My Story

This was me, age 46, in February 2011.

Despite being moderately active and careful with what I ate, I found my weight approaching 90kg, almost obese. I felt lethargic most of the time, even needing sugary caffeinated drinks every afternoon to “boost my low blood sugar”. A blood test I took a few months before this showed triglyceride levels of about 300 mg/dl, and total cholesterol to HDL ratio of 6.6, both way out of the normal range.

These should had jolted me into making drastic changes but it didn’t. It took a slightly drunk relative, who, at a Chinese New Year gathering, remarked that I have put on weight three different times, to finally push me into action.

I started researching and experimenting with diets, exercises, and lifestyle. I changed my diet and switched from running regularly to weights training. After some failed attempts, I started to lose weight and my blood test results started to improve.

The results in December 2011, 10 months later:

I’d lost at least 14kg of weight, and went from barely fitting into jeans with 36in waist to fitting comfortably into 31in one that you see in the photo.

My health improved too. I reduced my triglyceride and total cholesterol to HDL ratio to below 60 mg/dl and 4 respectively.

I felt much more energetic and stronger. Many aches and pains I’d accumulated over the years in my shoulder and ankle have disappeared. My goal has gone beyond weight loss to better health, fitness, and living a more fulfilling life.

Since then, I continue to learn, experimenting with and fine-tuning my diet and exercise. Through this journey, I found that much of the advice from conventional wisdom are misguided. I learned that once you’re on the right track, it does not take that much effort to maintain it. Even when I exercise very little for periods of three to six months, my weight maintained.

I found that most diets do not work beyond the short term, and that what we eat is more important than how much we eat.

I learned that many of the foods we thought were healthy are not, and many we thought were unhealthy were, in fact, good for us.

I learned that we are better off building strength, muscles, and mobility, than doing cardio, as it is commonly practised, to burn fat.

I learned that besides exercising and dieting, there are many other factors to one’s health, including rest, recovery, and even following our bodies’ natural rhythms.

I learned that weight loss is just a small component of living a strong, active, fulfilling life, that we should find our own balances between health, fitness, performance, longevity and enjoying life.

Our bodies are wonderfully complex, and even good information can be incomplete, inconclusive, hard to interpret, or seemingly contradicting. However, there is enough we can agree on that would let most people improve their current state.

I’m still learning through reading, listening, thinking, and experimenting with myself. I hope that by sharing what worked for me would help you in some ways to live a fuller regardless of age.

In 2018, I started coaching and leading some friends on what I’ve learned. You can read their testimonies here.

To help more people, I got certified as a personal trainer and nutrition coach during the COVID period. I would like to invite you to join in to regain and maintain the ability to live actively, regardless of age.

There is no rush, though it’s important to get started. Reaching an unhealthy state took years of neglect and doing the wrong things. Give yourself time to get back into a healthy one, in a way that would last the rest of your life.