Hi Guys! Today, I am going to share my weight loss journey in this post. I know how important is motivation in a weight loss journey. In my personal experience, it was my motivation that kept me going to reach my weight loss goal.
And, I have seen many people losing their weight loss focus because they were not rightly motivated. Therefore, through this post, I will make a little effort to help you with a little motivation and add some value.
My weight loss journey early days
To start with let me take you back to the year 2019 when I was planning to lose weight. It was the month of August and I was so much occupied with my daily professional work.
I was obese back then weighing around 84 kgs and I had to lose 20 more kgs to reach my goal. It looked like climbing up a huge mountain with a lack of information and motivation.
I was obese for more than 8 years and had tried multiple times to lose weight in those years. Like all other guys, I thought just joining a gym would help me lose weight.
I had joined gyms a couple of times but left it in the first month itself. The reason was simple. I had joined because it was cool to join a gym. But soon I found a gym to be a boring place.
For me losing weight was just about doing heavy workouts. I never thought dieting played a crucial role in losing weight.
Back to the year 2019, one fine day I was on a walk with my sister. She used to go for daily evening walks. She was also very worried looking at my soaring weight and insisted I come for a daily walk to lose weight.
I was not just obese back then but was also suffering from fatty liver and kidney stones. I used to look and feel very weak.
That day I decided I had to do something to lose weight and be healthy soon. For me losing weight was not just about looking good but to be fit and healthy. It was alarming when I saw two serious diseases coming my way.
I had to stop them immediately, if not, my life was going to be in a very dangerous situation.
One day, I was scrolling through my Facebook feed and an Ad by Healthyfyme appeared from nowhere. The app was about counting calories and recording food, water, and calories burned.
I downloaded it immediately. I was using their free version to record my calorie and water intake. Whatever I used to eat I started recording it.
Calorie control
Soon I realised I was eating way more than my calorie budget. So, I planned to limit my daily calories and stick to around 1200 calories.
It was very difficult for me initially but soon with time recording calories became my habit. Second, I made a strict diet plan and included only good food in it.
The difficult part was to make the healthy food interesting. People do not generally love eating healthy food because they feel they are boring.
But the trick lies when you make those healthy foods interesting with little change in your cooking method. Another important thing that made my food interesting because I was enjoying my weight loss progress too much.
Things I did to control calories
I never felt my food was boring because I used to be highly motivated to read other weight loss journeys and learn new dishes.
I was also very active in online fitness groups to stay informed and motivated. This has helped me to stick to my weight loss goal.
Another thing I did was read some inspirational books on success and self-help. These books helped me learn to be self-motivated and reduce any other external motivation.
When you are self-motivated you will never need any external motivation. Because, when you are self-motivated you can always motivate yourself when in need.
People will not always be there for you but you can always stay with yourself. This was the secret recipe to my weight loss.
With all these important tools in my hand, I went about starting my weight loss journey.
I made a solid diet plan and divided it into four parts, Breakfast, Lunch, Evening snacks, and Dinner.
This is how my weight loss diet plan used to look. with a big NO to outside unhealthy food.
My diet plan
Breakfast:
Poha (Flattened rice poha, or Suji Vermicilli Poha, or Millet Poha, or Semolina Poha), Moong Da Chilla
One seasonal Fruit
Lunch:
Dal 1 Cup, 2 rotis, One Curry, a big bowl of salad
Evening snacks:
Boiled Moong and Chana mix, Puffed rice mix, Moong Da Chilla, Suji Chilla
Dinner:
2 Rotis, 1 bowl of salad, and a seasonal veggie curry
1 cup turmeric milk
Yes, these were my go-to diet plan, and with these simple foods, I reached my weight loss goal. Do not just keep thinking about food all the time when in your weight loss journey. The more you think about food, the more chances of consuming it.
Better add another important element of weight loss. And, that is an effective weight loss workout. Yes, it is not just food that will help you lose weight. When you start doing exercises you will speed up your weight loss progress.
On one side you are already limiting your calories with diets and on the other side, you work out to burn those calories. Whatever has gone in your body has to come out with exercises to be in a calorie deficit.
My favorite breakfast was panner stuffed moong dal chilla. I used to eat twice a week mostly in the morning hours and sometimes as an evening snack.
Moong dal chilla stuffed in paneer is full of protein and can be eaten as a weight loss diet. Moong and paneer both are rich in protein and it works well as a weight-loss diet.
