binged? Here's what to do next

Binges happen.

It’s not the end of the world, it’s something that is bound to occur sometimes during your weight loss journey and that’s completely normal. Binges are just something that occurs when we restrict ourselves too much or for too long.

It happens.

There’s no need to beat yourself up or punish yourself when it occurs.

Depending on how often you’re binging, what to do next is slightly different.

If you binged once in a blue moon, there’s nothing to do after it just move on. Next day just hop back into your regular diet and routine and keep going. No need to eat less, no need restrict more food, no need to overthink anything. It happens. It’s like tripping on your own foot sometimes. Sometimes you just trip, there’s no need to over-analyze it, get up and keep going.

Now if you’re binging like every couple of days now you got a different problem to deal with. Binging so often is likely caused by your diet being too restrictive so you have trouble keeping up to it. In this case the answer isn’t to “move on”, but to adjust your diet so it’s less restrictive so you can at least keep up with it for 3-4 weeks without fail.

Being on an ultra restrictive diet might get you temporary fast results, but those results also disappear pretty fast when you end up binging and needing to start over again & again & again.

Here’s what not to do after a binge…

… do not punish yourself and make yourself eat less the next day to make up for your binge. That’s the worst thing you can do for a binge.

Why?

Cos the binge was likely caused by some from of restriction. By restricting yourself even more you’re just building yourself up for another binge in the near future. If your solution to binges is to keep “making up for it”, all that’s doing is putting you in a miserable cycle or binge, restrict, binge, restrict until finally your only way out is to quit. 

Binges are normal, they happen. They cannot ‘ruin’ all your progress.

Progress is built through time and consistency. What you can’t build in one day also can’t be destroyed in one day.

So you binged? Cool. No worries.

Identify why you binged, and either move on and make some adjustments to your diet and then move on.

It’s not the end of the world.

— Po

quick guide on paleo

Nowadays paleo isn’t as popular as it was a couple of years back, at least not as popular as IF and keto these days. But it’s still quite prevalent especially in crossfit circles, so I thought I’d make a quick guide on it too so you can get a quick idea on what it’s all about.

The paleo diet’s also known as cavemen diet, hunter-gatherer diet or stone age diet. Its basic premise is basically trying to eat the way people did over 10,000 years ago when farming still wasn’t a thing. Paleo believes like eating like our ancestors did is a much healthier way to eat, but fact is there is very little evidence to that exists that far back to prove the claim.

Now while the reasoning behind paleo is questionable, the diet itself isn’t exactly a bad idea at all.

The diet includes mainly foods like fish, lean meats, fruits, veggies, nuts and seeds. In modern day terms it’s basically a 100% “clean” diet, in other words 100% whole foods and lean protein.

How does it help with weight loss?

Eating 100% whole foods and lean protein means you’re likely eating lot less calories than you would have if you included more processed foods in your diet. You also get to eat a higher volume of food which means hunger is a lot easier to be dealt with.

Though the problem with that is (as we’ve all probably experienced at least once in our lives) it’s quite difficult to maintain long term. Eating 100% “clean” for a few days or even a week is one thing. Doing it for months and months on end, missing out on parties, celebrations, gatherings does take a toll and make keeping up with it quite difficult.

Which is why while I’m not a fan of 100% paleo, I think 70-80% paleo can be a realistic diet for sustainable weight loss. 70-80% whole foods and lean protein along with 20-30% of any foods you want. Remember a successful diet is really about finding the balance between your wants and your needs in your diet. Going too extreme on either side isn’t the best idea.

What I do like about paleo is it kinda hits all the markers for health. Leaning towards whole foods and lean proteins in your diet means you’re basically maximizing the nutrients you get from your food, which is a huge contribution to your overall health. Not all diets naturally lean you towards health, but paleo does.

So is there some secret about how our ancestors ate vs weight loss?

Not really.

Can paleo work for weight loss?

Yes it can.

“Will it work for me?”

Try it and find out. If 100% is too much for you, try 80%. Use the paleo diet as a template. Try it out, then adjust in places where you find don’t suit you and keep going.

It’s not some magic method for weight loss or health, it’s just a method.

I’d say my day to day diet quite closely resembles a 70-80% paleo diet, although I never really viewed my diet that way. I quite enjoy it cos it gives me the best of both worlds, health, calorie control, and fun foods!

Hope this helps!~

—Po

how to deal with cravings

There’s really only one way to efficiently deal with cravings…

… and that’s to eat it.

You see, avoiding foods that you’re craving only makes the craving worse. The thing about cravings is there’s no substitute. When you’re craving for a particular food it’s gonna take that particular food to ‘hit the spot’. Similar foods or alternatives just don’t hit the same. Trust me I know, I’ve been there way too many times.

Like when I’m craving a snicker bar, I want a snicker bar. Fruits & honey or some sweet alternative ain’t gonna do it. No 80% chocolate’s gonna do it. I want the snicker bar.

The more you avoid cravings, the worse it gets. The worse the craving gets and you start heading into a higher chance of binge eating. When you binge you’ll respond to that with guilt and punishment, which means you’ll put on even more restrictions into your diet which makes another cycle of binging just around the corner, and this vicious cycle will just keep repeating itself until you decide to fully quit.

So how should you deal with it then?

Eat it.

Meaning find a way to include it into your diet while still adhering to your goals. Let’s use the example of a snicker bar. Let’s say you’re craving for snickers. A typical standard snicker bar is roughly 230kcal. A mini snicker bar is roughly 90kcal. A bite sized snicker bar is around 40kcal.

Could you eat 1 full snicker bar (230kcal) a day everyday and still lose weight? Absolutely. But fitting that into your diet likely means you’ll have to take away some calories from your meals. Perhaps you eat 80kcal less per meal to fit it in? Or half your usual rice portions? Or switch out the regular coke you have usually for coke zero? Or maybe you don't need a full snicker bar to hit the spot, a mini one will do?

It doesn’t matter how you fit it in, if it fits it fits. If you’re still consistently in a calorie deficit with or without that snicker bar you’re still gonna lose weight.

Food becomes a lot easier to deal with when you allow yourself the freedom to eat it rather than be full on restriction mode. The only thing you have to restrict to lose weight is the total amount of calories you’re eating on a regular basis. The portions. The type of food is totally up to your choice.

Obviously the general guideline is eat mostly nutrient rich whole foods and lean protein while sprinkling in some of your favorite foods, but if you’ve found some other ratio that suits you better for longevity totally go for that.

Will your craving go away once you include it in your diet?

Eventually yeah.

It’s not likely gonna go away the moment after you eat it. Say back to the snicker bar example perhaps after having 1 full bar you feel all good and don’t crave for it for the next 5 days, but after that the cravings start again. Well then just schedule your diet so that you get to have a snicker bar every 5 days. There’s nothing wrong with that. Over time once that becomes naturally part of your routine it’s quite likely that the day will come where you don’t crave for it anymore.

But… you might start craving for something else.

And that’s perfectly normal.

Cravings is they never fully go away. You deal with one, you’re good for a while and another one comes along. The thought of never ever craving for something forever I do not believe is humanly possible.

Dealing with cravings is an ongoing process. When you’re craving for something, eat it. Figure out a way to fit it into your diet. When you’re done with it, replace it back to your original diet or with the next thing that you have a slight craving for. It’s a skill to learn that does take time, but when you do learn how to deal with cravings that’s when a “diet” starts to not feel like diet.

