My story (lost 14kg/31lbs while travelling the world)

rociobelfiore

Hi everyone

I'm Rocío, 24, originally from Buenos Aires, Argentina and I've lost about 14kg (31lbs). A few years ago, I started working remotely and I decided to become a digital nomad - travel the world while working on my laptop. This has been my biggest challenge in order to lose weight and eat healthy. I still want to lose 5kg and reduce my body fat, but I'm very happy with my progress so far and wanted to share my story with you

My first logged weight was 91kg / 200lbs (Jan/2018). I used to be a vegetarian, but after a lot of research and the advice of my new nutritionist, I decided to start eating fish and seafood, mainly because being a world-traveller vegetarian and eat healthy can be very hard, trust me

When I started, I was barely able to do a simple knee-pushup or to run more than 300m without getting exhausted. Even thought I considered myself to be more or less healthy (didn't smoke or drink much, cared about food and calories, walked 7km a day on average), I was overweight and my physical condition was bad. It is worth mentioning that when I was a child, I hated any physical activity (sports, gym, PE at school) beause I felt I was unable to do it. Actually, I was about to fail physical education at school many times! Now I noticed this was mainly because of two reasons:

1) Psychology. I was convinced that wasn't for me and too hard to achieve or impossible.
2) My weight. It is unbelievable the huge impact that being overweight had on my physical capacity and I wasn't able to realize it until I reached a healthy weight!

Over the last 10 months, I've tried many different dietary approaches. First, my nutritionist made me an standard low calorie diet with a fixed menu / a few alternative options. This was more or less easy to do the first month because I was at home and I had some kind of routine. However, when I started travelling it became impossible to follow my diet, so I realized that the only way to reach my goal would be to learn a lot and be able to decide what to eat myself, of course with the help of my nutritionist. Honestly, I have to say that I learnt mainly by 1) tracking everything and 2) reading a lot. In the meantime, I tried different low-sugar, wheat-free, low-carb approaches, but my experience with them is another full post itself.

In short, these are the most important things I learnt during this time:

1) It is not impossible to lose weight neither to become fit. Believe me, I was the last person you would find at the gym, I was travelling, and I had dietary restrictions. I was sure it was impossible!

2) Unless you have metabolic problems, losing weight is about calories. Of course there are many long-term issues you will face if you eat more or less carbs, fats, saturated fats, vitamins, at different hours, etc. But no matter what you do, if you eat more calories than you spend, you will never ever lose weight and maintain it.

3) LEARNING is the key. If you follow a fixed diet but you don't understand why, how much of every macronutrient you are eating, how much is 100g, in which foods you will find added sugar or fats, it is not sustainable. Once you are able, only by seeing the dish, to estimate the amount of calories, good and bad fats, protein and carbs, believe me, there is no way back. You won't be able, never again in your life, to ignore what you already know.

4) Again, learning is the key. Eating what most of us believe is "healthy" doesn't mean eating to lose weight or gain muscle or reduce body fat. "Light" doesn't mean what most people think. Diets found on internet shouldn't be a way to go.

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Now, the funny part



Values:
Height - 1.78m / 5'8''

Initial weight - 91kg / 200lbs
Current weight: - 76.2kg / 167lbs

Initial body fat - 38.8%
Current body fat - 33%

Initial waist - 88cm
Current waist - 79.5cm

Initial abd - 99cm
Current abd - 86cm

Initial hips - 113cm
Current hips - 102cm

MsBaz2018

I don't know how you did it. Knowing what foods to eat in New countries to fit your calories goal, knowing where to exercise... Really great job Rocio!

AnneUT

What do you do that allows you to work from your computer? Great job on the weight loss! 👍👍👍

rociobelfiore

MsBaz2018 wrote: »

I don't know how you did it. Knowing what foods to eat in New countries to fit your calories goal, knowing where to exercise... Really great job Rocio!

Hahaha yes, that was hard. I do a lot research before visiting a country and more importantly, my current diet includes 5x100kcal snacks that I make sure to buy the first day of my trip. I also make me breakfast at least 5 times a week. This approach was incredibly helpful:

1) As I snack a lot, I eat every 2 hours so I am never hungry (being hungry is your worst enemy)

2) 100kcal snacks are relatively easy to find anywhere with little creativity. And if you don't find them, you can make them yourself by splitting bigger snacks into ziplocs. Moreover, I technically can eat whatever I want, as long as I adjust the portions to fit 100kcal. Of course it will be a bad idea to eat 100kcal of french fries (I've never done it because I don't like fried food) but it is still possible every other day. It's also very enjoyable to choose 35 different snacks per week in a new country and you get to know a lot about their food

3) My breakfast, lunch and dinner are of 400kcal. I make me breakfast almost everyday making sure I include at least 30-40g of protein and then I eat lunch and dinner out, usually fish and seafood are my preferred choices.

4) In case I order a plate that is bigger than it seemed (I always ask first, and this is a rare problem when you order seafood), I skip the next snack to fit 500kcal or the next 2 snacks to fit 600kcal (I think I only did it 5 times in 10 months).

rociobelfiore

AnneUT wrote: »

What do you do that allows you to work from your computer? Great job on the weight loss! 👍👍👍

I am a Software Developer