Reminder: all diets work

Hope your new year has been off to a good start! Just wanna check in and remind you that all diets work.

Every diet out there can help you lose weight if you’re in a consistent calorie deficit. There’s no one universal best way for everyone, but there will be one or a few that you may find most comfort with, so stick to that if you’ve found it.

If you haven’t found it, no worries. Keep trying. Remember a diet is really a template for you to follow. It’s ok to make minor adjustments within them. It’s the total amount of calories you end up eating regularly that matters, not the exact rules of the diet.

For example, with intermittent fasting the most common time to follow is 16/8. 16hr fast, 8hr eating window. If you feel more comfy doing a 15/9 or a 14/10, that’s totally fine too. It’s not the amount of hours you fast that helps you lose weight. It’s how much you’re eating (total calories) at the end of the day on a regular basis that matters. If 14/10 or 15/9 helps you stick to your calorie goals a lot better, no need to aim for 16/8 or 18/6.

Or keto for example. Keto basically recommends 50g or less carbs per day (which is why for most people it’s unrealistic). But say you enjoy keto, but 50g is just too little carbs for you to be sustainable, and 80g you feel a lot more comfy and realistic to stick with. Well go for 80g then. Sure perhaps on paper you’re not doing strict keto, but if that’s what helps you be in control with the amount of food you eat, go for it.

There’s no bonus sticking to the rules, the rules you want to stick to is being in a consistent calorie deficit. Everything else is flexible when it comes to weight loss.

Paleo for example, which emphasizes on eating unprocessed whole foods and encourages you to avoid all processed foods. Basically another way of saying eating 100% “clean”. 100% clean is quite tough to stick to, but what about 80% clean? If 80% clean helps you keep your cravings in control and stick to your calories, why not? Why insist on 100%? There’s no bonus hitting 100% clean when on paleo.

I hope these examples help you be flexible and open to making changes in your diet. If something is obviously not working in your diet there’s no need to quit, just make some adjustments so it does works better. The only key you gotta worry about is making sure you’re in a consistent calorie deficit. Everything else is adjustable.

A sustainable diet is one that’s constantly going through adjustments. Adjustments that align with your lifestyle. As your lifestyle changes, certain parts of your diet will change too. Be open to that. Be open to make the adjustments knowing you can still keep making the same results.

If you’re working a 9 to 5, but was switched to a graveyard shift, you better believe your 9 to 5 diet probably won’t be optimal for a graveyard shift. Yet if during the 9 to 5 your diet was eating 1500kcal, you can absolutely also stick to 1500kcal during a graveyard shift except some adjustments need to be made to your diet whether that’s meal timing, or amount of food you’re eating in each meal, or types of food, whatever it is. Make sure to make the changes necessary.

The year’s just started, if there’s been some bumps on the road no worries. It’s normal. Keep going. Struggles isn’t failure. Struggles is part of the path towards your goals. Don’t give up!

Oh! I got exciting news to share!

The podcast is officially back! Episode 1 just released last night, and in it I go through in detail what I’ve been going through the past year during the break I took (I took a break from making videos, podcasts, and even workouts at one point). The full explanation! I also go through the Liver King drama that happened a month or so earlier.

One of my goals for 2023 is to get the podcast back up and running like these weekly letters I’ve been sending you. I aim for 1 podcast episode per week, forever. Just like these letters.

It would mean a lot to me if you checked it out, and any topics you’d like me to go through feel free to reply to this letter and let me know! It might just be the next topic I deep dive into. 

You can find the podcast here on youtube,

or here on Spotify.

Or just search “The Pohhu Experience” on any podcast platform. 

Hope you’ve been well!

—Po

8 tips to start the new year

Happy New Year! Wishing you and all your loved ones all the happiness and health in the world!

To start the year off I thought I’d share a couple of tips to help make your life easier as we roll deeper into the year. Alright here we go:

1) When it comes to losing weight, diet is key. If you’re putting way too much effort into workouts and not really taking care of your diet while your main goal is to lose weight, you’re gonna be in for some deep disappointment as time passes. Workout is hard work and great for health, but it’s not the key thing that helps you lose weight. You could work out 7 days a week for an hour each day and still gain weight if your diet isn’t on point. 

Consistently eating less than your body expends is what helps you lose weight sustainably. Being in a consistent calorie deficit.

2) Don’t aim for fast results. Take a long term approach. Aim to change habits rather than aiming for the number on the scale go down asap. If you’re using your weight to track your progress, remember to use your weekly average as a representation of your progress and not your daily weight. Daily weight fluctuates all the time even if you’re doing everything perfectly, it’s normal and not within your control. Weekly averages is a way more realistic way to track your progress.

3) Don’t waste your time & money with detoxes and cleanses.

4) Don’t go too hard. Don’t push yourself for 6-7 days at the gym a week plus hitting a quota of kilometers for your runs. All you’re doing when you go super hard is quickening the time you’ll end up giving up. It can be tempting to go as hard as possible on the first week of a new year, but all that’s doing is making you burn out even quicker. Focus on doing things you can see yourself still doing at the end of 2023. Only go harder when it starts to feel easy. Slow and steady wins the race. The goal is to lose weight and keep it off. Not lose a lot then gain it all back. Losing 6kg and keeping it off at the end of the year is way way better than losing 20kg in 3 months but gaining it all back where at the end of the year you’re the same weight as you were in the beginning of the year.

5) Don’t give yourself a time limit. Whether a weight goal, health goal, muscle goal, just chase it giving yourself all the time you need. A time limit is often what makes people quit, cos when the time limit hits and you’re nowhere close to where you want to be there’s a high chance you just give up altogether whereas without a time limit you could have ended up reaching that goal eventually even if it took super long.

6) Stop labeling foods as “good” or “bad”. Food is food. There are foods that are high in nutrients, there are foods that are low in nutrients. High doesn’t mean good, low doesn’t mean bad. Weight loss can be achieved regardless of you eating “good” or “bad” foods. Even for health, “bad” foods are totally fine in moderation to still have amazing health.

7) Hungry does not mean fat loss, full does not mean fat gain. Hungry or full is just a feeling and does not represent your progress. In a fat loss journey there will be the feeling of hunger, it’s normal. Starving all the time though is a red flag. It’s totally fine full and satisfied regularly in your meals. Play with the types of food you eat regularly to deal with hunger, along with making sure you’re getting enough sleep.

8) Don’t believe everything you see on the internet or social media. Look into the source of the information before you believe in it, or at least choose specific people to listen to after having looked into their background. There’s a lot of misinformation out there. Don’t get caught. Choose carefully who you believe in. 

With that said, I wish you all the best kicking off this year! Remember the key to this journey is to not give up. It’s not about perfection. Mess up as many times as you want/need, but DO NOT give up!

Happy new year, let’s go! You got this. 

—Po

the last email for the year

This is it.

This time it finally feels a little bit like 2020 is over.

2 more days till 2023 so this will be the last email from me this year.

As we reset into the new calendar year I hope you take this chance to reflect on your 2022 as a whole. Take some time to think about what worked, what didn’t, what was kinda working but could be improved upon. Take those thoughts and apply them to 2023. 2023 ain’t gonna be a perfect year either, but it can definitely be a year where you grow beyond all you’ve done in 2022.

Losing weight is a journey of constant adjustments. It’s really a lot of trail and error. It’s learning the fundamentals, picking a place to start, trying it out and making adjustments as you move on. There will never be a perfect diet. A what seemingly is a perfect diet now, in 3 months time could be an absolute chore to keep up with. Diets need to change as our lifestyle and preferences change.

As humans it’s just rare to stick to one thing forever. Change is inevitable. Change is really the only constant in life. When you’re able to accept that, you’ll be more ok with accepting that what worked before may not work now, and that’s ok. That’s normal. If it worked before and doesn’t work now, just adjust so it works with your current goals and lifestyle.

Expecting yourself to follow your habits when you were in your teens cos that’s when you were at your smallest size is the quickest path to failure. Your habits and lifestyle back then was shaped by your circumstances. You definitely are living in a very different now compared to before.

Be open to change.

There is no “one path” to losing weight.

