Is there actually anything new to say about losing weight? Seriously, haven’t every dietician, health guru, and a whole bunch of scientist with lab rats on running-wheels spoken and provided every insights possible to this issue? Well the difference is, that this account is from my personal experience of fighting fat. A first-hand view of the hand-to-hand combat in this ensuing saga, as one looks down and hope to see some toes.
Not too long ago I lost 17 kgs or about 37 lbs in about six months. However, since then much to my dismay I have gained about 7 kgs of it back. Just to make matters worst, in the zeal of losing weight I excitedly altered all my pants, and now I am stuck with seven pair of pants which I no longer fit in.
So here I am – huffing and puffing my way back into my own pants.
Friends sometimes ask how I lost the weight in the first place, so here is my story. I started off with a diet program called VLCD (Very Low Calorie Diet), which is a just fancy name for not eating! It probably is the best approach if you are trying to lose weight rapidly, except for one small problem. I will guarantee you a visit to the hospital in about two months. You see when we stop eating, we send our body into hormonal hell, along with other sorts of deficiency as the body adjusts and try to make do with what little nourishment it gets. I landed in the hospital sick, as my immune system said screw you and decided to stop fighting simple infections like the flu.
Next I tried the infamous protein diet, again a fancy name for “stop eating rice you dodo”. You see carbohydrate is the body’s happy food. Carbohydrate is turned into sugar for your brain, and is also the source for the hormones which makes you smile in the morning. Take this out, and guess what? You are not only fat, but also crappy and grumpy – not the kind of recipe you would want to go to the office with.
However, as a result of this aggressive diet, coupled with lots of cardio exercise and muscle building I was shedding pounds like a wet baboon jumping up and down shaking its own hair off! Everyday the scales was smiling at me, and then it struck. I got sick again, this time for much longer then before. The zest of burning calories and stoking the body with complex food like protein got to me. Again the immune system decided to call it quits.
After six months I felt like an instant hit, I may have fallen sick twice but I also lost a lot of weight! So what is the downside then?
Any method to losing weight that is not incorporated into our lifestyle is temporary. The thousand ringgit you spend to enroll in the slimming clinic or the gym will end up as fines you have to pay every few years when you realized that you have to fight the fat again. This does not have to be the case as I am learning now.
Is there peace then, in this on-going battle of the bulge?
As accumulating fat takes time, it would be reasonable to expect that shedding it should also take some time. Our society’s enthusiasm for instant gratification is the root to this yo-yo diet lifestyle. We all want to look good instantly, yet it took us years to accumulate the mass that we carry around. All of us expects to get thin in two months, but spent two decades getting fat.
Now lets have a look at our lifestyle. How much do we eat, against how much do we walk? No not working out, not running, just walk? See, losing weight is the net effect of consuming less then the calories we use everyday. When we use more energy then we eat, the body will have to revert to the lard stored in the fat cells and start burning them off. That is it. That is all there is to losing weight.
Finally here’s some tips to pave the way should you choose to lose some weight, none of which is new but while grossly oversimplified, I find that it does the trick. Otherwise, while Fat may be the new Black, but from what I have heard about our hospitals asking money up front before they fix you up, there better be enough dough in the coffers when you drop on the ground clutching your chest gasping for air.
1. Don’t be hungry!
This is the worst. The hungrier you get, the more likely you are to cave and binge. Eat regularly but in smaller amounts. Go ahead and snack. The trick is to replace those yummy bars of chocolate with something a bit healthier. Don’t throw that chocolate out yet, just take a smaller dose of it with something else; and munch away. Try to eat as many as six times a day – in smaller amounts. Also get on the multi-vitamins trail. Once you reduce your food intake, supplementing your diet helps to ensure that the body gets the right amount of nutrition it needs.
2. Walk
Yes, walk. Park your car a bit further then necessary and walk (Zed’s Note: And don’t forget to copy down the number on the pillar, just in case you lose your way finding your car later!), also wake up a bit earlier in the morning and start walking for about 20 mins. Take your time. Don’t try too hard, what is important is that you do it often and consistently.
Remember, we are changing a lifetime of being a slave to food and comfy beds – this ain’t no small matter!
3. Patience
As with anything worth having, it is also worth waiting for. Don’t forget to check the scales as frequently as you can. It can be a lot of fun to see the results of what you are doing.
No, you probably will not look like Angelina Jolie next month, but over time - with that slow and steady reduction, your body will get healthier, and you will feel much better! There is no other good reason to lose weight other then to feel better about oneself. If there is, then I don’t think you should worry about the weight, it’s the head that needs checking.
That’s it. That is all there is to fighting and winning the battle against fat. The only question is can you wait? I ask myself this all the time as I wake up every morning, and curse the damn love-handles.