I hope this helps!

Till the next one~

— Po

stop doing this in your diet

If there’s one thing I’d recommend you stop doing for your diet it would be this:

Stop viewing foods as good or bad.

Viewing foods as good or bad is what causes tremendous anxiety and makes you bounce between the extremities of being super restrictive with your diet and going all out binging.

The short & sweet truth is there is no good or bad foods.

There is no foods where the more you eat the more weight you’ll lose, there’s also no food where the moment you put it in your mouth and swallow it you gain fat. That’s simply not how fat loss works.

Sure of course there are foods that are high in nutrients like whole foods (fruits veggies etc) and there are foods that are low in nutrients like a gummy bears or a snicker bar but that doesn’t mean one is good and the other bad.

It does mean though that you should probably include more foods that are high nutrients in your diet and less of the foods that are low in nutrients. There’s no need to go to the extremes of only including foods that are high in nutrients and completely avoiding those low in nutrients. It’s completely unnecessary and just makes the journey a lot less realistic.

I mean fact is most of the foods we love are low in nutrients, there’s no need to beat around the bush here. We love it, it makes us happy, so there’s no need to completely prevent that happiness. You can still totally enjoy your favorite foods in moderation and still progress towards your fat loss goals.

Obviously you don’t wanna have cake for breakfast, donuts for lunch, and ice cream for dinner then a chicken sandwich for dessert, you’ll wanna do something more opposite of that. Perhaps fruits & yogurt for breakfast, some white rice, veggies, fish for lunch, potatoes and chicken for dinner, and finish the day with your favorite scoop of ice cream on a cone.

It all comes to balance and moderation.

Why include more foods that are high in nutrients in your diet for fat loss?

Well one, our body needs a whole array of different types of nutrients for health on a day to day basis. Two, foods high in nutrients tend to be more satiating than those low in nutrients so dealing with hunger becomes easier. Three, cos most foods high in nutrients are low in calories, you could eat a lot more of them in volume which also helps you feel fuller.

A scoop of ice cream (any flavor) is roughly 200kcal, while half a kilo of watermelon is 175kcal.

Not saying that you have to choose watermelon over ice cream every time, but emphasizing that if your diet consists of mostly nutrient rich foods, it becomes a lot easier to manage. Absolutely don’t forbid yourself from ice cream, but if you’re having say 3-4 scoops daily and feeling hungry all day, maybe you wanna cut that down to 1 scoop instead.

All foods have a place in your diet.

There’s no foods you absolutely must eat, there’s no foods you absolutely must avoid. It’s all about balance, moderation and accountability towards your goals.

It’s possible to lose weight 100% on Mcdonalds. It’s possible to gain weight eating 100% “clean foods”. Losing weight isn’t about the types of food you’re eating. It’s not about the good or bad, it’s about the portions you’re eating on a regular basis. The total calories.

The less you think of food as good or bad, the less you’ll feel guilt, the less you’ll feel the need to punish yourself, and the more realistic it is to keep up with your diet on a consistent basis.

Easiest way to keep consistent with your diet? Make it enjoyable. Of course it’ll never be 100% enjoyable, but make it as enjoyable as possible. Once you start to enjoy it, it starts to feel less like a “diet”, and keeping up with it becomes second nature and results start coming in over time.

—Po

gained weight overnight?

Alright don’t panic!

Let’s get to the bottom of this “gaining weight overnight” thing.

First of all lemme clear it up that weight gain and fat gain are two separate things. I get it I use weight loss and fat loss interchangeably in most of my content but they’re not exactly the same.

Weight loss/gain includes weight lost from fats, blood, waste, water, etc. basically everything going on in the body.

Fat loss/gain refers to weight lost from fat. Nothing else.

Your daily weight fluctuates every single day and that’s completely normal. You could be eating the exact same foods for 2-3 days and everyday your weight slightly changes. That’s normal. That’s weight. That’s everything going on in your body that’s likely not fat.

Things that effect day to day weight include eating more salt than usual, working out more than usual, more active than usual, getting sick, stress, frequency to the toilet etc. All those things aren’t things you gotta worry about for your fat loss progress, but be aware that they can affect your day to day weight.

The problem with worrying about overnight weight gain is that it’s misleading. You're worrying about the wrong thing. I mean go weigh yourself now, go drink a bottle of water and go weigh your again. You definitely gained some weight on the scale, but that bottle of water definitely did not make you gain fat.

The scale number changes with the most minor details. Weighing yourself in a pair of jeans and tee vs in pajamas will give you two different numbers. Weighing yourself before and after a meal will give you different numbers. The number on the scale isn’t some definitive reflection on your fat loss progress.

The scale isn’t a tool to tell you your self worth or tell you how you’re currently progressing towards your journey. It’s merely a tool that tells you how much you currently weigh objectively. The scale doesn’t know how much salt you ate last night, the scale doesn’t know you’ve been backed up for 2 days “number 2-wise”, it knows nothing. All it tells you is how much you weigh currently.

So what is the number on the scale good for?

That number is just data.

If you gather enough data over time then you can make an analysis on your progress. In other words measure your day to day weight, use it to calculate your weekly average, keep doing it for a couple of weeks and compare your weekly averages to each other for a much more clear cut idea on how you’re doing with your weight loss journey.

Short term changes on the scale is meaningless.

If you gained weight overnight, it’s normal. It’s meaningless.

If you lost weight overnight, it’s normal. It’s meaningless.

Overnight weight no matter which direction it goes isn’t a reflection of your fat loss progress. It’s just how our complex human body works. It’s normal. It’s not something to panic over.

Now if you want to be as accurate as possible with the scale here’s how I’d recommend you weight yourself on a daily basis:

Weigh yourself first thing every morning in minimal clothing after having gone to the toilet but before eating or drinking anything.

With a constant weighing habit and schedule, the degree of which your scale number fluctuates greatly lessens. I mean if you weigh yourself today after breakfast in pajamas, tomorrow you do it after dinner in work cloths, day after you it the way I recommended, you’re gonna have 3 very different numbers. Weight fluctuations will still occur doing it the way I recommended but the fluctuations will be a lot less and make a lot more sense.

Of course at the end of the day, if you’re someone that really gets upset & bothered by the number on the scale, I’d suggest just stop weighing yourself. You don’t need to weigh yourself to lose fat. There are many other different methods to measure progress, if the scale is a source of negativity in your life it’s not worth it.

That number isn’t worth your tears.

—Po

feeling hungry all the time?

Ever wonder why you’re constantly hungry sometimes when on a diet?

Usually, there are 2 main reasons.

Reason number 1 is that you’re just simply eating way too little. Too little as in trying to survive on as little food as possible thinking that’s the solution to lose weight. Numbers wise it would be say you’re aiming for 1500kcal daily (which is already a calorie deficit for you) but you instead decide you’re only gonna eat 500kcal daily.

Is that gonna make you lose weight faster? Short term, definitely.

Long term? No chance.

What happens when you consistently eat way too little? You’re hungry and frustrated all the time which just gets to a point where you can’t take it anymore and end up binging. What happens when you start binging? You basically gain back everything you lost with an extra topping of emotional damage that you have to recover from before trying again.

How do you solve eating too little?

