5 Lessons I Learned From My Weight Loss Journey
When it comes to losing weight and getting into shape, we have different reasons behind it.
Some are for vanity reasons and some are forced to lose weight after a visit from a doctor.
At my age right now(39), most reasons fall in the category of health.
In my circle of friends, I hear stories like:
“The doctor told me to shed some weight because I’m close to having a high sugar level.”
I know it’s inevitable that as we grow older, illness will be more likely to occur.
But would it be great if we can delay the process by keeping our body in shape? Big YES.
For me, I just want to be healthy. But I would be lying if having that six-pack abs is not my goal too.
Don’t tell my wife but I want to look shredded too when going shirtless at the beach.
I think all of us guys out there want one.
I attempted many times in the past to look shredded but failed every time.
But this time, after grinding for 6 months and weighing every meal before I put it in my mouth, I saw progress that I had never reached in the past.
Though it wasn’t enough to reveal my six-pack abs, my two upper abs popped. And I noticed that those love handles are starting to disappear.
6 month body transformation
Also, my chest looks more defined now.
Lessons I learned from this journey:
1. Having a goal
Having a goal written down will make your journey more meaningful since you have a vision of what you want to look like in the future.
This will make the process exciting as you’re hitting your macros and workout reps because you have something to look forward to.
Without a big goal, you won’t have any idea on what needs to be done right now and tomorrow to make that goal a reality.
Just make sure to see your goal as a guide and not something to be achieved overnight.
Focus on the process and the end result will take care of itself.
2. There are only two things you need to focus on
One is your daily calorie intake and the other is the protein intake. That’s it.
This is backed by science and there’s no magic pill behind losing weight and building muscle.
You need to eat less calories than your body burns in order to lose fat. And eating enough protein preserves that muscle you have built in the past or during the process.
3. Prioritize your nutrition
When it comes to losing fat, there is no substitute for not tracking your calorie intake.
Imagine your car’s dashboard is telling you that you have 15 km until empty and you’re trying to go to work which is 30 km from your location. Do you think you can reach your destination?
No, right.
It’s the same with losing fat. If you’re not eating less than your maintenance calorie, it’s impossible to lose weight.
I know a lot of people think that IF(intermittent fasting) will make you lose weight without counting your calorie intake.
They thought that if you eat at a certain time of the day and eat one big meal or two, you’ll lose weight.
Certainly not. Take it from me who attempted this weight loss journey 5 times. I can tell you that our body doesn’t care what time you eat in a day.
If you eat 2 meals but that two meals totals to 2500 cal and you need to consume 1950 cal to lose weight, your body will not burn off that weight you’re trying to lose.
Some of you will say 2 meals for 2500 is not realistic but remember that large bubble tea you bought from your favorite bubble tea store? It's a whopping 850 cal and pair that with rice and pork adobo multiply it by two.
Sorry if I have a lot to say about nutrition.
It’s just that every time I speak to a friend about tracking calories, they always tell me those fad diets that work wonders. And they’re still not in shape.
Alright, onto lesson number 4
4. Staying consistent in working out
This is also where I struggle the most.
In solving this problem, I tried lots of ways to force myself to workout consistently.
From the 5-minute rule to getting your clothes ready the day before. It worked for a while but I always fall back to being lazy and miss 3 days in a row without touching any weights.
Then I came across willpower while reading the book – One Thing by Gary Keller.
“When we tie our success to our willpower without understanding what that really means, we set ourselves up for failure.”
– Gary Keller, The One Thing
We need willpower to do our workouts.
Think of willpower like the power bar on your phone. It has limited battery life.
Where am I going with this?
When we wake up in the morning, our willpower is full.
If you heard some gurus out there on how to stay ahead of everyone is to wake up early and grind. They are right since you will likely do the difficult task like working out because your willpower is full.
After waking up, I grab my phone not to scroll on Instagram but to record my weight. After that, I make some coffee and pre-workout carbs like rice krispies.
Then on to my workout.
In this way, you’ll get the workout out of the way first thing in the morning and not dread on finding time the rest of the day in case you weren’t able to do it.
There’s a lot of factors that go into how you plan your day especially if you’re a parent like me who has a lot of responsibilities on the plate.
Alright, onto the last one.
5. Underestimating how much body fat or weight I need to lose
Since my goal at the very start of my fitness journey is to reveal the abs, body fat plays a very crucial role.
You need to get down to 10% body fat to have that shredded-looking abs.
When I took my first photo, I was assuming that I could go down to 10% by the end of 6 months. I was wrong because I did not consider the amount of fat that I have versus the muscle I’ve built.
For reference, I did a video on my 6-month transformation. I have a link below to show how I got to where I am today.
6 Month Body Transformation | Skinny Fat to Lean | Realistic
I was lifting in the past but only to find out that I did not build enough muscle to make my abs pop.
So instead of thinking you should lose 10 lbs to reveal your abs, double it. Think that you need to lose 20 lbs to look ripped.
So there you go. Those are the things that I learned on my fitness journey.
By telling these things that I’ve learned, I hope you can avoid the pitfalls there are when going through it.
Enjoy your day
–Grefel