My Weight Loss Story and What I Learned

Click here to go to Part 1, documenting how I decided to start my weight loss journey

 

I ate less. There were no fad diets that I followed to start weight loss.

 

Because I am an engineer, I am accustomed to more of a scientific approach to doing things. I did a lot of reading on the topic of weight loss, and found that I needed to be in a calorie deficit. This makes sense as I learnt this in my thermodynamics modules at university. By reducing the calories I eat and/or increasing my activity levels, I can create an energy deficit. However, eating less is easier than exercising more, so I just decided to do the former. In another post, I’ll write about how people misunderstand the entire calories in, calories out model.

So, what did I need to do?

I created an account on a website called Myfitnesspal. The website is similar to a food diary. It allows you to log the food you eat, showing you the calories and macronutrients of each item. It also allows you to add custom foods to track things not found in their database. Thereafter, I needed to know how many calories are needed to maintain my weight, to determine my deficit. At my weight, height and age I needed to eat around 3300 calories for maintenance. Eating less than this, or even increasing activity at that calorie intake would cause me to lose weight. 

My first post on Myfitnesspal included half of a pack of Romany Creams. My plan was to ensure that I did not have any unhealthy food at my home. This was to prevent me from cheating on my diet. To compensate for eating the Romany Creams, I drastically reduced my calories that day. On that day I ate around 1400 calories, which was a deficit of 1900 calories. For anyone reading this, my advice is that they should NOT DO THIS. It is very foolish, and on reflection I feel there are many instances where I could have been better with my weight loss.

Tools of the trade

During the first month of my weight loss, I bought the following items that were instrumental in tracking my progress:

·         A scale for measuring my weight

·         A scale for food measurements

The scale for measuring my weight is an easier way to track progress compared to doing body measurements. It’s difficult to move when you are morbidly obese. I also had to find a scale that measured up to 200 kg, as the available scales measured up to 120 kg.

I believe that the food scale is the most important tool for weight loss. People are not able to estimate how much food they eat. They generally underestimate how much of food they eat. This can cause you to be in a calorific surplus, and will then cause you to gain weight. Using a food scale gives you an idea of what certain foods look like at different weights. This makes it easier to estimate foods in the future if you don’t have a scale on hand.

Delving into nutritional labels

Finally, and most importantly, I started reading the nutritional label and ingredients for all items I bought. This allowed me to make better decisions on what foods to buy to eat. The first time I did this, I found that many foods I loved were actually loaded with calories. For example, Nik Naks Fruit Chutney chips is around 530 calories or so per 100 grams. 50% of the calories in Nik Naks come from fat. Compare this with an example meal consisting of chicken breast, rice and vegetables. During my weight loss, a meal with this would normally be around 480 calories. Think about which one eaten would make you feel satiated.

I used the scales and reading of labels for the first 6 months of my weight loss and managed to lose 48 kilograms.

What about the gym?

It was only in February 2017 that I signed up with Virgin Active to obtain a gym membership. I went early in the morning to sign up, and later that day I had my first gym session ever. A friend accompanied me to the gym and he showed me some exercises I could follow. My workouts involved mostly resistance training. Because I had never done any exercise before, I was so weak that I could not even bench press the barbell. However, the thought of making progress and getting stronger, while also losing weight spurred me on even further. I did more reading about the exercises I could perform, trying to perfect my form to prevent injury. Eventually, I joined the fitness subreddit to read about other gym goer experiences.

In fact, I have never been so disciplined with completing any goal in my life up to that point and still cannot believe I managed to lose weight. Because I had used the same gym for 1.5 years, the regulars at the gym noticed my efforts. I was always happy when someone noticed me at the gym, losing weight and getting stronger, and cheering me on. The one thing I noticed is that, you may feel ashamed of going to the gym because you feel like there are others who look better than you.

 

But I’m here to tell you that there are people who notice your hard work and want to continue fostering that culture, and will continue to cheer you on.

 

Was there any variety in my diet?

Because I had a lot of weight to lose, I thought that after a year or so I should give different diet methods a try. To date, I have tried the following:

·         Vegetarian Diet (Being vegan is expensive)

·         Pescatarian Diet (Can consume fish)

·         Low Fat Diet

·         Low Carbohydrate Diet

·         Ketogenic Diet

Of these, the pescatarian diet was the easiest to follow, and the hardest was the ketogenic diet. The ketogenic diet is way too restrictive. Limiting carbohydrates to less than 20 grams a day is something I couldn’t keep up for a long time. I just love carbs too much. The need to also manage your protein intake to avoid slipping out of ketosis, was just too much effort. Most importantly, a diet that asks to remove a single macronutrient is tends to make it more difficult to adhere to.

What did I accomplish with this weight loss?

One thing I was consistent with was eating at a reduced calorie intake and just doing more resistance training. I barely did any cardio. Eventually, I started maintaining my weight between 85 kg and 90 kg, after reaching a low of around 83 kg. In total, I manged to lose around 90 kg in 4 years. Some people have told me it’s a long time. My response has been:

 

You’ve been 24 years morbidly obese, losing weight in 4 years is a very short time.

 

During the years, I’ve managed to improve my strength at lifting weights. My bench press maximum is at 95 kg, my squat maximum is at 150 kg, my deadlift maximum is at 180 kg and my shoulder press maximum at 65 kg. 

Although I do not have the data from when I was morbidly obese, I had blood tests done periodically to monitor my progress. My bloodwork improved drastically within the past two years. I am now within recommended ranges for cholesterol, blood glucose and vitamin D and B12 (I had a deficiency for both). 

In 2019, I took up running for a few months, and was able to bring my resting heart rate to around 48 beats per minute, with the lowest I’ve ever had my blood pressure readings of 104/62. If you don’t have heart conditions, this actually indicates that you’re really fit.

I felt that physically, it was the best I have ever felt. Losing the weight was the best decision I’ve made so far in life. However, people feel as though losing weight is the hardest part.

 

No, the most difficult part is the mental changes that happen (or don’t) as a result of this.

Closing remarks

Maybe I will post about this in the future, about the mental aspects regarding losing weight. I had gone from 24 years of not worrying about my body, to now always worrying about it. I never cared that I was morbidly obese and that I wore 5XL shirts and size 50 pants. It did not occur to me being extremely full all the time was very uncomfortable and not supposed to be normal. I did not care about the constant mocking about my weight, that I was called “Big Show”, or “Mark Henry”, or even “amafutha” (which is fat in Zulu). It did not occur to me that I should have valued myself and my body much more than I did. But now that I am older and have made this change,

 

I can only thank myself for the decision that I made 4 years ago.