Today I want to tell you the story of my weight loss journey. A few year ago,I used to weight 70kg (155lbs). I was overweight,out of shape,and very unhappy with my self. Since then,I have lost more than 10kg (22lbs). I have lost the weight by maintaining specific habits consistently. In this article I will share all of this habits with you.
- Weighing in – A habit that help me loss 10kg was weighing my self every day. I know some people don’t recommend doing this, because it’s easy to become obsessed with the number on the scale. You can avoid this by treating the number on the scale as data. Your weight is not your worth,it is just the weight of your body. Weight will go up and down due to water retention and changes in fat and muscle. I weight myself daily,put the number in the chart,and focus on the trendline. This help me understand my body better and keeps me accountable.
- Staying hydrated – Another habit that help me alot was drinking more water. I got into the habit of drinking a large cup of water. After waking up in the morning. This helped me to drink more water through out the day . Staying hydrated helps manage water retention but drinking water instead of drinks with calaries also aids weight loss. At work,I keep a 600ml bottle to encourage me to drink more throughout the day.
- Intermittent fasting -Another change I made that helped me loose 10kg was doing intermittent fasting. I had previously done inmittend fasting to improve my acid reflux, but I didn’t try to control what I ate, so I didn’t loose much weight.This time,I began using intermittent fasting as a tool to control my intake. At first,a got use to fasting for 14hrs , from 8pm to 10am . Then I increase it to 15 hrs , and afterwards,to 16 hours.for the past 3years, i have been fasting. Alomost every day. I stop eating,and drinking calories at 8pm until I break my fast atnoon the next day. Sometimes, I fast for 18 or 20 hrs, but this isvery rare. I only do this when I am in a plateau for a long time and want to “shoke” my body. Intermittent fasting doesn’t work for everyone. If you tr it starts slowly and please be mindful of your health. And if you have a health condition, you should consult with a doctor first.
- Tracking calories – The one habit that has made the most difference is traking my intake. When I started losing weight, I used a scale to weigh almost all my food. Weighing food is most accurate way to know how many calories you are consuming.I use an app called “cronometer ”. To track my calaries. I track my protein, carb, and fast intakes to make sure I am eating well. I also track micronutrients like vitamins to make sure my diet is balanced. It’s unrelastic to eat perfectly everyday, so I just use this tool to make sure I’m not lacking to much in any area. I have been weighing my food for a few year already. Iam already familiar with portion sizes and calories of many ingredients because of this, nowadays I don’t weigh everything. I only weigh calorie-dense food like sugar, oats, rice,meat, granola, potato etc. it’s important to use this as a tool for knowledge and not become obsessed.
- Diet – When it comes to the types of foods I ate to lose 10 kg,the only thing I can say is that I only ate foods I like. I ate sandwiches,pizzas, rice bowls, bagels, pancakes and pasta. In my diet blog, you can see many examples of all the things I ate.I just weighed the foodand tracked my portions to make sure I ate at a deficit . Obviously,if you eat more calorie-dense food like cheese,pasta,or meat ,you will have to eat smaller portions than if you eat vegetables, for example. You will have to eat smaller portions than if you eat vegetables, for example. But it very important to eat food like and find the balance that works for you. That’s what I did, and I was able to stick to my diet until I lost more than 10kg.
- Drinking less calories – A specific habit that helped me cut a lot of calories and lose weight was switching from lattes and sugary drinks to black cofee. I used to drink lattes every morning and afternoon, and together that is at least 300 calaries. I still drink lattes and sugary drinks sometimes now, but I always get low fat milkand ask for less sugar. In general, I also stopped drinking sodas and others drinks with calaries. Other than water, I only drink tea, sparkling water,and diet soda like coke zero. This helps me save more calories for food and makes it easier to lose weight.
- Exercise – My exercise habits have always been very irregular. What helped me loose 10kg was always doing some sort of exercise. If you don’t exercise at all, your body uses less calories than if you exercise,so if you have to be able to lose weight. You can do that , but loosing weight with exercise is healthier and more sustainable. For my weight loss, I always did a combination of cardio and strength training. For cardio I used a mini stepper before, and now I used a stationary bicycle. For strength training, I followed workouts from the internet or YouTube. I feel more motivated with tools, so I began doing workout with resistance bands,and then I started doing workouts with dumbbells. I try to do 3 To 5 hours of cardio and 3to4 strength training workouts every week . My strength training workouts are between 20 and 45 minutes. You can see examples of my weekly diet blog. It’s hard for me to exercise regularly,but it definitely helped a lot in weight loss.
- Balance – It’s important to mention that eating a balanced diet also helped me a lot. I let my self enjoy fast food and often eat out in restaurant.I don’t try to eat “diet” food every time I eat out .I just try to choose foods that fit into my diet plan, and occasionally enjoy foods without worrying about calories or my diet.
- Mindset – If I could only give you one piece of advice,it would be to remeber that it’s a marathon, not a race. To lose weight successfully,we need to change our habits, not do a short -term diet. Our body is a reflection of how we eat and exercise. So we need to eat and exercise in ways that are sustainable. My weight was always going up and down until I understood this. What really helped was understanding that I shouldn’t expect fast results. I don’t pressure myself to lose weight fatsor restrict too much. Instead, Ihave been focusing on enjoying the process and not giving up. I hope you will feel inspired to do that same. Thankyou for joining me this week, and hope you enjoyed the blog.