Keeping healthy in paradise.

At 118lbs.

Being obese and not healthy in "my paradise" is not a very good idea. I want to look good, feel good and being able to be agile as well. I want to be able to run along the streams, walk in the woods, run with the deer, fly with the birds as well.

I was thinking of me looking like Julia Roberts or Mila Kunis or the one who married Ashton Kutcher. Not in looks (reads pretty) but in size. In reality I still can, only if I want to change my mind set and work at it.

Feeling resigned to live in my body and shape is not good enough. I have spent years comforting myself and pretending that I was just fine at my age by being a little plumb. After all I was in my late fifties (58). In actual fact I was miserable, acting up comfortable when I was not.

Reality hit hard. I could not look at myself in the long mirror any more. I was devastated at the sight. How could I let myself be at 155lbs or 70kg. in a matter of only a dozen years. The weight was creeping like the morning glory in the early spring.

Something had to be done, something that I can handle with little effort. I read the weight watchers, I read on most of all the getting skinnier diets, the Jenny Craig and the likes but I decided that I have my own way of doing things. Those programs mostly stressed on the food, making it those people who really wanted to lose weight are actually looking at the food.

Those kind of diets are not going to work when one goes into it for the food they are going to eat. Another kind of diet is the starving kind, making you hungry and is not sustainable by weak willed people.

There must be something good in those kind of losing weights and being healthy, otherwise they are not in the market anymore.

The combination of food and a little movement in our bodies will help us lose some weights and let us maintain our size.

I started with small steps. I looked at what i ate. I do away with those non essential that my body do not need in excessive. No teh tarik with condensed milk. I know I can survive without it for a while. I drink tea instead with creamer. Later I just drink black tea with no sugar.
I do away with deep frying, instead I grilled or baked my food, they taste good too. I cooked my curry with little oil or substitute the cooking style like the Indian curry with no coconut milk.
I tried to find a way to substitute using oil in my cooking.

I read that polished white rice is 98% starch, so I figure if I do not eat polished rice, I can cut off some of the scary carbohydrate. I tried brown rice occasionally, eating more protein and less and less unhealthy carbohydrates. I ate on one plate, no second helping. Make sure it has a balanced food spread. Divide my plate into 4 segments, the biggest segment is the vegetables, then the protein, then the smallest portion is the carb. Turn my plate into a pretty presentation like the one those famous chef do at those pricy restaurants.

With this new eating habit, I find that I lost 8 lbs in the first week. Then I started on my walk because i do not want to be flabby. It was hard completing a km on the first try. My legs and body ached everywhere, but i was determined to progress in my walking. By the fourth week I was walking 3 km a day. My spirit was high as my weight was coming down rather quickly.

By the the 8th week I was down to 135lbs. My plan was to go down to 135 lbs only, but as I was losing weight with no extra effort, i just continued doing what I was doing, adding my time to 2 hours walking daily which is equivalent to 5 miles or 8 km. By 16 weeks i was already down to 125 lbs and I was losing weight at 2 lbs a week. I am at my ideal weight of between 117-119 lbs now and maintaining it is no problem. I have been at this weight for a few months now. I am eating normally and still walk everyday although not a regular 5 miles. Sometimes I walk 3 miles, sometime 4 or 5.

If I can do it, I am sure many can do too.