Hello everyone!
I posted my progress pictures about 2 weeks ago and some fellow Redditors were asking how I did it.
Here is my original post. Was not really planning on posting how I did it because I have a feeling that I'll mess up and just jumble words here but I think I owe it to this sub to at least try, so here goes :)
Basic stats first: 33yo Male | H-5'9 | SW-310lbs | CW-195LBS | Lost- 115lbs 11 month progress
Bit of Medical background: Diagnosed Hypertension | Previous cases of Gout | Heart murmur | Ruled out Lupus (this will be important, later in my story)
Bit of story time: What triggered my frantic push to get healthy and lose weight was when I got Gout on my right foot damn that bitch hurt like hell, while I was at my GP's office getting diagnosed she noticed a red T pattern redness in my face which she said was a classic symptom of Lupus, what?!? Lupus! I've only heard of that in House episodes, she requested a couple of tests just to make sure but the results would take time, 2 weeks it would take. During the waiting period I went to a hell of an emotional roller coaster, I was really down at one point (note: I have suicidal tendencies but I'm good I can handle them) then on another point I was really hoping that everything would turn up okay and I would muster enough motivation in my head and convince myself that once I get good results I will finally push to lose weight. So results came and I was negative for Lupus yay! so that was my turning point.
Non-negotiables
While all of this is happening I am also taking my MBA so one thing that kinda made everything hard was I needed to get healthy and lose as much weight I can on a limited budget. I did try to go the Keto route but that triggered my Gout again so Keto is a no go.
- Weight loss should be on a budget
- No gym membership since it would cost too much
- Diet pills are out of the question since I'm already taking various maintenance meds
Only really big item I bought were my Payless shoes ($10.00) and this digital scale ($36.00) you can say this is a budget friendly weight loss program lol
My only advantage: I can function with minimal sleep, 4-6 hours and I'm already good
How I did it: (note I never really wrote my process so my timeline is far from perfect below but it's pretty close)
Step 0: I have drawn most of my motivation from this, 3 years ago I stopped smoking - cold turkey. I always tell myself if I was able to do that with cigarettes that actually has an addicting substance in it, for sure I can control my eating habits, I also realized that stopping gave me extra energy that enabled me to move around more, so folks if you are smoking STOP!
Step 1: CICO initial target was 2000 Cal daily limit, I downloaded one of those free apps for Android to track everything, during my first couple of days it was rocky but I just kept on it
Step 2: Being Asian, Rice is a big chunk of my diet and I'm also a big fan of Sodas, when I noticed that I'm really struggling to keep below the 2000 Cal limit I quit Rice,Noodles and bread then as a bonus I stopped drinking anything except water. Boy when I did this 2000 Cal was sooo easy to achieve, I kept on it for about month, at this point I was losing 2-3 pounds a week.
Step 3: CICO target changed to 1500 Cal daily limit, harder that I thought, cravings were really constant I battled the cravings with that YouTube video of a morbidly obese lady being autopsied, couple minutes of the video and poof! cravings are gone. at this point still losing 2-3 pounds a week. I did this for about another month or so
Step 4: CICO target changed to 1300 Cal daily limit. Man the struggle was real here! It went down to me eating 2x a day only and eliminating anything salty or sugary. I would often skip social gatherings just so I can control my food intake, good thing I got used to it fast!
You might ask what I was eating at this point, I like eggs! and it is really cheap here a tray of it about 30 pcs. is only $2.72 for real! So I would often eat 2 boiled eggs in the morning then 2 boiled eggs in the evening with a piece of steamed chicken breast or fried pork chop. I mainly stuck to eggs because I really like em sunny side up, boiled poached, scrambled or omelet style I never get bored of eggs plus eating eggs does not trigger my gout!
At this point my weight loss was going around 2-5 pounds a week and I kept at it for a couple of months or so
Please note that I am only human so there are moments that I would over eat and there were weeks that I would not lose any weight (damn).
Step 5: The first time I plateaued, I panicked I realized I was on it when I was not losing anything for 2 weeks, this is when I went back to this sub and understood that I was only doing 1 part of CICO (hehe). So I kept the target of 1300 Cal daily but I added this clincher, I would walk/run 6KM (3.7MI) 4x a week.
It was great that we had a sports center that had an oval nearby (Entrance fee $0.18, seriously it's that cheap) and a lot of jogging paths (Free), time was not an issue, I can just walk the entire 6KM (would take 2 to 3 hours) since I don't sleep that much anyway, so I had time to do work do my MBA school work and still do the run/walk.
Note that when I was starting I would run 1 KM then walk the 5 KM, as I progressed I would "step it up" and run 2KM then walk the 4KM this happened till I was able to run the entire 6KM!
At this point the weight loss was insane 6-10 pounds a week! and I started to notice my hair thinned significantly!
Towards my CW: Currently my Cal limit is still 1300 daily and my physical targets are 10KM (6.2 MI) full run 4x a week and I have started to do weight lifting (I have a 30lbs set gifted to me at home, Free!) 1 day a week. Weight loss is now down to 2-3 pounds a week, I think this is because I'm also building muscles now and based on my understanding (from our sub, correct me if I'm wrong) the closer you are to your ideal weight the harder it is to lose weight.
My target weight: My realistic target is 180 pounds but my dream is 170 pounds. Hopefully I would be able to achieve this by May 2019. It would be really hard to control eating now due to the holidays but I'm riding on my achievement-high so we will see. After hitting that target the real work begins which is keeping the weight off for life (I read this is really hard)!
Finally: I really hope my ramblings above made sense, I apologize in advance for any grammatical errors English is not my first language and definitely I'm no expert in weight loss, what I wrote above is what worked for me and I still have a long way to go and a ton to learn, this sub is really great, there are a lot of things out there, try them and I'm sure you will find what will work for you.
I want to thank r/loseit for everything and for everyone who messaged me and told me that they were interested in what I did, I sure hope I was able to at least inspire someone to do something positive :)
Apologies for the very long post
Bonus:
Spotify playlist I use when I run: Run 'n' Bass 170-175 BPM
Peanut and Butters my cute Dachshund supporters
Me Enjoying high tea ( yup I drink tea now, no sugar tho)
