My biggest period of my weight loss was during my first six weeks. During those weeks, I was losing six pounds each week. I refer to it now as my "first six weeks plan", but my plan actually called upon me to carry out this program until I reached my target weight. If interested, you can read my journal about my plan here on my website. However, on the seventh week of this plan, I lost two pounds, which is still a respectable loss, but I was still aggressive, and I still had 40 to 50 pounds to go. But since what I was doing was no longer working I needed to come up with a new plan, which I will be sharing in future entries. Anyway, my program required me to start off with doing cardio twice a day, initially at 30 minutes each. I would increase each session by 10 minutes each week until I hit 90 each session, which I would continue until I reached my target weight. I already had been doing cardio, so I was in decent shape. Thrown in would be 3 sessions of full body workouts consisting of compound exercises. My diet would consist of about 1600 calories, proteins being the largest macronutrient. I allowed a cheat day, but after the first two weeks I was so pleased with the results I dropped them. But, when it did not affect the outcome, I resumed them. The execution did not go nearly as good as planned, but the beauty was I still lost the weight.

Please read more about my first six week plan and other ways I used to lose weight, please visit my site.

Okay, you had a bad day, you ate stuff not good for losing weight or skipped a workout – or even several workouts. Like many people do, you're probably feeling like failure, or worse. Well, you're not. You're human. During my weight loss I had plenty of slip ups, gave into temptations, got lazy and skipped workouts. Sure, for those particular incidents my weight loss progress probably took a hit. I felt and still feel the frustration whenever I foul up. But I keep going. When – not if because we all will slip up now and then – you slip up, acknowledge it. Try to learn what triggered it and if you can avoid such triggers in the future. And keep going with your weight loss. The worse thing you can do is quit – no one loses in the battle for weight loss, except those who quit.
Let me share my own, recent, very bad slip up – we're taking about the atomic bomb of slipping up. On the July 4th weekend I decided to purchase I chocolate mousse cake. I hadn't enjoyed any desserts for a few weeks, and America's birthday seemed like a good time to have some. My intention was to only eat 2 slices, three at most, then toss the rest of the cake. Well…I ended up eating the entire, 4800-calorie cake within 2 days. When considering I was at that time eating at a slight calorie surplus to build muscle, the consequences were not going to be good. Nothing happened immediately but by Tuesday my barely visible abs were now covered again. In two days, I obliterated that which took me 6 weeks of highly intense, tortuous workouts and bare minimal eating to accomplish. I weighed myself, predicting I had gained between 3 to 4 pounds, and sure enough my weight jumped 3.4lbs – all fat. This was not the smartest thing I could have done as one concerned about fitness. On the other hand, that cake was to die for.
But let me also share the rest of the story. In spite of this major foul up, I continued to do my intense weight lifting, I continued, or I should say resumed, to eat healthy, I continued my cardio. Despite still eating at a slight calorie surplus to maximize strength gains, by the end of three weeks I nearly repaired all the "damage" eating that cake had done to my physique. I did not even make any special effort to lose the fat. By simply staying on my lifestyle, the consequences were mitigated and I continue towards not only having the physique I had before the cake but even improve upon that.
The moral of this story is we are all going to make mistakes in life including fitness and weight loss – its all part of being human. It is what we do afterward that will make all the differences. Another thing to ponder and think on; it has often been the case where a person's mistake sent them on the path to their greatest personal triumph. If you had a bad day, bad week, or even a bad month, you're not a loser, you're not a failure, you're simply human. Dust yourself off and get on track. As you will see on my website, in spite of my many slip ups along the way, I still pressed on with using my ways to lose weight and effective weight loss plans to lose 80 pounds in 4 months.