One Year of Diet and Exercise: June 2024 (117 kgs) to June 2025 (82 kgs)

For most of the last two decades, I've had a "somewhat larger" physique, usually around the 100-110kgs mark. This did peak at 120kg about five years ago and, following a negative health assessment, I attacked the problem like an angry bear and shed 25 kg in six months. Unfortunately, this did not last, and my weight levels crept up again.

In June 2024, following a few hedonistic months (I was in hedonistic company), I found that I had put on 10kgs in that period and weighed in at 117kgs. At that point, I dedicated myself to getting myself down to what I had previously weighed. Subsequent events would change that initial commitment even further to the point where I have reached a weight (82 kgs), which is lower than I've had for four decades and with a better physique. I'm probably not as fast as I was in my athletic youth, however.

The following describes what I did and includes nutritional and exercise theory I gleaned in the process. If you are interested, it might be useful to you, too. I acknowledge my good fortune in life to be able-bodied and sufficiently compos mentis to have the privilege to able to undertake this change.

1. A Change of Lifestyle

Initially, I was just interested in shedding several kgs and getting back to what has been a typical weight range for the past few decades. The reality is that I've lived a bit of the bon vivant lifestyle for quite some time. Any visitors to my door would readily be subject to feasting, with a bottle or three of wine and all that entails. It's not as if I've ended this by any stretch of the imagination. But I made a conscious choice to change my lifestyle. I am an advocate of the principle "you are what you do", which includes the similar adage "you are what you eat [and drink]". Here's a secret: you can still enjoy yourself going out whilst eating simply and not drinking. Bars, clubs, and restaurants worldwide don't want us to know this, but it's true.

Adopting a stricter diet, exercise regimen, placing that as a priority, and sticking to it generated positive results. The first ten kgs was shed in a few months, I was down 20kgs in six months, and now, after a year, I'm down 35kgs. After the first six months, I joked that if I continued this trajectory, I should aim to become a triathlon senior Olympian. Except I wasn't joking; do I look like a comedian? This is a lifestyle change, and you must make that mental commitment if you're going to succeed in the long run as well as the short run. You're going to stick to it for years and decades to come. It is not the equivalent of lovebombing, whereby you'll undergo a rapid change with extreme transformation followed by sudden abandonment (not at all bitter here, obviously). If you aren't making a lifestyle change, you'll just lose weight in the short term and regain it later.

There will be times when events don't go to plan. You will catch up with an old friend that you haven't seen for four years, and you'll see the dawn together after a night on the sauce. A lunch will include a platter of the most delicious cheese and fruit, damn those Epicurean delights. You'll be invited to a banquet a formal function and the dignatories would be offended if you didn't participate. Fortunately, you can still engage in all of these, but _rarely_. It is not a mortal sin. You're making a lifestyle change, not becoming a martyr through a food and drink taboo.

2. The Importance of Diet and Exercise

If you want to lose weight, your energy intake has to be less than your energy expenditure. This means tracking the food you consume and the exercise you do. If your expenditure is greater than your intake and you are gaining weight, you are almost certainly overestimating your expenditure or underestimating your intake; the scales do not lie. Technically, it is possible to lose weight without changing your diet or exercise regimen by simply eating less. This will probably mean eating a lot less, and you'll be hungry (which will lead to binge eating). It is very difficult to out-exercise a bad diet. Weigh yourself daily, at the same time of day, and aim to lose 0.8% of your weight per week (if you're starting at 100kg, aim to lose 0.8kg/week; you can do the math for other sizes). Rapid weight loss, or a bodybuilder's "cut-and-bulk" alternation, will result in excess skin. Collagen peptides are probably effective for improving skin elasticity, but the best method is to lose weight slowly.

Your body needs kilojoules and nutrients. The primary food you want to eat when losing weight is raw, steamed, or boiled vegetables (including tomato). At 200-250kj per 100g you can eat until satiation and get fibre, vitamins and minerals in the process. Add combinations of low-KJ herbs, yeast extract, spices, salt, or powders for a variety of tastes; don't use commercial condiments, they are full of sugar or fats. Legumes (peas, beans, pulses) will be your primary source of carbohydrates, fibre, and a significant source of protein, along with textured-vegetable protein. You need protein when building muscles (along with tissue and cell repair); roughly 1.5g per kg of body weight per day (150g for 100kg).

Foods rich in omega-3 fats (chia, mackerel, flaxseed, walnuts), an essential nutrient, are also good protein sources. Protein powders with cocoa make for a good dessert alternative and are essential if you're building muscle (see below). A small amount of fruit is fine, but dried fruit is getting too close to candy. Low-fat dairy is acceptable, calcium supplements are better, and cheese intake should be close to zero. Other carbohydrate sources, in smaller amounts, include brown rice and wholegrain breads, which are fine, but the intake of white rice and white breads should be as close to zero as possible, as should sugars (except immediately in small amounts with strenuous exercise) and alcohol. Drink plenty of water, then drink some more. Coffee is just fine, and loose-leaf green tea is excellent, and you can eat the leaves. A daily multivitamin doesn't hurt.