Aim to eat as much as possible instead within your limits.

If you’ve decided your goal is to eat 1500kcal to lose weight then your goal everyday should be to eat as close to 1500kcal as possible. That how you’ll minimize hunger which makes keeping it up consistently a lot easier which translates to long term permanent results.

Reasons number 2 for feeling constantly hungry is eating too much ‘junk’ food. Now remember, nothing wrong with ‘junk’ food, it’s totally fine to include it in your regular diet, but when the majority of your diet is ‘junk’ food it’s difficult to stay satisfied.

Let’s use 500kcal for example.

500kcal could be a big bag of potato chips, one large Mcdonalds french fries, or it could be one cup of rice with 1 sunny side up egg, 100g of chicken breast, 1 cup of cabbage, 1 cup of spinach, drenched in teriyaki sauce. One of them is gonna make you fuller than the others, but they’re all roughly 500kcal.

If you’re feeling hungry a lot and also making an effort to eat as much as possible while in a deficit, then you might wanna look into the types of food you’re eating. You don’t need to alienate any of your favorite foods, but you do wanna aim to eat mostly nutrient rich whole foods & lean protein. A rough guideline would be 80/20. 80% whole foods, 20% whatever you want.

Of course one thing you gotta understand is that hunger is part of a weight loss journey. You’re gonna feel it here and there. It’s not possible to eliminate it completely. The goal is to make hunger manageable, not solve it.

There’s no need to do something about hunger every time you feel a little bit of it. Sometimes it’s ok to just be hungry and carry on your day and wait till your next scheduled snack or meal. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.

I hope this has given you more insight on how to tackle hunger.

Till the next one~

—Po

quick guide on IF

So IF, short for intermittent fasting.

One of the biggest misconceptions about IF is that starving yourself for a long period of time is what’s helping you get weight loss results from it. That’s absolutely false. You don’t need to starve to lose weight, and starving yourself being super hungry and all is no indicator that you’re losing more weight or losing weight faster.

The feeling of hunger is a part of the journey yes, but is very much not some kind of special indicator of progress.

IF is a diet method that leans into hunger meaning you’re likely to feel a lot more hunger from IF than other diet methods, but that doesn’t make it better or worse. The payoff you get from being extra hungry on IF is that you get to be extra fulfilled during your meals cos IF often means you get to eat more per meal while still sticking to the same overall amount of food you’re eating.

A quick and easy way to look at it is let’s say you’re on a 1500kcal diet. Without IF a typical meal schedule would be something like 500kcal for breakfast, 500kcal for lunch, 500kcal for dinner. On IF will likely mean you skip breakfast or dinner, which means you’ll likely just have 2 meals a day which would mean 750kcal per meal for the same total of 1500kcal. Same total for the tradeoff of being hungrier than usual throughout the day, but also get to eat more per meal on a regular basis.

Is that a good or a bad thing? It’s neither.

It’s really up to you to decide whether IF is something that suits your lifestyle or not.

If you’re someone that consistently needs to be nibbling on something throughout the day, IF is a terrible idea. You’re better off having 5 meals a day of 300kcal each (for a total of 1500kcal by example) than to only have 2 meals a day. But if you’re someone that doesn't mind dealing with temporary hunger so you can have a bigger meal later on then IF is something you can consider.

If you struggle with hunger in any shape or form, don’t do IF. It just makes those struggles worse which invites binge cycles inevitably.

What about the timing of IF?

16/8 is the standard you’ll see most people talk about. Fast for 16hrs, 8hrs eating period.

Typically it’ll look something like finish your last meal by 8pm, start your first meal by 12pm the next day. If you’re not a breakfast person it’s quite easy and doable. Of course there’s variations like 18/6 or 20/4 but it’s really just preference. More fasting time doesn’t mean more results. You wanna follow the timing that you can keep to as consistently as possible for as long as possible. There’s nothing wrong with say 14/10 or 12/12 either. IF is just a timing restraint to help keep your diet in check.

Remember though IF isn’t magic.

You can totally gain weight through IF as well. Say with the 1500kcal example, if you’re eating 2000kcal on IF you’re gonna gain weight. IF isn’t some guarantee that you’ll lose weight, it’s just a strategy to help you be in control with your diet. When weight loss is your primary goal, no matter what diet method you choose to follow you still gotta be mindful of the amounts of food (calories) that you’re consuming regularly. There is no such diet where you can eat whatever you want however much you want and lose weight.

It doesn’t exist.

I hope this quick guide helps you understand IF a bit more!

Till the next one~

— Po

how to track when eating out

Let’s talk about all the different methods to track your food when you eat out.

I think a lot of us get super worried about the inaccuracies of tracking when eating out, and that’s super normal. But I think one thing that you have to realize is that you don’t need precise accuracy to lose weight. A good honest estimation is more than enough to keep yourself on track.

Here are some methods you could try out:

1) Google it. It’s getting quite popular for cafes/resturants to have some sort of calorie count with their dishes these days. Definitely a lot more mainstream than it ever was 10 years ago. I mean you can basically find some form of calorie count on all fast food joints like pizza hut, kfc, subway, Mcdonalds, etc online. Those numbers are more than enough for you keep track of how much you’re eating when you’re eating out.

2) Take a picture of your meal and work on the specifics at home. With the picture you can enjoy your meal first and calculate all the nitty gritty numbers when you’re done. Remember you don’t need exact numbers. If you consistently track at home, you’ll slowly be able to be more & more accurate with your estimates. You’ll start to know what 200g of white rice looks like, what a 200g vs 400g apple looks like, what a 80g banana looks like etc. In the beginning sure they’re more inaccuracies, but it’s not big deal as you’ll improve on it over time. Tracking and being accountable for the foods you’re eating is what matters the most.

3) Bring a food scale out. I know, sounds werid. I definitely thought a lot about it before I did it for the first time too, but nowadays I basically have a food scale in my everyday bag. My experience so far with brining a food scale out? No one’s actually ever asked me about it. I’ve brought it to fast food joints, steakhouses, sushi joints, and no one really bats an eye. More importantly it’s not that I measure food every single time I go out, usually it’s just when I try a new dish or place. Once I’ve measured it once, I have a good idea what their portions are so when I go back there again and I can just estimate based on my previous measurements.

4) Use a generic number. If you’re having trouble breaking down your meal, just search it online and use whatever number you find that makes sense. Yes this is probably the least accurate way of all the above, but something’s better than nothing. Say you’re having some special kind of fried rice, there’s no need to find the exact fried rice dish you’re having. Instead just track it as “fried rice” and use whatever figure your app/google gives you. It’ll still work.

5) Don’t track. If it’s some kind of outing that doesn’t happen often like a celebration or something opting to not track is also completely fine. It’s ok to take a day off, you don’t need to count every single calorie digit to lose weight. Having a meal off here or there is totally reasonable and realistic towards your weight goals. Just make sure you get back on track the next meal and all is well.

There you have it.

There’s basically always a way to get an idea of how much you ate out. The accuracy really isn’t as important as the consistency in tracking it and keeping yourself accountable for it. The more you do it, the more accurate and faster you’ll be in estimating your portions when you go out.

