How Covid shocked me out of obesity

A massive public health scare forced me to confront my massive weight!

These newsletters are a follow-on from my Wednesday weigh-ins posted on Twitter and Facebook.

Lots of people asked me how I managed to lose three stone/42 pounds/19 kilos during lockdown. In these newsletters I’ll be showing you how I did it. I hope it helps.

I am not a doctor, dietitian nor nutritionist. I’m just someone who managed to lose a ton of weight in lockdown. What worked for me might work for you.

Shocked into action

I’ve struggled with my weight my entire adult life. But Covid made me realise I had to do something about it. I heard being obese makes you much less likely to survive if you caught it. This shocked me into action.

First weigh-in

I don’t actually know how much I weighed at the start. My first weigh-in was on September 1st 2020 when I weighed a whopping 15 stone 11 pounds, 221 pounds/100 kilos. I probably weighed more before I dared get on the scales. I’m 65, my height is 5 foot six inches/1.67m and my BMI was 34.8. I was obese. Five stone overweight. Five!

How that happened is no longer important. How I deal with it is.

By the end of June 2021 I’d lost three stone. My weight had dropped to 12 stone 11 pounds/179 pounds/80 kilos. My goal is to get to the right BMI for my height which means losing another 23 pounds/10 kilos.

Don’t diet!

I don’t believe in diets because they rarely work long term. And long term is where it matters. It’s much easier to lose weight than keep it off. Going on a diet means coming off a diet at some point. Better to make changes to how you eat so it becomes normal for you.

I know it’s very easy to say just eat less. If we could do that we wouldn’t have gained weight in the first place. But there are ways to achieve this so that slowly you adapt to eating what you like but less of it.

What I’ll do over the coming weeks is show you how I achieved that. There’ll be tons of tips on how to retrain your brain to want a bit less food but still get plenty pleasure from eating.

How exercise helps

Exercise by itself won’t make much difference. But it keeps your metabolism going. The danger with diets is the dreaded yoyo effect. You eat less so your body adjusts and requires less so you have to eat less and less to make a difference. Eventually you get so disheartened - and so hungry! - you come off the diet and it’s back on the merry-go-round of lose it/gain it back, lose it/gain it back. Exercise breaks that cycle. Think of it as keeping a pilot light on; while it burns you burn off calories.

You don’t have to join a gym, hire a trainer or take up a sport. I use walking as my daily exercise as I really enjoy it. The key is to find something you enjoy. And add as much extra movement as you can every day.

No forbidden foods

I have absolutely NO forbidden foods. So I have full-fat milk in my coffee, with half a teaspoon of sugar as that’s how I like it. I pour full-fat cream over my strawberries, butter my toast and lavish it with peanut butter. I eat chips, cakes, biscuits, chocolate and ice-cream. I love ice-cream! Depriving yourself of something you love means eventually you’ll probably crack and binge on it. If your brain doesn’t register deprivation it won’t send you messages imploring you to eat something you’ve given up. So eat what you like - just don’t have too much of it.

Family

In future newsletters I’ll deal with coping if you’re responsible for feeding a family, reaction from friends, commuting to work, doing shifts and the many hurdles you may face such as the dreaded plateau. I will also look at why losing weight and keeping it off is so tough. It’s not just about willpower.

Thanks for reading. More next week.