The story started last year after a visit to my doctor who told me that I am suffering from a rare heart disease called the right bundle branch block (RBBB). He told me that my cholesterol level was too high and I had to lower it down ( which I will tell how I did it in another blog). Then he told me that I need to lose at least 30 Pounds ASAP.
I was depressed and devastated to hear this, not only because of the bad news regarding my health and heart condition but also because of the urgency to lose weight so fast which I tried to do so a dozen of times before but was only greeted with failure.
I tried everything to lose weight before that. I tried walking 2 to 3 miles every day for almost 3 months but I only lost a few pounds so I ended up quitting and quickly gained all that was lost and more in just a few days!
Then, I tried buying diet food and joined programs such as weight watcher and spent too much money but I only lost a few pounds after all that suffering t so I stopped . Then I tried exercises and bought a treadmill. I ran on it for at least one hour every day and watched what I ate, however I, again, only lost a few pounds and gained them right back when I took a break.
So once I learned that I have to lose weight as my life depends on it, I was incredibly stressed because everything I tried before to lose weight failed! I couldn’t do anymore exercises due to the heart issue so I decided it would be best to watch my calories and I ended up thinking of a plan. The plan was simple: cut the calories I was supposed to eat everyday to maintain my weight to half. So if I was suppose to eat 2000 calories a day to maintain my weight, I would eat only 1000 calories a day. I used a calories calculator to find out how much calories my body needs a day and planned to cut it in half. ( http://www.calculator.net/calorie-calculator.html )
The calculator showed me that my body needed around 1900 calories a day to maintain my weight. So, I planned to eat only 950 calories a day. I thought that it would be too hard to do and I was skeptical but after a few days, I found out it was easier than I thought and could be done.
I wrote a list of the foods I eat everyday and researched on them to find out how many calories are in each one. By looking at the list, I decided to stop drinking soda (an insane amount of calories) and replaced it with diet soda ( zero calories!). I also decided to stop eating fast food because it isn’t healthy and has far too many calories. With that, I went to buy fat free and low calorie food.
I started the plan by dividing 950 calories by the 3 meals I eat everyday. So I used 300 calories in my breakfast, another 300 calories in my lunch, and the rest for my dinner. That didn't work because I felt hungry most of the day
So I decided to skip breakfast and just drink coffee in the morning and still used 300 calories for lunch and the rest, which was almost 580 calories, for my dinner. That helped me to fill more full at night, because I was able to eat more at dinner, but I was still hungry most of the day specially at work.
So I made another change in my lunch which was very important. I decided to have more meals during the day. So instead of eating 3 times a day I would eat 4 or 5 times a day. I divided my lunch to half so I ate 150 calories at lunch time and few hours later I would eat another 150 calories. By doing that I felt less hungry during the day at work. That change also made me push my dinner's time couple of hours late which made me fell full at night time.
After that change, my day was very smooth. I hardly felt hungry and got used to eat small portions of food. I also started to drink water between meals or when I fell hungry.
I felt the results right after one week! The clothes I wore began to feel loose and large. By the end of the second month I had to buy new pants and tops because all my old clothing was big on me. By the end of the 3rd month my pant size went 4 sizes down and my top size went from XL to medium! I went from 198 pounds to 160 pounds and I’ve never felt better about myself. It has been almost a year and couple of months now and I still keep my weight which is 162 pounds at the moment.
I am sharing my story because I know there are lots of people who wants to lose weight and tried so many things and didn't work.
So, if you don’t like exercising or are unable to, this may be the way to lose all the weight you need. Believe me, it isn’t hard at all. If I did it, you can as well.
Here are a few tips to help you out:
1- Find out first how many calories you are supposed to eat per day to maintain your weight (use the calorie calculator). Then decide the percentage you want to eat from that. It could be 75% (or less or more), You don't have to do what I did.
2-Write down a list of the food you always eat and Google to find how much calories in each one of them.
3- If you find an item in your list that have so much calories try to eliminate it or replace it with something that have less calories. For example replace your soda with diet soda.
4- Try to eat food that will make you full but it has few calories. For example, the calories in one banana is 105 calories but in a cucumber there is only 47. So, if you ate 2 cucumbers, it would make you fuller than one banana and you’ll almost eat the same amount of calories!
5- If you enjoy your coffee or tea sweet, drink only half a cup of the drink with half of the amount of sugar you put in full cup. By doing that you will have the same test. And maybe later in the day you can drink another half the same way.
6- Drink water before you eat! It keeps you hydrated and lets you eat a little less than what you were about to. If you feel hungry between meals make water your snack . you can drink even more water, or if you want to get festive you can drink zero calorie drinks such as vitamin water or Powerade zero!
7- After the first month, reward yourself for all that hard work! Go out and eat and don’t calculate the calories. You can do this every 3 weeks.
8- When grocery shopping, buy items that are fat free , low calories and healthy!
9- Weigh yourself every other day to see results and get motivated.
10-If you missed up and ate more one day, just forget and get back to your plan.
By doing this I promise you that you will lose weight in an easy way and you will feel better about yourself. I hope that sharing my experience in losing weight will inspire and help you to do the same and lead you to a better, happy, healthy life.
If you have any questions, please leave a comment and I will try to get back to you!
Best wishes, and good luck to all of you!