Every single diet works if you’re in a consistent calorie deficit. That’s not the argument or concern. The concern is will the diet work for you? What works for someone else doesn’t mean it’ll work for you.

So how do you know if it’ll work for you or not?

You gotta try it.

Try it consistently for a considerable amount of time. After you try it, give it an honest assessment.

Can you see yourself stick to that diet for 6 months? 1 year?

No? Then try another diet. This one likely doesn’t suit you. Yes? Keep going.

Maybe? What’s making you uncertain? Will making some adjustments turn that maybe into a yes? If so, make those adjustments and try again.

I’ve sent you over 50 letters this year, each going into great detail about a particular part of the weight loss journey. Look through them again whenever you feel the need.

Wishing you an early Happiest New year.

Thank you for taking the time and reading all my letters this year, it truly means a lot. I’m really grateful. I’m gonna be leveling up and making adjustments too going into 2023. You’re not alone. We’re all in this together.

Let’s keep getting better together!

See you next year!

— Po

how to enjoy holidays while on a diet

Holidays are coming up, and I know this could be a stressful time when you’re trying to lose weight so today, let’s talk about it.

A couple of things to acknowledge first.

In the very short term (next couple of days or week) after a holiday, the number on the scale is gonna be slightly higher than usual. It’s not pure fat gain, some might be. Most of it is actually water weight cos the foods you’d be eating on holiday would be very different than your everyday foods and likely holds more water than usual (more salty, more carbs etc.)

It’s not something to worry about, it’s not something you have to deal with. You just gotta acknowledge that it’s what’s going to happen and not panic.

It’s normal.

It’s like your finances after a holiday. You’re gonna expect your wallet to be slightly thinner than usual, and that’s super normal. Doesn’t mean you’re broke or messed something up, it’s what’s a holiday naturally does.

So what do you do about that temporary weight gain after a holiday? 

Nothing. 

There’s nothing to do about it except get back on track to your regular routine. Being back on your regular routine consistently over the next couple of days/weeks will naturally bring your weight back down to where it was before the holidays and continue your journey of inching towards your weight goals.

What makes you gain weight after a holiday is when you carry your holiday habits back into your regular life and keep that up consistently. Play hard, work hard. That’s what gets you to your goals. If you play hard, but work not so hard then that’s kinda where progress will stall.

Let’s flip the scenario around.

Let’s say you’re not on a diet. Whole year you’re just living your life eating whatever you want regularly. For whatever reason you decide the next 2 weeks you’re gonna go on all ‘clean’ diet and halving all your portions. You do it for 2 weeks then stop and go back to your regular routine. Will you have lost some weight immediately after the 2 weeks?

Yeah, quite likely.

Will you maintain that lost weight now that you’re back to regular routine? Likely not.

Everything you lost in those 2 weeks will disappear after you’re back on regular life.

Exactly the same goes for a holiday. Whatever weight you gained in the days or weeks of holiday will disappear after you get back to your regular diet.

When it’s the holidays, it’s really not the time to think about diet. Celebrate when it’s time to celebrate. Losing weight isn’t about imprisoning yourself until the scale shows a certain number. Losing weight is a lifestyle change, and you can definitely enjoy life with whatever kind of lifestyle you’re living.

It is impossible to lose your progress if you eventually get back on track.

I really hope to remind you of that, cos a huge part of losing weight is in your mindset. You have a much greater chance to succeed when there’s less stress and anxiety. And the way to lessen stress and anxiety is to know what to expect, and how to deal with it.

It’s easy to mess up and little and feel sorry for yourself and say “who cares, what’s the point” and give up completely.

It’s hard to mess up and say, “y’know what? I totally messed that up. My bad, I’m not gonna make that same mistake twice, let’s try again.”

That’s what gets you to your goals. The not giving up. The trying again.

If you really wanted to have some kind of rules to go by during the holiday as a safety net, then I’d say go with this one rule:

Stop when you’re full.

When you genuinely feel full, stop eating. A lot of times you get into trouble is cos you’re already full but still decide to take another bite, have another dessert, or continue towards another meal when you just finished your last meal 2hrs ago.

There’s no need to limit the kinds of foods you’re eating during the holidays. I mean it’s likely a time when food is abundant, especially foods you don’t eat on an everyday basis, so definitely go ahead and enjoy them. Just don’t over-stuff yourself constantly.

That’s really it.

There’s no special secret to dealing with holidays and celebrations. Holidays and celebrations is the time to take a break, enjoy times with your loved ones. Worry about getting back on track when the holidays are over. Holidays aren’t forever. Seeing loved ones isn’t an everyday thing. Don’t miss life experiences for a mere number on the scale.

By the time I write to you next it’ll be after Xmas, so if you celebrate it I wanna wish you an early very very happy Xmas to you and your loved ones. If you don’t celebrate I still wish you have the best days ever! 

Learn to celebrate!

When you unlock that, it’ll feel like a cheat code. The weight loss journey gets a whole lot easier.

—Po

making a new year resolution?

This time of the year is always nostalgic for me.

Pre-2015, this time of the year is when my motivation would be at its highest to tackle a fresh round of losing weight. For whatever reason I always thought a new year would be some kind of magical fresh start. But the truth was that I was living through SSDY (same sh-t different year) year after year.

Mid December is always the time when I’d start the planning phase. Getting more and more excited everyday that goes by cos for whatever reason I’d think that this year would be “the year”. I’d plan out all the details, research and prepare harder than the efforts I’d eventually put in the diet itself.

New years would come, and I’d start my new diet.

First week would usually be somewhat smooth. There would be some kind of progress so it would keep me inspired going onto the second week. Week 2 would be a little tougher, but not impossible yet. Week 3 is usually the make or break point for me.

Week 3 would be the point where I start giving in to my urges. Where I start to tell myself “oh it’s ok to have that extra snack since I was good all past 2 weeks” and that would be the start of a small snowball and roll into “ah I messed up today I’ll just eat whatever I want, start again tomorrow.”

Some of the years back then by week 3 I already quit. The years I held on past week 3 didn’t go much further either. The battle of guilt, messing up, imperfection, would all hit me at once like a truck and as time went on I’d just eventually say “I give up” then lick my wounds and look forward to try again with another method the next year.

2015 was the year I made a new year resolution and stuck to it.

My resolution for 2015 was very different from all the previous years cos well, to be honest I was mad. Super mad, angry, disappointed, disgusted with myself.

Why?

Cos mid-December 2014, I found two post-it notes deep within my drawer. One was my 2014 resolution, one was my 2013 resolution. Both had the exact same thing written on it:

“Lose weight to 85kg”

Same shi-t, different year.

It made me mad cos then I thought back to all the previous years before that, and memory tells me I’ve going in circles for at least 5 years and making zero progress for it. In fact, every year I was actually gaining weight.

How do I know? Not cos I weighed myself back then, oh no no, I was too much in denial for that. I knew I was gaining weight cos every year I’d have to get new cloths and they kept getting too tight.

So my resolution for 2015 spawned from anger and disappointment. I gave myself the same goal of “lose weight to 85kg” except this time I added on “no matter how long it takes.”

(I changed my weight goal midway through my journey as I learned more about BMI and nutrition for those wondering where the 85kg number came from. That was the random number I chose cos well, I was 123kg)

You’re familiar with what happened after that, so I won’t bore you with the same details again. Long story short from 2015 Jan 1st to 2016 Oct, I went from 123.3kg to 72.2kg.

Should you make a new year resolution this year?

My usual answer would be no.

I mean if you really have a goal you want to chase, why wait till Jan 1st? There’s still a good 18 days (from day of writing this) from now till then. Do what you gotta do to prepare, but you don’t have to wait 18 days, you could start earlier and start closing that gap between you and your goals.

There was a time I thought it was super silly to make new year resolutions cos it felt like the worst excuse to do something later rather than now.

A masterful procrastination method. 

Yes, I even felt I was silly for waiting to making resolutions again and again even though new years 2015 I completed it successfully. I kept telling myself I could have picked any day earlier and still likely get to where I am now. 

That’s before though, I don’t think that way now.

I think if you truly want to make a new year resolution, you should do it. It’s not silly. The extra motivation and omph from it may just be what you need to kick start your new year and help you stay consistent towards your goals. If you’re impatient and can’t wait till Jan 1st and want to start your journey immediately, that’s totally fine too. There’s no right or wrong answer. As cliche as it sounds, you gotta listen to your heart.

