From 172 to 150 — My Weight Loss Journey of Getting Back in Shape

Here’s how you can do it too!

Losing weight is one of the most concerning problems for most of us regardless the gender. I was lean during my childhood and got chubby in a quick period of 1–2 years of time during my teenage.

I believe the main factor that caused me to get chubby was binge eating. I found it so much harder to get myself lean again. I joined a gym, joined a boxing club, and gradually started to see some changes but not a massive amount of weight loss.

And this is where the game changed, I found the key recipe for weight loss. Yes! I did lose 22 Pounds. From 172 to 150 in just three months.

I have given a detailed breakdown of all the factors that I considered as the key ingredients for this amazing recipe to lose weight in a short period of time, considering these factors will definitely help you to achieve your goal.

• Finding the proper cause.
• Found myself a partner/competitor
• I challenged myself with a fixed time frame.
• Workout, diet, and recovery
• Sacrifices I had to make
• How long did it take to see results?
• Obstacles that tried to stop me.

Finding the proper cause

The reason I had to challenge myself for a quick weight loss was my boxing championships. I was weighing 172 pounds, and I can remember my coach advised me to reduce weight to fight in the welterweight division as that was the appropriate weight class for me.

I took up the challenge, and it was to reduce 22 Pounds before the championships. That was my motivation and cause too. Having a concrete reason why I want to lose weight helped me win the challenge. This cause kept me motivated until I achieved what I exactly wanted.

As a piece of advice, I’d say, you should find the cause first, ask yourself this question, “why I should lose weight?”, you’ll get the answer. Then start working on your goal.

Knowing the reason why you started, will always keep you motivated and that reason will keep reminding why you entered this journey, whenever you feel like quitting.

Found myself a partner/competitor

At the beginning of this challenge, I was blessed with a friend who was also a co boxer. He was my partner as well as my competitor. We both had to lose more or less the same amount of weight within the given period of time. Having a motivating partner and a tough competitor made us both keep moving towards the success of the journey we started.

We often trained together, followed the same diet, taught each other when we made mistakes. That’s where I found that having a perfect training partner and a competitor was one of the key ingredients for this recipe.

For example, if you go to a gym and find yourself a friend who’s fighting for the same goal as you, both of you working out together will have a greater impact than you working out alone.

I challenged myself with a fixed time frame

In my case, I had five months of time to achieve the desired weight, but I limited it to three months, so I could start working on my boxing techniques.

In the beginning, it seemed quite impossible to do such a big transformation in just three months. I believed in myself that I can make it happen. Having a fixed time period to achieve a goal made me work harder and harder. I even forgot that there’s a word called procrastination exists.

Challenging yourself with a time frame to achieve the goal will help you attract results faster, and also remember the time frame you set to achieve your goal should be realistic as well. Setting a time frame of two weeks to lose 10 Kgs(22 Pounds) is just a waste of time.

Workout, diet, and recovery

The three main elements that played a major role in this journey are how I managed my workout routine, diet, and recovery. Here’s how:

The sport

As I said earlier, the main reason for me to get into this challenge was boxing, so I spent most of my workout sessions at the boxing ring, and occasionally I used to play badminton on the weekends. Boxing helped me big time as my training was highly insensitive. This was my weekly training schedule under a qualified coach:

Monday —Punching bag and skipping rope training combined with high insensitive interval workouts (HIIT).

Wednesday — 3 rounds of sparring sessions combined with ab workouts.

Friday — 3 rounds of a punching bag, 3 rounds of skipping rope, and HIIT training at the end.

Gym

As I was occupied with boxing training for 3 days of the week I managed to do resistance training on Tuesdays and Thursdays to work on my strength. The gym training schedule was custom made by my coach according to my body type.

The best advice I would give you is, to get a workout schedule from an expert rather than watching Youtube videos and surfing online because it is not guaranteed that all the workout plans will be suitable for you. So it is always the best idea to get a tailor-made plan that will suit your body type.

Recovery

I never worked out in the gym for more than an hour. Working out more than the required amount will give you nothing but injuries. Sundays were my rest days, I allocated Sundays fully for recovery because recovery plays a major role when losing weight. Recovery will prevent you from injuries, muscle soreness, and feeling fatigued.

Sleep is the trump card for recovery. I always made sure that I had a sufficient amount of sleep to function in the upcoming days.

And again how often you need rest is based on your workout plan. Having rest doesn’t mean you have to sleep and stay on bed all day. You can go for a walk, enjoy music, and even having a swimming session with friends will help you recover faster from your workouts.

Food

It is obvious that following a proper diet plan will boost your weight loss to the next level. I was also aware that following a diet plan to lose weight should not affect my strength and stamina too. My diet plan was tailor-made for me by a powerlifter who’s also an expert when it comes to nutrition programs.

