I’m writing a series of articles on how I lost 53 kg (117 lb) in 18 months and managed to keep the weight off.

I’m trying very hard not to preach or assume to have all the answers, I’m just telling my story, what happened to me and how I dealt with it.

This is the second installment, dealing with motivation and how it all started.

Please make sure you read the first part of the series, including the disclaimer.

Part 2, Motivation

I was very lucky; I had my true motivation handed to me on a silver platter. It was so blindingly obvious I couldn’t help but see it.

My family has a history of heart problems. My dad died when he was only 48 years old, of a massive heart attack. His father died of the same reason at the age of 66 and as if that wasn’t enough, one of my best friends died of a heart attack when he was only 37.

When I was 41, one morning as I was climbing the stairs to my office, I felt very weak, I broke into a cold sweat and my heart was pounding. I had to sit down, put my feet up, and rest for a while until I got my strength back and my heartbeat under control.

The next day the exact same thing happened again, only much worse this time. One of my colleagues used to be a paramedic, so I told him what happened and asked him for his advice. He told me what I already knew, to go see a doctor right this minute!

Back then I was like a machine, burying myself in work, not taking care of myself, making all the wrong things the important things in my life. Of course I was overweight, and on top of everything I was under-sunned and looking back, not at all very happy. I had loved, lost, and lost again, by giving up on myself, without even knowing it.

We all go through life taking it for granted, and we all know that we do. That’s why we read books on personal growth and attend seminars, so someone can tell us, warn us, put us on notice. We breathe a sigh of relief that we’ve been made aware of the error of our ways and determine that we’re going to change it all. At least that’s what we tell ourselves.

For years I’d been thinking that I should go see a cardiologist, just to get a checkup and make sure I wasn’t heading for the same fate as my father. But I’d always put it off for later. Every time I felt the slightest pain in my chest I would get afraid, worried that my lifestyle was catching up with me.

Only this time, I really went. The doctor was a mild mannered man, he listened to my family history, drew blood, put me on a treadmill and probed my heart in all sorts of doctorly ways. At one point he was looking at it with ultrasound, using much the same type of machine that’s used to look at babies inside their mothers’ bellies.

Before

He turned the monitor over so I could see. I was lying there, looking at the screen, feeling like I was face to face with my longtime nemesis. I could see my heart beating, even hear it, and the only emotion I felt was fear.

A few minutes later the doctor gave me the all clear. He told me that I was in good health, that I should consider losing some weight, but that my heart was just fine.

That day I tipped the scales at 137.4 kg (302 lb). I’m 186 cm (6’1”) tall.

When I stepped out onto the sidewalk from his office, I felt an enormous sense of relief, like my life was being handed back to me, along with a warning to use it better. In an instant I saw how I’d given up on myself, on my life, fully expecting to die at any time. I’d been afraid to love, to have a family, because I didn’t think I’d be around to take care of them.

After

After that everything happened really fast. I had long hair in a ponytail back then, another thing I had long wanted to do something about, but not really dared. Change was scary to me. That day I went straight from the doctor’s office to a barbershop, didn’t even pause to think about it.

Well, that’s one way to lose weight, I guess. As I left the barbershop half an hour later I had a firm resolve in my gut: I would lose 40 kg (88 lb), and I would do it in no more than two years. And I would never, ever, allow myself to go back to that place of fear.

The only thing was that I knew how difficult it is to lose weight, not to mention how difficult it is to keep it off once lost. I realized I needed a plan, and in order to come up with one I would have to do some serious soul searching.

More on that, and how all this can apply to you, in the next installment.

I lost 53 kg (117 lb) in 18 months and I’ve kept the weight off for two years now and counting.

There were no particular diet involved, no counting of calories or carbs, no magic bullet. Just some careful thought and a decision after life happened to give me a kick in the behind.

This is what happened to me, what I chose to do about it and how I turned my life around. It’s not a 12-step program, it’s not expert advice, I’m not trying to sell you anything or sell you on anything.

It’s simply a story, my story. Enjoy.

Part 1, Introduction

First of all, I feel the need for a disclaimer:

Please understand that I have no medical training, I’m not an expert on nutrition, nor do I have any training in physiology or psychology. This is simply a collection of notes about what worked for me. Use the information in these blog posts at your own risk and always use your best judgement. Remember that no one knows your body like you do.

Important note: You should always consult a physician before starting an exercise regimen and before embarking on any kind of diet!

I’ll let you in on a dirty little secret. We all know how to lose weight, we just don’t want to face up to it: Eat less and be more physically active. It’s both that easy and that impossibly hard and you already knew that before you started reading this story.

I knew it too, I’ve known it all my life. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that losing weight is easy or simple to do, just that it isn’t complicated. There’s a huge difference.

The question isn’t what to do in order to lose weight, but how to keep doing it without losing faith in yourself and giving up. In other words, losing weight is all about motivation. This may sound a little strange to you, as I’m sure you’ve been highly motivated to lose weight for a long time.

What I’m saying is that it’s not just a question of how much you want to lose weight; it’s also very much a question of you understanding exactly why you want to lose weight. Once you know and understand what drives you, you can make some very important decisions about the rest of your life and what’s most important to you.

We all want to fit in, we want to look beautiful through other people’s eyes, we want to be able to shop for clothes in regular sizes, we want a new boyfriend or girlfriend, we want to believe that other people might find us desirable. Never mind that maybe they already do, the problem is that we just can’t believe in it and we sorely need to.

So we decide to lose weight. We already know how to, but we’re accustomed to seeing ourselves as failures, so deep down we don’t think we can do it. We give up without really trying, or we do what’s even worse, we start looking for that magical quick fix and easy diet we think even we can follow. Above all, we don’t start exercising, at least not much or in earnest.

In my case I had been overweight ever since I was a child, but when I was about 16 years old I became an athlete. I started crewing (rowing) competitively and enjoyed it immensely. Of course, all this hard physical activity meant that I lost a lot of weight. Even after I gave up the rowing I kept working out, I took up running and managed to keep the weight off for a few more years.

However, after my running buddy moved away I stopped running and you can pretty much guess the rest. For all the years since I kept thinking that I would take it up again, I really enjoyed being fit and felt so much better about myself, and my health in general.

I never did, and the reason why was simple enough: I knew how hard it is to start exercising when you’re completely out of shape, and in particular when you’re also overweight. It’s not just hard, it’s painful and if you’re not careful you can even hurt yourself.

More on that, and how I got my motivation to change my life handed to me on a silver platter, in the next installment. But first, some “before and after” pictures:

The author, before and after. Credit: Gunnar Helliesen

There’s about 18 months between the two pictures. In the picture on the left I weighed a little over 137 kg (302 lb) and in the picture on the right I weighed 84 kg (185 lb). The purpose of posting these pictures is just to tell you that if I can, you can too. I’m not special, I don’t have secret powers or a magic recipe. In fact, I am you.

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