What I would highly recommend though, is that you really think and plan the process out. Remember that losing weight is a journey of years. It’s a commitment, a never ending quest to take food more seriously on a day to day basis. Doesn’t mean you can’t have fun, doesn’t mean it’ll always be hard, the more you do it the easier it gets over time. The more you stay consistent with your journey the more ways you’ll find to have fun without going completely off track.

Stop it with the extreme diets.

Stop it with the quick results.

Be in it for the long term.

Realize that losing 1kg a month is tremendous progress cos it would mean this same time in December 2023, you would be 12kg lighter with little to no risk of regaining it back cos you took it slow and steady. 1kg a month isn’t slow at all. Stop trying to beat the clock, there’s no clock to beat. The only thing to beat is the impatience inside you.

It’s gonna be a journey of ups and downs. It’s not gonna be perfect, but if you don’t give up there will be results. There’s no failure if you don’t give up, failure is when you stop trying.

So don’t.

Don’t stop trying.

If you’re gonna make a new year resolution this year, promise yourself you won’t stop trying. You can take breaks, you can take vacations, you can have fun, but you gotta promise yourself you’ll get back on track. You gotta promise yourself you’re doing this for you and no one else, and that you’re never gonna give up.

Cos here’s the little secret….

… you can’t mess this up.

If you don’t give up, you can’t mess up.

Had an off day? Who cares, get back on track the next day. Had some personal stuff to deal with and took a week off? No big deal, get back on track when you’re ready.

You can’t lose if you don’t give up.

If you don’t give up, you’re making improvements over time whether you see them or not both mentally and physically. Doesn’t matter how big or small the improvements are, improvements are improvements. Improvements mean the gap between you and your goals are getting smaller and smaller. Which means you’re on the right track, which means you haven’t messed up one bit.

So…

… are you gonna make a new year resolution this year?

—Po

do you need a personal trainer?

The first time I ever joined a commercial gym was when I was around 18yrs old. I can’t remember exactly how much I weighed but I was definitely overweight. I think I was already triple digits in terms of kilograms. 

One memory that sticks out distinctively back then was during the tour of the gym the person showing me around made me stand on a treadmill and grab the handles to measure my heart rate. It was around 80 or so and he said,

“See, this is why you need to workout regularly.”

I had no idea what he meant back then.

Nor do I have any idea why I remember that memory so clearly.

After the tour of the gym they brought me back to the registration area to work their magic with me hoping I’d sign the contract. I remember when I first heard the monthly fee I told them that’s too much, I was still just a student back then. The guy told me to wait, made some calls, looked busy then came back to me with a deal. I don’t remember the specifics, but somehow it was 30% cheaper if I paid 6 months in advance which would also include 12 sessions with a personal trainer (PT).

They got me.

That’s also the first time I ever worked with a PT.

My PT’s name was Derek. Nice guy, former bodybuilder as he showed me pics of his stage days. He recommended me to eat more chicken, veggies and less rice.

That’s it in terms of diet advice. 

In terms of training he built my program and walked me through it each session. I didn’t have to do anything but show up. We did 1x a week sessions, but I still went to the gym 3x a week. So 2x a week I was working out solo or mostly just doing cardio.

12 weeks went by, I stayed disciplined the whole time.

The results?

Pretty good (seemingly).

I ate chicken and veggies with half rice for lunch dinner everyday while breakfast would usually just be some form of savory bread (like tuna bread, or some kind of mushroom pastry). Black coffee or plain tea was the beverage of choice. Showed up to the gym 3x a week every week for those 12 weeks. 

I don’t remember how much I weighed, but I changed my profile pic on Friendster (I swear I’m not that ancient) and got a lot of comments on what a big change I’ve made.

It felt good. It felt like I accomplished something great and was in control.

Except…

… I wasn’t.

I wasn’t in control at all.

After the 12 weeks my sessions with Derek finished. He suggested I buy more sessions, but I just said I’d think about it (which meant no). Thing was buying more sessions meant paying full price instead of the package deal I got when I initially joined. I thought after 12 weeks all I had to do was to continuing doing the things we were doing and it would just be easy progress from there.

I thought wrong.

Without Derek I found myself showing up at the gym less and less over time since I had no commitment to anyone. Every time I did go to the gym it felt like I was just going through the motions and did it for the sake of doing it. Diet wise I also became more and more “relaxed” I was totally sick of chicken and veggies and starting venturing out to different foods which very quickly just ended up being on a “eat whatever I want” diet.

The progress I made in those 12 weeks all went away within the next 3 months.

Being obese all my life my thought process was just, “ah as usual. Doesn’t work for me.”

Looking back now I can kinda pinpoint what went wrong, and it’s mainly my fault. I wasn’t willing to learn. I got a PT, and expected for him to do all the work for me so I just followed blindly. It worked when I was committed and disciplined, but the moment our 12 sessions ended I became a lot less committed and disciplined.

Without the commitment and consistency, results always end up temporary.

If there’s one thing I’d throw shade at Derek for is the diet he assigned me. He basically gave me no choice but to eat chicken and veggies and to cut my rice portions. At that time I was committed to whatever he said so I just followed, but the moment our sessions were done I stopped. Why? Cos it’s an impossible diet to keep up forever. It’s way way way way too restrictive.

That was my first experience with a PT.

So do you need a PT? (full disclosure, I’m currently a licensed PT)

It depends.

If you want to learn how to do workouts correctly, and have someone create a workout program specifically for your goals, sure! Hiring a PT would be definitely be helpful.

If you want to learn more about how to eat for your goals and have someone look into your diet and lifestyle specifically to help, sure! A PT can help with that too.

But here’s the thing, are you willing to commit to the PT’s program? Cos although someone can design a workout and diet for you, they can’t do the workout or eat for you. You still have to put in all that hard work yourself.

The journey is still hard. All the fundamentals to weight loss and muscle gains stay true. The difference with a PT is that you have someone to turn to whenever you run into issues for clarification.

That’s really it.

A PT is not a fast track to progress.

A PT is also not a motivation tool.

All the information you ever need to get you to your goals is out there, for free. You can absolutely reach your goals without a PT too. It's not a necessity, it's a preference, a choice.

My recommendation?

If you’re thinking about getting a PT, try committing to a workout program and diet (of your choosing) for 3-4 weeks first. Use all the tools and information available here on my channel for free to get you started. If you’re able to commit, and want to seek deeper help, then yeah, a PT may be a good idea.

But if you’re unable to stick to a 3-4 week program yourself, you might want to rethink your motivation and goals first before thinking about hiring a PT. If you can’t commit to your own program of choosing, there’s a high chance you won’t be able to commit to a PT’s program, and that just ends up wasting both party’s time and your money. 

A final note:

As there are good doctors and bad doctors, there’s good PTs and bad PTs. Do get to know your potential PT a little first before hiring them. Any PTs that are giving you super restrictive orders like avoid carbs and rice to lose weight, or encourage you to buy their product for better progress, run away. 

Get another PT immediately.

—Po

how to choose your workout

Today’s gonna be a little bit of story time, so if it gets long please hang in there I promise there’s a point to the wall of text I’m about to share.

I think when it comes to fat loss and working out there’s a lot of things lost in translation. I mean hell, I was there too. I’ve been to the doctor checkups where they told me I was overweight and their solution was for me to go “do a sport or something.” I’ve been through all the articles, talk shows, magazines all emphasizing that working out is the key to losing weight, I thought so too for the longest time.

Except it’s incorrect.

Yes working out can help the process of fat loss, but isn’t the main cause for it.

Diet is.

You could workout as often or as hard as you want, but if your diet is rubbish your weight’s gonna be pretty rubbish too. On the flip side if your diet is on point it’s 100% possible to lose weight with zero working out. Not that I advocate it cos obviously a balance of both would be ideal, but nevertheless possible.

I know that for a fact not just cos of the literature, but also cos I did it.

I lost over 50kg with zero workouts.

