[W///]

I'm a 5"10, at my heaviest, I weighed 193 lbs (Thanksgiving 2018 I believe), today I'm 162 lbs. Was always naturally a skinny kid growing up, then moved to the US and still thought I could do whatever I wanted to during college and it just slowly went on from there. At the start of COVID, I decided to turn things around because I wanted to work on myself mentally and physically. Started off with being more conscious about what I was eating, which meant not buying and keeping unhealthy choices at home. If it's not there, it's much easier to not be tempted. Always drank a lot of water (usually 1 gallon a day).

In May 2020, I started running. Not a morning person, and hated running (although I did play soccer in highschool... a long long time ago). First time out was about 15 mins mile pace. Now, I run about 20 to 25 miles per week.

I know a lot of people say diet is 90% of the secret, but that's not how I approached it. I wanted this to be a lifestyle change, and I knew looking at diet alone was not going to be sustainable for me. My point is, I got really into running, and by getting stronger and faster, the diet portion of it followed (i.e I'm not going to eat cheesecake before I go for a 5 mile run).

As I said, it might not work for everyone, but this approach worked for me. I don't count calories, still enjoy my fun meals, but also balance it out with what my body needs to run. I also do intermittent fasting half the days out of the week. I don't even think about it now that I'm used to it.

A book that really helped me with all this is called Atomic Habits by James Clear. There was a lot of tips in there that helped me stay consistent. Not saying the journey was easy, but you need to be patient and keep at it. Once you've gained momentum, it's actually quite easy to keep going.