Losing it

Quite a few people commented on my "thinness" recently. I guess that's an encouraging sign. October last year, right after Idulfitri, I weighed 94 kilos (207 lbs), which was the heaviest I've ever been in my life. By the way, I'm about 6 feet tall (1.83 meter), so proportion-wise I still looked okay. But then I was feeling bloated and some people even mentioned how "chubby" I looked. I really let myself go when I came back to Malaysia, eating anything and everything under the sun with callous disregard for nutritional value and calorie count. I had no one but myself to blame. I love food too much. I had maintained a weight of around 88 kilos (194 lbs) for the past couple of years, which is not bad but not that great either. I know could do better.

The reason I was able to maintain my weight in the US, despite regular consumption of junk food and irregular eating habits, was that I had an active lifestyle. I rode my bike everyday and everywhere. I played soccer, basketball and tennis regularly. I swam at the university's pool and hit the gym occasionally. When I came back to Malaysia early last year my life all of the sudden became sedentary. I was eating much more than usual and exercising much less. There's no other way to describe it. I was a pig. Nasi lemak, roti telur, briyani gam, teh tarik, nasi kandar and all the great yet heart-clogging Malaysian food were the order of the day. I ate from breakfast until the early morning supper the next day. I didn't even think twice about when to eat or what I eat. Eating had become a full time pursuit of unfettered pleasure. It culminated in last year's Idulfitri when my weight finally hit its all-time high, and I decided something had to be done to stop this madness before it became more serious.

I joined a gym near campus last October as this guilt of obesity started to become overwhelming. I think it's paying off as evidenced by the weight-loss and the compliments from others. Today when I weighed myself at the gym the scale tipped at 83 kilos (183 lbs). It means that I've lost 11 kilos (24 lbs) in the last six months. That's not too shabby I'd say especially considering that I didn't spend that much time at the gym anyway. In a given week I might go to the gym 3-4 times for about an hour or so of workout. There were also times when I didn't go for 2-3 weeks especially when I'm traveling or back home in KL. But when I work out I tend to do it seriously and with a clear sense of purpose. That's why I don't spend more than an hour at the gym. I blaze through my planned cardio workouts and weight sessions for the day and be done with. I don't spend much time admiring my sweat-glistened muscles on the mirror like some of the guys at the gym. Just a quick 60-second pause between sets then off to another weight or cardio session.

Another major contributor to the weight-loss is the balanced and highly nutritional diet. I very rarely drink soda and eat fast food, so avoiding these types of junk food is not a problem at all. I do find myself cooking and eating at home more often, which is the best way to watch one's diet. Be sure to stock up on a lot of veggies, lean meat, fish, chicken breast, whole grain anything (pasta, bread, oatmeal, cookies, etc) and fruits. Also I've been eating less fried food and more steamed or roasted stuffs. I even bought a steamer recently. Healthy and balanced eating goes hand-in-hand with exercises and work outs. You cannot do one without the other. Do these often enough they will become a habit and your body will start to adapt to this new healthy lifestyle - and this is what I'm shooting for right now. Well, I still do food binging once in a while so as not to completely deprive myself of the great pleasures in life. What's the point of living in Malaysia if one cannot enjoy its world-renowned food!