The Elephant in the Room (me)
Before we begin, a bonus life-lesson for you: don’t move to China if you can’t handle the truth.
“You have got so fat.”
The above quote came from one of my female employees. Her face pinched down in mock pain as if the mere sight of me was like having cobra venom spit in her eyes.
Obviously, the whole body-positive movement hasn’t made it this far East yet.
In China, it’s common for people who “care about you” to regularly critique everything from your waistline to your complexion.
Having lived in China for almost 5 years now, things like this usually don’t bother me. I’ve learned to accept many cultural differences, this one being no different.
And yet, this time, it stung.
My face got hot, and my heart stuttered a bit.
I suddenly felt each and every pound I’d piled onto my skeleton over the past two years of undisciplined and careless living. I could feel the cotton in my shirt straining across the expanse of my gut. And how that gelatinous roll chaffed against my belt as it spilled over the leather.
Her comment came on an already stressful Monday morning. I was dealing with the crisis du jour and juggling multiple inbound questions from other colleagues.
To say her comment didn’t go over well was an understatement.
Maybe it was my mood, lack of sleep, or perhaps the above-mentioned stress, but either way, her comment got under my skin.
Wormed its way into my consciousness.
Got into my bones and stirred the marrow.
It pissed me off.
Big time.
And thank God it did.
Just Do It, Fatty
It wasn’t the first time someone had commented on my ever-increasing weight.
My wife had dropped a hint or two, a friend, out of nowhere, challenged me to a weight loss challenge, and of course, my way too honest Chinese employees, as thoroughly established above.
Even people I didn’t know would subtly let on that I’d approached my personal tipping point.
Once, while walking through the Mid-Levels in Hong Kong (the super-steep area of town built on the side of a mountain), a beautiful young woman passed by and locked eyes with me.
Now, I used to be a real head-turner — let me tell you! But this lovely woman’s gaze had no lust, no desire behind her stare. Absolutely zero flirtatious longing.
Nope. Not even one bit.
All I saw was pity in her eyes as she spotted my sweat-drenched shirt glued to my jiggly body and, no doubt, heard the whistling wheeze escaping my struggling lungs.
I hope you don’t die, grandpa…
That’s what she was probably thinking.
In other words, it wasn’t really a secret to anyone, including myself, that I had put off the inevitable for far too long.
Just Do It, Fatty.
I said this to my reflection in the mirror one morning in early October 2019.
And as insensitive and unwoke as that sounds (and I don’t recommend this type of self-talk, in general), it worked for me.
Just Do It, Fatty.
This became my internal battle cry.
No more excuses.
Get off your ass and do something about this. You are better than this, and you’re wasting the few good years you have left.
Memento Mori, motherfucker!
The Fat and Lazy Man’s Weightloss Plan
Fitness and I have always had a hate/hate relationship.
I’ve been a runner off and on since junior high school, but I can’t say I’ve ever really enjoyed it. I see it as more of a chore than a sport or a hobby.
And gyms, to my mind, are just terrible places. I hate going and will do anything to avoid it.
However, I know from my own research that exercise is one of the foundational habits for building a healthy life. At some point, I realized I would need to integrate this back into my weekly routine.
But not too soon… Not yet!
Before I started running or practicing yoga again, I wanted to shed some bulk to avoid feeling so uncomfortable and self-conscious. No one wants to feel the embarrassing jiggling and chaffing that physical activity produces when carrying excess fat.
With exercise put on the back-burner, this meant my only real option was to take a hard look at my daily food intake.
I did some research — reading is kinda my thing — and landed on an eating plan that I thought just might work for me (based on my body type and what I enjoyed eating already).
So, setting aside this preamble, here are the five things I did to lose 35 pounds in 4 months:
(Besides the dietary modifications, I have included two additional practices that I’m convinced served as a multiplier effect to my new way of eating).
- Ketogenic Diet
- Intermittent Fasting
- Moderate booze intake over 4 months
- Meditation
- Optimized Sleep
Let’s quickly unpack each one.
What is Keto?
The trendy Ketogenic Diet is a way of eating that prioritizes fat over protein and carbohydrates.
High fat. Moderate protein. Low carbs.
This is a gross simplification, for sure, but that’s the fastest way to explain it.
There is some fascinating science behind it, some controversy, and a pretty solid consensus that it’s great for weight-loss.
I’m not going to get into the science, as I’m not qualified to do that, but I will share with you what my typical daily meal-plan looked like.
- Breakfast: Bulletproof Coffee
- Lunch: 1 whole Avocado, slices of hard cheese (cheddar, parmesan), green olives, and some sort of meat (bacon, salami, chicken)
- Dinner: large salad with Primal Kitchen Ranch Dressing, and some sort of fatty meat or fish
- Dessert: a few squares of dark chocolate (70%+ cocoa)
- Occasional treat: 1 glass of Pinot Noir (lowest sugar red wine)
This varied only slightly, depending on the day or where I happened to be during each prescribed mealtime.
For me, this way of eating worked really well. I can be a creature of habit when focussed on a goal, so the lack of variety didn’t really bother me.
If you require a rotating plate of adventure to make you feel whole as a person, there are numerous keto-friendly cookbooks on the market. I recommend The Primal Kitchen Cookbook by Mark Sisson.
But to be honest, the most critical part of the whole protocol above was the “breakfast.” And I put it in quotes because it wasn’t really a meal, but it allowed me to enter into a modified form of IF.
What is IF or Intermittent Fasting?
Humans are designed to be able to not only survive but thrive during inconsistent periods of caloric intake.
