Jimmy was overweight, had dropped out of school multiple times, and was giving up on his dreams.
After hitting rock-bottom, he discovered something that gave him results, and a future, he had never imagined.
“Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.”
Weight Gain Background and Contributing Factors
Jimmy Nelson was heavy for as long as he can remember, from about 5-6 years old. As a young kid he was part of a bad custody battle and pulled between family.
“I never felt that I had a place where I 100% belonged.”
He pushed down emotions he had as a kid, and many of those issues surfaced during his weight loss journey. Jimmy remembers being THE fat kid, the only one in class. He always wanted to be accepted and so he morphed into how his family wanted him to be and acted as the funny kid in class.
“I didn’t see value in just me being me, and tried to find that in other people. Food was part of that… as something to cope.”
Another contributing factor was his use of food as a coping mechanism. Jimmy was embarrassed and uncomfortable in his own body as a kid.
He tells an illustrative story about feeling like he didn’t belong or have value from a young age: During summer when he was about 7-8 years old, Jimmy was playing with kids from the neighborhood and the older sister and parents of a friend rudely and publicly pointed out the size of Jimmy’s “man boobs” in front of all his friends. He was still sorting through these emotions and memories when he was an adult, and even after his weight loss journey.
Jimmy reached a peak weight of 255 pounds. (115.9 kg)
How Being Overweight Impacted Jimmy’s Life
In high school, Jimmy wanted to be an artist, and he especially loved theatre class. In front of a class or going to an audition, he felt very uncomfortable in his own skin even though he loved performing for an audience. Looking back, he can see this as a “crazy victim mentality” for everything in his life, and he “had excuses for why.” At age 26 and moving back in with his parents, Jimmy went from being “a dreamer growing up, to survival mode day to day. It literally was groundhog’s day.”
The Turning Point
One day Jimmy stepped out of the shower and caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. He had no energy, was getting over a recent breakup, was unhealthy, isolated, and had dropped out of college more than once at this point.
“That was my enough is enough moment.”
A lot of little things he was unhappy with kept piling up, and he was done.
“That was a big crossroads for me and that’s when the change started happening.”
Starting The Weight Loss Journey
Exercise:
Jimmy started where he was and with what he had available, right then. He started exercising as “quietly” as possible, using his own neighborhood for walking and biking.
In the beginning, he was nervous that if he shared his goal of losing weight someone would belittle it or crush any momentum he had managed to gain. Exercise became a way for him to take the focus away from his social isolation.
“Exercise for me became a way to not focus on the fact that I felt alone, and it was something that I felt in control of.”
He could control exercise completely, versus being in the circumstances he wasn’t in charge of, and which he felt limited by. Soon after starting his journey, a co-worker introduced him to an in-home fitness DVD program, Power 90 by Tony Horton. (As in P90X Tony Horton) In addition to the DVD, there were online message boards, an eating system, and a program to follow–you knew what you needed to do every day. The social aspect of the message boards kept Jimmy on track, knowing he was not alone in his efforts.
Food:
The first conscious diet change Jimmy remembers was ordering 2 chicken sandwiches, hold the mayo, and water, instead of the typical large value meal he used to order from the drive thru. Small steps like this are a valuable way to start. Small steps can create momentum.
Mindset:
Jimmy’s philosophy is that 4 pillars make up the keys to long-term success: Fitness, nutrition, support, and rewards.
Each pillar is critical to long-term success. You don’t want to let one bad day snowball and turn into a bad weekend, week, month, etc. The right support can help stop the bad trend quickly.
“Everybody falls off the wagon. Everybody has bad days… How quick do you self-correct and get back on track?”
Positive change reinforces itself. Jimmy wants to make the success stories of others come faster and easier than his, and motivation can sometimes be an obstacle. People look at motivation as if a “motivation Santa Claus” is going to come down their chimney and leave motivation presents under the tree.
Jimmy put together 5 tips for how he created his own motivation in his journey, (and how to avoid potholes) and they can be found through www.5daysfire.com.
Staying Motivated
What threatened his progress most was any time he let other people’s opinion define him. He still lacked self-confidence even after he lost the weight.
Jimmy encourages some kind of personal development on a daily basis, and stresses how much that can help with self-love and positivity. Jimmy turns on some kind of personal development audio (books or podcasts) right when he wakes up, setting the expectation for the day.
He began to listen to this kind of empowerment audio (despite his own reluctance) because as he watched people who were successful, that’s what they were doing, so it was worth a try.
What Jimmy Learned About Food, Exercise, and Himself
When he works really hard on himself, on his own development, Jimmy feels he is better able to be a good parent, a good coach, a good business owner, etc.
Learning to self-correct quickly (and having a support system to help you) is critical for success. Once you know you can self-correct and you have practice at it, you can enjoy some more indulgent moments because you know you can get right back on track.
Balance in life is better than the all-or-nothing mentality.
Day-to-Day Tactics
Jimmy exercises early in the day so that he can’t skip it later in the day. An in-home fitness program worked well at the beginning, as he was getting tips directly from the DVD program. It was easier to be very focused and directed, versus seeing people who are aimlessly wandering around the gym for an hour.
Jimmy advises sweating out your bad emotions of the day, and using exercise for therapy. From his peak weight at 250-255, Jimmy (5’9”) lost 100 pounds and then built some muscle up to 164 pounds. “
At the end of the day, I don’t sell health and fitness. My job on this planet is I deliver hope to a world that desperately needs it. Because I was without hope.”
Seeing even a minuscule amount of change in yourself shows you a glimmer of hope for changing your life.
Jimmy’s Advice For Your Journey
- Know that you are worth it—that is critical.
- Find someone who believes in you and can keep you motivated, either a live person or a podcast.
- Take a step. Eat the burger but not the fries, that is a step. Take the stairs and not the elevator, that is a step. Steps add up.
- Create your own momentum.
“Life’s messy… so you’ve gotta get moving in the middle of the mess.”
Resources Discussed In This Podcast
- The Magic of Thinking Big by David Schwartz [ Amazon / iTunes Audiobook ]
- The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy [ Amazon / iTunes ]
- Eat That Frog by Brian Tracy [ Amazon / iTunes / iTunes Audiobook ]
- Crash the Chatterbox by Steven Furtick [ Amazon / iTunes / iTunes Audiobook ]
- Chalene Johnson and www.30daypush.com
- PIYO workouts – link to be added: releases July 28th, 2014!
- www.5daysfire.com
On Jimmy’s Workout Playlist
Contacting Jimmy
- Website: TheCoachJimmy.com
- Facebook: fb.com/CoachJimmy
- Twitter: @TheCoachJimmy
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