I’m pretty sure if you’re reading this letter you’ve familiar with a lot of the fundamentals and concepts I share here about losing weight. I’m sure you’re familiar with me hammering down that diet is key, and exercise is a bonus. Today I wanna dig into that bonus.

Let’s talk about workouts.

Specifically, let’s talk about what kind of workout you should choose to compliment your fat loss journey.

I know it may sound like exercise isn’t important at all, but it still is in the grand scheme of things in terms of health and well being. You can definitely tackle them one at a time like I did (diet first, then add on workout later) or do them together and enjoy the benefits both at the same time. I did it ‘one at a time’ not cos it was some shortcut or anything, I did it cos I had no idea what I was doing back then and what I was doing was working so I was terrified that by adding workouts into my routine I’d mess everything up.

Kinda the “don’t fix what ain’t broke’ thought process.

Back then I told myself “I’ll start working out as soon as I hit my weight goal.”

And I did. The very next day.

Looking back I can understand why I did things the way I did, but if I were to do the journey all over again with everything I know today, I’d definitely include some kind of regular workout in my routine.

The first workout I chose to pursue after hitting my weight goal was bodyweight workouts. My mindset was simple. I knew that whatever I chose had to be something I can be consistent with. Bodyweight workouts needed zero equipment so I’d have zero excuses to not do a quick workout no matter where I was even during travel or vacation.

I started with doing a simple 20-30min routine everyday.

I followed a simple template from startbodyweight dot com where it had of 6-8 exercises and different progressions of them depending on my fitness level. There were squats, pull ups, handstand pushups, leg raises, pushups, dips, horizontal pulls and planks. I followed the template for a couple of months. I forgot if I did it every single day or if I took Sundays off, but I was definitely at it regularly and being consistent with it since it only took 20-30min of my day maximum.

After a few months I started to hit a stuck point.

I was starting to get into advance versions of all those exercises and I felt that my technique was holding me back. Making bodyweight workouts harder wasn’t as simple as adding weight to a bar, it usually required a whole new version of the exercise. Thing is working on technique could take weeks & months of hours of dedication which honestly I just wasn’t willing to commit. I didn’t want to be some gymnastics bro, I just wanted to do some form of resistance training where I can easily increase the resistance week after week, month after month.

So then I turned to google.

I was on a quest to find the easiest exercises that I could perform at home that would hit most or all muscle groups. I’ll openly admit it here, I was never a workout fanatic. I mean you give me a choice of netflix & chill versus hit the gym with zero health consequences, I’ll chill all day!

I looked into everything I could do at home from yoga, to pilates, to TRX etc, I was willing to to purchase simple equipment for home cos I knew being able to do the workout at home would be my key to consistency. I’ve been through the whole gym thing back in the day when I was 123kg. I remember having a mental fight with myself each time I was packing my gym bag on whether to skip the day or not. I’d look up at the sky hoping it looked darker than expected, looked at my calendar trying to find things I have to do so didn’t have to go to the gym.

I’ve been there. It was a constant struggle.

So this time around when figuring out what workouts to do, for me I knew I had to be doing it at home if I wanted to cut all my bullshit and have a chance at consistency.

That’s when I came across powerlifting.

Back then I had no idea what powerlifting was, I mean I’ve heard of the term, wasn’t sure what it was all about. The deeper I looked into it, the more I loved what I was seeing. Powerlifting is a competitive sport based on 3 lifts: Squat, bench press, deadlift. That’s it, 3 exercises. Best news was these 3 exercises basically hit all muscles.

My personal goal for workouts back then wasn’t to become big or strong or anything, I just wanted the most bang for my buck exercise-wise to stay healthy. I know writing this now that you need to add extra exercises to supplement those 3 big lifts if muscle or strength is the goal, but back then it wasn’t something I cared about.

The great thing for me about powerlifting was that all I had to focus on was mastering the technique of 3 exercises, and from there making the lift more difficult is merely adding on weight unlike bodyweight workouts where the advanced exercises relied a lot on other skills like balance and core strength and there wasn’t a reliable way to merely “add weights”.

A friend back then was competing in powerlifting competitions so I was lucky to be able to pick his brain on how to start my new workout journey. Back then I was skin & bones. Hit my weight goal, had visible abs, but looked more skeleton rather than anything like Men’s Health covers. My friend told me to start with dumbbells. Just buy adjustable dumbbells from home and work on squat, bench and deadlifts from there.

From there (2017) my lifting journey started. From 2 adjustable dumbbells to a squat rack with barbells today.

I don’t think I’ve ever shared how I started my workout journey in such detail, but I hope it helps you figure out what kind of workout you want to pursue during your weight loss journey. Everyone has different goals, everyone has different preferences. It’s impossible for me to recommend a workout to you without knowing details to your lifestyle so that’s something you have to slowly think about yourself.

There is no universal right or wrong exercise. It’s just got to be right for you personally.

What led me to lifting weights was my pursuit of looking for the “easiest” workouts for health (also cos I got stuck with bodyweight workouts), I didn’t choose this cos it’s superior in any shape or form. I chose it cos it fit my lifestyle and goals. More importantly, I kinda do enjoy it. There’s a zen to being alone with iron for a couple of hours a week. Put the headphones on, zone out the world, just me and the iron.

Kinda fulfilling.

There is no “best workout”. Stop looking for it.

“Best” is whatever you enjoy and can still see yourself doing 5 years from now. “Best” is based on your goals. Not everyone wants to be a bodybuilder on stage, not everyone wants to lift 300kg off the ground. Not everyone wants to do flips and the splits.

Everyone’s different.

Workout based on your true goals and desires.

Don’t worry if you choose an exercise and only a few months later realize you don’t like it or can’t continue for whatever reasons (like me with bodyweight workouts). It’s no big deal, you tried and it didn’t work out and now you know. 

Move on and try something new.

The goal of picking the right workout for you is to find something that you can stick to. Basketball, badminton, football, dance, skating, swimming, running, climbing, hiking, ping pong, yoga, pilates, weight lifting, wrestling, bjj, MMA etc. all are great choices.

There is no wrong answer.

Hope this helps!

Any questions you have feel free to ask! Would be more than happy to help!

—Po

the secret tool: food log

Today’s gonna be a mini challenge for you.

I want you to write down everything you eat or drink for the next 30 days.

Every single thing. Every bite, every sip, every lick, every taste. Put something in your mouth you ended up swallowing? Write it down.

Now I don’t mean you have to go old school pen & paper. You can record it on your phone, use a tracking app, or get a notebook, just write everything down.

A lot of the questions I get circle around the notion of “I don’t know what to do.”

“I’ve lost weight but gaining again, what to do?”

“I binged all weekend, what do I do?”

“I overate dinner last night, what should I do?”

“I’m losing weight so slowly, what do?

“I’m stuck after losing 5kg, what do I do?” 

All these questions I’ve answered in some shape or form in my letters or daily Q&As over at IG, but the little secret I want to share with you today is that if you had a good idea of what you’ve been eating on a regular basis, you have a better chance to make an adjustment and fix the issue yourself.

Lost weight but gaining again?

Look at your food log, how does the food you eat 2 weeks during your weight loss period differ from your weight gain period. There’s definitely a difference. Now you have the tools to help you figure out exactly what you’re doing wrong. Did you start including a late night snack when previously never existed? Did your portions get bigger over time? Or perhaps you’ve been eating out way too much than usual? All these can be answered by simply looking and analyzing your food log.

Binged all weekend?

Take a look at the log. Have you been eating way too little over the weekdays so on weekends you can’t control yourself with all the temptations around you? Look over how many days you were able to stay on track before the binges start occurring. You can pinpoint and see patterns of where things start to break apart, and start to make amends & adjustments from there.

Overate for dinner and worried?

Check the food log, just exactly how much did you overeat? Was it just an extra portion of french fries or a whole big mac? If it’s just something small, you have the log to assure you it’s no big deal. If it was something bigger you still have the rest of the week to make adjustments if need be. The food log can not only help you reassure your worries but also help plan future meals.

Stuck after losing a few kg/lbs?