Before agriculture, early humans had no way of knowing when their next meal would come. There were no Sonic drive-thrus in sub-Saharan Africa when our fore-bearers climbed down from the trees.
So we adapted to be able to function — at a high level — while in a fasted state.
Evidence is beginning to suggest that restricting your meals into a tight range of hours per day is a useful option for weight management and overall health.
Here’s how it works.
- Mark the time you eat dinner
- Now don’t eat again for 16 hours
- Done
It’s really that simple.
The goal is to put 12–16 hours between your last meal of the day and your first meal the subsequent day.
This way, or as the theory goes, you get through half of the fast while asleep, cutting down on the psychological pain that comes from being deprived of your habitual snacking.
And by effectively skipping one meal per day, you have a nearly pain-free way of cutting calories out of your diet (assuming you don’t gorge yourself on ice cream, Snickers, and ribs coming out of the fast at lunchtime).
In short, it works.
And as mentioned in the last section, I took a modified approach to this; the Bulletproof Coffee I’d have each morning isn’t calorie-free, so it’s not genuinely fasting, in the purest definition of the word.
It has butter and MCT oil in it — lots and lots of fat!
Which keeps your belly full and your mind off that next meal, which isn’t coming until 12:30.
So as you see, my approach wasn’t evangelical IF.
I cheated a bit.
But who really cares if it works, right?
No Booze? Are you serious?
Total bummer. I know.
I love my wine. Like, I reeeeeeeealllyyyyyy love my wine (see how I refer to it as my wine and not just “wine” ?).
But, if I was going to get serious about my weight and my health, downing a bottle of pinot each night couldn’t be part of the strategy.
And trust me, I scoured the internet searching for anything that said it would be ok. No such luck.
One glass, every once in a while, was totally cool. Four to five a night? Not so cool.
The good news is, after a few nights of sober living, I didn’t really miss it. In fact, I felt so much better each morning, not having to deal with my usual mini-hangover, that I actually began to look forward to not drinking.
I can’t wait to not drink today!
Strange, I know, but I swear it’s true.
And my newly clear mind allowed me to get back to an old habit that I had allowed to fall by the wayside.
Meditation For Weight Loss?
I’ve had a sporadic meditation practice for over five years now, but when my weight ballooned last year, and my health & fitness deteriorated, I set it aside.
Not consciously, of course… (see what I did there?)
It just sort of faded away under the pressure of each new lousy decision I was making in regards to my overall health.
But with my weight steadily dropping due to my new diet and the cessation of my nightly booze habit, I began to feel the desire to sit again.
And after five months of near-daily mediation, I can attest to its power in helping with weight management.
Consistent meditation allows me to more clearly see my thoughts as separate from my identity. I don’t associate so closely with each fleeting mind-burp, and because of this, I can more easily discard the thoughts that aren’t serving me.
As an example, a few hours after dinner, I might think:
A quesadilla sure sounds good, huh?
When I’m not meditating consistently, before that thought has even fully scrolled across the IMAX screen in my head, I’m already in the kitchen, grating the cheese and warming the pan.
However, when my practice is in full swing, I can see those craving thoughts as empty — built out of habit and boredom — rather than actual feelings of hunger.
I’m able to pause and reflect, truly listen to my body, and examine if I indeed need to eat more, or if this thought is just my mind tricking me into filling the silence with the crunch of tortilla chips.
More often than not, it’s my inner Fatboy just tryin’ get a snacky.
Sleep Like Your Life Depends on It
I’ve never been a terrible sleeper, some bouts of mild insomnia here and there, but nothing major. But that’s not to say I’ve been a good sleeper either.
To be honest, I never really noticed much, never gave it much thought, and just accepted the fact that adult life meant always feeling a little exhausted, a little frazzled and a little stressed.
In fact, I used to tell people that if I had a superpower, it would be to forgo sleep forever with no harmful side-effects. I’ve just always seen sleep as a colossal waste of time.
However, I’ve recently learned that optimal sleep itself is the superpower and that feeling exhausted, frazzled, and stressed are all symptoms of long term sleep deprivation.
You know what else can be a symptom?
Yep. Weight gain.
I am going to write a full article on what exactly I did to get better sleep (follow me to get the full protocol when I post it), but for now, I’ll just share that I get 7–9 hours of quality sleep per night, no matter what.
I schedule it, and I respect it. I have a sleep hygiene practice. I take supplements that support healthy sleep. And track it nightly.
It has made a massive difference in my overall life, but I’ve also found that my weight loss quickened during the weeks I got the highest quality sleep.
The weeks I got less sleep, my fat stuck around.
In Conclusion
Weight gain and weight loss are very personal battles.
The tips I’ve shared here are for entertainment and informative purposes and do not replace actual medical advice.
Seriously, I’m not a doctor, a dietitian, or a nutritionist. Talk to someone who gets paid to do these things if you don’t know where to start.
But I wanted to share these 5 tips, because a lot of people who struggle with their weight, feel it’s an impossible task. That losing 20, 30, 50 pounds is simply too big a mountain to climb.
But I assure you it can be done. And quickly.
Weight loss can be simple.
Not necessarily easy, but simple.
- A Ketogenic Diet
- Skip Breakfast (Intermittent Fasting)
- Cut Out the Booze
- Meditate Daily
- Get Optimal Sleep
These 5 steps have allowed me to steadily lose weight and feel better each day.
I hope this inspires you to do your own research, talk to a relevant professional, and forge your own path forward.
Good luck!
