Silentcontrol wroteWhat did you do exactly
Forgive me if I write a long response again! I just do not have a simple "formula" or a trick to give you. I just think that at this time in my life some things happened and maybe some of the things or the combination of them helped me to succeed.
Around that time I also decided to take a step in my life and do something that I had been wanting to do for a while.
I don't want to go into details here - it is not a secret but it is a personal thing, it would not necessarily work for you - but the main idea is to take bold steps and do what you want to do - live your life.
I had tried to loose weight many times before that but with very little success.
I don't remember my maximum weight. Was it 107 maybe? or 109? Or maybe even 112? Something like that.
In the 3-4 years before that, I had steadily gained weight. My normal weight before was between 80 and 85.
In that period, I started to work as a freelance web developer, so I spent much time stuck in front of my computer.
In the last year or so, before loosing weight, I had also started smoking maybe 1 or 2 cigarette a day, really not much.
I used to eat out a lot with my girlfriend very often. She got fat too. I would joke that I should write a restaurant guide to Lebanon because we tried so many of them.
We also fought a lot. She has a tempestuous character. Sometimes I was angry and would just open the fridge and stuff myself then try to go to sleep - sort of comfort eating. I lived at my parents and they kept the fridge stocked with bread and good ham and cheese.
Around that time a few changes happened in my life. Me and my girlfriend we also broke up. We still spoke and fought, but eventually I succeeded to distance myself from the emotional turmoil and stop myself from getting angry and smoking a cigarette out of anger.
I started hanging out with a friend, go to the movies, etc. , and that gave me some things to look forward to.
I also adopted a cat!
I just decided to change my lifestyle, to stop taking unhealthy substances. So I was going to do it naturally.
I stopped smoking. I took advice from my cousin who told me of a diet, basically you eat salad once a day.
I started it. At night I would starve and dream about the salad that I was going to make the next day. Then I would wake up, drive to the supermarket and pick the vegetables that I dreamt of the night before, and do a HUGE bowl of salad.
I have noticed a few things:
- In the morning, I am not hungry, so I would delay my lunch as much as possible and would eat in the afternoon.
- After the lunch I got hungry, but then eventually I got used to it and then I did not want to eat any bread or sugar anymore after the salad diet.
- If you are hungry and do not eat, then your body eventually goes into starving mode, and you will actually stop being hungry.
- It was too difficult without any meat! So I would eat meat, mostly chicken, too. Raw meat is good too. I remember, once I went to KFC in the middle of the night and ate like 1/2 kilo of chicken.
I took some days off from my diet. I would sometimes crack and binge on everything there was in the fridge (cake, cheese, whatever). When this happens, I would "take the day off", and start again the next day.
I would take my weight every morning, and had this app on my iphone, where I would enter my weight and see the progression on a graph.
The progression was pretty obvious. I would loose a few kilos every week, sometimes 1/2 kilo a day and I would see it on the scale.
It is hardest at the beginning. As I saw the progression, I gained motivation, and I actually lost my cravings for bread and oily foods.
But the first kilos are also easier to shed then the later ones - physically.
I had a target of 75-80 kilos which I did not reach, and I stopped somewhere around 83-84. But I was still happy with that. It was also more enjoyable to be active now that I was much lighter, and I started doing some running.
This diet is a little extreme and harsh on the body, so I would not automatically recommend it. But the advantage was that I could see my quick progression and it kept me motivated.