A lot of “outside food” isn’t as caloric dense as you think. Remember a big mac is 565kcal. 565kcal isn’t that much calories at all. Everyone, every size, every gender can easier fit one a day into their meals and still lose weight. Knowing that the big mac is 565kcal is what makes it a lot less scary. I remember before calorie counting I thought a big mac was like 1000+ kcal easily. Just like I thought watermelon was high in kcal cos it was sweet, when it’s actually one of the lowest calorie fruits out there.

The more you track, the more you learn. The more you learn, the better decisions you make for your diet and in the long run the more results you’ll reap.

Hope this helps, hope you’re well!

Till the next one~

—Po

quick guide on OMAD

Let’s take a quick look at OMAD (one meal a day) today.

So what is OMAD?

It’s exactly as it sounds, it’s having one meal a day.

What are the advantages of it?

Basically you get to eat quite freely with one meal a day in terms of food choice since it’s a whole day’s worth of calories you’re fitting into one mere meal. Say if 1500kcal was your daily goal, that’s like eating 3 big macs in 1 sitting. It’s a lot of food. Chances of you overeating a day’s worth of calories in on meal is quite low.

Disadvantages?

There’s a few.

One, you could be dealing with extreme cravings, hunger and or fatigue cos you’re going through longs periods with zero food.

Two, while it might feel fun to be able to eat whatever you want on OMAD and still be on track, but it starts to become super challenging when you combine it with eating for health (majority whole foods/lean protein). It’s just ungodly amounts of food at one go.

Is it a viable long term weight loss strategy?

Personally, I’d have to say no.

It’s a fine strategy to control the amounts of food you’re eating in the short term say using OMAD as a “cheat day” as you get to eat whatever you want and be somewhat on track. But when it comes to health doing OMAD on a day to day becomes quite impossible to fit in all the whole foods and protein you need all in one meal. Like physically impossible. It’s just way too much volume of food. Going back to the big macs example, 3 big macs is roughly 1500kcal and even that’s kinda a lot of food for one sitting. Can you imagine eating 1500kcal veggies, fruits, proteins, grains all in one sitting?

Well you don’t really have to imagine, I tried it and let me tell you, I failed miserably. I think I ate up to around 1400kcal in one sitting and was just in a massive food coma along with fighting the urge to puke.

Having said that I think it’s still worth it to give OMAD a try if you’ve never tried it before. Try it for a week or two and see how you feel from there. It’s quite possible to use OMAD as a base and make adjustments to it to make it into something more realistic on a day to day basis. Say on the 1500kcal example, instead of trying to eat 1500kcal all in one meal, how about splitting it into 2 meals of 300kcal and 1200kcal? You still get the benefits of enjoying a lot of food in one meal, but you also get the opportunity to eat more whole foods and lean proteins without bursting.

This letter isn’t to convince you to do OMAD, it’s really just to break it down and show you the pieces. If you have no interest in it, there’s no need to try it. There’s plenty of other weight loss methods out there.

Personally I like to use it as a “cheat day” cos it’s just a convenient way to keep my diet in check while also being able to have fun wholeheartedly.

Hope this helps!

Till the next one~

—Po.

how to deal with snacking

Let’s speedrun how to deal with snacking today.

First of all there’s nothing wrong with snacking. Snacking is merely eating a smaller portion of food compared to your meals in between your meal timings. There’s nothing good or bad about it. Some people need a snack to help them along with their day, some don’t and only eat during their main meals. Either isn’t better or worse for weight loss or health. They’re just preferences.

“How do I stop snacking, I stack too much.” is a question I get on a daily basis.

Quick answer is you don’t. You don’t need to stop snacking to reach your goals. Of course you gotta look into your current progress too right? As in if you’re snacking regularly but still losing weight and making progress towards your goals over time, you have nothing to worry about. Just keep doing what you’re doing cos it’s obviously working.

Stop treating snacking like some kind of taboo.

It isn’t at all. Far from it.

But on the other hand if you’re having trouble making progress towards your goals, snacking isn’t the first thing you wanna look at either but you wanna review your diet as a whole first. When dealing with weight loss you gotta look at your diet as a whole and not place blame on any one type of food, meal or snack you’re eating cos it’s everything combined that counts.

An example would be say you’re slightly overeating but have a snacking habit, you could always eat less during your meals but have your snacks stay the same. That way the overall amount of food you’re eating is still less. On the other hand lets say you just get an uncontrollable urge to snack all the time perhaps you wanna look at minimizing snacking by maximizing your meals, cos if you’re eating too little for your meals it may be the cause for you to have higher levels of hunger and cravings to deal with.

The whole deal with snacks, meals for weight loss is really just a balancing act. It’s not about avoiding anything but figuring out a schedule/system that works for you. Say you deal with late night snacking and find it hard to quit, well 1 way of dealing with it would be saving 200-300kcal throughout the day so you can snack late at night and still be on point with your goals. Or you could push your dinner back a little later and eat a bigger dinner so you feel fuller throughout the night and the urge to snack becomes a lot more controllable.

Losing weight is all about eating less than your body expends consistently. It’s about being in a consistent calorie deficit. You can achieve a calorie deficit by any kind of meal or snack schedule you prefer, there’s no right or wrong way as long as it helps you stay on track.

Using an example of say 1500kcal. Having 2 meals a day and zero snacking of 750kcal a meal is 1500kcal. Having 3 meals a day of 400kcal and 3 snacks of 100kcal throughout the day is also 1500kcal in total. Skipping breakfast, eating a small lunch (300kcal), big dinner (1000kcal), and late night snack (200kcal) is still 1500kcal.

At the end of the day, it comes down to lifestyle, preferences, and portions.

Snacking isn’t something bad, it’s not something you gotta get rid of, it’s just something you gotta be aware of, account for, and plan.

Hope you’ve been well!

Till the next one~

—Po

do you need to take whey?

So today, we whey. We talk about whey.

I’m just gonna go straight for the facts without too much weaving and turning so hopefully you can very quickly after reading this letter be no longer confused or have lingering doubts about it. Let’s jump in.

Do you need to take whey?

The answer is no.

Whey is not a necessity in any shape or form for your weight loss, health, or muscle goals. It’s nice to have, it’s convenient, it can be helpful, but it’s also absolutely not a necessity. Whey does not speed up or slow down the weight loss process, all it does it help you consume protein in a convenient matter. What do I mean by convenient? Well it’s much much easier to drink a shake that tastes like a milk shake than to eat a dry piece of chicken breast for the same amount of protein.

Also cos it’s convenient, please don’t start using it as your main source of protein either. You should still be getting most of your protein from real foods. Having a scoop or two of protein daily is completely fine, but relying on it 100% for protein is a no-no. It’s a supplement. It’s the side dish. Don’t make the side dish became the main dish.

What brand or flavor protein should you get?

That’s truly up to what’s available around you and your preference. All protein is basically the same thing marketed in different ways. Although I do want to emphasize to at least choose a brand that’s well known locally or globally, as there have been cases in the past where smaller unknown protein brands were dishonest with their food label meaning their the actual protein per scoop is lower than they claimed.

Other than that it’s really up to you.

If you’re new to whey I’d suggest just trying a few different flavors for the next couple of months to figure out what you enjoy. There’s no right or wrong. Whatever the flavor is the calories and protein are usually roughly the same.

Oh and there are no such thing as male or female whey. All of that is just marketing and packaging differences. The proteins we all consume are the same protein, it’s not gender specific at all.

