Weight loss - My personal thoughts / experiences

I'm sure that at any one point of time in their life, everyone has felt fat before. I sometimes get comments from even my slimmest, tiniest female friends that they feel bloated / big / overweight.

However, a lot of it ends there. People generally just complain about their weight, but either a) don't do anything about it, b) do something about it but not enough, c) do something about it, but go back to their regular eating / living habits after and put on the weight again. Statistics say 75% of all people who go on diets put it back on again later, but I think there's a way to stick to the get out that group: it's a combination of the 3 things - a) diet b)exercise and c) motivation. I think weight loss plans differ from person to person, there's a basic need for constant motivation - which will keep you on course in your diet and exercise.

Personally, I think exercise helps out in 75% of my weight loss, with dieting making up the other 25%. Sure I'm not a fitness or nutrition guru, but here are some of the things I've read, and here are some of the things I think have worked for me.

a) Diet

1. There's no such thing as a "sure" thing. All "100% guaranteed" weight loss supplements don't tend to work over time. Most people tend to take their supplements, lose some weight, but put it back on after they're done with their supplements. The best way is lose your weight naturally, and keep it that way.

2. There are a lot of diets out there - the Atkins diet, Slim Fast diet among others. A lot of them have very similar principles - low carbs, more proteins and more fruits and vegetables, which I do adhere to. I've been incorporating more fruits and vegetables and cutting down on rice, noodles and red meat. I try to eat more fish and soupy things for lunch nowadays, with extra servings of vegetables.

3. Stop the soft drinks. Soft drinks are evil! They contain lots of sugar and are very very high in calories. Instead, oolong tea, sparkling water or fruit juice works great. But ideally, drink plain water. 8 glasses a day will do you good :)

4. Stop drinking beer! I am an occasional alcoholic - when I start drinking, it's very hard for me to stop. And I like drinking beer too. But one pint of beer contains about 200kcal - which is how much you would lose from a 2-3km jog (depending on the intensity). Bubble tea is also full of calories - in fact it contains more calories than beer! So you know what drinks to stay away from now.

5. Eat more yong tau foo soup / fish soup / porridge. Soupy stuff tends to contain less oil. YTF and fish soup both are high in protein. I normally pick a lot of vegetables for my YTF, and I always order just soup without noodles or rice.

b) Exercise

6. Exercise burns calories. I firmly believe that no matter what exercise (aerobic or anaerobic), intensive or relaxed, as long as you break a sweat and burn calories doing it, it is good exercise. The key to weight loss is doing enough exercise and expanding more calories than you consume. Thus constant regular exercise is a definite requirement.

7. Regularity - They key to sustained and noticeable weight loss is regular, sustained exercise over the long-term. Be it climbing 3 flights of stairs up from lunch, walking home from the MRT everyday, jogging 5km every 2 days, swimming or going to the gym every week, you need to do it constantly, and be committed to setting time aside to do it.

8. Intensity - If a regular marathon runner who runs 42km every week suddenly starts jogging 1km every evening, will it make any difference to him? Will he be working out at an intensity which his body is not used to and will be exercising at a intensity which will give him a good workout? Probably not. Basically, you need to be working out at an intensity which will make you sweat, make your heart rate go up and make you breathe hard. At the end of your workout, if you're working out at a good enough intensity, it will be natural to feel muscle soreness and fatigue. A good way of finding out how hard you are pushing would be the perceived exertion scale.

9. Time - How long do you workout each time? Is it a 5 minute walk each day? spending 2 mins doing pushups before you sleep? If you're not seeing any effect, what you're doing is probably not enough. I think it takes about 10-15 mins before your body starts to warm up and burn calories, so a 30 minute slow jog for starters would be good enough. I normally try to run for about 45 minutes to 1 hour each time.

10. Cardio - There's always been arguments on cardio (aerobic) vs gym (anaerobic) exercises. There's been debate on which is more effective in losing weight and getting more "cut" or getting more muscle definition. For better muscles, definitely one has to go go the gym for anaerobic exercises to build better, more solid muscle mass. However, for weight loss, and for better muscle definition, one must definitely engage it aerobic activity. Jogging, brisk walking and swimming are good examples of aerobic activity, which takes in a lot of oxygen for activities. Personally, I think running is the most intensive and the best cardio workout.

11. Varying your workout - Once your body / muscles are used to a particular series of movements, the exercises that you do will start to lose their effectiveness. Keeping your workout varied, for eg, doing a different number of sets / repetitions for any body part occassionally, or doing different exercises constantly will not only make your workout more interesting, but your body / muscles will react more positively to them. If you're running, change your speed, distance and intensity with every run.

c) Motivation

12. Goal-setting - One key aspect to keeping motivated is to set realistic, achievable and sustainable goals which you do hit and exceed regularly. For example, running 4km in 45 mins twice a week for starters would be considered realistic and achievable (for most). But will you keep doing it? Sustainable goal-setting early on is important, for achieving your goals and setting harder goals is a virtuous cycle which feeds on itself.

13. Pushing yourself - Once you've been working out for sometime, I assume you'll naturally lose weight and attain a reasonable level of fitness. But eventually, your weight loss will start to plateau, and you will eventually lose momentum. They key to overcoming this is to keep pushing and going beyond your comfort level. If you are falling within your comfort level, you're not challenging yourself to go the extra mile.

14. Fighting fatigue - If you're constantly on a "negative calorie" diet, ie. the calories you expand exercising are less that what you consume daily, you're bound to feel fatigued. Muscle aching and soreness, lack of energy, feeling sluggish / lethargic are some of the many symptoms which you should feel if you're "doing it right". Eventually you'll get used to it, and your energy levels should be back to normal. But in the meantime, 7 hours of sleep to re-charge your body and let your muscles regenerate is essential. That being said, not getting enough sleep is one of the mistakes I make quite often.

15. Staying motivated - One of the key killers of any weight-loss program is a lack of motivation, or drop in motivation. Very often, I am very tempted to go drinking, have a oily lunch, go for a buffet, skip my jogging / gym session. And in fact, every once in a while I do. But the key thing is not to stop completely. Taking a break every once in a while is fine, but the next time I exercise - it's going to be at a higher intensity. Rewarding yourself for a long run or good workout is fine. Having 1 or 2 beers or a steak or burger is good too, but they key is moderation, and knowing yourself enough to draw the line. I guess being a little vain / narcissistic helps as well - looking at yourself in the mirror and weighing yourself often helps you want to keep going.

So here are my 15 little "tips" to starting / maintaining a weight loss program. I'm still working on mine, but I hope reading this will help you with yours. I'll be posting more updates again soon!

Live well!
Tim