Losing 22 kg - being realistic, flexible, and tactical

When I look back at the year gone by, a sense of exhilaration takes over. From reaching my target weight to maintaining it effortlessly over months to running my first half marathon, I couldn’t have hoped for more. For me, the year 2018 turned out to be the year of physical fitness and healthy lifestyle. The year, courtesy of the physical transformation, also turned out to be one of amazing compliments, astonished faces, and curious questions from friends, colleagues, and acquaintances.

I lost 22 kg (48.5 pounds) in 12 months, hitting my target goal of 64 kg in July 2018. While losing 22 kg in one year may not be a big achievement given several shining stories of how much or how fast people have lost weight, it’s a big personal achievement for me. This is primarily because I did it in a sustainable manner, without starving or giving up any food completely. Also, being a foodie and a beer lover, and having a sedentary lifestyle, I found the journey extremely difficult at times and so, the end transformation has been very gratifying.

86 kg to 64 kg (screenshot from MyFitnessPal app)

Over the last 7-8 months, a lot of people have asked me to share the formula, the diet plan or the “secret”. While I promised to share, I couldn’t do it earlier. Now, in 2019, sharing the lessons learned from my personal experiences and observations is one of my goals for this year. I believe it would be all worth if it helps even few people to lose weight, be more healthy or just be more aware about fitness. So, here it is!

The Realization

It was towards the end of June 2017, when the reality of my body weight suddenly hit me hard. Every mirror, every self reflection seemed to say “ye kya kar rakha hai tune!” (what have you done!) and scream “you have got to lose weight… a lot of it”. Looking to shut down my startup, I had been reflecting on what I had gained and what I had lost. Having neglected my health completely during my startup journey, I had gained a lot of weight and the mirrors were merely highlighting the same.

Over the previous three years, I had transformed from overweight to obese! At slightly above 86 kg, with close to one-fourth of the weight as excess over the ideal value, I had had enough! Starting July 1, 2017, I embarked on a weight loss journey that entailed a lot many things, evoked every possible emotion, and had its share of struggles, frustrations, and delights. In the first week of July 2018, my weighing machine ticked 64 kg – the goal I had set!

Weight Loss Basics

I would like to first brief here about the weight loss basics as I see many people totally unaware of it or unable to apply it correctly. The science, or rather maths, behind weight loss is quite simple and can be easily found by online search. To reduce weight, you have to create a positive calorie deficit, as defined below. Conversely, if you create a negative deficit you will gain weight.

Calorie deficit = calories needed to maintain basal metabolic rate (BMR) + calories burned during physical activity – calories consumed

• Calories needed to maintain BMR is the calories the body needs to maintain basic body functions. It depends on age, height, weight and gender but does not change for a person on day-to-day basis

• Calories burned during physical activity depends on the type, intensity, and duration of the activity

• Calories consumed depends on the type and quantity of the food item consumed

As can be understood, workout (to burn calories) and diet control (to reduce calories consumed) are the two levers to create calorie deficit and hence, achieve weight loss. The quantum of deficit defines the amount of weight you’ll lose. As a simple rule, a net deficit of 3500 calories helps in 1 pound weight loss.

The Formula (The “Secret”)

My weight-loss formula had nothing “secret” about it and was just a simple application of the weight loss basics – set a date to reach the desired weight and accordingly, work towards achieving the daily calorie deficit needed. In fact, it’s the only formula that applies to everybody when it comes to weight loss. The secret, I guess, lies in the approach you follow to hit the deficit targets on regular basis, day after day over a long period.

The Approach

Losing weight is all about creating the calorie deficit needed over a period of time to achieve the target weight loss in that period. How you go about achieving the daily or weekly deficit determines how smooth or rough your journey will be and the ensuing success or failure. Thus, having a specific strategy or approach to follow becomes very important.

My approach from the start was to be realistic, flexible, and tactical.

Being realistic: The average daily deficit target had to be realistic. A very aggressive weight loss target in a short period doesn’t work, especially over the long run. It is usually not achievable and puts you in misery throughout. Even if you put a herculean effort to achieve it, it’s often unsustainable. Experts recommend a target of 1-2 pounds loss per week as a sustainable one.

My initial target timeline was a bit aggressive but being realistic about it helped me re-adjust it to a more practically achievable value. Being realistic was also about acknowledging that giving in to cravings, unavoidable slip-ups, and unplanned feastings would happen once in a while and should be accounted for.

Being flexible: Though I used a combination of diet and workout to create the needed deficit, I was flexible about how many calories to consume and how many to burn as long as the deficit target was met. For the most part, this flexibility allowed me to hit my daily goal regularly. On days when I couldn’t work out or didn’t feel like working out, I consumed fewer calories by controlling what and how much I ate. Similarly, on days when I couldn’t limit the calories consumed, I would increase my workout effort to burn more. I was also quite flexible about the food I ate or the exercise I did.

