My weight loss journey (read how I got healthier)

The Triggering Point:

It was December 2020 when I went to a diagnostic lab for my yearly basic blood tests. I saw a weighing machine residing in the far corner of the lab. Flashbacks of my friends and family, telling me to loose weight, started revolving around my head. “You are getting fat!”, “Look at your belly…”, “What the hell are you eating these days?!”, “Go get some exercise” kept popping in my head. I thought to myself of getting my weight checked. And boy was I surprised! 86kgs!!!!! To add salt to injuries, my reports (specially the cholesterol level) was high as well. All of this was such a slap to my face.

I finally decided to change my lifestyle. I didn’t want to make any drastic changes to my eating habits. I was willing to leave some things but not most. I took no special guidelines from any certified nutritionist, neither did I follow any special diet regimen. I solely give credit for this change to my wife cause honestly she’s too lazy to make any specific diet food for me :P

Jokes apart, what I did was too simple and too good to be true, but it bore me great results. So without any further ado, let me impart my not-so-professional take on this new lifestyle. I was able to follow my routine with consistency and in 3 months time, I went from 86kgs to 73kgs.

Here is what I did.

The Do’s:

I capped my daily calories to 1200 to maintain a caloric deficit. What is caloric deficit? Simply put its a difference between calories consumed and calories burned. To maintain this deficit one just needs to either eat less or burn calories through workout.

Since I had to lower my cholesterol levels, I started monitoring it on an app called myFitnessPal. There are many apps out there but this is the most famous and accurate one. Moreover it’s very reliable as well as its one of the oldest app for food tracking.

So this app was the first source of motivation that I had as it’s extremely easy to log my daily food. It even has desi, and sub-continent style street food entries as well. It has features where you can add your food and their calories in a quick manner, thus leaving no excuse for me not to log in what I was eating.

Things started to move in a positive way as soon as I started using the app as I was able to measure/log everything. I limited the sugar, fat and cholesterol levels to 50g, 40g and 100mg a day, respectively. What I did to achieve 1200 calories was to cut down on whatever I was eating. For example, if I was having 2 servings of rice before, I started having one (or less). If I was previously eating 1.5 chapati I cut it down to 1. Basically I cut down the intake portion of whatever I used to eat before.

Another important thing I would like to mention here is to log the food intake before you start eating it. It has two advantages. First is that you would know if you are going beyond your calories. Second advantage is that I also had to monitor sugar, fat & cholesterol levels so if any of the limit was spilling over, I would simply leave/reduce that food to come back in the limits. And let me be honest. It wasn’t as easy as I might be making it sound.

The Dont’s:

There were some no-go areas too and then there were some foods that I took rarely. I was very strict on fried items and fizzy drinks. Stuff like Burgers, Nihari, Hareesa and Paye with Naan were a rarity. These items contain such high calories that either I had to take very little portion or I would have to skip next meal completely to remain in the limits.

My Workouts:

Since I am a software engineer, sitting for long hours is pretty normal. The little to no activity during COVID lockdown further increased my weight. This was the time when the second wave in Pakistan was dying down so now I could at least go out for a walk. I didn’t want to do any exercise but I knew I need to have some level of activity to burn the food I was consuming. So I started walking and the minimum level I set was 8000 steps a day.

The easiest way to make this walking a habit is to call your friends and family during this time. Again there are a lot of apps and gadgets in the market, I used Pacer app to track my steps.

How I stayed motivated:

Even though I received no support from my friends and family (except for my wife of course) in my weight loss journey, I remained steadfast. There is still no bigger motivation than seeing yourself transform. I started monitoring my weight every single day at the same time and logged it in the myFitnessPal app. Once, I could see the results in the weight loss graph (shown in the beginning), there was no going back and everyone started noticing and appreciating me as well. This was some where around the first month after I started my diet. Every day after the first month was motivating and exciting.

Changes that I made to my lifestyle:

1. Avoid fizzy drinks completely.
2. Restrict myself from eating my favorite food items.
3. Limit junk food to once a week.
4. Walk on daily basis.
5. Following the plan religiously.

What I missed doing:

One thing worth mentioning here is that while doing all this weight loss, I did loose some of my muscle mass as well (as per most of my body builder friends but I still don’t buy their argument). Nevertheless it is always good to have some level of exercise on daily basis, which can act as a catalyst in weight loss activity.