My Weight Loss Journey ~ A Life Changing Event

~16th November 2008 in the Eye of Malaysia (left) and 4th May 2009 at home (right)~

~June 2008 dressed for Symphonic Orchestra Night performing for Malacca Governor and 4th May 2009 at home (right)~

~July 2008 at Sarawak Cultural Village (1st), UNIMAS Resource Centre a.k.a library (2nd) and (3rd) in my room the day before I turned 22nd =D~

One typical Saturday morning when I followed mommy to the usual morning market in my former place that I used to stay and I bumped into Mrs. Poh at one of the vegetables stall. Mrs. Poh was my teacher in kindergarten when I was a six year old and she was too, my ex-colleague where I used to work part time after my SPM exam some years ago. The moment she saw me she dare not recognized me until she saw mommy with me by my side and with her eyes widely opened she said “Wow!!! Seriously, are you the girl I used to know? I could hardly recognize you. You looked totally like a different person that I used to know and watched as you grew up from a kid!!” Well, we used to frequently bump into her either in the morning market or night market every week as I grew up from being a child until today.

Being an overweight child from young, I always caught the attention of being slightly bigger size than any other kids in the kindy. This had extended throughout the years in primary school where I’m being teased for being a “fatty” and of course it subconsciously leads to an emotional distress once a while in me. I never had the confidence in me and always had a low, down-to-drain self-esteem. Even my parents and relatives commented on how fat I am and the words commonly from their mouths were like “You are so fat!! Don’t eat so much!! You need to control!! You need to diet!! You don’t look pretty when you are fat!! You can’t fit into nice clothes!!” All those words actually don’t motivate me much in fact it causes more pressure to me and I consumed more food when I’m under stress. Additionally to that, my mom pampered me a lot and she is good at cooking where basically she cooked all my favorite food every meal and everyday. So there goes, my weight never drops, instead it keeps increasing as I grew older. Until once, in my secondary years, when I was in Form 1, I finally drag myself to try a diet which my daddy discovered in one of the local dailies. The diet was a strictly no rice diet and only fruits and vegetables all the while and it lasted about a week or two I think (can’t recall the diet). I did actually lose about 5 kilograms during the 1 or 2 weeks and was kind of happy with it as people commented that I had lost weight. By that time, I weighted 55 kg when I was 13. As the days go, I couldn’t stick to the self-discipline and determination and started to have my meals back and in fact, more and in larger portion. I did actually realized how my size has grown and instilled some “short-term” discipline to go for exercise during school holidays but that mindset never lasted and just slip-off from me.

My weight never dropped and skyrocketed to 70 over kilogram when I was just 17 years old. I just ignored and never weigh myself anymore on the scale and giving myself excuses that I can’t concentrate on my studies if I’m hungry. Besides, I eat more than the required portion to de-stress very often or I can say all the while. The stress is at the peak when I’m in Form Four and Form Five because taking 11 subjects in SPM was never an easy job. I just eat and eat and eat when I felt like, even in the wee hours of morning where I stayed up burning the midnight oil. Regardless of that, I never go for exercise and preferred to spend my free time sleeping all the while. By the time I turned 18, I got and accepted the offer to study in a public university and my weight keep rising because the eating lifestyle over there in the campus is more to oily stuff and two meals of rice a day and the best thing that I enjoyed the most, sleeping after meals and during break in between, before classes. In addition, in the end of year 2005, I was diagnosed with psoriasis, a skin disorder and all the emotional stress and pain had caused me to overeat too. The skin disorder has been under controlled in a year or two after seeking various treatments and I ended up consulting a specialist and then the peak of my weight was at 76 kilogram during my internship period back in year 2007. It went down to around 74 kilogram in my final year diploma course in 2008 where I spent most of my time working in the workshop to complete my final year project and maybe that contributed to a slight drop as I’m dealing with machines and all those machining thingy that make you sweating. The weight issue doesn’t end here whereby by the second half of year 2008, my coursemates and close buddies commented on how overweight and ballooned I looked and they actually expressed their concerns regarding my weight and keep persuading me to lose some weight. Just imagine weighing 75 kilogram with the height of merely 157 cm and that gives a BMI of 30.4 which is duh, OBESE!!!