What kind of food I ate:

• Food that is rich in fiber — Corn, whole grains, whole-wheat bread. This will make you feel full for a longer period of time and provides a sufficient amount of energy too.
• Food that is rich in protein — Tuna, salmon, chicken breasts. This helped me build muscle while I was losing weight simultaneously.
• Fruits — Banana, strawberries, and etc. Fruits are natural sources of sugar, and also a delicious choice during weight loss.
• Good fat — Avacados, peanuts, and all other sources of nuts are rich in healthy fat. These are the best alternative to saturated fat.

Food that I avoided:

• Sugar — This is the biggest enemy while losing weight. Avoiding added and refined sugar helped me seeing results much faster. Added sugar can be alternated with fruits.
• Oily food — I stopped eating fried food and replaced it with olive oil whenever needed.
• Bad Carbs — Rice, noodles, bread are sources of carbs with high calories.

Cheat day — Having a cheat day once in two weeks is allowed, still, remember to have control over yourself.

Supplementation

I wasn’t getting all the required nutrition through my food intake. So supplements were suggested by my nutrition advisor in order to speed up results and boost my health.

The supplements I took:

• Fish oil capsules — Rich in omega 3 fatty acids, that may also boost weight loss and several other health benefits.
• Protein powder — I wasn’t getting enough protein through my regular food and protein helps in recovery by repairing the muscles.
• Pre-workout supplement — This was suggested to enhance performance during training.

I would say supplements aren’t really necessary if you achieve your nutrition from the food you intake. Consulting a nutritionist would be the best idea to identify whether you need it or not.

How long did it take to see results?

The most exciting part of this journey was witnessing the results. I started to notice significant results only after three weeks. Until that it was really frustrating not seeing any big changes in the weight.

Even though I was following my training and diet properly, my weight was fluctuating in the first two weeks. As metabolism is a dynamic thing, the amount of weight I was losing varied from the first few days to the third week. Gradually, as my metabolism increased, the amount of weight I was losing increased too.

There was a time period when everyone who met me after some time asked me this question:

“Hey, how did you manage to lose weight this sooner?“

That was overwhelming happiness when people recognized my effort for all the hard work I put in. With commitment, dedication, and especially patience, results will start to flow in.

Sacrifices I had to make

To achieve something big you need to sacrifice too. There were a number of things I had to let go in order to get the results I wanted.

Things that I sacrificed:

• I was a fan of fast food like pizzas, burgers, shawarma, and more. I had to let go of all these and had them only on cheat days. I had to give up on alcohol, and sweet beverages too.
• I stopped smoking fully as I was aware that will affect my stamina and workout performance.
• There were opportunity costs, I had to choose whether I’ll be attending classes or going to the gym, where I was a software engineering undergraduate and attending classes was equally important as my workout sessions.

At last, I felt like these sacrifices I made were totally worth it. I guarantee that you will feel the same as me. When you let go of the things you like, you’re more likely to be rewarded with something bigger and better.

Obstacles that tried to stop me.

Whenever we take a big step in life, I’m sure there’ll be obstacles too, that you have to jump over like a deer dashing over the fences. In my case, I had to dash over both internal and external obstacles that came across the pathway.

Internal

I have to admit that I was lazy when I started. Some times I’ve been through the feeling of quitting from this weight loss journey during the first few days because I didn’t witness any sort of results. Overcoming the feeling of quitting helped me achieve the end result.

I used to get sick very often due to climate changes, that was the only thing that bothered me a lot. Every time I fell back I tried my level best to recover and get back on track as soon as possible.

Shoulder and back injuries tried to stop me from moving so many times too. And I always remembered why I started and never gave up.

External

There were certain things that I couldn't take control, for example, heavy rain and flood stopped me from entering the gym, on some days boxing training was stopped due to coach’s illness. These factors were never under my control but I always found alternative ways. I workout out at home on the days when the gym was closed, I partnered up with my friend for a road run when boxing training was canceled. After all, I’d say these obstacles were actually afraid of me.

My personal advice on this case is not to get fooled by these external factors, there are many alternatives to simply get over these.

Wrapping it up

In conclusion, I just want to make it clear that when I started this amazing journey of losing weight in a short period of time I wasn’t aware of all these factors and now I’m sure you do.

If I can bring in a significant change in my life, then there are no doubts. You can do it too. All that matters is the initiative and the effort you put into it. Trust me, in the beginning, it will be hard, it takes time but all the hard work you put in will repay you with marvelous results. Be willing to break barriers, my friend.

“You can’t cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water”

I hope this detailed breakdown gives you insight into how you can grab these key ingredients and cook your own recipe for achieving the goal. Good luck with your journey.

Feel free to shoot questions in the comments, I’ll be the happiest to respond to all!