I’ve lost a fair amount of weight in the last few months. It’s an incredible achievement, and while I’m proud of myself, I’ve found it a bit odd that my family and friends have been asking me how I did it — I only followed what seemed common sense. Still, at the risk of making this a humblebrag, I’m going to offer my advice.

Disclaimer: I’m not a doctor, personal trainer or health professional. Your mileage may vary, and you should always seek a professional’s advice before making large changes to your lifestyle.

First of all there’s what I think of as the Golden Triangle of health. Obtaining healthy weight and feeling natural in your body stems from these three things:

Activity

This one is on everybody’s mind: we all know that we need to move more. We know that it’s basic math: Calories in (eating) < Calories out (activity). Most of us sit on our butts all day, but eat like our ancestors who got up at dawn and plowed the fields until dusk.

Nutrition

Diet is the other half of the equation. Although there are all kinds of other factors at play, it really boils down to eating less food than your body uses during the day.

Rest

This seems at odd with Activity, but believe me it’s important. We know about our daily 8 hour requirement. I struggle with this one; I feel that sleep is a waste of time. I could be gaming, or shooting photos, or working or anything else. Sleep is definitely a great pleasure, but I can generally find better things to do. I need to reprioritise because the body does a lot of maintenance work during sleep — both mental and physical — and good sleep can actually improve weight loss.

So far, we know all of that right? We’ve been told over and over again that we need to eat less, move more (and maybe sleep more). I knew all that but I didn’t do it, which brings me to the first big change I made.

Motivation

All the best intentions in the world won’t actually make any change; action is the necessary bridging step. After years of twice-a-week PT sessions that didn’t really help, how did I wake up? I honestly can’t say. I’ve been thinking about this a lot over the last three months, and I think that I’d finally run out of excuses.

I guess it all started with my stroke last year. We still don’t know why it happened, but it seems to have been an isolated occurrence. Predictably, the doctors said that I had to lose weight. I immediately changed my diet, and as I recovered from the immediate weakness that the stroke dumped on me, I tried to increase my activity. I think that whole effort lasted about six weeks.

Instead, I latched on to other things that might improve my weight situation: changes in drugs that had been prescribed over a decade ago, resolving my sleep apnoea and so on. Finally, though, all of that ran out. I’d fixed all that stuff, and realised I had to knuckle down to it. At about the same time, P had come off another successful 12-week challenge at her gym. She finished near the top of the gym and that started to arouse my competitive nature.

So I went to the gym. I started with a weekly Pilates class, which didn’t do much for me… but the instructor said that she’d enjoyed Grit Strength a lot. That’s a weight-based group fitness class, sort of like Body Pump but harder, faster, heavier and over in half the time. If a stick figure like her could do it, there’s no reason I couldn’t!

And I loved it. That first class was both the best and worst exercise session I’d ever had. It pushed me to my limits, and I felt that endorphin rush that they talk about for the first time. I was hooked, but the best was yet to come. My gym offered a 12 week program of their own. It was different from P’s but it still offered a structured, guided way to hit a goal in an specific amount of time. I took it up, and the rest is history. During those 12 weeks, I took off 10% of my starting body mass, increased lean muscle, strength and fitness. More importantly, I’ve established habits that I have been able to keep. My goals have shifted to improvement rather than remediation and that’s both unfamiliar and exhilarating.

This isn’t to say you need to have a near-death experience to get fit. In fact, I returned to my old habits pretty quickly after the stroke. I can’t say that I jumped out of a bath, screaming that I had discovered the secret to weight loss. But it’s definitely easier when you’ve got something propelling you forward.

So I guess that covers the “Why” of it all. I’ll be looking at my “What” and “How” soon.