If you’ve seen how I look now, you probably wouldn’t believe that 2 years ago, this is how I looked like…
This is my weight loss story….
As a kid, I wasn’t really fat, neither was I muscular… I was the classic ectomorph. I was slim, with no muscular definition, come to think of it, I was quite bony. I was able to maintain my weight at 130 lbs until after I graduated from college. Growing up in Baguio, my diet was a bit healthy since vegetables were quite abundant and part of every meal. I also occasionally played pick-up basketball, and the natural terrain and climate of Baguio made walking a good form of exercise… However, all this changed when I transferred to Manila after college (1999)…
Once in Manila, my diet changed for the worse. Majority of what I ate were fast food, junk food and for those moments I was able to cook, I usually cooked and ate fried food. I also stopped playing basketball, and because Manila was hot, humid and polluted, walking was definitely out of the question. So for 7 years, I allowed myself to destroy my body, my diet was poor, and I was sedentary. By 2006, I ballooned to my heaviest at 155 lbs. This value may not seem to be that large, but for a 5’5” frame, it was a lot. My body mass index (BMI à a measure of obesity) was almost 26 kg/m2, which was borderline obese. Since I didn’t do any exercise, I knew that all my weight gain was due to increased fat deposits, and it showed…
With all this weight I was lugging around, I was oftentimes lethargic and slow-moving. Minimal exertion (such as walking up a flight of stairs) exhausted me… the bad thing was, this didn’t scare me then. A reason for this probably is that everyone around, was going through the same changes. Everyone I knew was gaining weight… so this became normal to us…
So what caused me to change? In 2006, I volunteered to donate some blood for a friend’s mom. During the routine screening physical exam, my blood pressure was noted to be 140/90… which was elevated. This shocked me since I was only in my mid-twenties and already developing hypertension (HPN). Both my parents are hypertensive and are on life-long daily medications. This made it worse for me since my genes gave me the predisposition to develop HPN. My bad habits and lifestyle had finally caught up to me.
Because of this life-altering moment, I resolved that I would change the way I lived my life. I decided I didn’t want to be fat, unhealthy, and at risk of dying due to HPN at an early age. So I began to modify the way I eat. I went into a “limited-food-intake-diet,” where I would skip some meals, usually breakfast (of course I’ve realized since then that this is the wrong way to do it and I’m not recommending it). For 3 months, this was how I lived. My weight dropped to 150 lbs. Though a 5 lb loss isn’t much… I was quite glad since I was beginning to lose weight. However, I wanted more.
It was at this point that I read Dr. Atkin’s diet book (which I bought on sale in one of the bargain bookstores). I didn’t actually undergo the Atkin’s diet, but due to the principles discussed in the book, I realized what I was doing wrong (skipping of meals is the worst kind of diet scheme). I also realized that in weight control, simple carbohydrates were the enemy. So I swore off white rice, white bread, sweets, iced tea… and everything that had a lot of carbohydrates. Whenever I was at the grocery, I would look at the product’s nutrition facts and would skip purchasing food that had more than 30g of carbohydrates per serving. Because of this, I also skipped eating junk food and drinking colas. In a few months, my weight dropped some more to 140 lbs. My clothes were now beginning to hang loose on me… and I noticed I didn’t get tired as easily as before. I also began to delve into weight training during this time. However, in spite of me going to the gym regularly, my weight had maintained at 140 lbs. I attributed this to the fact that though I was losing fat, my muscles were beginning to develop, hence my weight didn’t change because my muscle mass was increasing. That was why though I was not able to attain my college weight, I was already quite happy…
In Feb 2007, I got introduced to the treadmill… which introduced me to walking… which eventually progressed to running. Because of running, I was able to lose those “last few pounds.” I am now at 130 lbs — my college weight — (which I have so far maintained), giving me a BMI of 22, which is normal. My BP is now at 110/70, and most of all, I feel great. I have less occurrence of lethargy, and moderate exertion no longer exhausts me…
So for those who feel they can’t do it, that they can’t lose weight and live a healthier lifestyle… my advice is that, admittedly, it is something difficult to do, but definitely not impossible. You will need to have a lot of patience, self-motivation and control, and perseverance. It took me two years to get to how I am now… so don’t be disheartened by small gains, or in this case losses… the important thing is that it becomes consistent…
I’ll be trying to post more details of my weight loss program in succeeding posts…
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