My 2022 Weight Loss Journey
In 2022, I set out on an important personal project of my life: taking control of my health and fitness.
# Where I Started
Around beginning of July 2022, I was at my heaviest in my entire life, at an appalling 327 pounds.
# Why I did it?
Looking back, I remember exactly why I decided to do it. I don’t take pictures often and I don’t post on social media. But that summer when my best friend in college came to visit me in Seattle, we had an awesome time and took many pictures. Only after I looked the pictures did I realize how far I’ve let myself go, and I know I’ve got to put and end to this.
I’ve been fat before, and I’ve been thin before. I grew up as a chubby kid (with great agility on the basketball court, believe or not), and I once lost 90 pounds in one semester in college. After the pandemic, I learned how to cook and perhaps fed myself a bit too well. I’ve always thought that I knew my body, and that once I decided to lose weight, I could get in shape again. However, the giant task that stood before me was to lose 110 pounds, which was DAUNTING to say the least.
Hence, I decided to track my progress, as a way to hold myself accountable and push me to keep going on my weight loss journey.
# Where I ended up
By 11/07/2022 (which is my last recorded weight), I had lost over 100 lbs. Here, I will show you some proof:
# Progress Tracking
Like I mentioned, to hold myself accountable, I’ve been recording my weight and other stats (from a Renpho smart scale) first thing in the morning. If you are interested in how I’m doing the analysis below, feel free to check out my github repo.
In this plot, I show my overall progress in terms of my weight, BMI and body fat. The best line fit for each set of data is shown in the upper right corner.
To zoom in to each phase during the journey, I plotted my segmented progress, at each 10-day interval.
# Reflections
I want to make some comments, and summarize the thing I’ve learned during this journey. If you are reading this, hopefully you can find something useful!
- Break down the big task into small tasks. 110 pounds seem daunting, but all you need to worry about is the 4-5 pounds this week. Set small goals and conquer it. Once you get into a good rhythm, you will be very motivated to keep it going.
- Data keep your honest. You need to consistenly keep an entry to track where you are at. The challenge is both mental and physical. By keeping an record (and doing some simple data analysis), you can monitor the pace that you are on, and reflect on how much you’ve done. Once you visualize the progress, you’d appreciate the effort you’ve put in, which can definitely give you extra motivation to stay committed and keep it going.
- Consistency is the most important thing. For me, the one cardio I can make sure that I consistently do everyday is indoor cycling. This is because on an exercise bike, I can free my hands and play video games (2k and FIFA~) while I put in the work. If you need to lose weight also, you can choose whatever you feel like you can keep a habit of doing. It doesn’t matter if it’s the most efficient or “the best” excercise. You want to pick the one that’s right for you.
- You are going to have off days. Some days you have enough motivation to do it, some other days you might not be able to get up to it. That’s okay! Take a day off, regroup, and come back at the problem more focused than ever!
- If I have to do this all over again, I would probably do whole weight loss at a slower pace. My mindset was to plow through it as fast as I can so I don’t need to suffer too long. But losing weight too fast caused parts of my skin to be loose. Also I’ve dropped tons of muscle mass along the way, in addition to fat. If you are looking to lose weight, then the best and most healthy pace should be around losing 1% of body weight every week.