TLDR: I bolded my main points
Hi everyone! I was formerly obese for pretty much my entire life until I was 20 where I decided enough was enough and lost about 48 pounds in a span of 6 months. I had attempted to lose weight in the past but I failed. I wish to share what I did to lose weight and I hope I can help at least one person on this subreddit
Disclaimer: Keep in mind, that everyone's bodies and eating habits are different so portions of what I did may not be the solution for you. Also, some of my tips are kinda weird but hey, they worked for me
DIET
- Stop Counting Calories and start paying attention to Sugar Content
TLDR: Human beings have been eating fat for thousands of years- the sugar industry is what's causing obesity.
I got this idea from watching an episode of Adam Ruins Everything. In the episode, Adam reveals that America had low rates of obesity until Eisenhower got a heart attack. Then a celebrity scientist incorrectly concluded that fat makes you fat. So society began obsessed with Calories and the food industry started cutting calories to make up for it. Problem is, food without the fat tasted gross, so the sugar industry stepped in and obesity rates skyrocketed.
I asked a close friend, who currently is a med student from UCLA, and he confirmed this and said that “the Sugar industry did a pretty good job at covering this up”.
So be careful when you see a “low cal” food item, b/c it might have like 10-20 grams of sugar. Like when I'm at the grocery, I'd immediately look at the sugar section in the nutrition label and put it back if the count is too high.
Personally, I don't care about calories if there is a low sugar item and it tastes decent, I'd just eat it until I feel full.
Link to the clip-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLtQLDptI1g
2. Prior to going to parties/Social Events, fill up on bread and water
Social Events have some pretty good food and they're pretty fattening, and it’s really really tempting to just indulge in everything. Nothing wrong with some moderate consumption, so my advice is to eat some bread and drink a bunch of water before going. I personally ate a lot of mini baguettes from Whole Foods.
(interestingly enough I got into such a good habit, that at one party, one of the parents, told me that I’m losing too much weight and dumped me big splice cake on my plate. I took a bite, (following point number three) realized that this cake was basically sugar water and threw it away 30 seconds later when no-one else was looking.
3. Psychologically view food differently
I got this idea from watching Masterchef. When I see Gordan Ramsey eat some like grad A food, I noticed that he doesn’t really enjoy it, more like analyzing the shit out of it and finding any imperfections with it.
Basically what I do for food that tastes really good, is to record the taste after one or two bits, and analyze it. Like, I'd ask myself what’s good about this food, what’s wrong with it. That way, after analyzing the food, any subsequent bites would just be redundant. I'm a computer engineering major so I guess that's kind of my "mindset".
Examples: Like for sweets, Cookies from Safeway, their frosting basically tastes like plastic eww. Buttermilk cake, it’s like pouring sugar into the water (bleh). There are a few exceptions, but for me, this works for like 95 percent of all sugary treats
4. Immediately stop eating once you “feel full”
Try to be mindful when eating, like the second your stomach feels weird, stop eating. (This is pretty difficult for the first few weeks) , but just keep trying :)
5. List of Foods I ate
- Siggies Plain yogurt- (substitution for generic sugar-rich yogurt)
NGL this tastes really bad when you first try it (to the point where I had to choke it down)
But honestly, I kept eating it, and cause it’s so healthy and I got used to the taste.
- Silk Almond and Cashew Milk-(substitution for generic milk)
Same logic as Siggies
- 5 dollar salads from whole food (the ones with low sugar and high protein).
My favorite ones were the Sante Fe and Bbq Salads. I ate those for dinner like 3 or 4 times a week.
- French Baguettes
6. Avoid Dieting/Fad Diets
I never really paid attention to fad diets at all. I have like zero knowledge on this stuff. But I'd rather not diet because it seems like it would help in the short term and not in the long run.
EXCERCISE
Honestly, I had like zero stamina after running for a short period of time. So I started walking for long distances to Peet’s Coffee (which was 3 miles away from my hours) and drank some coffee (later switched to ice green tea) as a “reward”. This took about 2.5 hours out of my day so I did this 4 times a week. (it helped that the route was basically a huge hill). While doing so, I’d listen to some music and contemplate about life.I had to build up some leg strength, like for the first few weeks I had to uber back home once I reached Peet’s.
These days, I'm doing the same thing, but switching to jogging (trying to gradually gain more stamina)
Factors that lead me to fail in the past
Family-
My Family can be pretty toxic when it comes to weight loss (conservative South Asian family). Won’t really go into detail about this (you can PM me if you’re in a similar situation). But I had constant access to a ton of unhealthy food in the house. What helped, was completely disregarding their somewhat abusive advice, and just following my own strategy.
MY MOTIVATION/Life Lesson
When I was a freshman in college, I gained an extra 25 pounds (was overweight, to begin with). What motivated me was that I had a lack of energy to do anything and I was tired of living life like this. I attempted to lose weight before but for the wrong reasons.
The most important life lesson that I learned from this: If you want to lose weight for superficial reasons like to be more "attractive" you're not going to get that far in the long run. But if you want to lose weight to raise the quality of your life and enjoy it more. Then you're more likely to lose weight in the long run.
My thoughts on regaining weight
Schoolwork- I’m an engineering student in college and school work tends to pile up. In these situations, I’d tend to stress eat. Tbh I’d regain 5 or 10 pounds during this time period but honestly, when they’re over I’d go right back to exercising. Hell, I’ll be honest after a year I regained 15 pounds but lost 5 just on diet alone. But regaining weight is not the end of the world, just be mindful of what you’re doing. After this super busy semester ends, I’m going to get back to exercising :). I'm not worried because this plan worked for me.
