Down 25 kgs from 115 kg to 95 kg!

Here’s what I learned about losing weight.

The Big Picture

1. It’s a lifestyle. A long-term commitment not a short-term diet event.
2. It’s a Mental, Emotional, Spiritual, Physical & Scientific transformation journey with many trials and errors.
3. It’s a marathon not a sprint.
4. Consistency & repetition is the name of the game.
5. Different strategies for either food or sport can work, but if you mix both with the right formula the results will be magical.
6. It’s for you more than for others.
7. Plan, test, measure and repeat.

The Details

1. Learn to consume lower calories/more healthy food that you like instead of other items that you also like but has more calories/less healthier for you to lose weight. For example drink pineapple juice instead of orange juice. Pineapple is lighter & has more fibers that will help your metabolism more. Go for fresh juices instead of syrup juices. Go for diet Pepsi/Coke instead of the regular one. (I know many still argue that the regular is healthier or help you more in losing weight than the diet one but my testing didn’t show that.) Of course it is better if you can completly eliminate or reduce soda as much as you can. Ps if you drink diet soda with cherry syrup cut the syrup ;-).
2. Go for only grilled meat or chicken and avoid anything fried.
3. Repeat the food that you eat. Test your weight over a certain period of time and if your weight didn’t drop then you need to change something in your food repetition formula.
4. Think of what are you going to order before you go to a restaurant that you know and try to decide before you open the menu. If you are exploring a new restaurant, stick with the basics of your repetitions and general rules, like grilled food with no bread instead of fried, or mashed potato instead of french fries.
5. Counting calories works but it’s not accurate. You can use different apps like my fitness pal to count calories. I counted calories maybe only for 1-2 months then never used it again. Counting calories is good to help you understand the general calorie count for different combinations of meals or specific food items, also to understand your general daily total consumption. Counting calories works because you will have a daily target and fear will make you stick to the right calories figures, it’s a time consuming process so give it sometime before you quit using it to develop the habit of using the app.
6. Cut bread & rice not completely but as much as you can, I know it’s difficult not to eat bread if you are ordering a nice burger but sometimes what I do is I remove the bread then add the burger into a salad then eat it with the salad instead of the bread.
7. Eat different salads with chicken. It’s tastier than you think than just chicken by itself. Put the dressing on the side and use small portions of the dressing on your salad only when you feel you are annoyed with the tasteless taste of your salad. By then you will have consumed half the quantity of the dressing instead of the whole thing. Ask for light dressings instead of the normal ones.
8. It’s a low carbs game so reduce the sugar, bread, rice, pasta, pizza as much as you can.
9. Measure your weight every morning as much as you can. It’s better to use a smart weight measurement device or app to track your weight data.
10. Reduce the stress in your life through sports. The less sports you do, the more you will be stressed and the more you will eat.
11. Use yoga, body balance or massage to relax your mind & stretch your body.
12. The gym is usually boring for most people so pick a sport that you enjoy so you can burn calories while enjoying your time instead of torturing yourself. If just the gym works for you then do more of it.
13. Run or cycle as much as you can, I hate running but I like to cycle in a group session more than doing it on my own. Use group sessions, a personal trainer or a training partner to motivate you to stay consistent and to hold you accountable for the training.
14. Do more cardio than strength and do more repetitions than high weights. It’s about getting fitter not bigger, most of the big guys that you see get big to impress others more than really getting fit. Most of them don’t have real fitness.
15. Drink more & more water, especially in the morning.
16. If you want to fry something at home fry it with lemon instead of oil, I do that all the time if I want to fry any meat or tomato or eggs.
17. Add nuts, like walnuts or almond to your diet.
18. Feel your body when you eat. You will understand it more with the time and with more proper testing of different food items.
19. If you cheat at certain meal try to recover in the next one. It’s fine to cheat sometimes as long as your long term results are good.
20. Fill your fridge with healthier & low calorie alternative food items rather than the ones that are making you gain weight.
21. Use honey in your coffee instead of sugar. When you order your cup of coffee from your favorite coffee shop brand order it with skim milk and no whipped cream.
22. Eliminate the cheat day, it’s a continuous commitment, sometimes you break the rules in certain days but you should be able to adjust by feeling your body and following the repetitions rules again.
23. You are what you eat. Educate yourself about food, read articles or books from time to time about certain areas of diet or food items that you would like to learn about. Test, track, repeat and measure.

Please share in a comment below the strategies & techniques that helped you to lose weight?

#AK