In 2020, I lost about 20 kgs of weight over about 6 months period. I procrastinated writing about the journey for this long, in spite of some of my friends telling me it was an extraordinary achievement, and that I must talk (and brag) about it, mostly to show off, and to some extent inspire others. But the fact is, although I do realize that the achievement is great because of its near impossibility for most people, including me in the past, and because it helped me feel a lot better about myself, my health and my fitness, I have still never felt it was an incredibly difficult thing to achieve. Which might sound weird coz like most people, in the past I always wanted to lose weight but was only adding more and more on a resultant basis. Couple of times, I did manage to lose 2-3 kilos either from consistent running or a disease like dengue, but I gained back a lot more a little later. But on this one occasion, I understood the fundamentals of it all - mostly by chance. And once I started seeing the reducing trend, there was no stopping me until I was exactly where I needed to be.
A lot of my friends ask me for tips. And I tell them it's simple, at least in theory. But walking that path with consistent self-control is what makes all the difference. There's all kinds of propaganda the world and market aggressively throws at you in various ways to prevent you from doing it right. And you often don't know who to trust. Most people ultimately seek, are rather pushed to seek, short-term pleasure, as long term seems too invisible to matter at any moment. We are encouraged to live in the moment, and within the limitations of life, that pretty much means seeking the most basic among Maslow's hierarchical needs - food, intoxication, physical pleasure. The frequent need, abundance and easy accessibility of food makes it the most basic. And if we can afford it, we'd always seek pleasure from it rather than consume what's required to survive. So the first thing to do is - open your eyes to reality.
From my experience and what I've learnt in the process and since, here are 10 things I think one must do, to get on that path that will change your body, your mind and your life.
1. Eat healthyWatch closely what you eat, right from your main meals to the little things you pop without thinking much as they seem too small and insignificant to cause any adverse impact. The food industry constantly surrounds us with all kinds of junk, and makes a tempting and compelling case for us to indulge, often by obfuscating facts and plain lying. And these junk foods chemically impact our minds to make them want more and more. Sugar, for example. It's well known that carbonated soft drinks are full of sugar, and should be avoided at all cost. But even stuff like bottled fruit juices sold as healthy drinks are still lots of sugar and less of any real fruit. Biscuits sold as containing nutritious dry fruits or oats are still mostly maida and sugar. Brown bread, whole wheat bread are all more than 50% maida still. Read the ingredients of any packaged food stuff before you buy, and if it has sugar or maida, move on unless it's that rare occasion when the junk still seems worth it for once, coz, you know, cravings are real.
Same is the case with cheese. The western countries may be crazy about it, but that doesn't justify eating loads of it. Combine maida and cheese, and you get the monster food - pizza. I was once a huge fan of Dominos Cheese burst pizza - with loads of molten cheese oozing out of a hand-tossed pizza. I ate it almost once every alternate day for a year when I was in b-school. Thankfully I got bored of it later.
Often, we just get carried away by apparent, yet bogus, common sense. I recently ate lots of banana chips on a few occasions thinking am eating a healthy substitute to regular potato chips which I thought were just carbs and fat. But a simple comparison of nutrition values of both will tell you that banana chips are junk of a higher degree. All the nutrition of a banana is meaningless when you fry it deep in oil.
It's a good idea, therefore, to check nutrition details of food items. Over time, you will have a good judgement of what's good and what's junk. When you are not sure, check.
2. Watch your calories
Human body has a certain burn rate for calories even in state of rest. Throw in some physical activity, and you burn a few more calories. And we have to supply that energy with food. Sure bodies are different and their needs vary within a certain range. But overall, we do have a fair understanding theoretically of how many calories we require - precise enough to manage our energy levels and avoid excess. So our calorie consumption should match the calorie requirement, broadly. Excess calories get stored in the body as fat - adding to our weight. And calorie deficit would lead to burning of stored energy (body fat), leading to reduction in weight.
So the fundamental formula for weight loss is to maintain the below condition day after day without exception for a considerably long time:
Calories burnt > Calories Consumed
How do you really keep track of these calories? Well, there's no accurate way of doing it, but there are many ways of getting a rough picture.
