How I Lost 40 Pounds in 1 Year: A Journey of Self-Love and Consistency

How I Lost 40 Pounds in 1 Year: A Journey of Self-Love and Consistency

Hi! My name is Coach Bree and I've been a health and fitness coach for 9 years. And today I want to tell you my story of how I lost 40 lbs in 2024, and how you can do it too - without restrictive diets, crazy long boring cardio, or expensive weight-loss drugs.

In December 2023, I stepped on the scale and saw the number 199 staring back at me. I had gained 60 pounds of fat over two years, and I was shocked, devastated, and disappointed in myself. I mean, it wasn't really a surprise because none of my clothes fit anymore, but seeing that number no teh scale made it really official. There was no more denying the situation that I was in. I made a promise to myself right then: I would never let the scale creep into the 200s.

I knew I had two choices: I could simply stop weighing myself (the easy solution), or I could start making changes to take care of myself again. Here are the top things I did to lose 40 pounds in one year. But more importantly, this is about how I learned to fall in love with myself again along the way.

Here's a summary of my weight loss and I'll go into how I did it below.

2023

December - 199 lbs

2024

January - 199 lbs, started deep work, hired a coach, started exercising

March - 199 lbs, started getting consistent with workouts, quit drinking alcohol

April - 199 lbs, started logging food and hitting calorie goals

June - 189 lbs, consistent with workouts and logging food

September - 169 lbs, consistent with workouts and logging food

December - 158 lbs, consistent with workouts and logging food

1. I Started with Deep Work

Before I could change my habits, I had to heal what was broken inside of me. I realized that my weight gain was about more than just eating too much or moving too little. There was something emotional I needed to address.

I wasn't happy. My sense of self-worth was garbage. I felt like a failure. I felt like I should be further ahead in life than I currently am. I felt like an imposter as I was doubting my own abilities and achievements. I was letting outward situations and circumstances that I had no control over determine my happiness and sense of self-worth. 

So I started looking internally by journaling. As a health and fitness coach, I have tons of tools and resources that I use with my own clients, so I decided to try them on myself. Here's where I started:

1. What were the highlights from last year (2023)? There weren't many. I scrolled through my camera phone to look through memories and came up short. This made me feel even more miserable, which sucked in the moment, but also made me want to change even more and make 2024 better.
2. What did I accomplish? What did I learn? What did I improve?
3. If I could go back and do it again, I would do these 3 things differently:
4. I am grateful for: (write 3 things about each) amazing people in my life, my career, my unique skills and talents, knowledge and experience. (This was sooooooooo hard to do because most of my focus was on the negative and it was really hard to get my brain into a positive mindframe... but that's also the beauty of this step, you can't be negative and positive at the same time, so focusing on the positive brought more positivity into my life.)
5. Personal Audit/Wheel of Life. In the following categories, rank how I felt about each part of my life in 2023 and explain why. The categories are: relationships/family/social network, health and fitness, business/career, financial, spiritual, mental, lifestyle/hobbies. Then you take your rankings and plot them on a wheel (google "wheel of life). This helps to visualize all of the areas of your life at once and show where you are flourishing and which ones need the most work. (This was probably the most important part of this process. Up to this point, there has been a lot of reflection and stirring up emotions, but this is where we actually get into a plan for making changes).
6. In each area of life in #5, make a list of what to stop doing, continue doing, and start doing. My "stop doing" list was looooooooooooooong and my "continue doing" list was mostly non-existent, and my "start doing" list was easy - move my body, eat better, work on how I feel about myself.
7. What scares me about the changes that I want to make in my life?
8. What excites me about the changes that I want to make in my life?
9. What is the ONE GOAL that I want to work on this year? Why does it matter? Why does it matter RIGHT NOW?
10. How will you make it happen?

This deep work wasn’t easy, and I really struggled with questions 7-10. I had gotten a lot of clarity through journaling about the past, but the future was scary. All I knew is that I really didn't want to keep living the same way that I had been.

So I hired a coach.

2. I Hired a Coach

I knew I couldn’t do this alone. So, I hired a coach to help me get clear on my goals and hold me accountable. This sounds silly because I am a fitness coach, but even coaches need coaches.

My coach and I spent a significant amount of time talking through questions 6-9, especially digging into why these goals matter RIGHT NOW. This was so uncomfortable as I had to get super vulnerable and let my guard down with a person that I had known for 5 minutes. But I also knew that if I kept my guard up I wouldn't really get the full benefits from my coaching sessions.

She helped me to see that nothing would change until I started putting myself first.She helped me to see that nothing would change until I started putting myself first.

Having someone in my corner made a huge difference and with her help, I realized that I didn't have to "figure it out" on my own. We meet monthly for an hour on zoom. We start with "bright spots" or what went well since our last meeting. Then we dive into issues and problems and create a plan for the next month, making sure that the plan aligns with my values and goals.

Sometimes my monthly focus was to catch up with an old friend (social network), or clean off my kitchen table (lifestyle), or go to the coffee shop and interact with some strangers (lifestyle). It wasn't always focused around exercise or nutrition, but on the entire wheel of life.

Now, as 2025 is just starting, I'm actually excited for the future. I'm a completely different person today than I was a year ago, not just physically, but mentally. I wouldn't be where I am today without my coach <3.

3. I Took Exercise Slowly and Followed a Program

When I first started getting back into working out, it was hard. My body didn’t move like it used to, I hated what I was seeing in the mirror and I felt discouraged. But I kept showing up. I leaned on my coach for accountability and for the first 2 months after every workout, I tagged my coach in a post-workout photo in my social media stories (if you watch my stories on social, you've seen my silly peace-sign post-workout pose).

