My Weight Gain and Decision to Lose Weight

Why is it that people lose weight?

This was not a question I had always asked myself. To be fair, I always had maintained that I did not need to lose weight. What I failed to understand was that I was 180 kilograms and classified as morbidly obese on the Body Mass Index (BMI) scale.

Childhood

I was always chubby as a kid. I remember being around 60 kgs as a 10-year-old child despite being active as any child was (or should be) around that age. I used to ride my bike, play a bit of cricket with my cousins, play on the street with the children in the neighbourhood at my aunt’s place, and I also practiced karate, managing to get to brown belt before quitting. Towards the end of my primary schooling and into high school, I played a lot of table tennis.

With such an active lifestyle, I remember I used to eat a lot more compared to other children. At this point in my life, I feel like a child eating more food than you think they should be completely normal. Being concerned about a child’s weight as a parent, I feel is not really a major thing.

I loved food. My mother will always be the best cook (you should try out her trotters and beans, as well as tripe and gram dhall). I loved her food. I remember not eating much junk food, compared to the amount of home cooked food I ate. In the odd event that I did, it was generally a bag of chips (I always love fruit chutney flavours). I frequently used to empty pots holding the meals my mother cooked and used to always eat food from it while emptying it. I enjoyed it. Little did I know that this would continue for many more years and would have probably been one of the major contributory factors to my weight gain.

Campus

Fast forward to my campus years. As I mentioned previously, I was always chubby. This trend continued into my campus years. In fact, the growth of the amount of food I consumed daily increased exponentially. I do not ever remember not feeling completely full. A typical day involved me getting up at around 5:30 in the morning to get ready to be picked up to go to campus. Yes, I used to travel from Stanger to the University of KwaZulu-Natal every day for 5 years. For a majority of these 5 years, I had only returned home around 18:30 in the evening, and very rarely reached home before 15:30.

A typical day for eating involved sampling the lunch, mainly consisting of sandwiches, my mother prepared for me, in addition to another sandwich or cereal. I used to eat the remainder of my lunch at around 10:00 or so, the time at which I would become ravenously hungry. Around 12:00 or so, I used to buy lunch. This could range from pies, to burgers, to even pizzas. And fried chips, a lot of fried chips. There used to be an uncle at campus, selling foodstuffs. The fried chips and a snack called “half-moons” were amazing, and I used to eat these every day. This used to happen at around 15:00 or 16:00. Just before leaving campus, I used to eat a packet of chips, and used to sometimes combine this with a box of smarties. The taste combination of the two was not that bad.

I used to consume a lot of food upon reflection, and coupled with my lack of activity, it is no wonder I ballooned in weight. But even this, could not prepare me for what would happen after I graduated.

Moving to Johannesburg

In late March 2015, I moved up to Johannesburg to start work at the company I had a bursary with. I had freedom, and was earning an income, and was using the money to primarily buy food. Not food that I required by any means, just food in general. My diet deteriorated to a point where I was probably consuming food that the average human would consume in 3 days, in 1 day. I also used to drink very frequently, contributing to even more consumption of foods and drinks that I did not really require. It did not help that at the shopping centre across from me, a McDonald’s drive through opened. A typical supper order from McDonald’s was the following:

· Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese large meal with a coke

· McFeast Deluxe large meal with a coke

· Any McFlurry

Yes, I know. This is a lot of food to eat. I used to eat this at least 3 times a week, sometimes 4 times a week.

I also used to play a lot of computer games, something that I have grown up with.

I was the stereotypical gamer.

This, again coupled with a lack of activity, caused me to balloon to around 180 kilograms.

In the 24 years of my
existence, I gained mass and weighed 180 kilograms

So, why did I lose weight?

This is one thing I feel a bit weird discussing. Everyone that I have seen or heard of lose weight, has been due to some of the following:

· They had developed type 2 diabetes,

· They experienced a breakup,

· They had lost mobility due to being morbidly obese,

· A trip to the doctor involved hearing that they may not live long if they continue their current weight trajectory,

and the list goes on.

My reason for losing weight was this:

I lost weight because I said I will do it, so I did.

I remember it was a cold night at a friend’s place visiting him prior to him moving out of his place. The three of us were all quite drunk and having a braai. My two friends were discussing how they were not at going to the gym at the time due to other commitments, about biking, about cycling and so on. It was on that night, on the 26^th of August 2016, that I declared to both that I would lose weight.

Yeah, that is literally it.

Officially, I started my weight loss diet on the 29^th of August 2016. I used an application called MyFitnesspal to track my weight loss, as well my food intake.