To track calories burnt, you now have fitness apps - that constantly track your movement, physical activity, etc., and based on your body characteristics like height and weight, they can give you a rough estimate of how much calories you are burning on any day. Good thing about these apps is that you just need to carry them along and they are automatic, and some of them are intelligent enough to guess the kind of activity you are performing. But generally, you have to at least tell the app what kind of activity it is - whether you are running, walking, swimming, playing tennis or just sleeping. And when you aren't doing anything, the app will consider a basic burn rate. Again, it's only approximate.
To track calories consumed, you have apps where you have to keep on feeding what you eat or drink all day, along with quantities of the items, and they give you an estimate of the calories you took in. Both the input and output are fairly approximate here. But then, you get a picture. I used an app called HealthifyMe, just the free version. It gives a pretty good idea of how much each food item is worth in calorie terms. Also you can set a target weight loss and the period over which you want to achieve it, and the app would tell you how many calories you can consume each day. Choose an app which has a good range of cuisines built in, especially the ones you eat. HealthifyMe is very well suited for all that you eat in India, for example.
Please note - don't be too aggressive with your targets. You do have to push yourself, and suffer a little bit in the process, but don't make your life too difficult.
You have to work with both these apps for some time, along with monitoring how your body parameters are behaving, to get some sort of calibration in your mind on how to interpret these numbers and get a sense of their relative scales, so that you can compare them appropriately. Also, it's always safe to err on the conservative side, when the goal is to lose weight, rather than try to be just below the borderline; i.e., it's better for you if your calorie consumed reading is overestimated and your calorie burnt reading is underestimated.
I know it's a lot of work to keep entering your diet into apps, and consistently do it for a long time. But my experience has been that you don't need to do that beyond 1-2 months. After that, you get a pretty good idea of where you stand in terms of your calories based on what you eat. You also get some sense of what the common items you consume are worth in calories. Beyond that, if you are popping something new, or you are in doubt, check in the app for that item alone and assess for yourself.
Also, please understand that eating fewer calories does not mean eating less. It just means you change the mix of items in your diet such that you are eating fewer calories while eating the same quantity. For example, you can cut on the staples like rice or wheat and eat more of vegetables, dal, curd, chutneys, sambar, etc. etc.
3. Binge on raw and natural
We have to agree that weights are high for a reason. For most of us, it's coz we love to eat and we eat what we love. Growing up, we didn't care about factors like content, nutrition, calories, etc., coz it really didn't matter. But after a certain age, the body started responding differently to food without our realization. For one, it didn't need so much of food. But our mind was yet to adjust its expectations and continued to crave for what it's used to. And as we continued on the path, slowly the excess went on accumulating on our bodies and we got bigger and bigger.
I think eating is fun. And we don't need to be so hard on ourselves to almost stop eating. We only need some effort to condition ourselves to choose healthier alternatives. And thankfully, nature has given us so much variety and such wonderful menu to choose from, if only we could open our minds a little bit, and then divert the focus. My observation is that the body has a way of processing natural, uncooked stuff such that it can take what's needed and ignore the rest. Nobody gets fat by eating lots of fruits or raw veggies. Pick the ones you enjoy the most, try out new, find your favorites. I eat lot of fresh fruits and nuts - apples, grapes, mangos, oranges, watermelons, pomegranates, bananas, pistachios, peanuts, raisins, litchis, etc. etc., and whenever I feel like, without caring about the quantity or calories. It somehow works, doesn't harm you.
4. Hitting the gym is not the way
There is a very strong lobby trying to sell gyms, exercise products and sports paraphernalia in the name of losing weight and getting fit. If you observe the calories burnt vs calories consumed relationship more closely, and watch the stats for some time, you'll quickly realize that what we burn by working out is a miniscule number in comparison to the impact food has in contributing calories.
For example, a 330 ML can of Coke has about 139 calories. That's about the amount of energy you'd burn by walking half an hour. 100 gm of banana chips give you 500 calories. You have to walk or cycle 2 hours to burn that. You can look up more of that, but the bottom line is that what you eat largely determines your weight.
Besides, working out too much with a lot of weight can injure your body, and sometimes do permanent damage to your joints. I, for example, used to run a lot while my weight was in the 80's (kgs). And in the long term, that caused damage to my knees - which was in fact the trigger for me to relook at my approach to managing weight.
In fact, for the first couple of months during my weight loss journey, I didn't do any exercise, but rather focused on my diet alone. My knees had terrible pain due to inflammation caused by reasons mentioned above. And the COVID lockdown initially left me no choice anyway.