Review the log, has anything changed since you got “stuck”. How long were you stuck? 2-3 days is not stuck. 2-3 weeks and zero progress is stuck. If it’s 2-3 weeks, has your diet been on point during those 2-3 weeks or were there off days? If there were off days, then it’s not stuck. It’s just inconsistent. If there was no off days and you’ve been consistent, and truly zero progress in all realms then perhaps you’re currently eating in maintenance and gotta eat a little less calories. All answers you can figure out from your food log.

A lot of times we don’t know what to do with our diet cos we don’t know exactly what or how much we’re eating. I’ll be honest with you, having tracked my calories every single day for the past 7 years, there are days where I thought I’d just do it by memory and over the next couple of days I'd realize there's a lot of minor details that I completely forgot about. And that would be me trying to recall everything in a day, can you imagine trying to recall everything you ate and drank in the past 7 days?

Near impossible.

I want to introduce you to writing down everything you eat and creating a food log cos I feel the lessons you’ll learn from it is priceless. You absolutely don’t need to do this for the rest of your life. If you decide to that’s fine too, but it’s not a necessity. Trying it out for 30-90 days is plenty for you to get a feel on how to be in control of your diet and see the finer details on where you can make improvements when needed instead of constantly feeling worried and anxious playing a guessing game.

Try it for 30 days. If you manage to complete it, email me telling me your experience and if you've learned anything about yourself and your diet.

Maybe there will be a prize for completion?

— Po

how to not give up

I get a lot of questions in my inbox everyday so I thought I’d answer one of them in full detail for this week’s letter. A lot of times on the daily Q&As in my Insta stories I actually still have a lot to say but there’s just not enough room on one screen and the font size can only go so small. No word limit here, so let’s go~!

Today’s question is:

“How will you overcome it when you feel like giving up? I understand that dieting is hard. Sometimes our body feels tired, or that day we have migraines. Will you rest on that day and continue the next day? or you will just do what had been planned on that day itself?”

Firstly I want to define giving up.

I define give up as when you truly utterly quit. You walk away and never come back again, which is totally different from a break. If you’re working hard on something and life’s just punching you in all kinds of different directions and you need some time off, that’s a break. That’s not giving up. A break is when you say,

“hold up I got other priorities to deal with now, I’ll come back for you later.”

I think a lot of times we’re all just super hard on ourselves and think that everything is ruined and over the moment we aren’t “perfect” to our plans. Losing weight, like life itself, has a lot of ups and downs. There’s gonna be days where following your diet plan feels impossible, and there’s gonna be some days where you felt like you made zero effort and everything went perfectly smooth.

It’s normal, it’s how the journey is supposed to go.

If you’re feeling tired you have all the right to take a break and get back on track the next day. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. 365 days in a week, if you’re consistent for 300 days, and take breaks for 65 days, you’re still gonna be making a net positive progress towards your goals. Don’t be afraid of taking a break. Sometimes you really do need it to re-energize your body and mind. If you feel you need it, take it. No need to for excuses or to look for justification.

You feel you truly need it, then take it.

Of course there’s the other side of the spectrum. It’s easy to fall into the trap of “well everyday feels tiring” and end up taking a never-ending break. Which is I guess fine too, but you gotta be real with yourself. If you’re taking breaks for the smallest hiccups constantly, don’t be expecting any kind of results any time soon. If it really happens way too often then you might wanna rethink your goals or your current diet/workout routine.

Perfect days are rare.

It’s like winning the lottery. Don’t expect it, as it’s also something you can’t control. If you win the lottery yay! By all means celebrate and enjoy it! But on the days you don’t win the lottery, you still gotta put the work in towards your goals. Not everyday is gonna feel good. It’s like work. Waking up and going to work to earn that paycheck at the end of the month isn’t gonna feel good every single day of the week. But we prioritize and make effort for it and keep showing up no matter how life is feeling cos the end goal (paycheck) is important.

I’m gonna be honest, the way I tackle a day I feel like giving up is to force myself to get started even when I’m not feeling up to it. I tell myself “just do 25%, if you still feel tired after 25% then fair game, take a break.” 9 times out of 10 that works for me as once I start it starts to feel good and less dreary. But of course there’s always those few times where I tried 25% and really am just not feeling up for it. On those days I take the break and try again tomorrow.

For the past couple of months one of the daily things I do is walk on the treadmill for 1hr. Slow easy pace just to get my steps in. During that week where my whole family caught the bug, it was hard getting that 1hr in everyday. There were days I just didn’t want to get on the treadmill. Those day I told myself “ok how about 15min”. That usually gets me going and I start to feel “well it’s already 15min, what’s another 15min?” and before I know it I’m cutting closer to that hr and end up finishing it off. But there was a day or two where after the 15min I said “I’m done.” and just took the rest of the day off.

The goal of weight loss, health, muscle gain is a goal of consistency and patience.

It’s a goal that requires discipline more than anything else. You don’t have to love what you’re doing, but you have to do it if you want the end results. And it’s not that you gotta be doing 100% everyday to get to the finish line. Something above zero everyday is more than enough to get you there. Perhaps your goods days hitting 80-100% is easy. On tough days when life’s being hard 40-60% is plenty. On super hard mode nightmare days, 1-10% is a victory.

It’s that little bit every single day and not giving up that gets you there.

Feeling like you want to give up is normal. Doesn’t make you weak.

You can’t control how you feel.

Your actions on the other hand are fully in your control. What you do in those times when you feel like giving up is what matters most. There’s no exact right or wrong way to do it. Taking a break, taking it slower, or just powering through are all choices to consider based on your circumstances.

Or perhaps you do give up.

You give up cos you understand the realities of your goals. Perhaps you were overly ambitious setting your goals. That’s ok too.

Nothing wrong with making super ambitious goals as it’s normal to be greedy on what you want to achieve. It’s just usually at some point reality hits and you realize it’s not quite possible to reach (like trying to lose a crazy amount of weight sustainably in a mere few weeks or months). Which is fine, just change your goals. Change your goals to something more realistic, and go at it again.

Failure isn’t a bad thing.

It’s in failure that we learn the most valuable lessons, and from those lessons it helps us makes changes and adjustments that ultimately brings us closer to our true end goals. Failing vs giving up are two completely separate things. You can fail and give up, or you can fail and keep going.

Failure isn’t the end of the journey. It's room for adjustments.

I hope by sharing this mindset it can help you overcome the urge to give up and help you muster the grit needed to push yourself forward. But also I hope it helps you understand that it's ok to take a break if you need it, and there's no shame or guilt to a break at all.

Also remember you can always hit reply and send me any questions or concerns you have. I’ll always try my best to answer it in some shape or form.

Till the next one, hope you're well! 

—Po

stop looking for easy

Y’know back in my 123kg days I went on and off all kinds of diets cos it always ended up feeling too hard cos at the back of my mind I thought there was some super easy method out there that I just haven’t discovered yet. I thought losing weight was suppose to be effortless, just like how all the advertisements out there say. It’s always:

“Drink this, and eat all you want to lose weight”

“Do this easy thing 10min a day and guarantee abs in 6 weeks.”

I fell for it. Every single time.

I used to think that if my diet was starting to feel hard that it meant it wasn’t working and I was doing something wrong. Whenever it felt hard I’d remember all those articles and ads that promised how easy losing weight is so feeling the suffering felt wrong and so I’d quit and look for a new diet method to hopefully find that “easy thing”.

That was more or less the way all my diets looked before. Now that I’ve actually been through the journey and lost over 50kg, hit my goals, studied more about how losing weight actually works, I’m gonna share the mini secret with you:

There is no easy method.

There is no such thing as an easy diet where from start to finish it’s all fine & dandy, super effortless, just like watching Netflix and eating cookies all day at home. No such thing.

Dieting is hard.

Sure there are methods out there that you might feel more comfortable with than others but the journey itself, it’s hard. There will be some form of suffering. Now I’m not saying that to scare you or anything, but it’s the truth to the journey. Every journey that is meaningful and takes time will include some hardships and sufferings that you will have to work through. It’s true in school, true in relationships, true in careers, true in life, and absolutely true in the whole journey of losing weight.

Stop quitting your diet when it gets hard.

Work through it. Find a way to get past the hump. Stop thinking that there’s an easier path somewhere else that you gotta look for, that path doesn’t exist. When you quit cos the going gets hard, every diet is gonna basically feel the same. It’s always gonna get hard at some point.