Finally, the end of year 2008 is significant for me. A lot of events happened during that year and indeed some of it is the turning point of my life. So I finally made up my mind when my one month semester break starts in November 2008, I decided to lose some weight. One of my close buddies actually inspired me a lot. She had lost around 10 kilogram in just a few months period and she successfully achieved it during some semester breaks as well. So I remembered the final fast food that I had was Pizza Hut on November 16 to mark the end of my first examination for my bachelor’s course. A few days after that, I went back for holidays in my hometown and had my final proper meal on the 20th. The next day which is November 21st, I started my planned 5 weeks diet which consists of a strictly no rice (rice is forbidden according to my buddy) that includes jogging and exercising. I started my day with a morning jog in a nearby hill and it started with just 2 rounds of jogging with frequent stops in between as I’m lack of stamina to keep on moving. Then, food for me is like cereal with low-fat milk powder for brunch and a green apple before taking any food. For dinner, there were only vegetables and some lean chicken meat or steamed fish or steamed pumpkin sometimes. After resting a while from dinner, I’ll grab the hula-hoop and start the exercise again for around half and hour while watching some shows on the TV. This has lasted for a week and the result can be seen as I had shed around 1.5 - 2 kg within a week. For the following 4 weeks, I had improved to 3 laps of jogging and with fewer stops in between while the food portion still remains the same. However, I got myself a bigger hoop (2 kg hula-hoop) for exercise at night and some additional time around 45 minutes of hooping too. A month after that, on December 23rd, my weight drop to 69/68 kg and the results can be obviously seen by my friends around me as they noticed I looked a little different. Some of them were inspired by me at the same time they tried to lose weight as well. I’m truly happy about that because my effort is an inspiration to them!

My effort never stops after I lost the pounds although my initial target was to lose about 5 kg only during the semester holidays. I’m determined enough and set my next target weight to drop to 65 kg. By the time I returned from holidays for a new semester, I weight about 67 kg in January and I found myself a new place to jog by a lake near my rented house in Malacca. Initially, for the jogging path of that particular lake, I started off with 5 rounds continuously without stopping for 30 minutes. I stick to eating wholegrain bread and wheat meal crackers and indulge in a cup or two of my favorite teh tarik (addicted to it) for lunch and dinner and lots of vegetables and fruits everyday and of course with the 30-45 minutes of hula-hooping at night. The jogging laps were increased slowly from 5 laps to 8 laps and eventually to 10 -11 laps non-stop for around 40-45 minutes in the same lake every evening without fail. By the way, the reason I did the continuous running is also to increase my stamina so that I'm able to be the baritonist ( A Baritone Saxophone weight around 13 kg) for the orchestra in my uni. By Year 2009 Chinese New Year which falls on January 26^th, my weight dropped to 64 kg and was ecstatic as how my relatives commented on how much my weight had dropped and how great I looked when I went back to my parents hometown in Perak (where most of my uncles, aunties and cousins that watched me grew up and add-on stayed). Still, deep within me, it isn’t enough yet and the self-discipline is still in me and I’m determined to lose more and more and targeted to drop to 60 kg. So, I keep myself moving and did the same jogging and exercise daily with the same food intake for over a few months without a single rice intake.

By the end of March 2009, I successfully reach the weight of 60 kg and it seems that I’m too used to the lifestyle already that I could hardly stop myself. Is kind of psychological factor as well when I’m too afraid that I’ll gain my weight back if I stop all the things I did all this while and having my meals back. Therefore, my next aim is to shed to 55 kg and there I go, with the same jogging and exercises daily with the same no-rice diet and more movement and shorten afternoon naps brought me down to 55 kg today. To date is already 27 weeks (6 months and 3 weeks) I’ve been dieting and maintaining the healthy lifestyle. I never thought that I’ll go this far and surprisingly I did. Losing weight is not an overnight task and it takes up a taxing effort and self-determination to continuously never to give up at all. I felt the pain at the very start of all this and at times I felt like just giving up, but thankfully with a bunch of supporting friends, they keep me motivated all the while. At times, I will imagine myself fitting into nice dresses when I am about to give up my jogging laps. There’s no lose without pain and hard effort and I can say that it takes only 30% of sweat to lose those extra pounds and the remaining 70% is definitely the self-discipline and determination instilled in yourself. To sum up, I lost 20 kg in half a year and that brought my current BMI down to 22.3, which is in the NORMAL range. Days were happier for me as well now as I felt more confidence in myself and there’s definitely more clothes for me to fit in easily (likes shopping for clothes) and felt healthier at the same time. Then, I realized that the most important and crucial part in losing weight and maintaining it is self-discipline and determination in oneself like I mentioned earlier. Not to miss is a bunch of supporting families, friends and people by my side that keeps me strong and motivated.

Today, whenever I met people who have not met me for some time, they were actually shocked very very shocked indeed when they saw me and could hardly recognize me as all this while I owned an overweight figure. Some they just ignore by looking at me the first glance and sooner they realized that the person they saw is the person they knew for years but could not recall due to the massive changes.

Well, this posting is just something that I wanted to share for quite some time already but I’ve been really busy with my schedule and hardly find time to write up this. Finally I got the time to write something and shared with you guys due to the ultra-cool semester break I’m having now. Hope my weight loss story would be a great inspiration for those who want to shed the pounds and I just feel good to be able to share this and help others. *cheers*