Home > "Ghost of a Tale", Unity, update > I lost 35 pounds in 6 months without going on a diet, and it taught me 7 lessons about eating for healthy fat loss

I lost 35 pounds in 6 months without going on a diet, and it taught me 7 lessons about eating for healthy fat loss

January 17th, 2013 Leave a comment Go to comments

Losing weight is, in theory, simple. But that doesn’t make it easy.

The vast majority of people, and women in particular, are always trying, or at the very least wishing, to lose some weight, no matter how much, for health or aesthetic reasons.

If it were as easy as it appears on paper — that is, take in less energy than you’re burning — the multibillion-dollar diet industry wouldn’t exist.

Whether it’s a reality-TV star peddling a bikini blitz workout DVD, an influencer plugging laxative teas, or a tabloid claiming to have come up with a diet plan that will see you losing 10 pounds in a week, supposed quick fixes are everywhere, because we all love the idea of putting in minimal effort and getting results fast.

But the truth is, none of these things work. There is no shortcut, and anything that results in rapid weight loss won’t be healthy or sustainable. You didn’t gain 10 pounds in a week, so how could you possibly lose it that quickly?

before after side rachel hosie
January to June 2019. 

Rachel Hosie

Over the past five months, I’ve lost nearly 35 pounds, or over 15 kilos.

Like many, my weight has fluctuated over my adult life, but at the end of 2018 I was the biggest and heaviest I’d ever been. I felt sluggish, hated shopping, and barely fit into any of my clothes (smocks were life), but I don’t think I realized quite how much weight I’d gained until I had a body scan at the end of November.

I’d put on 11 pounds, or 5 kilos, since I’d last weighed myself the previous July, and seeing the number on the scale was the wake-up call I needed.

Read more: A bad diet could cause more deaths than smoking, according to a major new study

There’s nothing wrong with gaining weight if you’re healthy, but I wasn’t, and my weight gain was a reflection of the fact that I wasn’t looking after myself.

The weight had crept up over the years, as it so often does. I will always love to eat and drink, but as a 20-something living in London, I’d lost all concept of moderation or balance, regularly binge-drinking and overeating.

My diet wasn’t necessarily unhealthy, and I was very active, but I was simply consuming far too much, frequently eating to the point of pain.

Losing weight wasn’t my main incentive, but it was part of the overall lifestyle switch I’ve successfully made. And that’s what’s made this time different to every other time I’ve lost a few pounds.

before after front rachel hosie
January to June 2019: My body shrank while my chest of drawers grew. 

Rachel Hosie

It was time to start putting myself, my health, and my happiness first. No restrictive plans, no strict rules, no thinking of myself as being on a diet, but rather approaching it as a journey toward creating a healthier, happier, sustainable lifestyle.

And it worked.

As a lifestyle journalist with a focus on health, food, wellness, and fitness, I was already well informed about how to live a healthy lifestyle. But there’s still so much I’ve learned this year, from how to train to how to deal with saboteurs (both separate articles entirely). Read more about steel bite pro.

But perhaps the most important changes I’ve made have been regarding my diet. So here are seven lessons I’ve learned about how to eat to lose weight sustainably.

1. Cutting out foods just results in bingeing.

rachel hosie pudding.JPG
Everyone needs a dessert from time to time. 

Rachel Hosie

Cutting bread, sugar, or anything else you enjoy out of your diet is not a good idea as you’ll only end up bingeing on it. Do you want to cut those delicious foods out forever? Didn’t think so.

While you may think you “can’t do” moderation (stopping after a few squares of chocolate and not eating the whole bar), you can if you stop demonizing the food. There’s no such thing as “good” and “bad” foods, although, yes, there are more and less nutrient-dense foods. Find more healthy supplement reviews at https://sparkhealthmd.com/resurge-reviews/943/.

For me, it’s also helped to think of foods in terms of macros — are they a source of protein, carbs, or fats? So a bar of chocolate is a carb, just like a banana or oats, and they can all be part of a healthy diet.

