comes off fairly easily and so around that time when I was 13 I remember I finally lost maybe like 12 or 13 pounds I got my braces off I got my glasses off I learned how to do my hair I finally felt good about myself people actually liked me boys would come up to me they would ask me on dates like I felt good I was getting a lot of positive reinforcement for the way that I looked I started learning how to work out I started learning how to run I started doing a lot more Sports and activities it got to a point where after my first breakup when I was 15 I remember I took it way too far I remember thinking like I need to get super skinny super fast I got to a point where I remember I was eating one bowl of Cheerios and plain chicken breasts every day and running about eight miles my parents were like are you okay like what's going on I wanted to get me therapy and all this stuff it all came to a head actually on its own it was at my friend's birthday party she had this huge cake sitting out we're at the party and I remember like I took one bite of the cake and it was like downhill from there I took like half the cake and ate it in private in her room that was the moment that I realized that that was not sustainable and I couldn't keep doing that to myself like I knew something was wrong I knew that wasn't healthy and so I turned it around the rest of my high school career I was just really healthy until College came it was probably the most freedom I felt in my whole life I moved out of my parents house I had a job so I had money and I had all these people in grades above me inviting me to parties inviting me to do stuff inviting me to go do things all of the control and all of the structure I put in place around my food and my diet it just like went out the window I was at like a cafeteria I had unlimited food you could literally get whatever you wanted four nights of the week I was drinking and then we'd like end up getting Taco Bell and burritos and like all sorts of [ __ ] food when you're drunk I started noticing I was gaining weight but I was like I still look good enough that it was like not not painful enough to be a problem it started spiraling more and more I would drink not to feel stressed and then I would eat to combat the guilt from drinking not to feel stress that coupled with another breakup actually went the opposite direction so it's like the brain about in high school I ended up eating like nothing this breakup I ended up just getting super fat I think I was like 222 pounds or like something around there people like do you have more pictures like I avoided the camera I hated how I looked I didn't want to be in front of a camera I didn't even look in the mirror naked I would avoid the mirror every day I had the thought you could start tomorrow you say that to yourself enough times and you just continue down that path if you're not getting better what are you getting you're getting worse and that is what continued to happen and so if you've ever gotten to that point in your life before where it's like who am I how did I allow this to happen to myself like how did I get here that is exactly what I was thinking at that point in time up to that point I kind of just avoided seeing anyone from high school I knew I'd gotten fat I knew that I'd gained a lot of weight I didn't want to see anybody and I remember it was my friend his birthday and she was like well I want to invite all these people from high school and I was like oh yes you want to invite everyone from high school that makes sense since they're your friends yes of course you want to invite them and of course I should be there because I'm your best friend I'll drink enough that I won't be super anxious when I'm there time goes on and then it comes up to the time of the party I get there and nobody from high school is there yet we start playing beer pong I start drinking and I get like enough of a buzz that I feel like okay if somebody walks in I'm not like terribly uncomfortable it feels fine people are nice they're like it's so good to see you like it was like all positive and I felt like oh my God thank God like nobody like said anything or like there's no like weirdness then I went to the back of her condo at the time to go the bathroom and there was a guy there from my high school I walked past him and he whispered something and I was like what'd you say because he kind of mumbled something under his breath what is that you said and he was like oh I was just saying it's such a shame I was like it's such a shame and he was like well he's like it's such a shame because you have such a good face and you're so cool but you're just so fat now and I remember in that moment just sheer horror like I still feel like tightness in my stomach thinking about it today because it was just like so humiliating so humiliating and the humiliation like quickly turned to rage and I was like [ __ ] this [ __ ] this I'm done I'm not doing this anymore I'm not I'm not living this life anymore like I'm so over this when he said that to me what was so enraging was my person like what I said to myself after he said that to me which was yeah he's right it wasn't like oh [ __ ] you it wasn't like your Visa [ __ ] you're I'm like just pointing out the obvious it was literally the next day I remember like I went to bed that night and I woke up and I was like I'm done everything changes today and so a lot of people say like negative emotions and getting rid of them [ __ ] that this worked for me my anger was so useful in that moment because I was so fed up with myself that I was motivated to change and I think that you're either motivated to change because you're so desperate to get out of where you are or you're so drawn to the Future and the hopeful thing that you feel told to do so there was no hopeful future for me I just felt like [ __ ] where I was at I changed everything I did I set up my alarm to get up early to work out every day I just remember being terrified to go to the gym and that's why I joined like a Planet Fitness because I felt like it was the least intimidating gym I would go to losing the first 20 pounds why was it not that hard I was so fat that I was not hungry what I didn't realize is things were about to get a lot harder pretty quickly I did not have any support I started to feel this like intense divide between me and the people that I had surrounded myself with for so long and it honestly just started to feel like incredibly lonely I remember I got to a point where I lost 40 pounds of my own and I was like holy [ __ ] it was at that point that I said I think I want more support it wasn't that I needed guidance necessarily I just want somebody to talk to I actually signed up with an online coach to do my nutrition and my workouts he gave me my plan and a lot of people like how much cardio were you doing how much how little were you eating hauls it was nothing crazy it was just like very healthy calorie intake lifting five times a week four times a week and making sure I got enough Walking In after six months of working with him I think I'd lost another about 30 pounds and he posted I remember like before and after of me in the Facebook group where he had all of his clients and I remember like the amount of recognition I got was insane like I was like these are the kind of people I want to be surrounded with like people who are encouraging me they're telling me what a good job they're telling me you're killing it they're like you look amazing like I remember crying because I was just like so happy I was like