What Makes You Lose Weight?

Let me be clear. I am in no position to talk about weight loss. I am obese. What’s that? It’s when you reach beyond the overweight stage and put on so much weight that your body starts to fail under the pressure.

And I have been trying to lose those extra kilos to be healthy again. I struggle every day. People have amazing weight loss transformation stories. They lose kilos in 2-3 months. It has been 2-3 years since I have been trying to lose weight but nothing seems to work for me.

I have been struggling to find out what would work. Here’s what I think.

Weight loss is difficult. Some people do it, their determination and discipline pays off. But what if you have none of those qualities to lose weight? No determination. No discipline. No motivation. You hate exercising. You can’t diet. You hate even moving!

I am that person. First, I thought I’ll exercise and lose weight. But most of the times, it felt impossible to even drag myself to the gym. So, I would go for just 15 days in one month. Then, in the gym, I would see people exercising so nicely and I simply had no energy and willpower left in me to even walk on the treadmill.

Then, I thought how about staying active all day long. Because, I learned just exercising for a few hours isn’t enough if I am going to spend rest of the time slouching on my couch. Hence began my attempt to stay active. But how do you even stay active when even getting up from the bed seems like a chore? When climbing stairs is so difficult that you feel like you would die while taking those steps!

Then, I was told – weight loss is 80% diet and 20% exercise. You must have heard that many times. No? So, I thought let’s just keep the 20% part as much as I can… going to gym every once in a while and getting active every once a while, and I’ll diet.

I tried the high protein diet but turns out the carbs are the culprits in my case. The little bit of carbs that I took with brown rice fought back. Even the high protein thing wasn’t helping. So, this goes to the dustbin.

A few months later I come across the Keto diet. It’s a phenomenon at the moment and I tried it. Just like every other diet, I could do it just for a few weeks. Eating lots of fat, especially bacon, seemed awesome. But sticking to this diet, going through the nasty Keto fever and craving the carbs all the time made me lose very fast, just that it wasn’t the weight. It was my willpower to continue this diet. I stopped.

What now? Now, I just try to find out what actually makes you lose weight. Turns out it’s just one thing – ‘calorie deficit’. No matter what you do, how much you exercise, which diet you follow, ultimately you’re going to lose weight only if you have the calorie deficit. That’s the only thing that works.

So, what am I doing now? Still struggling with the exercise, staying active and dieting but taking baby steps to have a calorie deficit. I doubt I’ll ever have that amazing transformation story but at least, I’ll be able to get healthy gradually. That’s good enough. Right?