There’s no magic in whey. You can absolutely hit your protein goals from real foods on a regular basis. I was doing that before a couple of years back, but then started taking whey cos I wanted something quick after my workouts instead of sitting down and eating a meal.

I think that covers all the essentials, any other extra questions or concerns about whey feel free to hit the reply button and ask away!

Hope you’ve been well!

Till the next one~

— Po

how fast should you lose weight?

In an ideal world weight loss would be just take a couple of hours with minimal effort needed. Maybe hours is too long too, minutes. Minutes would be ideal.

Unfortunately that’s not the kind of world we live in and there really is no such thing as losing weight quickly. Well lemme rephrase that, there’s no such thing as losing weight quickly and keeping it off.

You want to lose weight quickly? Eat nothing except water for the next couple of days you’ll confirm shave a couple of kgs off instantly. But obviously you can’t not eat forever, so what happens after you go back to eating regularly? You gain all that weight you lost from not eating back. And so begs the question of what’s the point of losing weight if you can’t keep it off? Doing something extreme can change the number on the scale temporarily, but what’s the point if ultimately you end up where you started?

That right, it’s pointless.

That’s the problem of losing weight too fast.

The thing about losing weight too fast is it’s always the result of doing something extreme. Now fast & extreme could vary, you could be doing something so extreme you couldn’t even keep it up for 3 days, or something less extreme that you could keep up with for 3 weeks but after that you still ultimately end up quitting. The end result is the say just with a delayed effect.

So what is the right pace of losing weight?

I think instead of looking at numbers, the first thing to ask yourself is can you see yourself following your diet plan for the next year. If you can’t see yourself hanging on for that long, chances are the diet you’re following is on the extreme side. If you can, then it’s a good pace to start with.

Numbers wise I’d say losing more than 1% of your total body weight per week would be considered too fast. Of course there are exceptions to that as the first couple of weeks of starting any diet usually reaps faster/more results, but after the first couple of weeks 1% can be a reliable guide on the speed of your progress.

What does that look like in numbers?

If you’re around 50kg, you’ll wanna maximum be losing 0.5kg a week. If you’re 90kg then you’ll wanna go no faster than losing 0.9kg a week.

Remember these are maximum speeds, not minimum.

There is no minimum.

As long as you’re making some kind of progress even if it’s not progress on the scale, you’re going a great job and there’s nothing more to do except to keep going.

There’s nothing wrong with going slow. Slow is a good thing when it comes to weight loss cos the likelihood of you being able to stick to your program is a lot higher. Losing 0.5kg per month isn’t slow, that’s still 6kg lost in a year. 6kg lost in a year permanently is HUGE progress. It beats losing 20kg a year but then gaining it all back the next.

So how fast should you lose weight?

Start by going as slow as possible focusing on the process rather than results. The goal is to make habits and lifestyle changes that you can stick to in the long run. Once you’re comfortable with your routine and feel you can kick up the intensity a lil then do that. Losing weight is a long long process. The goal is to do whatever it takes to not quit and hang on for a long as possible.

Stop trying to go faster.

The quickest path to your goals is being as patient and as consistent as possible. When you go too fast and end up back where you started ultimately you’re just adding unnecessary time to your journey.

Hope this helps!

Till the next one~

—Po

brown rice or white rice?

I think one of the biggest fat loss mistakes someone can do is to completely avoid rice. Not only is it very impractical especially if you’re living on this side of the world (Asia), it’s also absolutely unnecessary to lose weight.

I’ve tried quitting rice for a whole year back in my 123kg days, only white rice though. I was still eating brown/red/black rice. The end result? I still gained weight.

Now thinking back I can completely understand why I still gained weight. It was cos I was eating way way more brown rice than I usually would cos I thought brown rice meant I could eat as much as I wanted without any consequences.

Big big mistake on my part.

It was kinda like how before I’d snack on buckets of nuts thinking it was great for fat loss cos it’s “healthy” but in reality I was just gulping down tons & tons of calories. That’s a story for another day though.

Brown rice and white rice are very similar in calories.

I mean their difference is calories in so little I’d basically consider them the exact same amount for easy calculations sake. What does that mean? That means if you switched out white rice from your diet into brown rice at the exact same amounts, the amount of calories you’re consuming throughout the day is essentially the same. Which would mean no difference to your fat loss progress.

So why switch to brown rice at all?

Well some would argue brown rice has more nutrients than white rice, which is completely true. But it’s not so incredibly nutrient rich that switching from white to brown rice means a huge boost in health, not at all. I mean you could very easily get all the nutrients from brown rice from other sources of food, so it’s also technically possible to enjoy your white rice and just make sure other foods you’re eating in the day is getting you the nutrients you’d be missing from brown rice.

Another thing some may claim about brown rice is that it makes you feel fuller than white rice, which is also true. On paper brown rice has more fiber than white rice which could in turn translate to making you feel fuller for longer. Now from my personal experience, I actually feel fuller from white rice and not brown. I have no idea why, but of the times I’ve ate both brown and white rice I’ve always felt I could eat an infinite amount of brown rice while white rice there’s always a point where I’m just super full.

So which should you eat? White or brown?

Honestly, just eat whichever you prefer more.

Brown rice isn’t some superfood that’s gonna magically help you lose weight asap, and white rice isn’t some poison that makes you gain belly fat the moment you put a spoonful in your mouth. They’re similar in calories, just be sure to be mindful of your portions when you’re eating and that’s it. Neither brown or white rice will ever be mainly responsible for your fat loss progress. Your progress includes everything else that you’re eating regularly in your diet.

If you enjoy brown rice, go eat it. If you enjoy white rice, go eat that. If you enjoy both, mix and match and be mindful of your portions.

Personally, I’m team white rice.

I actually don’t enjoy brown rice at all, so I would never purposely choose to eat it since I started my journey back in 2015. Only times I eat brown rice these days is if I get a bento and there’s no choice for type of rice and it ends up being brown rice.(My heart sinks a little whenever I discover it’s brown and not white)

That’s it for till one, till the next~

Hope you’re well!

— Po.

foods to avoid for fat loss

Carbs, fats, red meats, white meats, sugar, sweets, fried foods, I’m pretty sure you’ve heard some kind of warning on all these foods from others claiming that you have to stop eating them if you wanna lose fat. So today we start off with good news:

You do not need to avoid any types of food to lose fat.

No food in this world exists where the moment you take a bite and swallow it you start gaining fat. The only way to gain fat is to consistently eat too many calories but that comes from the combination of all the foods you eat in a day consistently over time. Eating a bowl of rice doesn’t make you fat. Eating a chocolate bar doesn’t make you fat. Having a scoop of ice cream doesn’t make you fat. All these foods in mindful portions can absolutely be part of a fat loss diet.

But yes there are some foods you should avoid. 3 types to be exact.

Type 1 is foods that your doctor tells you to avoid due to medical conditions.

This is probably as self explanatory as it gets, if your doc’s telling you to avoid something it’s probably a good idea to listen to him/her.

Type 2 is foods that you avoid due to ethical, religious, or moral reasons.

Also self explanatory, but a lot more choice based and could change over time. You’re free to include or avoid any foods you want in your diet based on your own values. This could be meats if you’ve decided to go vegan, or certain meats for religious reasons like pork or beef.

