How I lost 18 pounds as a 16-Year-Old
Welcome to my first ever post on fitness and nutrition! This topic has been something I’ve been extremely passionate about for the past year and would like to dedicate a page to. I’m incredibly excited to not only share my own experience with body image, relationship with food and more, but also take on a more scientific approach to diet and training by exploring articles/studies to reach justified conclusions on questions that most of us probably have had at some point in our lives.
In this blog, I’d like to share my own weight-loss journey, the lessons I’ve learned from it and hopefully help you guys feel more satisfied with your body or even motivate you to strive for a body you’re confident in.
Growing up
For as long as I can remember and from the years of pictures, I have been the biggest foodie. I eat and try virtually anything to discover new flavors and cuisines to broaden my palate. I’m so grateful to say that I have an incredibly supportive family who is so down-to-earth to bring me to places around the world or even try making new dishes at home to satisfy any cravings that I have. Up until last year or so, the world of nutrition has never come into my mind, let alone say counting macronutrients and calories. If you had asked me what my BMI was, what my TDEE was or how many calories I was eating each day, I would’ve thought that you were making acronyms up! Just like any other kid with a seemingly bottomless stomach and sky-high metabolic rate, I ate whatever my heart desired. Until I couldn’t anymore.
Covid
With the emergence of a pandemic since late 2019, everyone was forced to stay indoors and I essentially lived like Princess Jasmine from Aladdin (minus the Aladdin part). I don’t think I needed to walk more than 500 steps a day during lockdown because my mom would cook at home and the only movement I had was to walk from my room to the kitchen to grab snacks or go to the bathroom and back to my room again. Even when we did have time to leave our house, it was mostly for lunch or dinner, where I would suggest going for pizza or pasta. My top two foods to order alongside a can of coke at that time.
Expectedly, even with an overpowered metabolic rate of a developing child, my weight on the scale kept increasing, and my body was getting larger. Increasingly, even as a child who rarely cared for the opinions of others, began noticing more comments directed towards my body shape. It went from a few reminders from my family once in a while to nagging almost every other meal. From blunt judgements from my brother about how fat I looked to rile me up to well-intentioned remarks from my parents or relatives, the comments were starting to get to me. I mean, how could it not when your physical appearance and physique is the first thing people see? Sadly, the most memorable experiences that stuck with me revolved around relatives that I loved and knew. One instance was during a large family gathering with relatives that I haven’t seen in years and one aunt who had greeted others with the typical comments like “You’ve grown so much taller!” commented on my body saying “You look so… healthy!”. Perhaps I’m being dramatic, but the moment was so awkward and a conversation I won’t forget.
Finding a start
I have never rejected the idea of exercising; as I’ve said before, I love doing sports and had tried to get in some movement during Covid. However, I significantly underestimated the rate at which I was consuming food and snacks while over-estimating the intensity of my at-home “workouts” and 20-minute basketball sessions. This is definitely something I suggest everyone who’s looking to lose weight/fat to reflect upon: whether you are truly yourself eating less and moving more. The process of settling down to seek for a gym coach was long and contemplative. On one hand, my brother who has consistently weight trained for two years has inspired to take the leap of faith to make a change, while on the other, I was afraid of others’ judgement when they associate my body with fitness.
Since the beginning, I was told to make adjustments to my diet. Back when I was eating probably up to ~200-300g of carbohydrates a day, I was told to start by cutting out carbs (i.e. rice) from my dinner as a start. Then, I aimed to intake great amounts of protein, ensuring that there was some sort of protein source in every meal. Maybe not the first time you’ve heard this, but the weight loss process is 30% movement and 70% nutrition. I strongly, strongly, stand by this principle because you’ll learn to discover that calorie-dense foods will always find a way after you if you don’t pay attention to your diet.
Something I truly stand by and hope to emphasize over and over again is rejecting society’s normalization towards oily, calorie-dense and unhealthy foods. That, when you go out and try to make more conscious food choices, the instant belief they form is that you’re “on a diet” or “losing weight”, as if it’s something to be embarrassed about. I say, being more aware of what you’re eating is actually loving your body. Losing weight and achieving your ideal physique will come naturally.
The breakthrough
Since my decision to follow my brother’s gym coach around three years ago, I have slowly been introduced to introductory anaerobic movements and have had consistent gym sessions two to three times a week (core, back and legs on rotation). However, my progress in the beginning was very, very slow, and looking back, it was definitely my lack of knowledge on proper nutrition which restricted me from reaching my full potential. Yes, I certainly ate more intuitively with fewer sweet treats and cheat meals, but I still ate considerable amounts of food.
