Student guy lost 16+ kg and exercising again!

Hujambo

Hi everyone!

I want to share a success story!

I started losing weight around March this year, when after quitting smoking (still quit ) I suddenly gained a lot, which added up to what I already gained through my student years. When I started my studies, I was 76 kg, but I became 106 kg.

So, I went losing. I did some kind of intermediate fasting, which was helpful. I started walking a LOT, I walked 20+ kilometers per week; to university and supermarket, but also a lot of walks in nature. I chose walking, because running was frustrating; I used to be good at running and it was quite hard now that I was so heavy. After a while when I lost 8-10 kg, I started running. First slowly. After running for some weeks, I measured my 2 km time.... I was able to run this distance in 12.5 minutes.

Well, last week I did the same 2 km course again. Now I do it in 8.5 minutes! I weight 89.5 now and I am still losing. It's not much anymore and I do a lot of exercising. This is what I do:

4x running (2 intense runs, 1 moderate run and 1 light run)
1x spinning or mountainbiking (moderate to high intensity)
2x swimming (light)
1x indoor rowing (light)
(don't worry:
- indoor rowing is my way to get myself to the gym. From there I can experiment with strength training and learn to appreciate it, so I can start incorporating it in my schedule.
- I always listen to my body and don't overtrain. I don't have much muscle ache and never any serious pain (in fact, I never had an injury caused by overtraining in my life). I like to do many short trainings of 25-45 minutes instead of few long ones.

There was one muscle problem that I did have; my knee and foot were quite painful because of my weight, causing daily strain (you see now why I did not want to go running). When I lost it, the problems disappeared. I never have pain in my knee or foot, it totally healed!

So, I am quite happy! I hope to go to about 80-83 kg, but it's hard to say. My body shape is changing rapidly, there's more and more areas where muscles are appearing, so I may already be done in 5 kg!

Good luck with your plans! You can do it! Just take your time and make the process as enjoyable as possible!

Cheers,
Jasper

katieme

Great Job Jasper, quitting smoking isn't easy I know!

meeper123

Awesome job

suzyfj8

Congratulations amazing job

Hujambo

Thanks! Indeed, quitting smoking wasn't easy at all but I'm glad that I got over it!

Today I am going to exercise for the 5th (swimming) and 6th time (running), and it's only the 5th day of the week. Don't worry, tomorrow is a light-exercise day (meaning I only do 15-20 of relaxed indoor rowing).

But you see, if you like sports you can do a lot of it after quitting smoking and losing so much weight! Both smoking and extra weight impact you body in a big way, but both can be repaired given time and effort.

Since I invested in my appreciation of exercising (an thus doing it) instead of forcing myself to exercise, I now have a very strong habit. When I see my schedule of today, for example, I am happy that I can go twice!

...that's why I know this time my exercising sustainable. I don't have to do it, I do it because I love exercising so much! And I continually try to make it as fun as possible, one strategy is that I invite friends to exercise once per week with me (so one friend is a mountainbike buddy, one is a running buddy (already for 8 weeks), today I'll run with another friend and next week Monday with yet another).