But don’t mistake your values for facts. You're free to have your own belief system, but the fact is following a certain diet path doesn’t automatically equal to health or fat loss. A prime example would be I used to think going vegan was the ultimate path to health and fat loss. I dove into it for over a year, only to realize that it’s absolutely possible to be unhealthy and gain weight while following a vegan diet.

Type 3 is foods you dislike.

I mean if you really don’t like a certain type of food, don’t eat it. It’s wasted calories at that point cos you’re just consuming calories you don’t enjoy. Say someone offers you some strawberry flavored oreos but you actually really don’t like them at all, so don’t eat them. That’ll be 53kcal saved per oreo you don’t eat that you wouldn’t have enjoyed anyways. I think it’s become too common practice that in our day to day lives we eat or accept foods we’re not so excited about just cos it’s convenient not realizing that in that moment it’s convenience but in the long run it’s a lose lose situation for us. First loss is we didn’t even enjoy it, second loss is all the calories add up over time and that’s how we end up overeating without really realizing it.

There are no foods you gotta eat more of to lose fat. There are no foods you gotta avoid to lose fat. Losing fat ultimately comes down to consistently eating less than your body expends, being in a consistent calorie deficit.

It’s one million percent possible to lose fat including all your favorite foods on a regular basis. All comes down to the portions you’re having.

Till the next one~

Hope you’ve been well!

—Po

best way to cook for fat loss

I thought about it for a little while how I wanted to write this letter today, and I think it’s gonna end up like a mini cooking guide for losing weight. Not in the sense of a recipe guide or anything, but just a fundamental guide to the differences in cooking methods and how they affect calories.

So let’s get started.

—Cooking mini guide—

I get all kinds of cooking questions regularly from stuff like “is deep frying ok?” to “what about air fryer” to “do I have to boil my foods if I want to lose weight?” to “is grilling bad?” etc etc. We’ll try to cover all those here today.

First thing I wanna get out of the way is that it is absolutely not a necessity to cook your own meals to lose weight. There are advantages and disadvantages to cooking yourself. Advantages include being in control of every ingredient of the food that you eat which in turn means you’re more in control of the calories and macros you’re consuming. Main disadvantage of cooking yourself is the time it takes. Cooking isn’t merely just following a recipe and counting the cooking time. You gotta count the time it takes to buy the ingredients, the time it takes to clean and prep them, cook them, then finally consume them.

Cooking your own meals doesn’t guarantee weight loss. Eating out regularly doesn’t guarantee weight gain. It all still comes down to planning and portions.

With out of the way let’s go through some of the common ways of preparing food:

-Boiling-

It’s a huge misconception that to lose weight you gotta eat only boiled foods and they gotta taste super bland and be the opposite of delicious. It’s almost like if it’s delicious it means you’re doing it wrong. Huge huge misconception. You don’t have to eat boiled foods to lose weight, and boiled foods also doesn’t mean it’s gotta taste nasty. Boiled foods can taste good too if you season it right.

Remember most dry seasoning adds basically no calories at all. Dry seasoning such as salt, pepper, chili powder, cinnamon powder, paprika powder etc. With the right mix with boiled foods it can be absolute delicious. Or with boiled foods you could add soy sauce or miso to make it a delicious soup.

Boiled foods is usually recommended by mainstream media cos it’s basically the easy & lazy way to prepare food where anyone can do it, and it doesn’t add any additional calories like fried or grilled where oil/butter is often involved. The thing is if you control portions you can still eat the same amount of calories regardless of the way you prepare it. Sure a portion of boiled foods will be larger than a portion of fried foods for the same amount of calories, but doesn’t mean either or is better or worse (for weight loss)

Summary: Boiled foods are totally fine for fat loss, but not a necessity and doesn’t have to taste like rubber.

-Oven & Airfryer-

I’ll put these two in the same category cos they’re basically the same thing, to me at least. Airfryer is basically a portable oven. I know I know there are slight differences between the two but more or less same functions. I find it funny that many that want to lose weight turn to boiled foods where oven/airfryer is basically the same thing, just the dry version. Whatever they’re boiling they could bake it too and the calories will turn out exactly the same.

Personally I prefer baked over boiled for two simple reasons. 1) I think it tastes better, I like my foods more dry than wet. 2) Baking saves time. I like to be able to set a timer, go away then wait for the “ding” to come back and have all my food ready. Boiling takes a little more babysitting.

I think a misconception for those that haven’t really baked before is that you gotta oil your foods before baking it. That’s not true at all, I don’t oil most of the foods I bake unless I’m trying to create some kind of extra texture, and a simple single layer of parchment paper will make whatever you’re cooking not stick to the pan already.

Summary: Oven & airfryer is basically the same calories when compared to boiled foods cos they also don’t require additional ingredients like oil/butter to cook your food. They’re alternatives to get different tastes and textures in your foods.

-Stir fry-

I like to see stirfry as like the middle ground between cooking methods that don’t need oil/butter (boil/oven/airfryer), and cooking methods that do (grill/fry). If you have a non-stick pan it’s very possible to stir-fry stuff with zero oil, or use a bit of water to double as oil. Obviously it’s gonna taste different than using oil but that’s where you gotta play the balancing act of how much oil you wanna use so that it fits your goals.

A little oil goes a long way, I think a lot of people that cook themselves are way too generous with the amount of oil they use and in turn unnecessarily adds a lot of calories to their cooking. They likely could get a very similar taste halving or quartering the amount of oil they use. I use around 1tsp of oil to fry my sunny side up eggs. Before measuring I was pouring roughly 1-2 tbsp worth. I honestly can’t tell the difference taste wise.

Stir-fry I feel is where you can get a lot more creative with flavors and takes very little effort to make foods not taste like “diet” food. Main difference is with some foods you still might need a little bit of oil or butter or not you’d be scrubbing the pan a lot.

Summary: Stir-fry could be in the same category as boiled/oven/airfrying in terms of cooking method that doesn’t add additional calories, but there are some foods that just doesn’t make sense without a tad bit of oil when stir frying which would make it slightly higher calories than the boiled methods.

-Grill-

Grilling tends to be higher calories than other cooking methods cos the butter/oil required in the grilling process. You couldn’t possibly grill a completely dry piece of food say chicken breast, you’d lose half the chicken sticking to the grill. Now remember this isn’t a good or bad thing. Yes grilling tends to be mean more calories but doesn’t mean you gotta completely avoid it or anything, just means if you’re having grilled foods you gotta be a bit more mindful of the portions you’re eating as compared to say baked or boiled.

The plus part about grilling? Tastes so ughh delicious.

Summary: Grilling tends to be higher calories to the previous methods, but doesn’t mean you should avoid it, just means gotta take a bit more time to plan for your portions.

-Deep fry-

Finally we come to the end, which is technically the cooking method that costs the most calories. Why? Cos deep frying involves breading (basically a layer of carbs) and a lot of oil. 1 tbsp of oil is 120kcal. Now obviously one piece of fried food doesn’t mean it carries 1 tbsp of oil, but you can see how that can add up quickly if you eat multiple pieces of it. Again though like grilled it’s not something you have to avoid at all cost to lose weight, you can absolutely have fried foods regularly and lose weight, but you gotta be careful, gotta be aware of how much you’re having.