nobody's told me that in so long and I remember one of the things they kept saying is they were like you should really consider competing in a bikini competition and I was like I'm just trying not to be fat a lot of people in the group were starting to do it but I got on like a Skype with one of the girls who she did like figure competitions and I asked her about it and she actually had lost like 50 pounds and done a competition so I was like [ __ ] if she can do it so can I I remember I was so terrified I asked my coach to talk and I was like I want to do a competition and she was like let's do it okay we want to do a show in a year and so what that meant was I needed to actually back off a little bit I started training a little less I started eating a little more until my coach was like okay now we want to diet you down for like a show I never ever ate an abysmal amount of food I never did hours and hours of cardio like I didn't do it the unhealthy way I wanted it for the process like I want to do it the right way even if it takes me longer yes it was tough to eat boring food at times and do workouts when you don't feel like it I think that's tough for anybody right but the hardest part for me was the posing I hated looking at myself in a mirror even though I'd lost all this weight like I couldn't comprehend that I was in shape like I constantly was like oh I'm fat like all I could see was fat so it was like this disassociation with myself learning how to be okay and accept myself like in a bikini that was so much harder mentally than any other piece of the process I continued on and it got closer and closer up to show and I remember that started getting really hard because it was balancing everything I had going on like I was selling training clients I was training myself I was doing cardio I was posing and I remember being so stressed because I got the bill for like my bikini and my tan and my makeup and the opposing coach and all this stuff I remember thinking like [ __ ] I have no money and I was in the car driving back to my apartment and a cop stopped me pulled me over he pulled me over because I was looking at my bank account balance on my phone to see if I had enough money for gas and I just remember I broke down in tears and I showed him my phone and I was like I was checking my bank account because I have no money and I'm doing a show and I have to pay for it I'm all alone I'm in this stupid expensive apartment in California because apparently I need to be here to be successful and I just went off he didn't actually end up giving me the ticket I've never cried to a cop before but I think I was so hungry and tired it just like it happened but I knew that I wanted to keep going the reason I was doing this was not so I could look like a bikini competitor it was almost like ceremonial of becoming a new person and so a show day got closer and closer that was what I was thinking I was just like don't like die of a panic attack like don't be terrible just step on the stage in a bikini and just do your thing and so the day came and I remember I had to get up at 5am I had to like do a carb up you have to eat rice and plain rice cakes which tastes awful is that you look good on stage your muscles are full I got my tan done got my makeup done put on the bikini and then you show up at the venue and then wait for like four hours so I remember waiting backstage and that just being awful because one you're trying not to mess up anything because your entire body is painted I remember just feeling so out of place like so insecure like all these people around me these like beautiful girls that are in such good shape and I was like you're the people I've been terrified of my whole life and I was in the same room as them and it was weird to me finally the time came it was noon and they called me on stage it was literally to that point in my life I think the most terrifying thing that I had done I stepped on stage and the lights were so bright that I couldn't really see anybody and I just remember uncontrollably shaking there's no way people don't see this like I don't even know what happened it was like I didn't know I'd come over me just complete Terror and the crazy thing is that I stepped off stage and I was like I blacked out like I didn't know what happened I didn't even know if I did the routine like I was like did I get up there and just stand there did I do the routine like I just didn't know and so I remember I left the stage thinking like I think I bombed it and I remember my friend standing there and she was like you killed him she gave me a high five she's like you did it just like you've done all you looked great like you didn't even miss a step and I was like oh my God I like couldn't believe it I thought that there was no way that I had actually completed that routine and I remember thinking okay but there's all these other girls they're in such good shape they're they're so good at this like they look amazing they have great routines like I'm sure I'm not going to get called for finals and I remember I got calls for finals I'm competing in California there's a huge class of girls and so I was like there's just no way that I'm gonna Place anything I remember I made it tonight show and we got on the stage you stand up there and you're just like sucking it in as hard as possible like tensing all your muscles and they're calling everybody I started noticing that I was one of the only ones left on stage and I remember just being like so shocked because I couldn't believe that I was one of the last people left standing because they're all prettier than me and they're all in better shape than me and like I used to be fat just like a year and a half ago like I was like huge like how am I here and I remember finally when they started handing out the trophies they called me and I got second not just in my class but overall I actually remember complete disbelief like it was it was insane my goal was just to get on the stage it wasn't to accomplish anything it wasn't to place first like it just wasn't that it was just to get on the stage there's gotta be it there's a mistake here like I don't get it like that was the moment I remember I stepped off the stage and the crazy thing with that I felt no different than before you know I think a lot of people think like once you do the big thing that you set out to do it's like everything changes after this moment and it didn't like you wake up the next day you do the same thing as you did the day before and you feel pretty much the same way you felt before you're just a little more confident and a little more convicted in your ability to do something I wouldn't have been the person that could accomplish starting a new business if I hadn't chosen to do that I learned how to be patient I learned how to be tolerant I learned how to be persistent how to delay gratification I wanted to make this to inspire anybody who is going through a hard time maybe it's that you need to lose weight maybe it's like you need to stop smoking maybe it's you need to stop drinking whatever it is is completely possible and I think that oftentimes the things that stop us from doing that is that we over complicate it we're always waiting for the perfect time and oftentimes we're also not creating and incentivizing enough reason for ourselves to change you can't avoid the hardness like you can't avoid the hard time the hard time is where you create the skill to overcome the thing so that you can move on with your life and become the person you've always wanted to be