Here’s the good news though.

Hard is normal, and hard isn’t impossible. Yes there may be sweat, tears, and frustrations, but that’s all part of it. As long as you don’t quit, it’s not a failure. It’s growth. It’s learning what works for you, what doesn’t, what tweaks you gotta make, it’s also a long journey of learning about your own habits and preferences.

Losing weight isn’t a straight path. There’s all kinds of twist and turns. As long as you’re going in the right general direction, you’ll be making progress over time.

Remember this journey it’s a long long one. Hitting your weight goal isn’t the end of the journey either, that’s just the end of chapter 1. Planning and mindset looks very different when you’re looking at this is a summer ordeal versus a 1-3yr plan.

I hope that by sharing all these nitty gritty details of how the journey actually looks like it helps you build your mindset and expectations on what it’s gonna take to lose weight sustainably. I think over here in these weekly letters I’ll start to go more in-depth about the mindset and mental side of things, since I’ve basically covered all the more fundamental stuff in some shape or form in previous letters, posts, videos and Q&As.

Any particular topics you want me to talk about first, reply and let me know!

— Po

what’s ideal vs what’s practical

You know what’s ideal?

Meal prepping at home every single day for every single meal from scratch measuring every single ingredient making sure you have a good mix of whole foods, lean protein and foods you love for your diet while keeping up to a 3-5 day a week workout schedule, hitting 10,000 steps every single day and sleeping at least 8hrs every night.

Ideal? Sure. Results would be inevitable.

But practical? Not really.

But here’s the great news, you don’t need to hit ideal for results. You don’t need to be perfect every single day for results in any department whether that’s weight loss, health, or muscle gain. 70-80% of ideal on a regular basis is more than enough to get you to your goals.

I think a stuck point a lot of us go through is trying to be perfect with our routine, and when we aren’t perfect we end up feeling super upset thinking we’ve ruined all our progress and that spirals into “well why bother keep trying since I ruined everything already” which then translates to quitting and that’s when results actually do get ruined.

Perfect doesn’t exist.

It’s a fantasy. It’s what we hope for in our heads, but is completely unrealistic in real life. Being consistent and practical is what’s needed to get to the finish line.

Losing weight is about figuring out a plan that is practical for you.

Over here I try to teach you all the fundamentals you need to create your own plan that suits your lifestyle and your goals. There is no magic calorie number that guarantees you to your goals, there is no magic workout routine or schedule that gains you muscle, there is no secret foods where the more you eat the more healthy you get. All those goals come from your habits and lifestyle, which takes time to slowly change.

What works for someone wouldn’t necessary work for you.

What works for you wouldn’t necessary work for your parents or your best friend. The journey of losing weight, being healthy, gaining muscle is very individualized. Sure you could enter a program and see some kind of results. We’ve all been there, but what happens when the program ends and you go back to normal life?

The results start to fade away.

I guess today I just really wanted to remind you to do some critical thinking for yourself, your goals, and your expectations.

There’s all kinds of information out there. Don’t just copy and paste, but think about the root of the information you’re getting and how you can fit a version of that into your lifestyle 

There is no right or wrong way.

Any way that works for you sustainably is the right way.

Remember there’s no magic pill. No matter which way you choose it will all require hard work, patience, and consistency.

Good news is it’s far from impossible. Your goals are very much attainable.

— Po

how to diet during holiday

Dieting on holiday is basically an oxymoron.

A holiday is supposed to be a time where you fully relax and go do the things you wanna do without restriction. Dieting on the other hand is all about controlled restriction.

The answer I usually give when someone asks me how to diet on holiday can be summed up in two words:

You don’t.

Enjoy your holiday to the fullest, and worry about dieting when you come back. A holiday is temporary, it’s not your everyday lifestyle. Doesn’t matter if your holiday is a day, a week, or even a month. Fact is that holiday will end and when it ends and when you come back to your normal daily habits you’ll be back on track towards your diet/weight goals.

Sure of course, during and immediately after the holiday you could gain some weight. Totally normal. But again that weight gain is temporary cos as soon as the holiday ends and you go back to your normal habits, that temporary weight gain will fizzle away cos the habits that caused the weight gain didn’t continue.

Then again, it’s a totally different story if after the holidays you go back to your day to day life but still continue your holiday eating habits. That’s when holiday weight ends up staying for longer than welcomed.

Remember your overall average weight in the long term is a reflection on your eating habits. If you’re in a calorie deficit 80% of the time in the past 3 months, you’ll have definitely lost weight comparing day 1 to day 90. Whatever you do in that 20% doesn’t matter cos 80% heavily outweighs that. A lil holiday, a lil getaway, a birthday party, a wedding, all those things can’t “ruin” your progress if you make sure to get back on track.

I just got back from a 3 day trip since the kiddos had a week off school, you’ve probably seen the pics here and there on my stories. On the trip I  just ate whatever was available and didn’t count calories. I guess I can’t fully say I didn’t count, cos having been on a daily basis for so many years it’s pretty easy for me to make a mental note of how much I’m eating.

The way I ate during the trip was basically priority 1: eat whatever looked good, and priority 2: try to eat more of whatever was available that I needed for my daily diet meaning if there was a meal that veggies was abundant I’d eat more veggies that meal cos it was quite possible the next meal had zero veggies. Same with protein, if one of the meals we were at a place that it was easy to eat more protein I’d do so cos some meals could just be mainly carbs.

It wasn’t like a make or break thing for me trying to eat healthy or hit my proteins during the trip, it was more of “oh if I can make a little effort I will, if not that’s totally fine too since it’s just 3 days”.

Didn’t have any kind of scale with me the whole trip, no food scale no body scale so I had no idea how I was doing weight wise. I expected to gain a lil weight in the 3 days simply cos the food I was eating was a lot more oily & salty compared to my day to day foods. To my surprise, I came back and weighed myself the next morning and I was 0.5kg lighter than the day I left for the trip.

I think reflecting back on this trip, understanding food and goals really makes a huge difference in terms of guilt control. I felt zero guilt this trip with food. I wasn’t necessarily looking forward to eat more as it wasn’t a food trip, yet I also wasn’t too concerned about what or how much I was eating cos I knew all this would only last as long as the trip. Once I’m back to my day to day all the I know all the numbers will fall back into place.

Long story short, when on holiday relax & enjoy, when back from holidays get back to the normal routine asap.

Play hard, work hard.

—Po

eating for health vs eating for fat loss

Firstly I know I know there was no letter last week and I deeply apologize for that. The whole fam caught a bug, while it wasn’t anywhere close to severe I had to be on full on nurse duty just in case it did. Thankfully all is good, everyone’s fully recovered and I have all the time in the world (at least it feels that way) to sit here and write to you!

During the whole of last week I was basically on meal duty for everyone at home, I was in charge of everyone’s meals and snacks as they rested and recovered. I noticed that I didn’t count calories at all for anyone, at least not in detail. The calories I tracked for everyone was mostly just to make sure that they’re eating enough and not severely under-eating since the bug did kill all our appetites 

I was concerned with macros and micros the most as for health having well-balanced meals was much more important than calories consumed. I think we could all agree that during times of recovery gaining or losing weight is really at the bottom of the priority list.

Tracking macros/micros is a lot simpler than calories. It’s really just making sure everyone’s getting some form of veggies/fruits/protein throughout the day instead of just clinging one to one type of comfort food. When it comes to eating for health, eating a wide variety of whole foods and lean protein beats eating one type as you could a wider spread of different types of nutrients.

I think my train of thought whenever eating for recovery is simple: get as much nutrient rich foods into the body as possible so the body has the best fighting chance against the illness.

Mommy’s comfort food on the first couple of days was good ol’ instant noodles (indomie) which was totally fine since that what she could stomach but we did squeeze in 1-2 eggs and veggies to up the macros/micros a bit rather than plain instant noodles which doesn’t have much nutritional value.

I wanted to share a bit of insight into how food goals and diets could changed based on current circumstances. The way to eat for health, weight loss, and muscle gain are very much different from each other even though in most cases we clump them all together as one.