The thing with fried foods is cos it’s higher in calories compared to say baked or stir-fried, it’s easy to feel dissatisfied from cos it's a lot less volume in food for the same amount of calories. Two piece chicken from KFC is absolutely delicious, but if I were to bake it at home I could likely get maybe 3-4 pieces for the same amount of calories.

Again not good or bad, but it comes down to portions. If you really love fried foods and want a method to lower the calories where possible I’d recommend using the air-fryer. The air-fryer does a good job mimicking the texture of fried foods but has zero of the oil involved. The breading is still involved, but that’s a lot less calories when compared to the oils involved.

Summary: Deep frying foods is one of the methods that costs the most calories. Again no need to avoid it, but absolutely do need to be meticulous with your portions. It’s delicious and easy to overeat.

So which is the best way to cook for fat loss?

There isn’t one.

Cook in whatever methods you prefer the most, cook the foods you enjoy the most, and be mindful of the ingredients & portions you’re eating. One cooking method isn’t superior than another. Just cos boiled foods mean zero added calories doesn’t mean it’s a good thing especially if it makes you dread your meals and creates urges to to binge cos of how much you hate it.

Stick to what you’re comfortable with even if that means not cooking at home and eating out but being calculative of your portions. There’s no right or wrong way to lose weight, losing weight is merely eating less than your body expends consistently over a long period of time. There’s many many roads to the same destination.

I hope this mini guide shows you some of the possible roads and gives you a clearer idea of which road you want to go down.

Remember even if you picked a road to go down and decided it’s not for you, it’s never too late to change. It’s absolutely fine to change. Admitting you made a mistake and making a change is a strength.

Change is growth.

Hope this helps, any additional questions you have on cooking for fat loss reply to this email or shoot your question to my daily Q&As on IG~

Be well, stay safe!

—Po

supplements for fat loss

If you google “supplements for fat loss” you get a bunch of science-y words along with things like fat burners, pills and all sorts of other crap. I guess a more polite word for “crap” would be nonsense. I hope you read this letter to the very end but I’m gonna give you the punchline right here in the very beginning:

There are no supplements for fat loss.  

Supplements out there telling you that you can lose fat as long as you take it and you can keep eating however and whatever you want is really just effectively burning your wallet, that’s it. There’s no magic pill you can take where your body defies the principles of energy balance, the law of thermodynamics and you can just eat whatever you want and lose fat and have a figure that makes IG models look mid.

I get it though, it gets tempting.

Businesses are good at marketing. They poke at your insecurities and make you believe in a dream that sounds like it can become a reality. Sure some of them might get you some kind of mini short term results. But one hundred percent none of them can help you get long term results and stay there.

Don’t waste your time, don’t waste your money  

Now of course the next question is usually:

“what about whey protein and supplements like multi-vitamins?”  

They too don’t help you lose fat. It’s not like the more whey protein you take the more fat you’re gonna lose. Taking more multi-vitamins doesn’t make you burn fat faster. Whey as a supplement just helps you consume more protein conveniently. Same with multivitamins, they help you keep up with some vitamins-minerals that you may have missed in your diet throughout the day. They’re not magic pills.

They just help make your life a tad more convenient.

There’s no running away from working on your diet, your lifestyle for fat loss. There’s no short cut. There’s no “simple & fast” way to do it. There’s just putting in the hard work and doing it as consistently as possible for as long as possible. There’s no lottery to win. Trying to take a shortcut really just makes the whole journey longer cos you’ll get some short term results, it’ll rebound, and you’re back to where you started but have gone through a couple of days/weeks and gone on a roller-coaster of emotions.

Stop wasting time looking for products. Spend all the time you have making adjustments to your diet, your lifestyle, your workouts. It’s a lot of trail and error to figure out what works for you, but the more time you spend on it the closer you get to something that works and in turn that’s when results start to show over time.  

Don’t fall for fat loss supplements. They don’t exist.

— Po

how to maintain your weight

Maintaining weight is a useful skill to learn not just for after you hit your weight goals. I think the majority of people underestimate how long it actually takes to lose weight and expect to go full speed from beginning to end. Of course while that seems ideal, the thing we tend to forget is weight loss is a journey happening alongside life. We gotta work through career, studies, relationships, physical/mental health along with it and sometimes life gets too overwhelming and we need a break. It’s totally ok and normal to put the weight loss goal on pause and come back when life’s a little more under control.

Pausing the weight loss journey it doesn’t mean you just completely give up on your diet altogether. It really just means that you’re still in control of your diet but you give yourself way more flexibility on a day to day basis.

So what’s the difference between maintaining weight and losing weight?

Well if you’re on a weight loss diet, you’d be eating in a calorie deficit which is eating less than your body expends. Simply put you’re eating less food. If you’re on a maintenance diet, you’re eating roughly the same amount of food as your body expends, which means you get to eat more food (as compared to a deficit).

Another thing is while losing weight you’re chasing a single number (your goal weight) over time while maintaining weight you’re keeping yourself at a w

eight range.

Example:

So say you’re currently 60kg and you want to maintain your weight for now before continuing your journey to your goal of 55kg. Maintaining 60kg doesn’t mean you’re trying to keep your weight at exactly 60kg everyday moving forward. Maintaining is a range, roughly 1-2kg above or below your maintenance weight. So for 60kg that would be 58-62kg, anywhere in that range is considered maintenance.

What’s the use of the range?

The range is keep you in control so you don’t ever drift too far from your end goal, and also gives you the flexibility to be less precise with your day to day diet. How does it look like in “real life”? If you’re maintaining weight and you see your weight drifting closer to 62kg, perhaps even dabbling into 62.8kg then that’s a sign for you to maybe tighten up your diet cos you’re starting to consistently eat too much. If you’re drifting towards 58kg, you can take it as a sign that you might not be eating enough lately and make sure it’s not a hindrance on health.

Remember watching how your weight moves is always over time, not day to day changes. Day to day weight fluctuations are super normal and are numbers that should not be taken seriously. Put more emphasis into your weekly average weight and compare them amongst other weeks to get a more accurate idea of how your weight is moving over time.

I hope painting this picture of maintenance today helps, I get a lot of messages about the frustrations of maintaining weight cos it can feel scary to see the numbers go up and down a lot especially if you’re coming off of a deficit. Maintenance is supposed to be a lot of up and down even in the long term. It’s a range, and within that range you’re totally fine and still in control. The range is what keeps you on track. When you start slipping outside that range it’s not the end of the world either, it’s just telling you where you gotta make adjustments to stay within the range.

You might not be considering maintaining weight currently, but I hope this letter eases your concern when that day comes.

Till the next one, hope you’re well!~

— Po

the best time to eat?

I think my earliest of memories regarding diet and losing weight revolved around meal timing. Back then I was the overweight teen who’s source of diet info was usually from my parents or some relatives who likely heard it from their friend’s cousin's wife’s daughter’s fiance’s neighbor’s step-brother’s roommate. The advice they gave often involved some kind of timing scheme like not eating after 5pm, 7pm, or midnight, or not eating meals too close to each other or even skipping dinner all together.

I tried all of that.

Don’t eat after 5pm? Tried it. Don’t eat after 7pm? Tried it. Make sure breakfast lunch and dinner are at least 6hrs apart? Tried it. What happened each time I tried it? Not only did it not work, but I often gained weight cos of it.