As you see above, I still splurged on barbecue, beautifully grilled eel on rice, decadent desserts whenever I wanted, so it was difficult to see significant progress. Frankly, I don’t know how much I weighed at my heaviest because I was too afraid to face that number on the scale, so I simply avoided it. This fear persisted even as I began weight training because the number was dropping very slowly. I remember being stuck at around 57kg for at least a year and even then, I never weighed myself unless it was necessary, like for a doctor’s checkup.
It was until one evening when everything changed. Just like any other weekend, my family and I went out for dinner, this time, steak and fries. I remember this vividly, as it was the night before the World Cup quarterfinal between the Netherlands and Argentina, and I was going to wake up at 3am to watch the game. The dinner felt completely normal: The steak was slightly chewy but still juicy, while the fries were perfectly crispy, some of the best fries I’ve had. But the series of unfortunate events began at ~2am, when I woke up feeling incredibly sick, my heart pounding out of my chest and my entire body sweating uncontrollably. I assumed it was either fatigue or anticipation for the match, but as my mind battled against my body throughout the game, I only felt worse. I later rushed to my parents’ room, hoping to seek refuge and get some sleep, but this worked for about 30 minutes until I woke up again and sprinted for the bathroom. Yep, I threw up my entire dinner that night.
In fact, I threw up for 5 consecutive days and had severe food poisoning for the next 7. It was a rollercoaster of an experience, given that I was also travelling to Qatar for the World Cup semi-final and final. The whole journey from the time at the airport to 3 days into my trip in Qatar, I was physically enervated. So in contrast to what I’d normally do during trips, which is to discover local restaurants and cuisines, I lost my appetite for everything for the first few days. Unfortunately (or some might say fortunately), this was my first experience with a significant weight drop. Yes, in hindsight it was mostly water weight that I had lost and most would say that it wasn’t worth it, but I did eventually come down to 54-55kg as a result. I never got to understand why I got so sick while my entire family was completely fine, but I’m glad to say I’ve never went back there since.
Disclaimer: In no way do I encourage ANYONE to intentionally get sick and throw up to lose weight. I got sick unknowingly. Losing weight was only a side effect of being so sick and deficient in any sort of nutrients. I’m only sharing my weight loss journey, and the fact that this was how I broke through a persistent weight isn’t something I’m proud of at all!
Changing of habits
To be honest, time truly passed like a blur and since coming back from Qatar at the end of 2022, I began receiving comments about how I lost weight. Again, not a ‘method’ I am proud of at all, but I also went through a mentality change of wanting to persevere and strive for greater change. It started from something very simple like eating what I want but only taking a few bites to satisfy the craving and prioritizing eating more protein in most of my meals. If anyone is looking to start somewhere in their weight loss journey, I’d recommend starting slow like I did so the process is easier to adhere to. Especially for teenagers of my age, we should be mindful of what we’re eating but never starve ourselves because our bodies demand greater energy and nutrient supplies to properly grow. For some, like most of my friends, they have an insane metabolic rate and eat whatever they want. 2 bubble teas and an ice cream for dessert in one day? Yes, please!
Two significant events that I believe changed the trajectory of my journey were my expeditions for the Bronze and Silver Duke of Edinburgh Awards. For Bronze, I hiked for 4 days in a week, with each day amounting to ~15-20km and 400m of elevation. Go check out my blog for the Bronze Award to dive deeper into the experience, but physically, it was probably the most challenging thing I had ever done. As for Silver, I came in fitter and more prepared towards the end of 2023, but the extra few days hiking was still excruciating. This being said, I’m so grateful for both my experiences as it made me stronger mentally and physically in a way where I’m no longer afraid of pain but rather crave it sometimes.
Changing of environment
As one thing progressed to another, I was introduced to the world of calories. From very initial searches online about the energy content of foods to installing a food tracking app on my phone, the algorithm on YouTube and several other social media also began exposing more nutrition-related content to me. Additionally, I reflected on the intensity of my training and realized that I was not making satisfactory progress every week and month. With that in mind, I discussed with my parents that it was time to sign up for a gym membership in a real gym rather than exercising in my complex’s clubhouse. The combination of changes that began around March this year quickly allowed me to readjust multiple aspects of my life and make significant progress. From a stationary weight of 54kg, I have now lost another 3 kg with a body fat estimated to be around 16-17%. The biggest change, though, is not my physical appearance, but rather my attitude on health and the emergence of a new passion devoted to food and nutrition.
Conclusion
I’m sure it was a lot to read considering I had to condense ~3 years of my experience into a single post, but I hope that my experience has resonated with some of you and allow you to realize that no one is alone in dealing with body image problems. Losing weight has been something I struggled with alone and has avoided for the longest time until I have lost all that weight, so for anyone who isn’t comfortable sharing the same problem with others, I hope this page acts as some sort of refuge for you. I will be sharing a lot more in future blogs, so please look forward to them.
Thanks for reading, and see you all in a bit.
-Winnie 18/08/2024
