So let me tell you a little story about a guy that went to go to visit a friend in a nearby country and when he sees him he realizes that this person, that he used to work with in diving years ago, is significantly smaller than he is. I'm the big guy in this situation and while some of my weight is muscle, most of it isn't. It didn't feel good to see the pictures of me and him together because I looked like a lump and he looked about the same as when I first met him more than 20 years ago.
We used to be the same size. He kept to one path and I went to another.
It was during this visit when he put on one of my shirts and it looked like a tent on him that I decided that very big changes were going to be necessary in my life because I, like most people, don't want to be fat.
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Yes I know that is Jay and Silent Bob, but I am still not going to put images of me online. Just think though! It will be so much more interesting for you when you meet me.
So I got back and realized that I can't just have these wild notions of "i'm gonna try to eat differently," I don't think that this works and I have heard so many people say it before. I can't think of anyone that ever said "i'm gonna try" and actually ended up succeeding. I feel as though that is setting yourself up to fail before you even begin.
So instead I got out a notebook (of the paper variety, I am old-school) and wrote down the things in my life that are likely contributing to me being a big boi and what I could reasonably change about these things.
The main thing that I identified was my alcohol intake. That had to change immediately because if there is one thing in life that is chocablock of calories and no real benefit, it is booze and in particular, beer.
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I stopped drinking sodas like Coke a long time ago because I realized that they are a really stupid thing to drink and are super unhealthy. But for social reasons I never cut out beer. As you can see they are essentially the same thing from a caloric standpoint but beer is probably even worse because there is no chance I would have 6 cokes in a night but for me anyway, 6 was kind of a warm up when it came to beer. I reckon at least 3 times a week I was having more than 10 beers per day. I "light night" for me was to have 4. This is a crazy amount of empty calories for me to be including in my regular life.
Also, most of my food orders were delivery and most of that was delivery of the worst kind. I would regularly eat pizza and burritos and anything of that sort that you could imagine. Over here in Vietnam, these companies are not required to tell you the nutritional values though but I don't think you need to be a scientist to realize that eating 3/4 of a loaf of bread with a full block of cheese on top of it (pizza) is NOT healthy. It doesn't matter how many vegetables you put on top of it.
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Despite having many smaller shops I tend to order from the chains because they are consistent and I am a low-class person I guess. Well, this is a stupid amount of calories to have in a meal and it has almost no nutritional value either. So that had to go as well.
Now I am eating balanced meals such as meat and potatoes, or I will order a specialty salad from one of the health places in town. You have to be careful with salads... just because a place says they have a "salad" doesn't meant it is good for you.
At first I wasn't too focused on exercise but that is gradually changing. Not because I am lazy, i'm not. But because I read somewhere, it might have been here, that doing some sort of activity that you hate is a great way to ensure that you are not going to do that activity anymore. I started out small but lately I have been pushing myself to do more and more.
I will get into greater details about what I am doing in future episodes of this process but just know that I started out at 98kg (216 lbs) and my goal - which I WILL accomplish - is to get to 88kg (194 lbs).
It's taken some dedication but honestly, I don't think it is that difficult. I'll let you know more about it when I have more time to talk about it but for now I think that if you are reading this and want to try to emulate or join me on this trip you gotta put in the time to really think about what the bad parts of your lifestyle are, and then focus on actually changing them.
You can't just "try" because if you do, you will fail.