I have weighed in around 17 stones (238lb) for most of my life (yes I was a big baby!) and now at 43 years old you can add me to the long list of people who have also made half baked attempts to get slimmer.
Many of these weight loss solutions out there do work, but are usually temporary and only a fraction of people stick with it. It only needed a few bad days to fall back into old eating habits and I certainly had plenty of bad days.
So how did I lose 70 lbs in a year?
Firstly, I want to say what I am not. I am not a weight loss guru /writer / medical expert and neither do I claim this beats any other method. I am just an ordinary guy who wanted to try an experiment and the experiment worked for me even to this day and hope it may inspire others.
There is usually a tipping point on what finally motivates you to make a change and in my case it's simply so I would feel more confident and get a few dates that year! That was my motivation.
That is the motivation part sorted out and next I needed to change my relationship with food. I knew I had to change my lifestyle and eating habits. There was no escaping that fact, no matter how much I try to convince myself otherwise.
The thought of strictly watching what I ate, calorie counting, following precise diet plans, certain food days etc was just a road to failure for me. It is a path I been on and did not work long term. I needed to make changes gradually but consistently. I did an experiment that worked around my habits and this was the result, and thankfully, something I been sticking with for the last 13 years.
I did not keep an accurate month by month record at the start of my experiment because I wasn't sure if it would work or whether I would even stick to it, but I will give you an outline. Everything was a gradual continuation of what I did the month before. There is nothing scientific about my method or any monitoring as I still enjoyed eating rubbish foods... yes there is an admission - I enjoyed eating rubbish!
Month 1
Cut out bread. Yep, that is it. Start with something simple and see how that went. I still ate rubbish foods as a sort of compensation.
Month 2
Continuing from Month 1, I reduced takeaways from 3 times a week to 1. I loved my takeaways partially because I was always too lazy to make anything. I was constantly remind myself why I am doing this and not to give up at first hurdles.
Month 3
Noticed a change in my weight and felt motivated to stop eating biscuits,crisps and snacks apart from the weekends. Weekends were my pig out days.
Month 4
Stopped snacking completely and ate less red meat but still ate white meat. I also included fish into my eating habits. I really noticed a weight loss and apart from seeing my weight decrease on the bathrooms scales, my clothes became noticeably looser.
Month 5
By now I was enjoying the momentum and on a roll! The weight was coming off gradually and I had to change the notches on my belt. That was good enough. This time I decided to do the unthinkable by cutting out deep fried and processed food completely! I got a few simple recipe books that allowed to me to make food with minimal cooking. This was when I discovered the world of slow one pot cooking.
Month 6
With the weather nicer, I tried to add walking into my routine. My taste buds came back and discovered more flavours than just fried food and anything laced with oil! I also noticed cutting out the rubbish foods also helped reduce bloat and general tiredness.
Month 7 +
Still losing weight and enjoying the change in me, physically and my confidence was great! The rate of my weight loss was slowing down so I included weekly weight tracking whereby I could see progress in graph fluctuations. This helped a lot so I did not slip backward when I was feeling a bit lazy.
I do confess to some cheating and the odd helping hand along the way. That including taking appetite suppressants but that was more at the early stage to help me adjust into a new way of thinking about food rather than mindlessly stuffing myself.
If you notice, I did not include what foods I ate instead. That was intentional because I know personally I could not follow someone else's diet because I would just fail to keep following it. I simply mix and match foods suggested in slimming books or natural foods I liked. If I found something I enjoyed and was keeping me on track, I would add it to my personal favourite foods list!
The trick to my method is not to get hung up on rigidity, whether it is on calories, fats, carbs etc... just experiment and most importantly track it and never forget why you wanted to lose weight in the first place. Tracking was the most helpful factor in achieving my goal. I did have pig out days where I ate all the junk food I craved but that is reduced to about once a week but eventually once my taste buds came back, I could appreciate more flavours other than just anything laced with oil and fried. Although I loved meat I did find that by eating less I didn't actually miss it as much as I thought.
So there you have it. Nothing too complex and thirteen years on I am still at a steady 12 stones ( 168 lbs), but do incorporate some light physical activities as I have the energy now to do it.... and also a girlfriend to keep up with!
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