Winter Weight Loss Challenge

Some people love Winter, me not so much.

The cold weather, the lack of sunlight, the drop in motivation, the increased comfort food consumption and the inevitable weight gain. It's fair to say I'm a summer person, I love nothing more than a hot, sunny day.

Even though I know what to expect, each year I still fall foul of Winter's grasp. I also always start the New Year with renewed vigour and purpose, looking forward to new beginnings and challenging myself to see what I can achieve. Pretty cliche I guess but it's definitely a thing, at least for me it is.

This year I decided that I would challenge myself to lose the Winter weight that I'd accumulated. I wanted to see how much I could lose in as short a time frame as possible - 28 days to be precise.

As well as challenging myself I wanted to capture and share my journey with you to show what's possible when you set yourself a goal and adopt a disciplined, healthy mindset to help obtain that goal.

I saw off New Year's Eve and immediately stepped right into it...

The challenge ultimately consisted of a sustained reduction in calorie intake over a 4 week period. I maintained discipline throughout the challenge but also wasn't overly obsessive about it.

I took photos of myself every day and used FitTrack to capture my statistical progress. After the 28 days were up I compared the first photo and the last photo to illustrate what, if any changes had taken place.

I kept the frequency and intensity of my training sessions the same and also maintained my regular sauna sessions. I tried to consciously increase my average daily steps where possible and also tried to increase my NEAT output (if you don't know what NEAT is check out my previous post here).

For this challenge I didn't specifically count calories as I instinctively know when I am in a surplus or deficit. What is difficult however is to know when you are in equilibrium, when you are hitting your maintenance calorie sweet spot, this I would argue requires calorie counting.

I pretty much ate the types of food I wanted, I just didn't eat a lot for the majority of the time. I used a combination of time restricted eating, one 48 hour fast and one 24 hour fast.

Fasting gets a bad press at times and there are numerous opinions from numerous experts about its efficacy. For me and my lifestyle however, fasting is hands down one of the best weight management tools in my arsenal.

I normally drop 0.8 kg - 1 kg of weight per day when on a fast but my day 1 drop this time around was pretty extraordinary. I went from 86.6 kg to 82.8 kg!

Now I know what you're thinking, he's full of shit and I would have to agree... literally. I was full from over-eating during the Christmas period and my intestines were carrying far more food than they normally would do.

I checked and re-checked the scales but as I always measure in exactly the same place I was confident the measurements were legit. I put this extreme, initial weight loss down to a combination of a 48 hour fast, an intense cardio session and an intense sauna session.

I rarely drink alcohol so this wasn't an issue, I indulged in perhaps 2 - 3 very light sessions over the course of the four weeks. I am however a chocoholic so this was an area that I had to be mindful of and I made sure to restrict the amount of chocolate I consumed.

They say a picture paints a thousand words so I've included my day 1 and day 28 to highlight and compare the changes.

Day 1

Day 28

I've also included some screenshots of my FitTrack progress report to showcase each step of the journey.

As you can see from the progress report there were a few peaks - primarily when my daughter came over to stay with me. She's a foodie and transmits her food energy to me!

My biggest overall loss came on day 27 when I went down to 80.4 kg, effectively a 6.2 kg drop from my starting point of 86.6 kg.

Pretty much all of my health measurements improved - most notably my overall weight, BMI and body fat % - both subcutaneous and visceral. Although I lost some muscle mass it was negligible and if you believe FitTrack I even reversed my age by 3 years!

At the end of this challenge I looked and felt much healthier. This is what I would class as a realistic weight loss journey for a 'normal' person. Ups and downs, indulgence and moderation, impulsiveness and restraint. Not everyone will follow a rigid, linear trend towards their goal and this is an important point to understand.

In summary this wasn't too difficult to do. Although I focused on keeping to a calorie deficit I didn't obsess about it and allowed myself some enjoyment days. The one key, determining factor I employed throughout however was discipline. I never lost sight of the goal I wanted to achieve.

Improving and sustaining your health and fitness is oftentimes more about what you know than simply what you do. This may sound counter intuitive but what I mean by this is that 'just going on a diet' or 'just going to the gym' will not necessarily get you to where you want to be. Understanding the factors involved in optimising both your nutrition and energy expenditure will really help you to achieve your goals.

Some key takeaways:

• The weather can play a significant role in your mood and mindset, at least for me it does

• It's ok for your standards to drop and for you to indulge - as long as you're aware of what the repercussions will be and are accepting of this

• When motivation does inevitably drop off it's discipline that moves you forward, when discipline drops off... well that's another matter entirely!

• It's not actually that difficult to lose weight, you just need to understand the processes involved then do the work

• Conversely it's very, very easy to put weight on!

• Calorie deficit - do not forget these two words when thinking about weight loss

• Setting yourself a short term challenge is a great way to achieve a goal. However, developing a healthy, long lasting relationship with nutrition and fitness is a much better strategy over the long term

• There is not much that is as satisfying as taking a decision to become healthier, creating a plan to enable this to happen, putting this plan into action then achieving the desired results

• Aim to be healthy but don't obsess over it, unless you want to of course

Disclaimer: As a personal trainer and nutrition coach I would not recommend this specific course of action to my clients. This was a challenge for me and me alone. A much more sustainable way to lose weight, certainly for someone new to embarking on a healthy lifestyle, would be to maintain it over a longer period of time, approximately 10-12 weeks.

It's worth noting that a good personal trainer will impart this knowledge (and more) to help you reach your goals. A good personal trainer will also save months if not years off of your journey by helping you to understand how your mind and body work when it comes to health, nutrition and fitness. A good personal trainer, like a good driver instructor, should be in your life a defined period of time - enough to teach you the fundamentals and for you to internalise a healthy lifestyle. If you want them around for longer then that becomes your personal prerogative as opposed to a necessity.

If you do decide to use a personal trainer then shop around first. Look for good reviews, look for someone who know's what they're talking about but above all else look for a personal trainer who achieves results.

Happy New Year and I sincerely hope 2023 will be your year, the year that you attain all of your health, fitness and wellbeing related goals.

If you do decide to challenge yourself and improve your health in some way then let me know how you get on in the comments section below.

If you’re interested in improving your health then please do get in touch!

Michael East

ME LIFE