I mean it’s totally fine to be eating a healthy weight loss diet that preserves as much muscle as possible while you lose weight, but that’s a lot of things you gotta track. If you’re overwhelmed, prioritize one goal first before adding on all the other goals together.

Example being say your main goal currently is to lose weight. That means your number one priority is to be eating in a consistent calorie deficit. Doesn’t matter your macros/micro ratios, if you’re in a consistent deficit you’re gonna lose weight. That’s not saying health and muscles aren’t important, they are, but focusing on one thing at a time can skyrocket your chances of success rather than juggling too many balls at once and fumbling all the time.

Once eating in a calorie deficit is easy and something you can keep up with, then start trying to hit your proteins for the day for muscle. Give that some time to get used to, and finally once you’ve gotten used to that too then start adding more whole foods in your diet to boost the nutritional values you’re getting.

Weight loss, health, muscle gaining, workouts, all these things are very different goals that require very different specific actions to achieve them. I believe it’s a huge mistake to lump them into one, as it can become very misleading on figuring out the most efficient path to your goals.

Focus on one at a time and build from there.

Hope you’ve been well & healthy!

—Po

losing weight is all trial and error

Losing weight is a journey of constant adjustments.

It’s a bunch of trial and error.

I think the common mistake most of us make is thinking that we have to stick to the exact rules of a diet from start to finish.

That’s totally not true at all.

To lose weight you gotta be in a consistent calorie deficit, and that merely means you gotta be eating less than your body expends. Diets that have rules with timing or types of food you eat are merely strategies to help you achieve a calorie deficit.

They’re not some commandment that you must uphold for results.

An example would be intermittent fasting (IF). The common IF time most follow is 16/8. Do you have to follow 16/8 to get results? Not at all. You could do 14/10, you could do 18/6 or 20/4. You could do 16/8 on some days and 12/12 on others. There’s no rule that guarantee results. What guarantees results is that no matter what timing you choose you’re aware of the total amount (calories) that you’re consuming on a regular basis (and eating below your TDEE).

Same with say keto. Mainstream keto follows 50g carbs or below rule. You could up that to 100g or 150g if 50g is too hard for you to keep up with consistently. Carbs aren’t what makes you gain weight. It’s the total amount of calories you’re consuming that makes you gain or lose weight, not merely carbs. So if you enjoy keto but just wish you could have a little more carbs to make it easier to maintain, totally make that adjustment and do it. Keto isn’t some magic method that guarentees you lose weight when you eat super low carbs.

You could gain weight on keto too.

All diet methods out there are mere templates.

They are template strategies that you could choose to follow if you want some extra help in getting your journey started. Once you start though, do understand that it’s a journey of constantly making adjustments. If something from the template doesn’t feel good, adjust it. Carbs too low? Eat a bit more carbs and maybe less protein/fats to even it out. Too hungry to fast for 16hrs? Why not try 14-15hrs and see how you feel there. Love vegan but need some eggs and fish? Include eggs and fish, pure vegan isn’t some magic spell for weight loss either.

None of the rules from diets guarantee you weight loss. The only guarantee for weight loss is if you consistently eat less than your body expends, and that’s possible on every diet out there including your normal day to day diet. All it comes down to is portion control.

I wanted to paint this picture for you today to hopefully give you a glimpse on what the journey really looks like, and encourage you to make adjustments instead of giving up all together. It’s totally fine that something isn’t working for you, identify what it is, and make the change and try it out for a couple days/weeks. Keep on going, and keep on tweaking till you find something that you don’t hate and can keep up to consistently.

It doesn’t matter if it’s going slow, it’s suppose to go slow. The slower you go, the more adjustments you’ll make over time, which the more comfortable the journey will be, which you’ll be able to stick to longer, which ultimately leads to more results.

tips to feel full

When you’re on a diet, hunger is inevitable.

Meaning you’re gonna feel hungry here and there and that’s super normal. There’s no need to fight or solve the feeling of hunger whenever it occurs. Of course being hungry all the time isn’t normal and that likely means you’re doing something wrong with your diet and some adjustments need to be made.

With that said, feeling full isn’t a crime.

Feeling full doesn’t mean weight gain. You could be feeling super full regularly and still be losing weight. Full is merely how much volume of food you’ve eaten at one go, it doesn’t determine the progress of your weight at all.

Are there ways to feel fuller during your diet?

Absolutely. Let’s go over a few things that can help.

1) Food choice. Food choice is a pretty big deal in terms of feeling full. Eating a bag of chips or a chocolate bar for 350kcal is gonna feel very different than eating 350kcal worth of fruits, veggies or lean protein. Of course this isn’t saying you should completely avoid chips & chocolate bars and only eat fruits veggies & lean protein, it just means when planning out your meals you want the majority of it to be whole foods and lean protein and a smaller percentage of it to be the “fun foods”.

A latte and cookie is gonna make you feel a lot less full than rice, fish and veggies and are likely similar calories. Eating fruit is gonna make you feel way fuller than drinking juice.

2) Meal timing. Eat at times when you usually feel hungry. You don’t have to follow the traditional breakfast, lunch, dinner. Follow a schedule that suits your preferences and lifestyle. Swapping around your meal timings could help you feel fuller cos you could be eating at times you’re usually hungry.

Having less meals in a day means the meals are larger and can help with feeling and staying full if that’s what you prefer. An example would be, if you had 3 meals a day and was aiming for 1500kcal, your meals would likely be 500kcal each. If you skip one of those meals and have 2 meals a day instead, each one of your meals become larger (750kcal each).

Play with meal timing if you’re struggling with hunger and feeling full. It could just be a couple of little tweaks to help you solve it.

3) Drinking enough water. The recommended amount of water to drink daily is roughly 2-3L spread out throughout the day. Water can’t make you feel full, but can help ease hunger and make it easier to deal with.

4) Sleep. Not sleeping enough (less than 7hrs a day) could be the culprit of uncontrollable hunger and cravings as lack of sleep messes with your hunger hormones. You could be doing everything correctly in your diet but simply be lacking sleep so end up having to struggle a lot with hunger and cravings.

Get these 4 things in check in your day to day life, and you’ll likely see a huge change in hunger management and be able to feel and stay full for longer.

Hope it helps!

—Po

it’s all about portions

At the end of the day losing weight really boils down to portions. It’s so much more about how much you’re eating (calories) than the types of foods you’re eating. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying types of food you’re eating aren’t important, they absolutely are, but they’re important for health not for weight loss.

What matters the most in weight loss is the total calories you’re eating on a regular basis. What matters the most for health is the types of food you’re including in your diet. Two separate goals that are often mixed together and thought of as one.

Just cos you’re on a healthy diet doesn’t automatically mean you’re losing weight, and just cos you’re on a not so healthy diet doesn’t automatically mean you’re gaining weight.

Health and weight are two different conversations.

I hope by being able to differentiate the two you have a much easier time figuring out what to focus on for your goals.

Being on a diet doesn’t mean you gotta follow something like IF, keto, paleo, vegan, etc. You could absolutely be on a weight loss diet with your current normal day to day diet. You don’t need to change a thing except for the portions.

Say you usually have two pieces of toast and coffee for breakfast, cut that down to one piece of toast. Say for lunch you usually have fried noodles and 2 eggs, cut your fried noodles portion by 15-25% and have one egg instead. Say you usually have 2 sugars in your coffee, cut that down to 1 sugar instead. Say you usually have a scoop of ice cream as dessert after dinner, cut that to half a scoop instead.

Portion adjustment alone can put you in a consistent calorie deficit and in the long run help you lose weight. You don’t need some fancy method, you don’t need some exact digit macro ratios, you don’t need to fast, you don’t need to demonize or champion certain foods. Your regular habits can get you to your goals with some simple portion adjustments too.

Losing weight is about the lifestyle change.

It’s changing your habits and being able to maintain them for a very very long time. It’s not some crash course thing where you go quick and hard. Quick & hard produces results sure, but they’re not sustainable results so you’ll often find those results to be fleeting and end up back at square one in a short amount of time.

Losing weight sustainably is all bout slow and steady.

Hope you're doing well in your journey!

— Po

you gotta go slow

If you’re trying to lose weight, you gotta go slow.

I get it.

