Unplanned Achievement - Lost ~72.8 lbs (33 kg) But Was It The Correct Way Of Doing It?

Question

Before reading further, I want to make the following disclaimer:

My casual experience of losing weight documented below is strictly not for everyone and should not be treated as an advice until at least commented by experts and claimed to not represent health risks.

I have a casual success story to tell you about how I lost weight unplanned and ask you if it was a correct way to do it. Why casual you ask? It's because I wasn't consciously planning to lose weight which seems to be controversial to what most people preach - "People that have a goal will get there someday." What about people who don't have goals but reach them?

Let me clarify that until age of 18, I was eating an unhealthy diet. I was eating mostly sandwiches and didn't like stewed food such as vegetables and I didn't eat soups at all. The bad thing was that I mostly was distracted by staring into computer during meal consumption, the activity known for being bad for digestion which caused acid reflux in me. Mostly after every meal I didn't feel it was enough and wanted something else, something different and more tasty which was snacks like chips, candies or chocolates.

My Success Story

A few months until then I quit eating snacks like chips, quit eating sugar stuff like chocolate and chocolate waffles, changed what i ate late evening to reduced amounts of fruits and vegetables, quit drinking very sweet apple juices,quit drinking poisonous and addictive substances like Coca Cola and Red Bull alike copycat products.

It all started 2 weeks before New Year and I subconsciously made myself a goal to clean/square away my flat so it will shine before New Year starts. Every day I was feeling energized getting up early and working my sweat/butt off until 3AM-5AM the next day often feeling exhausted and consuming maximum of one meal during whole day and sometimes not eating at all, but not forgetting to drink of course. I was feeling sometimes nauseous which was mostly reason I wasn't eating more than one meal or any at all. Let me add as well that I also did morning exercises including sit-ups, push-ups, raising/lowering legs while lying on bed, exercises with dumbbells and runs of a couple of miles on a non-flat elevated/lowered distance which I think put more strain on heart. Something was driving me and keeping me energized to do everything meticulously and perfectly. Finally all was brushed, cleaned, squared away in such a way that rented flat seemed in such condition that I just moved in i.e like a new.

Conclusion

Two years ago my weight was 253.5 lbs and I was diagnosed with fatty liver, had hypertension - in short I was under risk of several medical conditions and I had to do something about it. A year later my weight saw small improvement to 242.5 lbs as I started stabilizing my diet and in last year alone I went from 242.5 lbs to 205 lbs which according to BMI index was still above my healthy BMI of 85kg = 187.39 lbs.

Today my weight is ... drumroll please ... Within my healthy BMI - 82kg which is 180.77 lbs!

That's right ladies and gents, I did it! But I couldn't do it without changing my mindset and the following 5 character traits which some I was born with and some nurtured in myself in the course of my lifetime which are:

• Goal Orientation (born with and nurtured further)
• Discipline (nurtured)
• Willpower (nurtured)
• Motivation (nurtured)
• Patience (born with and nurtured further)
  
  

There is a saying about once you start doing something, you become better at it. Same is true for fitness, because when I started, it was tough to perform exercises as easy as I perform them today. I couldn't do more than 1 full push-up compared to 13 full push-ups I do today. I coudn't walk and run 4 miles as easy as I walk and run them today.

How do I feel today? More energized, happier, optimistic and most importantly healthier than before ready to burn remainder of fat and get in optimal shape. Cholesterol levels reduced by twice, risks of medical conditions are eliminated, I think more clearly and there is a little memory improvement.

One thing is sure - losing weight is easier compared to maintaining weight when you need to maintain balance to stay within limits and be concerned of food you consume trying to not go "offroad."

Now I want to ask fitness coaches, bodybuilders and nutritionists:

Was the way I lost weight safe? What mistakes I made? What I should have done differently and what should I improve?

Appreciate your opinions and suggestions!

Answer 1

First, congratulations on your transformation. No matter how it is done, it is always an accomplishment. First, the obvious things you did right:

• Got rid of sugary drinks
• Added exercise
• Used the momentum of one good change begetting another (cleaning the flat, etc.).

I don't have enough information to determine if the food was right, so instead I'll list some principles that are important. I do want to say that there are several intermittent fasting based diets, and they work amazingly well. They range from simply occasionally skipping a meal to fasting one day a week, to fasting for a certain number of hours and eating within a certain number of hours. For example, the Warrior diet is a 20/4 diet meaning 20 hours of fasting and 4 hours where you can eat. Even within this framework, you do need to maintain decent nutrition. Without further ado, as long as these are OK on a weekly average, you did it right:

• Calories: as long as you consume fewer calories than you burn, you will lose weight.
• Protein: if sedentary, 1g/kg of protein is sufficient (that's roughly 0.5g/lb). The more active you are, the more protein you need. The body won't use more than 1.8g/kg (0.82g/lb) in a day.
• Fat: there are several fat born vitamins your body needs. Both mono-unsaturated fats and saturated fats (from naturally fed animals) are good sources of fats. Important is making sure the Omega-3/Omega-6 balance is good. Vegetable oil based fats tend to be heavy in omega-6 fats, which makes the body inflammatory and more prone to disease. Increasing Omega-3s helps bring that in balance.
• Carbohydrates: while some view them as the only non-essential macro nutrient, they help you gain energy. They also include some of the water soluble vitamins that we need.

As long as your Calorie intake is sufficient to provide you with the energy you need (which it sounds like it did), and you have enough protein to maintain your muscle mass plus a little extra to increase your muscle mass, the exact balance of carbs to fats is much less important.

The last remaining thought I'd leave you with is that BMI was originally devised as a statistical aid. In short, it's "good enough" when applied to a large population to determine what proportion of people are overweight or not, it was never intended to be applied individually. The problems that can occur is that if your body fat percentage applied to your height and weight is outside the norm assumed for the BMI calculation it will give you a false impression. You can have less muscle mass than the norm (common in elderly people), and the BMI will under-report your body fat. You can have more muscle mass than the norm (common in athletes), the the BMI will over-report your body fat.