Accidentally losing 5kg

My apologies for the clickbaity title. I thought it would be fun to do this once in a while. :)

So in all seriousness, when I first started my health journey, I weighed myself on the morning of Aug 7th and came in at 74.4kg. On Sep 20th, approximately six weeks later, I weighed in at 69.4kg. Yesterday and today's weigh-ins were both lower than this, so it's safe to say that I've lost 5kg in about six weeks. (I keep the data on my health page if any readers are interested to know more.)

I think the interesting part is I never explicitly made it a goal to lose weight - my two health goals for 2021 are to lower my cholesterol (to under 3.4mmol/L) and improve my cardiovascular health (run 10km in 70 mins). Reflecting on the process, there are a few insights that I want to share, which I think may be helpful to anyone else who's thinking of working on their health (or their weight!).

You don't have to go hungry

Since my original goal was simply to be healthier (and not to lose weight), I didn't consider eating less. I never willingly endured hunger because I never made it a goal to lose weight. I did change my diet, but I only changed what I ate, not how much I ate.

It's true that I wanted to lower my cholesterol and blood sugar, so I prioritized foods with a low glycemic index. The Slow Carb diet worked for me, and I didn't even follow it precisely. I still eat carbs now and then (though almost always of the whole grain variety) and I don't go overboard on cheat day.

At the end of the day, the point is that starving oneself isn't necessary for weight loss. I never skipped a meal, and I always ate as much as I wanted. I just didn't eat things that would make me fat - white rice, bread, candy, ice cream, muffins, cookies, pasta, potatoes, burgers... the list goes on. I even broke the rules twice; I had a small slice of moon cake for the mid-autumn festival and a slice of regular cake to celebrate a birthday.

Record and track your data

Data tracking has been a huge motivator. When I began to notice that my new eating and exercise habits were leading to weight loss (around the time of my Sep 6th weigh-in), I began weighing myself much more often - almost every day.

In the beginning, I didn't have a specific goal of losing weight, but tracking my weight regularly has most certainly influenced my subconscious decisions. It seems that the business books got it right: we manage what we measure.

Keep it very simple

I've managed to stay the course for most simple things I wanted to do, but more complex plans have had a very high failure rate. Some examples:

• After cooking the first Monday, I think I failed to do so for every Monday after that.
• Eating within half an hour of waking almost never happened. Often, I didn't even remember to eat within one hour of waking.
• I sometimes forgot to order my lunch or dinner in advance. Luckily, there is a Lokal downstairs that serves a healthy "energy bowl". The existence of this restaurant has played a major role in my adherence to the Slow Carb diet's general principles.