How to lose 15 kg in 100 days (and maintain it!) - Personal Edition of a "Happy Diwali" post! Given all the sweets everyone will eat this weekend, I thought a personal post might be more helpful :) I lost 15 kgs in calendar Q2. And maintained it over Q3! So for a change, this is not related to Antler / startups :)
I am documenting the salient points of what I learnt over the 1 - 9 points. For the actual 100 day diet details, directly go to part 10/10. Once you move from 97 kg to 82 kg, you will certainly want to stay there for the rest of your life - You feel energetic!
- For weight loss at the core, a calorie deficit is necessary. Try to restrict food to 2k calories over 2 or 3 meals max. Keep to a 10 hour window of eating. Counting calories religiously till you get there is helpful. You would be amazed at what some junky foods have.
- Beyond calories - Don't "break the fast" in the morning with carbs; use fats / protein instead - eg. a spoon of ghee + black coffee and whey protein over the course of morning. Specially avoid bread, rice-based / wheat based, sugar, juices etc. start of the day.
- For lunch, restrict carbs. The single biggest evil for weight gain is the sugar spike post a carb-rich meal. If you have rice / wheat / bread, surround with veggies / eggs / paneer / chicken / avocado / chia seeds - basically fats, protein and fibre.
- After any meal that has some carbs, walk at least 15-20 mins. This can have an immediate sugar spike reduction impact of 30-50%. This is one of the biggest hacks. Try to also have 3 bottles of water through the day to regulate all aspects of digestion and fluids.
- Increase protein through the day. Whey in the morning. Chicken / paneer / egg whites in afternoon. Chicken / fish / soya in the evening. Whey (I have heard) upto 2 scoops per day is reasonably Ok given it's a by-product of milk. 1 gm. per kg of body weight is the target.
- Avoid junk through the day. Sweets. Fried. Cookies. Chocolates (dark chocolate 1/2 pieces is fine) Even if you want to have, do it right after a wholesome meal so that it does not directly go to your blood stream as sugar. Limit qty. of fruits - they also have sugar.
- A bit of a cheat everyday or every week is of course fine. Or when you travel. After all, what's life without eating :) When I was in Europe or USA, I did eat a bit. But in 3-4 days flat, I could get back to the old weight. Alcohol - avoid sugary cocktails!
- Some exercise everyday at steady state is critical. 30-45 mins. Yoga is fun! Some cardio like dance. (Thanks cult fit!) Some weight training too (I just started this). Swimming is awesome for the full body. Play pickleball. Run. Do what you like. But sweat daily.
- To reiterate the single most important thing - carbs and the sugar spike following that is the biggest cause of the weight addn. and if you can control that with better eating habits + walking, most of your problem is largely solved. Of course, increase protein intake!
10. Let's now talk about the gist of the diet itself (long post alert). Given the outstanding word of mouth that I had gotten in March from a bunch of VC friends, I did this with
Saravanan Balakrishnan
of Amura (now of Vidya Balan fame :)
- The first 15 days is clean eating. No gluten, dairy, fruits, external foods, and certain other foods. But no calorie restrictions. 3L of water, any amount of black coffee and green tea - continues throughout the diet.
- The next 15 days is the detox very low calorie 850 calories daily diet - the toughest two weeks of the diet. You would think the body might revolt, but for me, the body got used to this in 2 days flat with no side effects! Detox includes only whey protein, some specific veggies and egg whites. And almost nothing else (exc. black coffee)
- The next 60 days, they try one food a day in a specific pattern and see the reaction of your body to that, keeping the 850 calories. Their logic is that different food items could cause inflammations to different types of bodies. The best way to measure that is to experiment every single day with one new item and see its reaction.
- The things that were part of my staple diet - banana, potato, paneer, and most importantly, milk via filter coffee - I realised were all causing weight additions and gas / inflammation for me! I have now completely reduced or cut off most of that - and that's a huge part of how I have gotten here.