Being tactical: It was all about navigating through the plans, circumstances, and moods of everyday to still reach the daily deficit target. It helped me deal with cravings, unavoidable feasts etc without getting much behind on daily average target, when calculated over a week. If I knew of an upcoming party I would cut down on calories, more than usual, for the meals before. Similarly, if I had an unplanned high calorie intake, I would cut down on calories more in the next meal(s).

The Goal

Based on the normal body weight range for my height, I aimed to reach 64 kg from my existing weight of 86 kg in 8 months. I targeted losing about 1.5 pounds per week while staying below the recommended limit of 2 pounds. Accordingly, the daily deficit target became 750 calories.

Alas, the best-laid plans go haywire at times! After a couple of weeks, the timeline of 8 months started looking too aggressive and unrealistic. Creating a deficit of 750 calories every day continuously proved unmanageable. I hadn’t accounted properly for travel, festivals, parties, and occasional slip-ups when controlling diet or working out or both would become infeasible. I reassessed the goal and changed the deadline to June 2018, requiring a daily deficit of 500 calories. The new daily target on an average basis became relatively easier to achieve.

The Calorie Deficit Game

The real game had begun! Creating the needed calorie deficit and monitoring it, continuously for months, became the daily chore.

To track calories easily and as accurately as possible, I started using MyFitnessPal mobile app. I found the app quite useful in terms of the large database of food items, including most Indian food, and the simplicity of the interface. There are though other similar apps which can also do the same job. Based on my sedentary lifestyle, the calories required for my body was 2000 Cal and to achieve a deficit of 500 calories, I had to limit my net consumption to 1500 cal. The total calories consumed and burned when entered would show the relative positive or negative above the 500 deficit. Some actual days entries can be seen in the screenshots below. The net deficit for Sep 25 was 524 cal while that for Sep 26 was 588 cal.

Calorie summary for 25th & 26th Sep 2017 (screenshots from MyFitnessPal app)

Maintaining a daily average deficit of minimum 500 calories was the aim now! You can see from the above entries that I managed to have more than 500 cal deficit on both the days even when I didn’t burn any calories on 25th Sep. That was the whole approach, as mentioned earlier, – be flexible in using diet and workout as the two levers to achieve the daily target. Further, to account for cheat days, parties or occasional slip-ups, I usually tried to achieve a deficit of 600-700 calories whenever possible. I usually tried to burn 300-350 calories working out and manage the other 300-350 calories by diet control.

Diet Plan

How many calories to consume?

I didn’t have a very specific calorie goal for my daily diet but tried to stay within 1500-1800 calorie range depending on the calories burned in physical activities. On days when I couldn’t workout at all, I made a point to eat not more than 1500 calories. Noting the calorie intake after each meal was also important so as to keep an eye on the day’s progress and have the remaining meal(s) accordingly.

What about different meals?

I usually had four meals – breakfast, lunch, evening snack, and dinner with some light bites included in between meals, once in a while. I tried to distribute the calories consumed in a day over multiple meals and not have a very high calorie single meal (say lunch or dinner). The usual calorie restriction, though not very rigid, for each meal was:

breakfast: 300-400 calories

lunch: 400-500 calories

evening snack: 200-300 calories

dinner: 400-500 calories

other snacks/beverages: 100-200 calories

What to eat and what to avoid?

Most people think that completely eliminating carbs and fat from their diet, reducing portion sizes drastically, or only eating salads are the only and sure-shot ways to lose weight. This is far from reality. In principle, you can lose weight as long as you consume fewer calories than needed by your body – be it by consuming only junk food or only salads or anything else. However, the best way is to have a balanced, all-inclusive, diet with more focus on protein, fibre etc and less on carbs and fat.

As alluded to earlier, I never planned or designed any meal of the day with specific food items. I did have, though, a broad list of items from which I usually preferred to eat. Planning a meal with specific items and sticking with it on a daily basis becomes problematic for two reasons: 1) maintaining availability of all the planned items of a meal everyday becomes difficult, especially for those who don’t cook regularly, 2) having the same meal everyday becomes boring and leads you to crave for something different. The flexibility of what to eat in each meal (from the broad list of items) and how much to eat (without a very stringent calorie limit for each meal) helped me have my own freedom and avoid monotony. My usual list of items is mentioned below.

List of food items: boiled eggs, omelette, chicken sausages, fruits (mainly apple and banana), Greek yogurt, skimmed milk, brown or whole wheat bread, sprouts, fruit juice (sugarless), idli sambhar, poha, muesli, raw almonds, phulka, rice (once in a while), daal, vegetable curry, salads (carrots, cucumber, tomatoes mainly), chicken (not deep fried), protein bar, dark chocolate, green tea, black/normal coffee (sugarless), olive oil

Tale of Some Specific Food Items

Egg, Greek Yogurt, Apple: Some food items make you feel full for a relatively long period and these fall in the same category. So, apart from providing protein and other nutrient content they also helped me in feeling full for longer and with a relatively low-calorie intake. I used to eat only egg whites earlier but soon started eating the whole egg. Including two boiled eggs in breakfast and sugarless Greek yogurt in dinner was the norm for me.