We’re all impatient, we all want the get to our goals as fast as possible. That’s what we want, but what we want doesn’t necessarily translate into reality. It’s like hoping to pass a 4 year degree in a week. It’s impossible, there’s a process that you gotta follow.

For weight loss that process takes years. No matter how much weight you have to lose the journey is counted in years. You can’t “do more” each day and expect quicker results. I mean technically you can, but when you do that you’re sacrificing sustainability and consistency, which without those two things results are meaningless cos they become temporary.

Trying to rush the weight loss process is like trying to do whatever you can to win the lottery to earn a living. Is it possible to win the lottery? Sure. Chances are pretty low though. You have a much better chance earning a living by getting a stable job that pays consistently over time.

So what does it mean to go slow with your weight loss journey?

It means make small changes little by little over time instead of flipping your life inside out with some new program then struggle to keep up with it after a few weeks and having to start over again. Go slow. This is a journey where literally slow and steady wins the race.

So what does slow look like?

Instead of completely changing the menu for your diet and going on some 3x a week workout program, why not start by changing one meal first for the next 3-4 weeks and only having 1x a week workout session? Say breakfast, try making changes to your breakfast first (rest of the day just eat as you normally do) and if you’re able to keep that up for 3-4 weeks then start adding on and working on lunch. Do that for another 3-4 weeks before you start working on dinner.

Same with workouts, after being able to do 1x a week easily start adding another day after 3-4 weeks and repeat up to 3-4x a week.

But isn't that super slow?

Yeah it is, but slow doesn’t mean there’s no progress. You’re making progress the whole time. It’s also way more sustainable cos you’re making small changes that you get used to over time. By making small changes you get a lot of chances to make adjustments without the stress of completely messing up too.

It’s easy to be consistent when you go slow.

When you go slow over time it becomes super easy. When it becomes super easy, then add on a bit more, bit by bit.

Remember the 0.01kg theory I’ve talked about in the past?

The theory was if you lost 0.01kg every single day, within a year you’d lose 3.65kg.

Is that a lot of progress? Not really, but for the effort of losing 0.01kg everyday consistently that’s huge results for absolute minimal effort.

The secret to weight loss is consistency, not intensity. It’s not about perfection either, there’s no need to be 100%, 80% will very much get you to your goals.

I hope this letter resonates.

It’s normal to mess up, it’s normal to be frustrated. Don’t give up. Take breaks if you need them and get back on track when you’re ready. The longer you keep it up, the more progress you’ll make over time both mentally and physically.

— Po

take a break if you need it

Let’s take a little step back to day from calories, macros, fats, protein and all that jazz and take a look at the weight loss journey as a whole. See if we take a step back, you’ll see that the journey doesn’t really have an end point. You can find the start point somewhere there, but not an end point.

That doesn’t mean you have to be on a weight loss journey forever, it just means that losing weight is just the first chapter of the journey. When you hit your weight goal, you’ll have to start trying to maintain weight and the effort it takes to maintain weight are roughly the same as losing weight.

I used to think once I hit my weight goal I could quit doing everything I was doing and go back to my old habits and ways. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Our old habits and ways are what got us back at our start point in the first place. There is no “go back to old ways”. Losing weight and keeping it off means changing your ways and keep going with the new way.

Losing weight is a lifestyle change.

You gotta change how you approach your day to day life. Yep, that does mean this will basically be an ongoing journey forever. It’s constant effort. Of course it does get easier over time when you start to get a hang of things, but it’s still something you gotta actively take care of.

Which brings me to the topic of taking a break.

Look, if you ever genuinely think you need a break from your diet or workout just take it. The journey is a long long long one. You’re not expected to be on point 100% of the time. You’re allowed to have days off. You don’t need to justify your days off. Take the days off when you really feel you need it. Success in weight loss comes from being consistent 70-80% of the time.

That’s all it takes.

Don’t torture yourself pushing onward on days you’re really just broken mentally or physically. Take a break if you need it, as long as you need, and after that just get back on track and move forward as per usual. 80% of 365 days is 292 days. If you’re on point 292 days of the year, and take 73 days off, you’re doing pretty perfectly.

You don’t need to be doing 365/365.

I think a lot of times we’re our worst enemy. We push ourselves for perfection in fear of losing progress or getting left behind, but what often happens is we end up pushing ourselves over the edge and fall big time. Pushing ourselves a little for discipline is one thing, pushing ourselves till self destruction is another.

Take breaks.

If there’s a birthday party, take a day break. If there’s a family vacation take a week or 2 break. Live life as it’s supposed to be lived and get back on track during the “ordinary” days.

To successfully lose weight you gotta be consistent, and to be consistent the journey needs to be somewhat enjoyable, you need some kind of breathing room.

Be kinder to yourself, catch your breath when you need to, then keep moving forward. It’s a super long journey ahead.

It’s worth it, and it does get easier over time.

— Po

the only way to gain fat...

Today’s letter is inspired by the amount of questions in my inbox that asks “is [this] ok?” where [this] could be anything from eating a certain food, eating at a certain time, doing a certain exercise, or sleeping at a certain time.

So I wanna get one thing straight with you today, and hopefully understanding this will help you clear up a lot of uncertainty and confusion in your weight loss journey.

Here we go.

There is only one way to gain fat, and that is by consistently eating too many calories.

Eating yolks of eggs isn’t gonna make you fat, drinking whole milk instead of low fat milk isn’t gonna make you fat, eating white rice isn’t gonna make you fat, doing less cardio isn’t gonna make you fat, sleeping after you eat isn’t gonna make you fat, including ice cream and cake into your diet isn’t gonna make you fat.

None of those things by themselves is gonna make you gain fat.

Gaining fat is the sum of everything that you’re eating on a regular basis. Not a small specific aspect of it. You can do all the things on the list above and still lose weight if you’re consistently in a calorie deficit.

Eating too much for one day, one week, or one month may gain you some temporary weight in the short term, but the moment you get back onto your regular routine and keep it up consistently for a few weeks that temporary weight gain will go away and you’ll be back on track making progress again.

Stop worrying about the minor details and look at weight loss in a bigger picture. It’s not about what you did once, it’s not about what you did sometimes, it’s what you do most of the time.

You gotta stop fearing all rumors on things that make you gain fat. They’re all false. They’re myths. They’re old wives tales.

Stick to the facts & fundamentals of weight loss and aim for consistency and longevity in your routine so the results that you’re getting from it is permanent. You’re not gonna mess up your journey by sleeping after you eat, or adding some sugar in your coffee, or being not able to work out for a week. You mess up your journey by believing myths and making the journey impossible for you so you give up.

The giving up part is what messes you up

You’ll always be making some sort of progress whether it’s mentally or physically in this journey if you don’t quit. It’s a long journey, treat it like one. It’s one that’s supposed to be equal parts enjoyable and develop you towards your goals.

—Po

carbs don't make you fat

Carbs aren’t special.

They’re not some special food group that magically makes you gain weight. I know a lot of us grew up with the notion that carbs is what causes you to gain weight, but that’s completely false. Carbs don’t make you fat.

Protein doesn’t make you fat. Fats don’t make you fat either.

The only way to gain weight, the only way to gain fat is to consistently eat too many calories.

Eating too much of anything can make you gain weight, not just carbs alone. You can gain weight off protein and fats too if you overeat them consistently.

I think it’s important to stop demonizing carbs cos it’s such a big part of our life. It’s not just merely a type of food, it’s family, friends, celebrations. Much of our everyday connections are somewhat connected to carbs. Go out with friends and can’t enjoy food and booze with them? Go to a wedding or birthday party but can’t enjoy the cake? It’s such an unnecessary sacrifice for fat loss.

You can absolutely enjoy cake on a birthday celebration and still lose weight. You can absolutely have a good night out with your friends and still lose weight. Sure you might wanna control your portions, sure you might wanna plan ahead with your meals, but avoiding carbs all together is not required at all.

Losing weight isn’t about maximizing restrictions and suffering.

It’s about being in control of your diet habits, planning towards a goal, and trying to stick to that plan for as long as possible. There’s no need to quit any particular food. Everything can be included in a fat loss diet and give you results. Gaining or losing weight ultimately comes down to portions.

Hope you’ve been well and keeping up!

— Po