- In the last 15 days of the diet, they increase calories slowly from 850 till a point where your weight stays static. And allow you to try your favourites beyond their list to see the impact of all foods. For me, the steady state calorie number became 1750 cals without exercise and 2000 cals with some basic exercise.
- Almost during the entire course, there's no exercise you can do. That's cause your muscles are weak and the body just does not have enough cals to burn. And the food duration starts with 12 hours and reduces to 8 hours.
- Of course this comes with a bunch of sacrifices. All outside food. Sugar (I have a massive sweet tooth but even for me it didn't take more than a week to adjust). Alcohol. Also - a supportive home environment (cook / equivalent) is needed since the quantities have to be super measured.
- They also give you a ton of supplements for covering a huge set of vitamins. That's based on a full body pre-blood test and the stable state post 100 day blood test. That's almost 12-15 capsules daily.
- If you have to travel (which I did twice for 2 weeks or a big injury - I had a fracture), you just take an exception for that 1 week or 2 weeks. And enjoy life but don't over-eat.
- Approx. cost - 12k per month for 3 months; 5-6k for supplements . And around 5-6k X 2 for the full body pre and post blood tests. The diet part is best done by going with Amura or an equivalent expert. (not a sponsored post!)
I didn't do this because of any external reason or health scare. I have forever hovered around 95+ kg and had been wanting to try this for a while. We had closed the Antler fundraise by March 31. So I could try a non-social non-travelling 90 days at a stretch finally!
Abstinence first. Moderation later - It requires guided abstinence and some level of understanding of the body over a 90 day behaviour to rewire our hard-wired brain patterns of likes / dislikes of our food. I don't see a behaviour change like this happen otherwise.
Parting disclaimers - Pls do this under supervision. I am neither a health expert nor a doctor. I don't know what might be long term side effects (muscle mass loss etc.) I am also unaware the differences on this for the man vs. woman's body.
To watch out - 90% of people apparently add back the weight because of lack of discipline or human behaviour taking over within 3-6 months. I am not yet in that list. Let's hope I don't. There's a serious risk if you don't keep to the best practices post the diet.
My sole purpose of sharing this is to motivate all those folks who have wanted to lose for years on end but never gotten to doing it (giving some reason or the other). This effort is totally worth it - to reduce 1-2 sizes on your dresses and 4-6 inches on your waist, be more energetic and having a new topic to discuss during the next time you meet your friends :)
I am approx. 6 ft (183 cm). The ideal BMI weight is closer to 78-80 kg. And of course, because of the drastic weight loss, you get some skin mass that will only go with some exercise and weight training. That's underway still. Also, measure other factors - fat % / muscle mass / bone mass etc. with a proper weighing scale and you should see improvements in all of those too.
A lot of friends who met met me after a while in calendar Q3 have seen the major shift. This has become a new topic of discussion of course. And I promised a variety of people that I will share the details in a tweet storm soon. So here it is finally :)
A Happy Diwali once again!
Learning how to build sustainable and great consumer products
1moYour post is inspiring me to get disciplined about eating and loose weight. keep it up!
Global Luxury Wellness General Manager | Visionary Leader in Project Management | Hotel Tech Solutions | Strategic Product Management | Global Sales & Marketing Excellence | MICE & Travel Expert | Data-Driven Insights
1moHEY Rajiv this is Brilliant. whenever you have time, indulge yourself in one of our program at Pema Wellness Retreat!
Director Operations & Strategy @The Global Associates | Helping Businesses Expand Their Sales Pipeline
1moVery inspiring! Did you also use a CGM for monitoring the glucose spikes?
Building Insurance Padosi | Ex TU CIBIL | Ex HDFC Life |
2moI have started my weight management program around 13 days back and have lost 3 kgs. 22 more to go. Quite similar to what you have stated but 3 key differences for me are: * Shifted from Latte to Black Coffee * No Roti/Rice * 30-40 minutes of brush walk daily Aim is to not loose but also maintain like you said
Movement inc
2moAmura really is becoming the VLCC of our generation.