University Days Part 2
Hey guys! Hope you’re enjoying my newsletter so far. My last post talked about losing weight when I first moved to Sydney, Australia and then gaining the weight back. I was so determined to lose the weight I gained. In my head, it was always, “See, you could be skinny too!” Little did I know that mindset screwed me up for many years to come. Sometime in late 2011 (after about a year in my university), my clothes started to feel tight and I didn’t fit into some of them anymore. I knew that I had to lose the weight but I didn’t really know how much. I was still very scared of weighing myself. All I knew was to get myself back into a smaller Cath so that I can fit into my old jeans.
I went online to search for a diet plan. The truth about dieting is that it is always trend driven, for example in some years Keto was very popular, in some going Paleo was popular. In 2011, what was popular was the slow-carb diet, also known as the 4-hour body diet.
What is the 4-hour body diet? This diet created Tim Ferriss, an investor and author who also wrote The 4-Hour Workweek. It claims to enable you to lose 9kg of body fat in 30 days and is a proven dramatic weight loss method. Many people also claimed that they’ve lost weight through this program. Writing about this now makes me sound extremely silly. Why would I follow nutritional advice of an AUTHOR or an INVESTOR? I guess I really wanted a quick fix then. Rallying some of my friends to make things easier, we decided to embark on this 4-hour body diet.
I remembered every weekend, we would have our cheat day and that was a day that involved uncontrollable food cravings. I would stuff myself with EVERYTHING that I could lay hands on. The binge was uncontrollable but I reasoned with myself that it was only for a day - and the next day I would be going back to my 4-hour diet.
Apart from my diet, I was running at least 5 days per week. This lifestyle went on for about 4 months and I lost about 5kg over that time. In all honestly, it was hard to maintain that diet and lifestyle, all while trying to juggle part-time work, university at the same time. It didn’t take long for me to ditch this diet. It was stressful especially during exam periods (had to study, juggle part-time work while studying at the same time). I remembered bingeing became worse during my exam periods. I also didn’t have time to workout so that added to the extra stress of "maintaining my 5kg weight loss”. I felt disappointed and ashamed at myself that I didn’t lose 9kg like everyone else on the internet.
Do you ever feel disappointed at yourself for not achieving the outcome of a diet? Did you know that most weight loss diets are not sustainable? People who go on a diet are most likely to put it back, sometimes gaining even more than what they lost. What about you? Have you went on a diet that made you feel more ashamed and disappointed? Next week’s newsletter will discuss about my lowest weight in my life. If you enjoyed this post, please take a moment to share it to your friends.
Catch you next week!