And so, another year has gone and 2016 has just dawned. With a new year come new dreams, hopes and resolutions, and losing weight and living healthier are right on top of that wish list for so many people.
Some want to eat better. Others want to spare more time for exercise. There are those who want to achieve optimum work-life balance. Whatever that personal aim is, the start of a new year is hardly a motivating factor when it comes to changing your habits.
Beyond going from a “5” to a “6” in the Gregorian calendar, a new year gives neither bonus willpower nor extra motivation to achieve any goal. Any novel aim whispered to oneself at the end of December will fizzle out come February if there is no resoluteness to see it through.
I know this because I didn’t start my quest to lose weight in January. Mine was September 2009, after an emotional period I thought I would never survive.
I needed something to take my mind off the crazy merry-go-round that was going on in my head. Losing some of the 90kg of weight (mostly fat) I was carrying since early adulthood seemed a logical thing to do. It would take my mind off my issues and make me healthier.
And so, this Obese-1 woman had to learn to exercise and control her food portions, both of which she had never done in her life.
I have conditioned myself so that if I get hungry at 1am, there’s always a 24-hour fast-food joint, and one portion of nasi lemak would only leave me wanting more. I have always asked for nasi satu setengah whenever I buy breakfast.
Hard is an understatement when you need to make drastic changes. But as the logic goes, if you want to achieve something you don’t have, you need to do something you have not done.
With that change, I took up running, 100m at a time. Building stamina was hard when you had none to start with.
But I continued, despite the sluggishness of improvement, and, by 2012, I completed the Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon, a full 42km. I read up on processed foods and learned how to cook. When I ate out, I changed my portion sizes. At night, I slept earlier so I didn’t have midnight hunger pangs. With consistent effort on many fronts, I managed to shed 18kg in three months.
I swapped my allowance to eat out with engaging a personal trainer who could guide me through the complicated maze of exercises which I was never familiar with. That proved to be a priceless investment. Long after his sessions were over, I knew what I needed to do to keep my weight and fitness in check.
As my weight went down, I saw my jawline and clavicle for the first time in 20 years. Those remain, until today, my yardstick if I have eaten a bit too much. It was an inexplicable feeling for someone who had been either overweight or obese since she was 17.
When my waistline reached 31 inches from 36, I went into a designer jeans bar to try out 7 for All Mankind and True Religion denim because finally, I could fit into them.
About a year after I started to lose weight, my physician took me off statin, which I have been taking for the last three years because of my elevated cholesterol level. It was a personal victory to me, proof that with sustainable change, you can reverse your health condition.
First Stride is my column about making small changes to achieve a healthier life.
Because it is these small changes that will eventually snowball into big results. Excess weight is an accumulation of habits, and the same goes if you want to lose it. If one cannot sustain small changes, that rubber band will just snap and go back to square one.
I am about 65kg now, hoping to bring it down to 60kg, because with age, metabolism slows down and that makes gaining weight easier.
My biggest motivation to maintain it is to delay long-term medication for as long as I can. Plus, I don’t want to go back to the weight that I was. It’s as simple as that.
I was thankful that I started on that journey. Six years on, I am still amazed at where life takes me, when I know can never go back.