How I Won My Battle with Weight

Like many people, I have battled with my weight for many years. The photo's of me above are a couple of years apart, on the left was my heaviest circa 120Kg in 2021/22 during my hair loss denial phase! On the right is summer 2024 after losing over 30Kg - 88Kg at the time of writing - that's just over 25% of my original weight!

Looking through my weight logs I'd not been below 95Kg since I got married in 2013, and I spent the majority of the time before and after my marriage in the 110Kg range. My goal every New Year was to drop below 100Kg, my dream of getting to 95 or 90Kg felt impossible.

Even when I dieted, I would lose some weight, then plateau, then lose motivation and pile back on the pounds in a perpetual loop which I yearned to break. I never seemed to quiet the insatiable cravings.

My weight was one factor, gout, joint pain, blood lipids, blood pressure etc were all other factors that made me dig into the research in a bid to improve my health and I was fortunate enough to come across an eye-opening podcast by Andrew Hubermann featuring Dr Robert Lustig who explained metabolic syndrome and Sugar - specifically a molecule of sugar called Fructose which is the bad guy here. Everything seemed to make sense to me, so armed with that knowledge I continued digging; watched multiple podcasts and multiple books (see reading list) and decided I'd read enough to make a lifestyle change, so New Year 2024 I cut out the majority of processed Carbohydrates and Sugars - I say most because I'm no saint, I occasionally have a biscuit or share some crisps and have a roll at a family BBQ for instance, but 90%+ went, and this is when my weight fell off.

I've been plateauing around my current weight of 88Kg now for a while which is fine with me - my bodies reset and it's below my dream dream weight which I can't quite believe at times, and to my wife's annoyance I will remind her every now again!

You'll notice above I use the word lifestyle, and this is key. We're not talking about a short-term diet here, I've made a lifestyle choice - the name implies it's for life.

Aside from weight loss, and if you read the literature they also highlight the following benefits from cutting out processed Carbohydrates and Sugars -

Cravings - My cravings have reduced significantly - hypothesised by Dr Richard Johnson as the fat storage switch and in line with my findings as an N of one , that as I reduce my sugars (refined carbs and sugars), the fat storage switch is turned down, which means I burn more fat and stop storing fat resulting in weight loss untill my body's reached an equilibrium/plateau.

Lethergy - I'm far less lethargic - I wouldn't be writing this if I wasn't, before I had so little energy in the evenings I found everything a chore, but not any more. Again linked to the fat storage switch hypothesised by turning the switch down, the body goes out of a gain fat and be lethargic to conserve energy mode (winter is coming) and into a more oh it's spring, hunting is good and I need to be active and aware mode.

One more thing, during this whole process i've not counted a single calory. I generally eat when i'm hungry, which these days is between 10am and 12am and an evening meal, typically before 7pm which helps me sleep.