Two-stage weight loss experience without taboo

Friends who are obese or have diabetes often feel that diet control is not very important. Many diabetics think that it is enough to lower blood sugar by taking medicine and injections anyway, and sweets are not taboo at all. Some overweight friends practice a low-carb (low carb) diet, strictly controlling the intake of carbohydrates. The feeling of satiety depends on increasing the consumption of large fish and meat, without controlling the intake of protein and fat at all. The author himself is also a person who has a hard time avoiding food. He also needs to eat delicious food and control his weight and blood sugar. These are completely two extremes. But relying on regular exercise, I lost 18 kilograms with almost no diet control, my body fat rate dropped from 30% to 15%, my waist circumference shrank from 38 inches to 34 inches, and my H1A It dropped to a normal value close to 6.0 , and the doctor reduced my medication accordingly. I want to use this article to share with you my personal experience on how to reduce weight, body fat, waist circumference and blood sugar levels at the same time.

The first stage: body weight 98→ 88kg, body fat rate 30%→ 23%, waist circumference 38→ 36, glycated hemoglobin 8→ 7

Before I developed the habit of exercising, my blood sugar was not under control, my HbA1c remained above 8 , my weight was maintained at 97-98 kg, and my body fat rate was close to 30% . Although sweets and fruits have been strictly controlled, carbohydrate staple foods made of rice flour are not eaten. Blood sugar and body weight are completely maintained at the status quo. Although I don't continue to gain weight, my body can't lose weight. During routine health checkups, I was diagnosed with diabetic retinopathy in my early 40s when I was highly myopic, and my night vision began to decline. This is the biggest factor that really made me want to seriously control my weight and blood sugar, and finally made me decide to start exercising.

At first, I wanted to say that I am so fat that my running knees must not be able to bear it, so I decided to start exercising by cycling. Set the exercise mode of cycling 3 times a week, each time riding for one hour. Since I was riding on a flat road, the speed was only about 20 kilometers per hour. Although I felt good as if I had exercised, I found that my weight and blood sugar remained unchanged after 3 months. Not reconciled to why exercise seems to be done for nothing, after doing homework on the Internet, I found that riding at a speed of 20 kilometers per hour is too soothing, and the intensity of aerobic exercise is relatively limited. Because I can't spare more time for cycling, and I can't find a suitable place near my home to ride fast or climb hills. In addition, the cheapest and most efficient aerobic exercise recommended overwhelmingly on the Internet is running. I worked hard and decided to lift my 98 kg body and start running.

Although when I was in college, I would run 10 kilometers around the National Taiwan University wall every day after class. The first time I ran after 25 years, I was sweating profusely and panting like a cow after running 300 meters. When I was about to give up, I ran into an acquaintance unfortunately, and ran another 200 meters until the acquaintance couldn't see me, and I almost fell to the ground and collapsed. Going back to the running training methods recommended by everyone on the Internet , it seems that none of them can be used on fat people without too much exercise. Until I googled in English and went to foreign forums to unanimously recommend the C25K (Couch to 5K) training program suitable for fat houses, which can train lazy people who sit on the sofa all day to run 5 kilometers. I got drunk when I saw this training plan: because you want to train lazy people, the training process should not be too tiring, so that lazy people have an excuse to retreat. So I started to follow the table. For details, please refer to my other blog as follows ( C25K ).

After running for half an hour three times a week, after three and a half months, a miracle really happened. I could really run up to 5K without blushing and without panting, and my weight dropped to 95 kg. I continued to follow the 5-10K training plan of the designer of the C25K . In the seventh month after I started running, I was finally able to run 10K without interruption. Maintain running 2-3 times a week with a distance of 8-10K . During this period, I never taboo, and also because of the increase in exercise, I started to eat more carbohydrates and fruits that I didn’t dare to eat before. After half a year, my weight was successful The ground dropped to 88 kg, and the glycated hemoglobin also began to drop to the level of 7 .

The second stage: body weight 88→ 80kg, body fat rate 23%→ 15%, waist circumference 36→ 34, glycated hemoglobin 7→ 6

During the next three years, I maintained the exercise habit of running at least twice a week, at least 8 kilometers each time. In the past three years, the body weight has remained in the range of 86-88 , and the measurement of blood sugar levels has also remained at around 7 . I thought it would be all right, until two shocks made me change my exercise habits. One is that I moved back to Taichung from abroad. It turned out that I mostly used the early morning, evening or noon break time for running. In Taiwan, early morning and evening coincided with commute time, and the traffic was heavy and the streets were full of exhaust gas. The temperature of running at noon often exceeds 33 degrees, which is too hot to run. So I had to run before 6 am or after 9 pm, but it was difficult to get up early in the morning, and it was easy to get excited and unable to fall asleep when running too late. I began to think about going to the gym for aerobic exercise.

