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Why and how I lost 10kg

I reached 99.6kg on my bathroom scale about 6 months ago. I have never seen myself go over 100kg, but being just a fraction under gave me a little bit of a scare. I am pretty tall, so I may not have looked that fat, but I felt heavy and it was not happiness to do any strenuous physical activity.

I tried for a few weeks to lose weight, but it was never really working for me. I guess it was always a kind of new day resolution. I started with a healthy breakfast, some cereal, coffee. Lunch was respectable too, nothing too heavy, but then at night I had dinner, then a bowl of fruit, then I had a handful or 5 of baked sunflower seeds. I was addicted to them. I just had to munch on something at night.

The next morning, my scale reflected the previous day’s activities and cruelly announced to me that I lost absolutely NO weight whatsoever.

I heard that apple cider vinegar works wonders. It was being promoted by one of the Spice Girls, Yvonne said, the one married to Beckham, so it must be working. She is a rake after all. Well, I did drink it for a few days. Eager to speed the process, I drank almost half a cup of it one night, instead of the prescribed 1 table spoon. I spent half a night in the bathroom that night, with plenty of time to contemplate my stupidity.

Nothing seemed to work for me until I went to see my doctor for my annual checkup. I was pre-diabetic. My blood sugar was high and I was described as borderline obese.

That is what sparked my weight loss journey.

I removed all sweets from my diet. No biscuits, no ice cream, and no sugary drinks. Within 3 weeks I lost 3 kg. I thought it’s going to be a walk in the park with this weight loss. It wasn’t. Losing 3 kg was simple, but after a few weeks I realised that my weight was not going down anymore. I was stuck on about 96kg for a month.

My next visit to the doctor showed good improvement in my blood sugar, so I just decided to rest on my laurels. Not a good idea. To lose weight I had to do more than just hope and wish. Or use vinegar, or some green coffee pills we got from iHerb.

I decided to use the old and proven method of losing weight. The much less sophisticated, with no celebrities advertising it, but one that seemed logical.

I decided to eat less and move my body more.

It worked. I set myself a goal of 10,000 steps a day, no matter what clever excuse I came up with to break this goal. I was determined. I remember one night checking my pedometer and seeing about 7000 steps on it. It was around 11 pm, so no chance to go out for a walk outside. I walked around the unit, between the living room, the kitchen and the bedroom. I had to do 3000 steps in my home in less than an hour. It felt a bit silly to march around the house for an hour, hope nobody saw me, but it felt good when I got a message from my GearFit that I reached my daily goal; it was about 11:52pm. With 8 minutes to spare.

I went below 90 kg an January 4th. I dipped below 90kg on our trip to Thailand early last year, but that was because we walked 20,000 steps on average every day, in 35C heat and I had a massive poisoning on the last day which landed me in a hospital. Unfortunately, only a few weeks back in the office I gained all the weight I lost in Bangkok, and gained a few more kilos.

This time I’m not gaining it back. I’ve lost 10kg over a 4 months, so it was not just because of food poisoning. And I am doing easily 15,000 steps a day with little effort. I did 21,000 one day last week when I stayed at the golf course until the sprinklers chased me away from the greens. I could have done more.

I feel a lot better. I look a lot better. My BMI is now about 22, from 29 about 6 months ago. My goal is to lose the remaining fat with help of more vigorous physical activities. My legs are not well enough to run long distance, but I can do a few hundred meters at a time and I’m planning to do more of it soon.

I will also try yoga. I tried a few times, but it doesn’t really agree with me. I hope I can overcome this with a bit of persistence. My condition can be helped with relaxation and yoga, so I must try. I also want to lose another 8kg. Get to 80 and I should be happy with my weight. And I hope my blood sugar improves as well.

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