It happens more than a year ago but memory from those days still vividly playing in my mind; just as it just happen yesterday. Fulfilling a regret from 10 years ago, I climb Mt Kinabalu again. Things had changed due to unhealthy lifestyle by excessing drinking and lack of exercise, I no longer myself who once proud to call himself a Taekwondo representative of high school, district and university.
The Turning Point
I started my backpacking trip in 2019 July by climbing the majestic Mt Kinabalu. I climb it once before in 2006. It was quite a pleasant trip at that time. But in 2019, I was struggling and I am the last to reach the peak at about 8am when everyone else started to descent.
This is not the only incident when my physical almost failed me on my trip. Throughout the 7 months, on multiple occasion, I missed out on many amazing sceneries such as sunset at Gobi Desert sand dune and Sri Lanka's Adam Peak due to my stamina failing me.
It was a shock transformation from a sports man to such as weak stamina human being. I graduated in 2009 with a healthy weight of 73kg. Couple with stress from work and life as well as unhealthy eating and lack of exercise, my BMI balloon to a staggering 27.1 *86kg). When your weight grows, apart from physical appearance, it has underlying effect on your mental being as well. I realise I get tired easily and there seem to be no motivation in my life. What I need is just to eat and sleep. I lost my motivation.
I returned from my trip in March 2020 with the weight of 77kg and by Aug 2020, I gained an amazing 8kg in a short span of 5 months. At that moment, I realise, I need help.
Struggle and Motivation
As someone who used to be lazy for so long, it hard to get myself motivated. Hence, I set myself a personal target. I want to be fitter than my heyday.
Staying motivated is very important to lost weight. I will share more on section below.
Change of Lifestyle
I began by reducing my food intake. I only ate what my body needs. Junk food, instant noodles become a no-no to me. My philosophy of 'Live to Eat' change to 'Eat to Live'.
From eating 4 meals a day, I gradually reduce my food intake. It is important to start with small changes, so your body won't go into a shock.
Human body converted excess calories into storage in the form of fat. Peoples gain weight when they consume more calories than their body need. To lost weight and fat, it as easy as you eat less than what your body allowed you to. This method was known as calories deficit. A deficit of 7000 kcal will result in drop of 1kg of body weight.
Click on this link to calculate your daily calories allowances:
There is no shortcut to Weight lost.
The math is simple. Eat less mean less weight gain. But it is not the cases for everyone. Everyone has different type of body. Simply reducing the calories intake is not the magic to lost trick. One of the reasons I embark on this weight loss journey is to rebuild my body including my stamina.
No matter how slow you go, you are still lapping everybody on the couch. - Anonymous It is important to start it off with the exercise that you like. For me, it is jogging and swimming. On the first few weeks of starting jogging, I need to stop every 100-200m of jogging to catch on my breath. I only manage to run 2km in 20 minutes. It is slow progress, but 6 months on, I manage to run 6km in 35minutes. Well, to be honest, I choose jogging and swimming because I cannot afford gym membership. Haha.
And another motivation to get your exercise going is, the more you exercise, the more you can eat. A slow jog of 30 minutes burns around 300-500kcal. By jogging for 30 minutes, I can eat an additional plate of fried rice (600 kcal) without worrying my weight will balloon again. 😊😊😊
On average, I exercise 4 times a week. But remember, weight loss is diet (80%) and exercise (20%). So, even if you exercise hard, you still need to watch on what you ate. Or else, all the effort put in exercise go to drain.
Staying Motivated
To stay motivated, you going to need external help. In my case, I took the photo of me before and compared it to my current photos. Seeing the difference in the photos and weighting scale data, motivated me because it shows that I am on the right path and no effort wasted. I always look back on my own photos before I started my weight loss journey.
Whenever I feel demotivated, I will take my phone and see the data from the weighing scale apps and the photos of how far I had progress in my journey and all the sweat I had put into it. I realise, I don't want all my effort so far to went into waste. I must keep on going.
Different between Overweight and Good body weight.
Apart from physical changes, I also notice there are huge changes in my mental well being. I become less lethargic and I started to smile more. Perhaps it is due to increase in my self-confidence (with the improve of physical image) and endorphins that were released when I exercise. You will be started to be overflow with positive energy and you looking forward to the next day.
Lessons learnt
Weight lost is a long process. It started with baby crawl and progressing at small steps during the kilos lost. These losses can make drastic changes in your life. For me, it is about how to live in more healthily. Of course, weight lost make me look younger and confidence, but it also a lesson for myself where it teaches me... by persevering, you can achieve everything you wish for in your life.
The most important things is... I started to SMILE again.
Should I wrote more about more tips on weight lost? Write in the comment below to let me know.