I was pleasantly happy that this week, when I stood on the weighing scales, I've dropped 10kg from my 'Pig of my life' all time weight last Aug. It sure took me a long time, 14months to do so but I'm glad I hung on and did it.
The plus points include fitting into my M-sized Tshirts very comfortably and looking good too, looking younger too. More bursts of energy due to the better fitness level but stamina is still not that great, feel lighter on my feet, lesser knee pain from stairs and feel positive.
On the other hand, the jeans n pants becoming loose, actually this is not so good cos I had gone through a wardrobe change the last time I gained weight so now bottoms are getting loose. Might need a change again. With my decrease in spending $$$ meant I would look for a piece at a time...
Actually I took a much longer time to do this... My sis did it in 6 mths, cos she could eat the same food eg Fish soup bee hoon for lunch every day. I can't, even now after gaining the ability to make dietary changes, I still need variety n not the same stuff daily.
How did I do this?
I think firstly is the mind;
1) acknowledging that firstly I was responsible for my own weight gain cos I decided upon what I put into my mouth. So I have to be the ONE to decide to take control over what I eat. I have to be the one to monitor n make conscious choices and decisions about the stuff I eat. Not just for a meal but at every single meal time. For the longer term view of health, I need to make better food decisions for my own health's sake.
2) A realistic expectation that while it would be great to be able to magically lose the weight overnight with no pain of diet n exercise, it's not realistic nor do-able. I told myself repeatedly since I put on the weight over a period of time say 2 years, realistically speaking, it would take about the same duration of time to lose it. If it could happen faster, great but if not, that's the span of time I have to keep things up.
With these, I set upon the start. So I started counting calories, weighing myself regularly, exercising at least twice a week. It was a learning process along the way, had trials and errors n refined certain ways etc
In the first 5 months, I had little success in terms of weight loss. Just a mere 2kg, hardly a dent. Plus obviously still rounded. The reasons were that I tried different combination of the diet-exercise mix.
Firstly I went with my normal eating (no control of the calories) but just keeping track of what I ate using the HPB app plus do gym 2-3 times in a week. I stabilized my weight from the "Pig of my life", it went down a little...
So I had to switch a bit more to a bit more control over what I ate, but wasn't well so one period of time, I had little or no exercise. That didn't work for me cos though my weight wasn't rising, it wasn't falling n I felt more flabby n had less energy...
Then I came to the decision, it had to be at both sides; a mix of diet-control & exercise. Since I already had my conclusion from trying the extreme of both spectrums, so it's time to move onto that.
Some little strategies I developed was to slowly wean out the unhealthier options and habits. Understand that it took me quite a while to wean them out slowly n gradually over time.
To illustrate, I used to drink Coke Zero 1-2 cans a day at work, it was to replace the soft drinks. But later I came to drink it too often. Plus studies have shown that it's not good for the body n diet due to the 'empty sugars' causing the brain to want to consume more food. So I consciously limit myself to just 1 can a day. I don't pop open the Coke Zero until I finally really needed to drink it, and not cos I drank it from boredom. So that worked. I could achieve one per day. Then next step was to not drink it on the weekends at all. Again once I could do that, I moved onto drinking a can every 2 days... And increased until just a can a week. Of course I replaced it with unsugared tea n plain water. Took me a long while gradually to make this change. By now, drinking a soft drink or diet soft drink is optional for me. I can make do with plain water or unsugared tea. No issues. This is especially helpful to the diet because without any sweet drinks in my diet, I am completely eliminating extra calories consumed by drinking. One spoiler of diets is the amount of calories consumed by drinking, especially for sweetened drinks.
That's one example of the 'Life-Style Changes', I slowly made over this long period of time. It's a lifestyle change because by doing that I am changing the eating habits completely n won't go back to it cos my tastes has changed.
Other examples include
Snacking Habits - replace with Jap snacks that had portion-control and fresh fruits like an apple, a pear, grapes, watermelon, n a couple of bananas.
Breakfast - eating one no matter how much my stomach cannot take it. Even if it's just some coffee, biscuits, a slice of bread, force it down n make it a habit gradually. It helps to keep my energy for morning classes.
Lunch - as I had developed the habit of recording what I ate for my meals, gradually it dawned on me how much unhealthy high calories food I bought to eat for lunch and quite frequently, eg Malay Nasi Padang, Bryani was delicious but after keying into the HPB app, I saw how much calories I was eating, I consciously weaned myself off it and ate stuff like Char Siew Rice which was lower and gradually moved down to plainer stuff, eg soup, porridge, ZCP n milder tasting food. This took me a while also but now I am able to decide what food I should eat to balance off the calories for the day. Say I had a Bryani for lunch, dinner has to be lighter. Overall keep my daily calories balanced, daily.
In the event that I over-eat while I still do, I have to be conscious and try to aim for deficits over the next few days to 'off-set' the surplus. It takes some practice but once I could do it, even the occasional Big over indulgence, I didn't put on weight.
Exercise - I keep to the 'No more than 7 days between each workput' rule. Research has shown and I have tried this many many times, is that to build up any routine, one has to do it for 3 weeks with max 7-days duration in-between. Once you break the 7-days duration, the routine falls apart and you have to spend another 3 weeks to rebuild it. Hence for me, once the routine is built-up, I refuse to break it. I rather pia that one day and force myself with just a bit more to do the workout and get it over and done with, then to have the consequence of breaking the routine entirely and having to spend another 3 weeks 'forcing myself' to build up the routine. It's much less painful actually.
With all these methods slowly over time, from Jan, my weight started falling more than previously. Started gradually then more and more. I was looking at my pics in January, compared to now the difference is very noticeable. On the other hand, I didn't really notice until recently. Reason being it was a gradual process. Life went on as usual, with the work taking lots of time but I reminded myself I am doing this for myself, so just keep it up consciously despite the challenges and fatigue.
Slowly one thing I noticed was my work pants became fitting, then gradually looser and now very loose. The belts I use, it used to be tight at my usual buckle then fitting and now I could pull an extra hole in and if I really try, a second extra hole, recently.
I wasn't staring at my face daily or whatever but I noticed my arms becoming more toned and my stomach flattening out. Only when some of the local staff eg security, office clerks noticed and pointed out that I seemed to have lost some weight, then I noticed it more.
Suddenly some fellow other colleagues seem to notice my weight-loss and asked me if I had lost weight. My reply was, "yes 9kg so far, took me 14 months", I could see the surprise on their faces. I think 1) 9kg is a lot, 2) 14 months is a long time, my persistence in keeping up with it.
I feel it's because I am doing this for the longer term health in mind, my motivation n persistence n patience are greater. I am also taking control of one aspect of my life n not letting others dictate it. Since I was the one who let myself go downwards, I'll have to be the one to take responsibility n action to rectify it. It's a learning process, lots of trial n error, tweaking the methods.
Now I am close to or already at my Uni weight. I won't lose the discipline and just let myself go anytime soon. I am still aiming for another 5kg to put me nearer to the ideal weight zone. To reduce the BMI to 22, body fat to 25% much healthier range. Now is still at borderline though acceptable weight. After all these, I wont let myself go so easily. After all the effort plus lifestyle changes, I want this to be permanent.
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