I take this photo for several reasons - one is for accountability with my coach, the other is accountability with myself, the last is since the pose is always the same, I can physically see the changes over time. Oh, and the peace sign is a reminder that we are all here to be a part of something bigger than ourselves (I am #2, being a part of something bigger is #1) and that the price we pay for our rent here on earth is service to others.

OK, back to exercise. I followed the 9Round program, which is three 30-minute kickboxing sessions a week. Every session provides strength training and cardio, so 3 a week is all you need to get the full benefits.

But the exercises themselves aren't as important as the consistency. The 9Round workout is done for me, all I have to do is show up and I know I'll get a great workout. No planning. No research. Just show up.

And I really enjoy punching things, so I look forward to my kickboxing sessions.

And it's my "me time." A time when I can put my boxing gloves on and turn off the the world for 30 minutes and solely focus on myself.

Here’s how my workouts progressed:

• January: 3 workouts (abysmal)
• February: 9 workouts (getting better)
• March to July: 8 workouts per month (building consistency at 2 per week)
• August to December: 12 workouts per month (meeting goals at 3 per week)

It took me seven months to hit my goal of three 9Round workouts a week. Most people would have quit after a month of not being perfect and hitting 3 workouts a week, but I stayed consistent and dialed down my goal to 2 workouts a week for a few months. It’s not about being perfect; it’s about doing a little better each day and meeting yourself where you are currently at.

Oh, and trust me, I did want to quit along the way. We all want instant gratification, and after 4 months of getting the exercise thing figured out, I was still 199 lbs. I felt like all my effort wasn’t paying off. But I didn’t quit because I know that the benefits of exercise go way beyond a number on the scale,and I had a deeper reason for doing this than just the number on the scale. I stayed consistent with exercise and with cutting out alcohol in March and starting to log my food consistently in April, by June I had lost 10 pounds.

4. I Cut Out Alcohol

This was a tough one. I live in Wisconsin, the “drunkest state,” and drinking is part of the culture here. But I realized that alcohol was holding me back. It added empty calories, ruined my sleep, and hurt my mental health.

What felt like relief in the moment actually made my stress and anxiety worse. Once I quit drinking, I could finally deal with my emotions in a healthy way. Cutting out alcohol was one of the best decisions I made and one I plan to stick with. If you only made one change in 2025, I highly recommend it be to cutback or cutout alcohol completely. Your brain will thank you.

5. I Logged My Food

In April, I started logging my food and set a daily calorie goal. My focus was simple: hit that calorie goal consistently. It took time, but this habit, combined with my workouts, started melting fat.

And more importantly, because I was following a small calorie deficit, I kept all of my muscle. It is very common for people who follow a huge calorie deficit (for example, restrictive dieting where you cutout an entire food group like carbs or bariatric surgery) or use a product like ozempic, to lose muscle along with fat. But I knew I needed to keep my precious muscle, so I set a small calorie deficit and prioritized lifting heavier weights during my workouts.

Here's what a typical day of eating looked like hitting 2000 calories daily:

Breakfast - protein shake, banana, handful of cashews

Snack - greek yogurt with granola

Lunch - 2 beef tacos with cheese in small tortillas, cucumbers and ranch

Dinner - half a frozen pizza, bowl of ice cream

I didn't "give up" any foods that I love, I simply started logging my food to keep track of my portion sizes. It's really easy to eat an entire frozen pizza or half a carton of ice cream and completely blow your calories for the day. Logging my food allowed me to have the foods that I love and still reach my goals.

6. I Focused on Consistency, Not Perfection

The key to my success was consistency. From June to September 2024, I lost 20 pounds, and by December 2024, I was down to 158 pounds from 199 pounds in January 2024. But this journey wasn’t about perfection. It was about showing up, even when I didn’t feel like it, because I am worth it.

Most people give up when they don’t see results right away. But you can’t control how fast your body loses weight. You can only control your habits. So, I focused on doing the work because I loved myself and wanted to feel better, not just to see a smaller number on the scale.

7. I Gained More Than I Lost

While I’ve talked a lot about weight loss, this journey was about so much more. Here’s what I gained:

• Confidence: I feel better about myself every day.
• Mental Health: I’m less anxious and more excited about the future.
• Alignment: I’m living in a way that matches my values and goals.

My Message to You

If you’re on a health journey, remember this: it’s about more than the scale. Don’t quit because you don’t see results right away. Focus on your habits, stay consistent, and do it because you love yourself. That’s how you create lasting change.

Here's a simple framework - pick 1 thing and focus on it for 3 months. Once you're consistent with that one thing, then pick 1 more thing and focus on those two things for 3 months. That's what I did. It keeps it simple and you can still enjoy life without restriction. And taking action leads to motivation, so as you do 1 healthy thing for yourself, you'll start to feel motivated to do more.

Could I have gotten these results faster? Sure. But this isn't a race. It's my lifestyle now, not a quick fix. You don't need to participate in weird, restrictive, unsustainable behaviors to reach your fitness goals. You probably just need to move your body more and eat less crap. 

You can do this. One step at a time.

And if you want help, reach out to me. I have a ton of free resources to help get started with an exercise routine or eating healthier, and joining 9Round Kickboxing is always a great idea. We also offer personal training and 1-1 nutrition coaching. A full range of resources to help you get results just like I got.

Peace out!