Read more: I tried to eat healthily while ordering all my meals from food-delivery apps for a week

If you love doughnuts, you don’t have to give them up forever to lose weight, and this can make them easier to resist when your colleague brings in a box of Krispy Kremes — you know what they taste like, you’ll eat doughnuts at a later point in your life, you don’t need to eat one just because they’re there. But at the same time, if you really want a doughnut, just eat one and enjoy it!

If you feel like you’re punishing yourself, it’s never going to work.

2. Working out won’t result in fat loss if you don’t also address your diet.

rachel hosie gym.JPG
Exercise is great, but working out alone won’t result in fat loss. 

Rachel Hosie

Before I changed my lifestyle, I already worked out four to five times a week, doing a mixture of weight-lifting, dance classes, and netball. I was also active in my day-to-day life, walking at least 14,000 steps a day. But I was still overweight.

The past six months have shown me how much truth there is in the adage, “You can’t out-train a bad diet.” Or, more specifically, a diet that simply involves consuming too much.

Working out is great for you in so many ways, and it certainly helps the fat-loss process (more on that another time), but if you think exercise alone is going to see your weight dropping off, you may be disappointed.

3. Upping your protein intake will help a lot.

chicken salad avocado.JPG

Erin Brodwin / Business Insider

It’s a complete myth that eating for fitness means plain chicken and broccoli with a protein shake on the side for every meal, but it’s true that keeping your protein intake up is important.

In fact, studies have shown that following a high-protein diet can help maintain muscle and boost metabolism, keep you feeling full when trying to lose weight, and reduce hunger.

“Eating a sufficient amount of protein when you’re losing weight is paramount in order to preserve lean muscle mass,” specialist registered dietitian Nichola Ludlam-Raine told INSIDER.

“Eating around 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight,” she said, “alongside resistance exercise, helps to maintain both muscle strength and metabolic rate” — the rate at which your body burns calories. “The digestion of protein also requires more calories in comparison to carbs and fat, and help to keep you feeling full too.”

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  1. Arturo
    January 26th, 2013 at 23:00 | #1

    I definitely will buy this game. When I first went to the crydev forums the first game I saw was yours and fell in love with that little mouse running around. I use unity3d a lot and can understand the move. I’m reluctant to use CryENGINE 3 not because of the code (I’m a coder of C++ and C#), but because of the proprietary software needed and the way of doing practically everthing has to be specific. The sheer ease of use is clearly night and day difference. Unity will also release a new GUI system which is way much better looking and faster. I think it might be in 3D and have a GUI editor just like cryengine 3. Oh, and you can export to linux which I think is awesome too, so more people can enjoy your game.

    Just wanted to say, congrats!

  2. Seith
    January 27th, 2013 at 14:21 | #2

    @Arturo
    Thank you for your moral support, Arturo! Regarding the new Unity GUI system, I wish they’d release it sooner than later (I saw the beta demo they showed a while back). But what I’m also waiting for is the fixes and enhancements they’re going to add to Mecanim (zoomable view, anim events, etc…).

  3. January 29th, 2013 at 11:07 | #3

    hie, Seith,

    I saw you make the move from CryEngine to Unity Engine,
    Seems that it was “Easy” ? regarding of the quality of your work, keep going nice, :)

    Just one question about the export from Maya,
    seems you just need to save the maya scenes as a .mb native Maya format,
    then Unity open the .mb then convert to FBX ?

    the question, does Export from Maya is more EASY and fluent compare to the CryEngine one, with all the plug-ins naming convention and malformed edge ??

    did you achieve to import any kind of geometry
    any limit in polygon count ? according to your experience,

    I’m about to make the move too…

    soo thx any advice about the export would be nice :)

    thanenbauk

  4. Seith
    January 29th, 2013 at 11:22 | #4

    Hi Thanenbauk. Thanks. Yes, you can save Maya files (.ma or .mb) and Unity converts them on the fly. Personally I prefer to export the files directly in .fbx format though. To answer your other questions: yes, things are much easier. No naming convention or temperamental material/physics requirements. I haven’t met any limit in polygons yet. I’m sure there must be one, but it hasn’t been a problem for me so far.

    Good luck with the switch! The thing to keep in mind is that some things you take for granted in the CryEngine do not exist in Unity; you have to create them yourself.

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