I started my weight loss journey in December 2021 on 97,7kg and steadily dropped weight over the following year.

I achieved this by intermittent fasting and cutting out junk food as the first main intervention. I was already used to eating only 8 hours a day, but I experimented with shortening this window and doing 36 hour or 48 hour fasts.

Eventually I plateaued, and there was no way around it: I needed to start tracking calories strictly. I made a habit of weighing all of my food and entering it to an app (YAZIO). Periods of weight loss strictly correlate with my adherence to this practice.

The weight loss plateaued in 2022/2023.

Even though I kept bouncing back up when I reached 76kg, I’m still really satisfied that I managed to keep the weight off so far.According to Layne Norton in his book “Fat Loss Forever”, only 5% of people who undertake weight loss journeys actually manage to keep the weight off.

The main intervention for me here is to weigh myself daily. I’ve gone from periods where I was strictly counting calories to periods where I was eyeballing things and trying to eat intuitively, leading to weight gain. But as soon as I started creeping to the 80kg mark, I knew I had to reign myself in again.

Current Goal

Although I’m happy I’m managing to keep the weight off, I’m not satisfied with my current weight. My goal is to reach 10% body fat. I realized that simply “losing weight” was not going to cut it anymore because I kept bouncing back up. I needed to become more intentional about my weight loss.

I did some insightful research on goal setting and realized that I needed to set a clear goal within a timeframe and track the progress towards that goal. Huberman’s Podcast episode on goal setting was very enlightening here.

Again my weight creeped up from 76kg to 80kg and I decided I had enough.

Since my breakpoint always seems to be 76kg, I set my goal to 75kg within a time frame of 2 months.

My starting weight was 78.6kg and this morning I weighed in at 77.3kg. So far it’s working, it’s about 0,5kg a week which is a healthy amount to lose in a week’s time.

I made this little sheet which hangs on my kitchen cupboard, and every day I mark whether I adhered to my calorie target of 1700kcal +/- 100kcal. The squares indicate a day where I do a 500kcal fasting day.

Current Weight Loss Interventions

  • Calorie target: 1700kcal
  • Two meals a day in a 4 hour eating window
  • 20 hours of fasting a day
  • Strictly tracking all calories, even when overeating
  • 5:2 pattern: two days of fasting a week where I eat a small meal of 500 calories
  • Running 5+ times a week
  • Two ring workouts a week

When I list them all out, it seems extreme that I need this many interventions to lose those last few kilograms of fat. But apparently it is all necessary. If/when I start losing more than 0.5kg a week I’ll know I can reduce the intensity by increasing my calorie target.

Accountability

When I made this sheet I shared it with my brother and a few friends for external accountability. So far I’ve just been doing my journey alone, but as I got stuck at around 77kg, I upped the ante and started to involve others. It really helps to stick with the program. It would be very embarassing to make this kind of commitment and not sticking with it.

Now that I’m two weeks in, and the results are starting to show, I decided to make it completely public and post it on my blog. So we’ll see in two months if I’m making a fool out of myself or not 🥲

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https://hubermanlab.com/the-science-of-setting-and-achieving-goals/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkY6MM_dLo4&t=18s&pp=ygUJdGFvIHJpbmdz

https://www.amazon.com/Fat-Loss-Forever-Lose-KEEP/dp/1794510109