The second triggering event was accidentally seeing the ultramarathon player Lin Yijie in Kangxi to accept the interview of Xiao S on YouTube . Little S mischievously lifted Chen Yanbo's clothes and discovered that this ultra-long-distance road runner actually has a belly. I realized that no matter how much aerobic exercise is done, except for the calf muscles, the rest of the body cannot be made more even. Although it will burn fat, when the body adapts to your exercise habits, the metabolism will be balanced. It also caused my weight and blood sugar to stagnate. After years of running habits, my body fat rate is still between 23-25% . After figuring this out, I made up my mind to go to the gym to engage in anaerobic muscle training other than aerobic exercise.

After choosing a gym, I still exercise according to the original frequency of exercising 2-3 times a week. I set the time to spend two hours each time, do an hour of aerobic exercise in the first part, and then do an hour of weight training in the second part. Aerobic exercise starts with the familiar running, but once you get used to running on the road, it's hard to stand running like a white mouse on a treadmill for an hour. Some netizens recommended that the strength of the flywheel is very high. I took a flywheel class half-believingly. As a result, I, a person who ran 10K easily, was almost fucked to death in the first class. The whole flywheel was almost drowned in my sweat.

There is a big difference between riding a flywheel and riding a bicycle. Under the guidance of the teacher, use the adjustment of pedaling resistance to continuously challenge the intensity of aerobic exercise and do muscle endurance training at the same time. In addition, through changes in movement and intensity such as jumping or standing uphill, you can train your core muscles while engaging in aerobic exercise, and the peer pressure from other students in the same classroom forces yourself to challenge the limit. This is usually running alone. Or hard to self-train while riding a bike. Due to the planned intermittent increase in exercise intensity, the flywheel has a very high exercise efficiency, and consumes more calories than running in the same exercise time. This sport has so many advantages, the process of exercising is not boring at all, and it is not affected by weather and environmental factors. It actually made me, a person who has been running for many years, replace my running habit.

Immediately after doing the flywheel, I started weight training. Newcomers to weight training are best to ask a personal trainer to take a few lessons to familiarize themselves with the use of equipment, otherwise they are prone to injury. Beginners' wrists are also prone to injury due to weight distortion. It is also recommended to wear heavy training gloves that can wrap around the fixed wrist. The flywheel has been able to train the core muscles to a certain extent, but the intensity is still limited. I decided to start strengthening the weight training from the core muscles, targeting the chest, back, abdomen and arms. Beginners are better off starting with heavy training equipment in the gym, which is less prone to injury. The muscles trained by the equipment are usually marked in red on the equipment. After selecting the equipment, adjust the weight of the equipment ( not too heavy ) , and perform three rounds of movements according to the instructions of the equipment, with 15 repetitions per round. Remember that the slower the lifting movements, the better the training effect. A common mistake for beginners is to adjust the weight too heavy to bear the weight, so the lifting speed will be done too fast. Rest about 1-2 minutes between each round to allow the muscles to fully rest. I usually train the muscles of each block more than twice with different equipment in the order of chest muscles → back muscles → abdominal muscles → arms. It is best not to train the same block continuously, so as not to reduce the intensity of training due to muscle fatigue .

After half a year of flywheel + retraining 2-3 times a week, my weight dropped to a minimum of 80 kg, and my body fat rate (InBody) was measured at 15% . Most importantly, without special diet control, my glycosylated hemoglobin returned to the normal level of 6.0 for the first time. After three months of this reading, my physician started lowering my diabetes prescription. As for the body weight, since the weight of muscle is 3 times that of fat, the weight will increase after retraining to a certain extent. However, once the body fat rate drops, the appearance of the body has improved significantly, and the level of weight is not very important at this time.

Writing this article is to share my weight loss journey with you, and I hope it will be of reference value to you. I used to only do aerobic exercise mainly running, and the weight loss and blood sugar lowering reached the bottleneck to a certain extent. Later, after adding heavy training, the body's metabolism was restarted, allowing me to successfully achieve the goals of weight loss and blood sugar. From my own experience, only aerobic and anaerobic dual training can effectively reduce body fat rate, make weight loss more efficient, and also restore the body of my middle-aged uncle to a youthful level. Shrunk to a record low of 34 inches in this lifetime.

Finally, I would like to share my eating habits. Because I have type 2 diabetes, I usually limit my total carbohydrate intake. Carbohydrates are also the enemy of fat loss, because after exercise, the body will first consume glycogen, and when there is not enough glycogen, it will consume body fat. So I strictly follow the principle of a low-carb diet, and try not to eat refined carbohydrates ( usually these foods also have a high glycemic index ) such as rice, Taiwanese / Japanese bread, desserts, snacks, juices, etc. In addition to the above foods, I have no special taboos. I am a gourmet, and I really can’t eat boiled chicken breasts for every meal; I still eat delicious fried pork ribs, salted crispy chicken, braised pork feet, fruits, etc., but my appetite will become smaller after I develop exercise habits. The principle of eating when you are hungry, try to eat foods that can be seen from the ingredients, try not to eat high-calorie junk food like snacks ( if you don’t buy it, you won’t eat it ) , and cooperate with the aforementioned exercise habits, you can also achieve weight loss, fat loss and blood sugar reduction The goal.