Recently, I lost almost 20kg in less than four months. That's 44 pounds. I'm 2/3 of my goal to lose 30kg. This is how I did it.
And I did it in the format of a listicle or list-article for your bullshit Gen Y millenial bullshit consumption.
5. Fuck you.
4. Fuck you.
3. Fuck you
2. Fuck you and your preference for list articles. List articles are the worst things to journalism. Aside from... journalists being all holier-than-thou and crapping on the very industry that's feeding them by being asshole freeloaders. But fuck you.
1. Okay. I did not set out to lose weight. Not at all. I was happy the way I was, but then I had a fucking heart attack.
I mean, I knew how to lose weight. Just over two years ago, I lost 17kg in three months by switching to a high fibre diet and exercising almost every day. The first week alone, I lost 6kg. One week, 6kg - so I knew it's easy to lose weight.
As with everything else, as soon as I figured something out, I would lose interest. There are so many other things to explore and discover.
The thing I decided to do was change my lifestyle after the stupid heart attack. The prognosis put me at six months to six years life expectancy.
The data comes from a study done in the US on 1,000 heart patients with an ejection fraction (EF or EVF) below 40%. Normal human is at 60-70%. Cristiano Ronaldo is maybe 80%. Below 40% and you have heart failure. Mine's 41% - barely scraping by.
Now, the thing is, the data is not entirely reliable (thank God I deal with these types of number sets as part of my mind-control business to know the flaws and bullshit of statistics) as:
1. From the 1,000 patients, they could not assign control groups or whatever groups.
You can't set aside 300 people and tell them, "Okay, you guys don't exercise and eat whatever you've been eating that got you to having a heart attack in the first place. And you, the next 300, exercise like crazy and only drink the dews of the leaves of petunias for five years."
These are real people, not lab animals.
2. There is no lifestyle change study
The study did not observe any impact made by lifestyle change. It's just, "oh these 1,000 people had a heart attack, with below 40% EVF and now they're all dead after six years."
3. Everything is a bell-shaped curve
I hate the notion of being special. However, in this case, if I want to survive, I needed to be in the special percentage tier - those who made it, the fuckers who had heart attacks and fucking killed it. It being heart condition, not themselves.
So, I needed to be special. I needed to excel. I fucking hate those motherfuckers who want to be special. But I needed to do this, so excuse my dust.
So I went back to my plan. My BMI was bad, cholesterol was wayyy up and my sodium intake was crazy, for a non-American.
The first three months after being discharged, I went home and did three things - I quit smoking, I began eating healthy and I exercised every fucking day.
Quitting smoking was easy. I just stopped. That's it. All you fuckers who SAY you want to quit but have not quit are fucking delusional pansies. You don't want to quit - that's why you have not quit smoking.
Eating healthy requires a ton of research. I watched over 20 hours of documentaries, mostly from the BBC. Learned about nutrition mostly from Youtube and wikipedia and other websites. I read tons of stuff.
As I gathered the information I need, I asked my sister to set recipes for me. I ate 200gm of lean protein a day, around 300gm of carbs (high fibre) a day, two tablespoons of oil a day, half a teaspoon of salt every fucking day. Drank 3-5 litres of water, daily.
I have a whole list of stuff I don't eat anymore. Coconut oil, palm oil, anything with saturated fat - butter, margarine, ALL fast food, ALL traditional ethnic cuisine from everywhere, ALL kuih, 95% of stuff they serve you at any Mamak restaurant anywhere, 95% of shit they serve you in ANY restaurant.
For example, two nights ago, for a very special occasion, I ate fried rice for the first time in four months.
Losing weight through dieting is very simple. You need to take in less calories than you use. A 100kg man - not woman, man - would use 2200-2500kcal a day. So if you're at 100kg, take 1500-1700kcal a day. If you're at 80kg, find out how many calories you need and take less. Count everything. It's a math question.
Get rid of all the oil. Everything has oil in it, so you don't need to eat any fried food. ANY fried food. Everything must be boiled, steamed, curried, baked, grilled or whatever. If you HAVE to, after four months, sautee that shit. Today I pan-fried some chicken breast and two tablespoons of oil is plenty!
Be disciplined. You're not going to get away with cheating on yourself. That sugary treat with pounds of butter in it? It will get stuck in your heart and you will fucking die. Or it will get stuck in your brain and you'd be a retard.
Exercise was tricky. My heart is partially dead, so I can't exert myself. I started small, walking 2-3km a day, until I can walk for 12km a day. That's 3km one way from my apartment through the cemetery to a part, 6km for one round trip. Do it twice a day and I get 12km.
Went for a stress test at the hospital and was cleared to swim. I swim 20 laps every time, 500-600m, twice to three times a week.
Then I got a job and my exercise time was cut short so I joined a gym near my workplace. I do 60-90 minutes cardio every time, with 45 minutes of weight training and crunches.
Now, my regime is I would go and exercise four times a week - either gym, swimming or walking 12km a day.
All those fuckers who try to dissuade you from doing all this, they're all fuckers. If I had listened to any of the jealous, sabotaging fucktards who tried to stop me from exercising in my '20s, I'd have died when I had my heart attack on Aug 29. I'm still alive simply because my heart was strong enough to weather that first attack, even though 1/3 of it is now dead.
Anyway, the point was not to lose weight. The point was to get healthy. But I lost 19kg so far, and by next week, it should be 20kg. I weigh myself every morning to keep things consistent.
My target is to lose 30kg.
Problems: I had to shop for new clothes even at this midway juncture and by the time I hit 30kg weight loss, I'd have to buy an entirely new wardrobe again.
My motivation is simple - I stop doing this, and I die. Or worse. The last thing I want is a stroke or diabetes.
At the moment, I'm probably at my healthiest since I graduated. Actually, the last time I felt this healthy was when I was 11 years old. And I'm NOT healthy. I have a serious illness that could kill me at any moment. All this, all I'm doing? Might not matter, but I've decided to do it and I'm sticking to it.
I'm just doing all I can to lower my risks. And somehow, I'm way sexier doing it than I ever was - who would have thought that was possible?
