A quick refresher course: About 3 months ago I was visiting a friend in Thailand that I have known for over 20 years. He and I had always been of similar size and over the years I have gotten bigger and so has he because well, we are 20 years older than when we first met. However, this time I was substantially larger than him and it has been this way in the past, but this time it was more noticeable to me because his girlfriend is a pharmacist and has one of those super-accurate scales that costs a lot of money. When it read out that I was over 98 kg (over 215 lbs) and while he had a bit of a belly, he was nowhere near that bad.
It was after that trip that I decided a change was necessary and I really put a lot of thought into it and knew what needed to be done.
I knew that there was a couple of things that had to be done and it isn't terribly difficult to understand, but you have to be motivated and dedicated in order for it to work. If I (or you) do this, you will lose weight. It's science and it is never wrong.
Consumer fewer calories in a day than your body burns
That's honestly all there is to it. A lot of people get out there and think that they need to run a race every day or get in the gym and hurt themselves on the first day in order to be fit. But I am not delusional and realize that I am never going to look like an underwear model. I just don't want to be a huge fatty.
So I got a calorie tracking app that has a food database and started logging all the things that I eat and drink. Based on my age and height it estimates that my body is burning naturally around 2100 calories a day. Therefore, if I eat less than this I will lose weight. if I exercise as well, it will lose weight faster.
It's not that complicated but something that a lot of people struggle with.
The first thing I did was to change my eating habits. I had been ordering delivery for nearly every meal and this is always dangerous because you don't know what they are putting in there. They are almost certainly using bad things like palm oil to cook it in as well because palm oil is the cheapest.
I then went and filled up my fridge with fresh fruit, greek yogurt, cheese (yes, cheese), and bought a bunch of meat. Oh and I needed some healthy carbs so I opted for potatoes.
I now cook most of my meals at home but discovered one place near my house that has healthy options with whole foods and this is exactly what I am looking for.
You might notice that i have a little furry witness to all of this in the background and don't worry, she got some of that delicious beef.
A word of warning to anyone out there that thinks that salads are the road to healthiness. Yes, they are mostly vegetables but a lot of places over the years have done this dirty trick to get you to buy salads where they sneakily make them unhealthy by using crazy amounts of dressing that is really bad for you. I'm not going to get into the specifics but if your dressing of choice has a texture like pudding, it's probably absolutely loaded with calories. Ranch was always a weakness for me and while it is not the worst one, it's still pretty bad at 90 calories per tablespoon. So drowning your 80 calories worth of vegetables in 300 calories of dressing well, that is no longer healthy. Also you have other things that I am not really considering like saturated fat and cholesterol to contend with.
Anyway, i'm no expert I am just looking at an app to tell me these things which even though i am not an app guy, and I never pay for any of them, they are really useful for discovering the truth about what you eat.
Since I lift weights, I also wanted to get a bunch of protein in my diet without breaking the scale with extra calories. This doesn't mean that you can just eat whatever you want that is high in protein though, and I went with eating a bunch of eggs with cheese cooked in.
That tastes a lot better than it looks.
My morning routine is like this:
- wake up at 6
- get a coffee and then watch some news something or other while drinking i
- eat some greek yogurt with fruit
- put a shirt on... this triggers the dog
- take said dog on a walk of about 2000 steps for humans and about 6000 steps for doggo.
- come back and eat a bunch of eggs
- do some sort of workout in the gym that is in my building - nothing major
At that point it is lunchtime and I will get into that at a later date as this post is approaching 1000 words and well
I started at 98 kg, and two months later my stable morning weight (a good time to weigh yourself from what I hear) is now 90 kg. I have NOT been doing a bunch of exercise. All I have been doing is eating mostly whole foods, staying away from snacking, and always staying under 2100 calories per day.
If you want to lose weight I think you can do it as well. Get some help from a food tracking app. There are a bunch of them and they are all free.