Different types of exercise have different functions. When it comes to weight loss and eating, the kilojoules concentrate on aerobics; running, cycling, lifting heavy things quickly; the faster these activities, the better. For those who have extended sitting periods (thanks to sedentary workplaces), soleus pushups are an effective method of raising the basal metabolic rate. Strength and flexibility resistance training (slow weightlifting, callisthenics, anaerobic exercises) is fine for building muscles, but doesn't use up nearly as many kilojoules. Don't forget warm-ups and cool-downs to protect against injury.

3. Of Fat and Muscaculture

You can't spot reduce fat. Where your body stores fat comes down to genetics. Many men, for example, love the idea of doing just one exercise to reduce the fat on the abdomen. This won't work; instead, the main exercise that will do this is called "put fork down". Abdomen muscles are largely revealed via the kitchen, with plank exercises helping a little. With diet and exercise, you are likely to initially lose more because you're mostly burning fat-soluble water; as that proportion falls and muscle mass increases, the weight-loss rate will drop.

If your overall kilojoule intake is low but your diet is poor or with low muscle-building activity, you'll end up with a physique that's described as "skinny-fat". This means a normal or even slim physique, but with low muscle mass, and a higher body fat percentage stored as visceral fat. Medical professionals will sometimes refer to this as "metabolic obesity, normal weight", which gives the blunt suggestion that such a person will have the same health issues as an obese person, despite their physical appearance or even Body-Mass Index (BMI). Speaking of which, Waist-to-Height Ratio (WtHR) is a much better health predictor than BMI; a waist size less than half one's height is necessary.

Metabolism slows down by the mid-twenties, and sarcopenia, the loss of muscle mass, begins to occur a few years after that. This is where resistance training shines, and increasingly so as you get much older. It might not do wonders in terms of burning kilojoules, but it does wonders at preventing muscular atrophy and building muscle. Muscular hypertrophy is the foundation of body-building, using gradual progressive overload (lift things, lift things faster, lift heavier things, lift heavier things faster), stressing muscle fibres, resulting in an increase of overall muscle mass and stronger connective tissue.

You can spot increase in muscle, depending on what sort of strength training and weightlifting you're doing and what sort of muscles you want to build, i.e., it's outcome-focused. For myself, I don't really care for the aesthetic of the professionals, where muscle size often seems quite disproportionate to body size and shape. In terms of weights, I have concentrated on upper-body strength using just dumbbells, overhead presses and lateral raises for shoulders; concentration curls and hammer curls for biceps; close-grip skull crushers and overhead extensions for triceps; bench presses and flyes for the chest, rows and deadlifts for the back. I don't do anything additional for the legs, and leave that development from the cycling, running, and soleus exercises.

4. A Different Body, A Different Mind

My current regimen typically consists of a light jog and aerobics for thirty minutes in the morning, weight-lifting mixed with callisthenics for thirty minutes in the early afternoon, cycling or jogging in the early evening for thirty minutes, and soleus pushups whenever I'm sitting. I currently use two 7.5kg dumbbells (with the intention to push to 10kg, then 12.5kg) and one of the best investments I've made is a thick yoga mat. This has changed over the months; I started with 5kg weights and used 20-minute sets. Further, with an awful amount of irregular attendance due to travel requirements, I also do sanda because you may as well pick up a martial art at the same time as changing your physique. Taking up Chinese kickboxing in your fifties is perfectly normal, right?

The physical changes are significant; people who haven't seen me for a year have had to double-take to make sure it's really me (my fashion sense hasn't changed, so that makes it easier). My old size 44 jeans are now comically large; my current size 36 jeans are a little large; I have lost almost 25cm from my waistline. Size 34 jeans would fit happily around my hips, but are far too tight on my calves. My old belt, once fitting on the first punch hole, has required four new holes to be created. As can be expected, my overall physique is on the "toned and quite muscular" level, my resting heart rate matches that of an athlete (c50bpm), and my energy levels are excellent.

For one who has to live in my head, the mental changes are, at the very least, equivalent in significance. I can identify improvements in concentration and clarity of mind. These are, however, matched with an increased calmness of spirit, especially in interpersonal relations. Don't get me wrong, the behaviour of others and actions encouraged by our political economy are still a great source of both depression as an inspiration for action ("pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will", to quote Romain Rolland), but my mood and disposition has changed.

For the future, I wish to reiterate the introduction. This is a lifestyle change and with clear benefits, I'm keeping to it. Whilst I don't expect much, if any, in terms of further weight loss, I will work on changing composition. My longer term objective (apart from the triathlon), is dedicated to physical health, and the mental health benefits that this can bring, without noticable cost to my social life. In many ways, I have become a very different person from who I was a year ago, and I'm much better for it.