Also, I added green tea as an alternative to normal milk tea. Green tea also helped me in weight loss.
I also increased my intake of water to at least 8 glasses a day. I reduced the quantity of oil going into the preparation of my diet. In dinner, I mostly had oats veggies khichdi prepared without oil.
At bedtime, a small cup of turmeric milk.
My simple weight loss workout
As stated earlier, I had joined gyms but left in the middle because exercises were boring for me. But when I realised the reasons for the boredom I found I was doing heavy workouts at the start.
So, this time I plan to start with a simple and easy workout like Brisk Walking. And, this became a big game changer in my weight loss success.
Brisk walking was easy for me to start and very effective in burning calories. It was also helpful for me to get my body outside my bed and chair.
I used to be a very lazy person sitting all day on my sofas. But when I planned to lose weight, the brisk became a friendly and easy reminder to get me moving.
I used to walk 5k steps daily in the evening in my nearby park. With time I increased it to 15k and sometimes 20k daily evening brisk walk.
Sometimes, I used to break my daily walking goal into two times, morning and evening. I must say, brisk walking not only helped me lose weight effortlessly but also built a fitness mindset.
Other workouts I added
With time I added more exercises like pushups, planks, spot running, skipping ropes, etc.
Later, I added some strength training workouts with lifting weights.
These exercises I added to my routine post losing weight. But throughout my weight loss journey, I used to stick to simple brisk walking. Who says that you can lose weight by just walking?
Weight loss is more about calories and not just a workout. To be more precise, you lose when you are in a calorie deficit.
The simple change in workout and diet helped me lose weight successfully. But these two things alone are not enough when you are not rightly motivated.
Because of a lack of motivation, you can lose your progress very soon.
Motivation is the game changer
To keep my motivation high I started engaging myself more in fitness talk. I opened an Instagram account to share my weight loss progress. I was also very active in other social media fitness groups.
When I started sharing my weight loss journey, thousands of people started appreciating my weight loss progress. This helped me to do more for my followers.
Not only this, I wrote a small ebook on self-help and weight loss to help more people. These simple changes helped me a lot to stick to my weight loss focus and stay self-motivated.
I never thought, that sharing my weight loss journey get me featured in GQ Media, Times of India, DesiBlitz News, and other places.
Started writing for motivation
To further help people, I started writing articles on my blogs. This further amplified my motivation. I must say, weight loss not only helped me physically fit but also mentally and financially.
When I shared my journey on social people, people insisted on sharing regular updates in a detailed way. And, the idea of starting a weight loss blog emerged.
And, this is the reason I choose to write my weight loss experience through articles on my blog. People liked my articles which further kept my mind engaged in weight loss.
Blog and thus writing became my source of motivation.
Not only writing, for weight loss motivation I started reading books and articles on the web. Reading like writing too helped me a lot to engage myself in fitness and diet.
I also downloaded a few Apps on diet and nutrition and recording calories, this not only helped me in motivation but also in discipline.
I used to record my daily intake of food and water. Recording my intake helped me develop a journaling habit and this worked like a charm in my weight loss motivation.
I lost 20 kgs in 4 months
I never thought this simple change in my life would one day open an entirely new stream of earnings. I had never thought I would be featured in India’s popular media places.
With my weight loss, I was able to build a strong winning mindset.
I was enjoying my weight loss journey so much that I never felt weight loss was difficult. I used to think weight loss was not my cup of coffee. But these changes have changed my wrong beliefs.
The day finally arrived
And that day finally came and it was the month of December 2019 when my weighing machine showed my goal weight. I lost 20 kgs in 4 months with all those efforts.
I was very emotional that day. I celebrated my weight loss success patting my shoulder standing in front of my mirror holding tears in my eyes.
Yes, I finally did it. From that day, it became like a mission to help people lose weight and make them believe weight loss is not difficult.
I remember my friends and family looking totally surprised they saw me in a new avatar. That day, I was feeling proud of myself.
I never thought the result to be so satisfying. All my efforts paid me back in the form of appreciation and surprises.
Seeing my weight loss transformation many people in my family started their weight loss journey.
I felt happy when my elder brother started working on his weight. And, he too with motivation and commitment lost 5 kgs in a month.
Not only my brother but also one of my friends also shed 7 kgs in a few months.
I was feeling happy for them and most importantly I was feeling proud to be called a fitness motivator. I became like a star in my friend circle. The friends who were making fun of my weight now started taking fitness tips from me.