Sprouts: Dinner was the most difficult meal for me when it came to weight loss. I couldn’t do with a very bland tasting meal for dinner. So, I often turned to sprouts (either boiled or raw) mixed with cut onions, tomatoes, chillies etc, and sometimes with peanuts, and puffed rice, for dinner . It satisfied my taste buds together with being high protein and low calorie.

Protein Bar: I used to take protein bars (sugarless) as my go to evening snack or pre/post workout snack.

Almonds: I always kept almonds with me to take as a quick light snack. 8-10 almonds at times of slight hunger pangs helped avoid eating junk food on regular basis.

Dark Chocolate: Dark chocolate (preferably sugarless) was my dinner closure on most days. Feeling the need to have some dessert after dinner is very usual and it was definitely the case with me on most days. Eating few squares of dark chocolate satiates you and you don’t feel like eating a lot which is not the case with usual desserts like cakes, milk chocolates etc.

What about cheat day and cravings?

I never designated any specific day as cheat day but I usually cheated on Saturdays and/or Sundays and sometimes on weekdays as well. Basically, I cheated whenever I strongly craved for something. However, I never felt guilty of it and ate what I craved for. I did keep an eye, though, on the portion size and did not fully stuff myself! Also, I tried to balance out the extra calories consumed over the next meal(s) and work out session(s). Noting the calories consumed on cheat days to an accurate level thus becomes important and should not be ignored.

Workout

I started working out in gym early mornings and spent about 90 min doing a mix of cardio and weight-training workouts – cardio being the main focus. I intended to burn about 300 calories and measuring the same to an accurate level was very important. So, my workouts mainly happened on machines which could give the calories burned count. As a result, treadmills and elliptical trainers were my first choice machines. I sometimes sweated it out on spin or cycle bikes as well but the lack of calories indicator (the bikes at most Indian gyms don’t have) didn’t sit well with me.

During the first three months, I spent about 25-30 min on treadmill and about 10-15 min on elliptical trainer everyday. The calories burned count shown had to be adjusted for the expected inaccuracies in the machines (different machine types have different accuracies, elliptical being on the least accurate side). For treadmill I noted 90% of the calories indicated and for elliptical trainer I noted 75%.

Though I continued working out in gym during the first three months, the regularity had been an issue. Not being an early riser, I found going to gym in the morning very difficult and ended up skipping every few days. I didn’t hit the gym from Oct, 2017 till mid of Jan, 2018. In mid of Jan, 2018, I started working out in gym again but this time in evening, post office hours. I worked for about 90 to 120 minutes with increased intensity and barring a few days or weeks when on travel, I continued till July, 2018 visiting 5-6 days on average per week.

Sometime in early Nov, 2017 I received a Mi fitness band as a present which soon made me a fan of walking. While I used to enjoy walking once in a while, the steps count shown in the band gave me a certain kick which pushed me to walk whenever possible. Soon, 10000 steps count per day became the norm. This also provided additional flexibility in burning calories, if I missed gym. It also usually helped me in reducing anxiety.

Other Lifestyle Changes

Apart from focusing on diet and workout as mentioned above, I also made certain changes in my lifestyle. The actual impact of these changes on the weight loss can’t be measured and possibly, may not have been much but they helped me be in a good frame of mind and kept my motivation level high at most times. The changes were:

• Taking stairs instead of elevators or escalators, unless absolutely needed in some situations

• Drinking a lot of water and only after/before 15-20 min of meal

• Taking tea/coffee without sugar

• Avoiding/minimizing sitting for long hours at work or at home

• Walking after every meal, especially after lunch and dinner, even if for ten minutes or so

The End Result

The longer and tougher a journey is, the more joy the destination brings! While I had been tracking my progress throughout and knew when the goal was in sight, seeing the weighing machine stop at 64 kg gave me immense joy and satisfaction. The journey of 12 months had finally come to an end on 3rd July, 2018.

What Next?

While reaching the goal was great, maintaining the weight and sticking to the positive lifestyle changes over the long run had to be the next real test. Though I haven’t been working out regularly or noting down the consumed calories from October onward, I have been able to maintain the weight between 64 and 65 kg for last six months. The general awareness of how much I am consuming and burning has made me a mindful eater which doesn’t let me overeat. Also, walking, taking stairs, avoiding high junk food and eating healthy have become part of my lifestyle now and I believe are here to stay. Rest, time will tell!

The weight loss, I believe, has been achieved in a sustainable manner and that’s why, looking back at the journey makes me proud. I hope to help and motivate people to lose weight sustainably rather than going after some magic “beans” or “pills”. Though I have shared some specifics of the diet or workout routine, I would suggest you to focus on the approach. Feel free to write to me for any concerns or feedback. I would be happy to discuss.

Please note that the process, approach or routine mentioned in this article is what I followed and worked for me. I don’t intend to claim that the same will definitely work for anyone who follows it. Also, any company’s name mentioned for a product, item here are the real ones used by me and is in no way an endorsement of the same.