5. Get rid of stress
In addition to triggering the tendency to over-eat when we are under pressure, stress screws with our internal mechanisms somehow leading to distorted metabolism, hormonal imbalance and weight gain. I can't tell you how to get rid of stress... find what works for you. But having a stress free life is extremely essential for losing weight in a sustainable and healthy way.
I had quit a very stressful job just before I started on the weight loss journey. And I was able to achieve what I had never been able to achieve before while working. Of course, I am not recommending you leave your job to get back in shape, but you definitely need to find a low-stress way of life - not only for losing weight and be healthy, but to live happier in general.
6. Sleep well, sleep smart
Enough is said about sleeping 7-8 hours a day, sleeping early and sleeping 3-4 hours after your dinner. Won't repeat that, although I do get the feeling that to some extent it is all a bit overrated. From my experience, I think it's important to be consistent in your sleep schedules. Throughout the period of my weight loss journey, I used to sleep at 4 AM and get up at 9 AM. I slept again in the afternoon for a couple of hours. This worked best for me with the baby and everybody else at home during the pandemic. And I had no office to attend during the day.
Also, I do agree that sleeping a few hours after you've eaten is beneficial. Your stomach feels empty, and you can fill it up with a lot of water before you go to sleep. The urine that builds up as a result will act as a natural alarm to wake you up!
7. Shut the pamper
Stop pampering yourself until your goal is reached. I don't believe in cheat days and cheat meals while trying to lose weight. You can have a lot of all the stuff once you are at the new weight level where you intend to be, coz then you just have to maintain your weight at that. While maintenance also means you've to continue to be in control, but that's when you can cheat at times.
8. Exercise for health, fitness, weight management
I said before that exercise is not the tool for weight loss, as it hardly makes a dent. But it definitely is a tool for weight management once you are at the level you want to be. Any slight ups in 2-3% range can be easily reverted by working out. Determine how much exercise you need by looking at how much more you need to burn vis-a-vis how much you eat for how much you weigh.
This is where gyms come in handy. Or pick up a sport. Or just go outdoors and walk. Or run. Or cycle. Or do anything for an hour a day. Pick up something that you enjoy. See what else would make it fun - music? outfit? partner?
Even if your weight is stable, it is important to exercise regularly. Indulge in any moderate to high intensity physical activity for an hour every day. Not only will it help you stay at that weight which you hit with so much hard work, but it will also help you be healthy, energetic and active both physically and mentally.
9. Make fitness a priority
Can't stress this enough - fitness is a never ending pursuit. It is synonymous to a good life. And you don't want to put that in the backburner because of work, stress or lack of time for whatever reason. You have to be 100% consistent. And to achieve that, find ways that suit you. Don't worry too much about what is conventional. For example, I walk or cycle for an hour every day. But I have difficulty being consistent if I try to do it early in the morning. I just can't wake up that early every day. I've tried but I can't be consistent for long. So I decided I'd do it in the night. It might be as late as mid-night, but I have no difficulty being consistent with that schedule.
I also keep a regular watch on my weight now, which has been near stable for 2 years. Whenever I see small ups or downs, I do minor tweaks in my diet or exercise or both until I am back to the right level.
10. Stay committed
Last, but not the least, make this your way of life rather than your goal. Don't make weight loss a tale of suffering. Rather choose the path which is sustainable, gradual and fun, although it does take a bit of pain initially as the body adjusts to the new routine, diet and regimen. If you have any medical conditions, do make sure you are taking care of them and not compromising on any of it. And then, it's all a simple formula to get to a healthier body. And believe me, once you are at your goal, it'll all seem worth it and you will not have any difficulty continuing to commit yourself to being fit and healthy.
Many people need a trigger to push them toward a goal, even though the goal itself may be best for their well being. For me the trigger was a knee condition which was sure to improve if I shed some kilos, and it did. But for most people, such strong triggers are unlikely to occur. They continue to go through gradual deterioration of bodies, until they run into health issues which can't be reversed easily as they grow older. So it's wiser to act early, when you are still young, and move to older age with a healthier body. You don't have to give up anything in the true sense. You just need to make the right choices, while giving utmost importance to your pleasure and happiness.
Don't wait for a trigger. START NOW.
