You often hear people say that your health is the most important thing in life.
And guess what? They are right!
Without health, a big pile of money will not do you a lot of good. And with both my mother and the girlfriend working at an institution for people with disabilities I really, REALLY know that being born with full physical and mental capabilities is a great gift.
Knowing this you would think I would have taken better care of my health but as those who have met me in real life can attest, I didn’t.
Squandering a great gift
Actually, I have really squandered this gift. First off: the last time I was somewhat serious about exercising was in my university years. Since I spend my working hours behind a desk that was not a good move. Second, I got fat. This too started after my university years. A sedentairy life style + eating large quantities of food (because moderation doesn’t really fit my personality) resulted in weight gain. Adding a few kilo’s every year which seems OKish. But fast forward 20 years and I ended up at 115 kg. With a height of 1m78 I had firmly nestled myself in the obese category. Health wise not good.
I also take some other measurements so here is a full overview of my starting point:
| Date: | weight | neck | chest | belly | arm |
| 24-03-2018 | 115 kg | 43 cm | 124 cm | 124 cm | 39 cm |
Financial freedom wise this was also not good. There are only two ways to increase the number of freedom years you have. Either you retire earlier or you add more healthy years after you retire. And if there is a sure way to reduce your healthy years in life it is being overweight (well that and being homeless or develop a bad drug habit, neither of which is going to happen).
So one of my big goals apart from achieving financial freedom is getting my weight down to a healthy level and start exercising. It was actually goal number two in my mission statement way back in December 2016.
The lazy side is strong in this one! After formulating the goal it actually took me until march 2018 to really start. I do have a few excuses, most of them crap. So let’s just skip them and get to the positive!
Learning from the past
I did learn from my past mistake of losing weight but never starting to exercise (because I am lazy that way) and also putting up strict goals which I then didn’t achieve. This failure then lead to losing motivation which in turn lead to me abandoning the effort all together. And then gaining back the weight… it was a very bad feedback loop of my own creation.
So this time I would exercise and I would make my goals less specific.
I went for a three fase approach.
Fase 1: swimming 2 km 3 times a week
During my last bout of unemployment I had actually achieved this but my back aching up plus starting a new job had me falter again. So I started it back up again in February. Old habits die hard so I did have the occasional thought crop up in my head that I should reach that goal by the first of April. Luckily it was only an occasional thought and I immediately squashed it by reaffirming to myself that every week I went swimming was a good week. That was a good mindset since it actually took me till the second half of April to get there.
Fase 2: a very strict diet
Originally I wanted to have completed fase 1 before starting this but that was taking a bit longer than anticipated (and I was fine with that, honestly I was!). I also was being pretty fed up with being overweight. Being fine with a not so strict time table is one thing but the weather is improving and I have a few cool t-shirts I’d like to be able to wear this summer! So I started the strict diet on the first of April. How strict? Remember the bit about me not really being a fan of moderation? Well, I hover around a 1.000 kcal a day for the moment. Probably a not too healthy approach, definitely not very sane. But it is working for me.
On the 15th April I stood at:
| Date: | weight | neck | chest | belly | arm |
| 24-10-2017 | 114 kg | 43 cm | 124 cm | 124 cm | 39 cm |
| 15-5-2018 | 104 kg | 42 cm | 115 cm | 114,5 cm | 38 cm |
(No update from today since part of my new approach is not weighing myself too often.)
Fase 3 will be the addition of fitness/weight training 3 times a week. I will probably start with this on the 1st of July for no other reason that the Gym has a 6 months subscription for a 100 euro’s.
I will then exercise 6 times a week for 1 hour. This should get me in a reasonable shape and hopefully prevent me from gaining back my weight once I stop with the strict diet. Well, I’ll probably need to start eating healthier also. Not looking forward to that, let me tell you …
I should end up around 90 kg, depending on how much muscle the weigh training adds. Somewhere around 95 kg I am planning on spending some money to get a full body scan to determine my fat percentage and muscle ratio so I can fine tune the work-out regime. If I would have to guess I think that at present I still need to lose between 13 to 15 kg of fat and add somewhere between 3 to 5 kg of muscle to be in a decent shape. The body scan will give the hard data I need.
I’ll try to make this a monthly series but no promises (after all I am a lazy sloth and I have discovered that I am not a big fan of self-imposed deadlines).
Hi, just recently started reading your blog. I had the same: a job sitting behind a desk and eating junk all the time. Last year I started doing low-carb eating (following Tim Ferris his 4 hour body book) and that really worked for me. Not saying it will for you, just putting it out there ? I lost about 10kg in 2 months without doing any excercise.. just eating meat/fish and veggies and skipping on the fries/potatoes/bread.
Anyway, hope you succeed!
I have read the book and low-carb is definitely the way to go for me. But unfortunately I will need to exercise as well otherwise after some time I start to put on the kilo’s again! ?
Inspirational post Sloth!!
Due to health problems in de last 4 months, I skipped too many workouts. Now on vacation in Greece, I started again. This morning my wife and I walked 11 km and I felt very well afterwards. Starting again will not be the problem, to continue will be harder ?
The main problem for me is this all or nothing mentality I have. I can exercise for months, then have the flu for two weeks which prevent me from exercising and then I stop completely! Very bad!! It is one of the reasons I try to let go of too specific goals. To try to avoid falling back to ‘nothing’. But I can tell you that I feel a whole lot better with the 12 kg loss!
Already some great results. In my experience, you don’t have to put in lots of work to do this. I love cycling and soccer, this time of the year riding the bike feels great. In the week you just are sober, no soda, beer, one portion of food and healthy breakfast. On wednesday you can have a reward (I like the famous ‘éclairs’). Just try to apply the 80/20 rule of Pareto. 80% of the results are gained by 20% of the work. Don’t forget to have some fun. And if you eat more, just work-out more. Good luck!
unfortunately it is not only my personality that goes for an all or nothing approach but my body too! Eating a little bit less or exercise a bit more has no impact (I was a 3 coke can a day person and then quit completely, didn’t loose a gram because of it! And I know persons who quit soda’s and lost 3 or 4 kg because of that one change, grrr!). For me to loose weight I need to diet hardcore and do lots of exercise.
This is a great investment! no one can calculate the ROI of a good health 🙂
For me, lower carbs is working too. After my 40’s I needed to react over wise…1 kg every year, a gain with capitalisation 🙂
Not only a great ROI but a real boost to your quality of life
Unfortunately, this sounds all too familiar… The thing you say about adding more healthy years after retirement did click. I always thought of not living extremely healthy as something temporary, but now it has become somewhat of a lifestyle, which is hard to get rid of. I’m no fan of diets, I’m no fan of self-imposed deadlines, and I often go for the most convenient way. However, I also want to get to obese before I realize that something needs to be done.
My dad and his wife started some kind of lifestyle diet (it’s not really a diet) which has helped them a lot with getting insight into what they eat, what you put in your body and how it affects everything. He lost quite a lot of fat, has fewer to no headaches and a lot more energy. So I decided I want to give that a try as well. At first, I didn’t want to, since it requires some changes, it costs money, and I cannot think about food all the time. But hey, you gotta grow up at one point.
Yes you do. And I think, as with finance, everybody has to find his way of getting there. The same approach will not work for all people. Good luck with it!
Way to go sloth!
And I try to live the same regarding goals etc… Do not be too strict with yourself and every time you something good is a positive thing. I have that with being patient with the kids in the morning during the to school and train rush hour…! Every non stressed, not be upset free morning is a win. Every zen day is a blessing!
Absolutely! Focus on the wins, use them as motivation and then trying to add an extra win now and then.