My process for weight loss

Losing weight has a process

I just wanted to share a few things that have helped me stay disciplined on my weight loss journey.

If you’re not interested in my life story (it's not that boring I promise!), scroll down and I outline the exact steps I think are worth taking to make weight loss a success for you. I made a video going through the steps too. If you want to watch, please send me a PM.

Life Story
I was overweight the majority of my life till I turned 19, through building social connections and improving my mental health this got me exercising and as I noticed more changes in my body I started tracking my food - since then I lost 25kg in about 5-6 months (note that I now realise that was not healthy and I had too big of a deficit, although at the time I did not care).

Fast-forward a few years, I stopped paying so much attention to health as my mental health slowly deteriorated (you'll notice that mental health plays a big role which I outline below) and I became just as overweight as I previously was and it became massively demotivating to me.

During 2020 when coronavirus hit we were put into lockdown, at the time I was unemployed and had a lot of time on my hands. I started spending more time with my family and my mental health improved and I thought it was time that I started making positive changes to my physical health like I had done previously. Since I had already lost weight and knew what the process was, I followed the same process as previously except made a few strategic changes that I learnt from previous mistakes.

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The process that I took is as follows

STEP 1 - Figuring out you maintenance calories with websites such as https://tdeecalculator.net/ (this won't always be 100% correct so it's best to track your weight everyday and make judgements on a bi-weekly basis to see if you're eating too much or too little)

STEP 2 (week 1) - Spend a week journaling what you’re eating to rebuild food awareness (try not to judge and eat how you normally eat) this exercise is more of a psychological one. I often find simply becoming aware of your eating habits can jolt you into wanting to make a change for the better increasing your likelihood to actually wanting to change.

STEP 3 (week 2) - Spend the following week tracking the food without judging what you’re eating to build the habit of tracking whilst keeping it still relatively easy to manage. This step will probably be the most challenging. I would suggest simply try tracking as well as you can using scales/nutritional information.

STEP 4 (week 3 onwards) - Start adding foods that you regularly eat to the spreadsheet and start tracking MACROS/Calories. This essentially makes the process much quicker which means it's more likely you will end up sticking to it. It's important to choose foods that you enjoy eating but are not too calorific that you would need to starve the rest of the day if you ate something.

STEP 5 - Using the ‘Tracking’ section of the spreadsheet to note down the following: Morning Weigh-In, Protein, Carbs, Fat, Total Calories (works itself out when PCF is added). All data is good data.

STEP 6 - Reflect upon the process by noting down the following on the ‘Tracking’ Spreadsheet: The difficulty of the day (0-10), Biggest challenge faced, Most enjoyable food, End of day mood and General Reflection, Thoughts & Substitutions

Using these 6 steps I was able to get back down from about just under 90kg down to a healthy weight of about 67kg and now I’m lifting and actually trying to put on weight.

I believe the psychological aspect of losing weight is the biggest battle but reflecting, making changes and not trying to dive into it drastically are all important to staying consistent on this journey.

I’ve got the spreadsheet linked here.

If you have any questions please let me know how I can help!

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