Of course back then it was a complete mystery to me on why it didn’t work, but often instead of blaming the method cos so many elders spoke like experts, I’d blame myself. I’d think I was the problem that it didn’t work for me, cos others have said it worked for them (again stories passed down from friend’s of cousin’s friend’s neighbors).

But now I think back I know exactly why it didn’t work for me.

I remember back then when I was following the no eating after 5pm or 7pm thing I’d eat so much more than usual before the timing cos I was afraid I’d get hungry throughout the night. I’d eat close to 1.5/2x my usual amount (so essentially I was constantly overeating) for that fear since well hey, all they said is I gotta stop eating after that time to lose weight so I can eat as much as I want before the timing right?

Wrong.

Timing wasn’t ever gonna help me lose weight.

So here’s the thing about meal timings. In the grand scheme of things for sustainable weight loss it really doesn’t matter.

What matters when it comes to weight loss is the amount of food you’re eating on a regular basis (calories), not when you’re eating them. Eating a 1500kcal meal with no time restriction vs eating a 1500kcal meal with time restriction is gonna basically get you identical results in terms of weight loss. The calories, the amount, the portions matter. The timing doesn’t.

Now ok ok, I get it.

Saying it doesn’t matter makes it sound like it has zero effect on weight loss which isn’t true. It has some effect. But very very little. So so so so so insignificantly little.

So how should you approach your meal timings? How should you schedule meals?

Schedule them according to your liking, your schedule.

That’s really the secret, there’s not much more to that. If you’re someone that doesn’t get hungry in the mornings but often craves food near midnight, why not skip breakfast altogether and plan a meal close to midnight? If you have a rigid schedule due to your job/school plan your meals around that. There’s no right or wrong timing to eat when it comes to losing weight, there’s just making sure you’re eating your foods and being in control of not overeating too often.

Meal timing also doesn’t have to be this fixed thing.

You could have a different schedule for different days, it’s really just whatever works for you. Don’t worry too much about eating at a certain time, the timing isn’t gonna make or break your diet at all. It’s also totally fine to experiment. Play around with timing to see what you like.

I hope this helps!

Till the next one~

—Po

gain weight after a holiday?

Holidays used to be such a double edged sword for me back in my 123kg days. On one side it was always great to go somewhere and escape from reality for a bit, but on the other side I knew that it always meant seeing the scale go up afterwards which made me anxious all the time and kinda always took away some of the fun of the holiday. It was hard to fully enjoy and have fun cos on the back of my mind I knew I’d have to "deal with it".

There was no free ride.

Over the past few years though since I hit my weight goal and maintained it for a couple of years now, I started to see & really understand how holidays work in terms of weight loss/gain. Here’s the good news:

There’s nothing to be anxious about.

Let’s get one thing straight first. After a holiday you are going to gain weight. It's just facts. How much weight you gain obviously will differ for everyone based on the type or duration of holiday you were on, but I think one thing we gotta accept is in the very short term there’s gonna be some kind of weight gain.

Why?

Well cos you’re on holiday. Meaning you’re likely eating more than usual, eating different foods than usual, drinking more than usual, moving less and relaxing more. Which is pretty much what you’re supposed to do on a holiday or else it wouldn’t be much of a holiday. Now with all that extra food and drinks and less activity, there’s a high chance you’ll see a higher number on the scale when you compare your weight at the beginning of your holiday vs at the end of the holiday.

Super normal. Expected. Nothing to worry about.

What do you do about the holiday weight you gained?

Nothing.

That’s right, that wasn’t a typo. You do nothing. There’s nothing you need to do extra about holiday weight. You don’t have to starve yourself after or go extra hard on the treadmill, all of that is completely unnecessary and only adds more stress and uncertainty in your routine. The only thing you gotta do after a holiday is get back to your regular routine. That’s it. Your regular routine over the next couple of days & weeks will shift your weight back to where you started before the holiday and continue to help you make progress towards your goals.

The thing about holiday weight is that it’s gained by your lifestyle during the holiday. If your holiday lifestyle only occurs during the holiday and stops after the holiday is over, there’s no chance you’ll maintain your holiday weight over time. Your weight’s gonna have to eventually come back down when we’re you’re back in your regular routine.

Of course on the flip side, if you allow your holiday habits and lifestyle bleed into your regular lifestyle after the holidays then yeah, the holiday weight may stay a bit longer or continue to go in the direction you don’t want to.

Please don’t read all this then start thinking you should never take holidays. You should. You shouldn’t ever need to pause your life just to get to your weight goals. Your weight goals is an ongoing goal while life is happening in the background. Go have fun when it’s time to have fun, work hard and stay disciplined when it’s time to do so too. There’s no “end” to the weight loss journey. Even after you hit your weight goals, you still gotta be working hard maintaining those habits and lifestyle that got you there just to maintain the new goal weight for life.

Long story short?

Enjoy your holidays to the fullest during the holidays, get back on track immediately when it’s over.

Gaining holiday weight is super super normal. No need to fight it, enjoy it and move on!

Till the next one, hope you’ve been well~

— Po

how to get more motivation

I think there’s a huge misunderstanding when it comes to motivation for many people (me included). I mean I get it, I used to totally misunderstand how it worked too . I used to always wait on motivation before starting something new, and when I do finally start I’d stop immediately when the motivation goes away. Which meant things I started doesn’t last much more for a couple of days or weeks.

The thing is motivation isn’t a necessity for results.

You could be super super motivated about something but put zero work into it and that would give you zero results. On the flip side you could be super demotivated about something but put in the work anyway and end up with some results.

Motivation is a luxury, not necessity to reach your goals.

You’re not going to enjoy every moment of every living day of your weight loss journey. It’s just not going to happen. It’s a complete misconception that you can only work on your weight when you’re motivated, and that you have to stop when you’re not. I think it’s the other way around.

First of course you gotta think real hard about your goals and what kind of actions it’s gonna take from you to get there. From that point onward it’s just moving forward regardless of your motivation levels. Sure when you’re motivated give it your 100% everyday maybe even more, go that extra mile. When you’re not motivated, it’s totally fine to go at 50-60% speed instead, or take a mini break if you really need it but don’t forget to get back on track.

You don’t break up at your first argument in a relationship. You don’t drop out of school after one bad day. You don’t quit your job after low day either. So stop quitting your weight loss journey when there’s a bad day or when motivation’s not there.

Motivation’s gonna come and go in waves. When it’s here, enjoy it. When it’s not, keep going anyway.

Action is what’s needed to produce results. Results then have potential to create motivation. Then that motivation could inspire more action, and the cycle keeps looping from there. A lot of us (me included) tend to put motivation as the first part of the cycle, but that’s the one part that’s not in our control.

We have zero control over our motivation levels. We have 100% control over our day to day actions.

Whoever told you this journey is easy-peasy stop listening to them. Even with motivation this journey isn’t easy at all. It’s a long journey that has a lot of ups and downs. When you recognize that you’ll see that there’s plenty of chances for motivation to come and go. That’s what’s supposed to happen, it’s normal.

What matters is that you keep going, keep putting in the hard work anyway.

It’s a long marathon.

When you’re tired, walk and slowly move forward. When you’re hyped and motivated, pick it up to a faster jogging pace. When you’re really just out of battery, take a seat at the side and catch your breath. Just remember to get up and keep moving forward again.

Keep it up!

You can't fail if you don’t give up~

—Po