My first serious effort at weightloss and fitness started after looking at pictures of my morbidly obese self. At first, I thought of an easy way out - bariatric surgery. At my weight I was an ideal candidate for same and so I met this doctor in Mumbai. He asked me just one question - "Have you given your 100% to losing weight before considering surgery as the only option?" And the answer, as you all expect, was a big fat NO. I wondered, here I am an ideal candidate for surgery and he will make good money off me but even he wants me to give normal / conventional methods a try first. What has he got to gain? Nothing! but he still is suggesting that surgery should be the last option and not the first!
I came home and opened a couple of books on weightloss (Slim Now Stay Slim by Dr. Snehlata Pandey) I had bought long ago. The book in addition to usual success stories had information on calorie count of various food items that we Indians consume. I designed a 1000 calorie diet and started from very next day. It required a lot of effort, like, microwave no/low oil cooking, coming home for lunch (it also helped that my office was just 2 miles) and maintaining a manual diary of what I eat through out the day.
In addition, I started walking and swimming (a little bit every day as at that weight every step and every stroke is a lot of effort). Swimming was tough for other reasons as well - squeezing oneself in a swimsuit at that weight is emotionally traumatic - I was convinced I looked like a manatee! I still had that job that meant 6.5 days of work a week, so I used to come home in evening around 7:30 pm - swim for 30 min when it was dark, have dinner and then I would drive back to office to wrap up my day. I had finally realized that by giving all my time to my job I had missed even more important part of my life - my health. Now everyday I would squeeze 30-60 minutes to walk or swim. In addition, I started climbing stairs instead of using an elevator. It was hard, very hard, especially when your feet are killing you after 12 hours in office and carrying additional weight.
I stayed motivated inspite of physical and mental agony as I had started to see results - I was losing almost a pound a day and 15 days later I was down by 13 pounds - yes lot of it was water weight but this weightloss gave me motivation to keep going. In between, Diwali arrived - a festival celebrated with lights and sweets. You visit your friends & family and ofcourse everyone offers you sweets. It was very difficult to explain to folks why I wouldn't consume sweets. It was disheartening to see that almost everyone, especially the overweight folks, around me were trying to sabotage my efforts. They would say things like "one laddoo won't hurt you" or "you can resume your diet tomorrow" ...knowing fully well that the same thought process had led to where I was.
I am a little thick skinned so I steadfastly refused their attempts to feed me sugar laced food and I stuck to my diet. And it paid off...over next 4-5 months I lost another 22 pounds. In total I had lost 35 pounds (~16 kgs), but I was still marginally in obese category. I need to lose about 5-6 pounds to get out of that range...but I was happy as I was feeling like myself again. I was enjoying my walks as I could walk more and I could walk faster - I was walking an hour a day at a speed of 6 km an hour. I would play squash on weekends and no longer felt like a manatee while swimming. After a long time I felt as if I was living my life and not just dragging myself through it everyday!
I came home and opened a couple of books on weightloss (Slim Now Stay Slim by Dr. Snehlata Pandey) I had bought long ago. The book in addition to usual success stories had information on calorie count of various food items that we Indians consume. I designed a 1000 calorie diet and started from very next day. It required a lot of effort, like, microwave no/low oil cooking, coming home for lunch (it also helped that my office was just 2 miles) and maintaining a manual diary of what I eat through out the day.
In addition, I started walking and swimming (a little bit every day as at that weight every step and every stroke is a lot of effort). Swimming was tough for other reasons as well - squeezing oneself in a swimsuit at that weight is emotionally traumatic - I was convinced I looked like a manatee! I still had that job that meant 6.5 days of work a week, so I used to come home in evening around 7:30 pm - swim for 30 min when it was dark, have dinner and then I would drive back to office to wrap up my day. I had finally realized that by giving all my time to my job I had missed even more important part of my life - my health. Now everyday I would squeeze 30-60 minutes to walk or swim. In addition, I started climbing stairs instead of using an elevator. It was hard, very hard, especially when your feet are killing you after 12 hours in office and carrying additional weight.
I stayed motivated inspite of physical and mental agony as I had started to see results - I was losing almost a pound a day and 15 days later I was down by 13 pounds - yes lot of it was water weight but this weightloss gave me motivation to keep going. In between, Diwali arrived - a festival celebrated with lights and sweets. You visit your friends & family and ofcourse everyone offers you sweets. It was very difficult to explain to folks why I wouldn't consume sweets. It was disheartening to see that almost everyone, especially the overweight folks, around me were trying to sabotage my efforts. They would say things like "one laddoo won't hurt you" or "you can resume your diet tomorrow" ...knowing fully well that the same thought process had led to where I was.
I am a little thick skinned so I steadfastly refused their attempts to feed me sugar laced food and I stuck to my diet. And it paid off...over next 4-5 months I lost another 22 pounds. In total I had lost 35 pounds (~16 kgs), but I was still marginally in obese category. I need to lose about 5-6 pounds to get out of that range...but I was happy as I was feeling like myself again. I was enjoying my walks as I could walk more and I could walk faster - I was walking an hour a day at a speed of 6 km an hour. I would play squash on weekends and no longer felt like a manatee while swimming. After a long time I felt as if I was living my life and not just dragging myself through it everyday!
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