Hey everyone, I am Hamada and I would like to share my dieting and weight loss journey with you.
For the last 10 years I have been experimenting with many different diets and workout programs and thought I would share my journey with all of you with the hope that I can help you benefit from my experience. For most of my life I had been athletic and in 2005 I suffered a bad knee injury playing soccer and from then on it became a challenge to maintain my weight, which was around 165 lbs. at the time.
I kept switching from sport to sport in an effort to stay active but various other injuries made it hard to stay on track and I became less and less active. In 2014 my weight was at an all-time high of 110 KG (242 lbs.) and with a height of 181 cm ( about 6 ft), I was well above the ideal weight which probably shows in the picture above which was taken in 2012.
At that time, I was eating what I wanted, whenever I wanted and often the meals would be large. The quality of food was also not so great as I would eat a lot of bread and pasta. I would also get tired easily, was not able to focus for longer periods and got agitated quite easily.
With this eating habit and lifestyle, my waistline reached almost 44 inches and that is when I decided enough is enough and that I needed to make a change. By profession I am a Technical Project Manager, which involves long periods of time being sedentary so that wasn’t really helping anything.
So in 2014 I decided I was going to change my life (a long overdue new years resolution) and that is when I started experimenting with different diets such as ketogenic, carb rotation, high carb low fat and low carb high fat. After all of this experimentation I finally settled with low carb medium fat as I found that this was the best diet that got me through the day with the most energy and allowed me to be more efficient in my work outs later in the day.
It also involved adapting my eating habits to include 5 to 6 smaller meals a day of no more than 400 calories each. These meals would also be 2 to 3 hours apart and in that way my body was always nourished. I never felt hungry and usually by 6 pm, I would have already completed most of the days eating and could go to bed around 10 pm felling satisfied.
I would also get a good nights sleep and wake up the next morning feeling nice and lean. By eating this way for 3 months and complementing this with exercise, the fat just seemed to melt away especially from my belly. In 3 months I was down about 5 inches off my waist and my weight went down 10 kg (22 lbs.)
I was really amazed as I didn’t think that eating more often throughout the day would really work. By the 6th month I was down about 9 inches off my waist and my weight was down more than 18 kg. I was getting closer and closer to my target which was around 80 kg (176 lbs). By the 9th month I had reached my target and my waist was at 34 inches with a weight of about 81 kg.
What I learned from all of this is that there are no shortcuts to losing weight and improving your overall quality of life.
It takes some commitment and a will to succeed, almost like any other achievement in life. But the rewards are great and it can change your life forever as you would have built something sustainable. It can also have a positive impact on your professional and personal life as you will experience improved concentration levels and better sleep.
I found myself to be in a better mood most of the time and I could also do higher quality work and interact with my family, friends and colleagues in a much more meaningful way. I also got many compliments from family, friends and colleagues along the way and that just helps to keep you motivated and on track. It also does wonders for your self-esteem and self-confidence.
Like any life changing endeavor all of this came with its challenges.
There were definitely days when I would just eat what I wanted because of a lack of motivation or just a bad day in general. Then there would be days when I was out with friends or a business lunch and I didn’t want to seem rude and tell them I’m on a diet. Then there would be days when I just wasn’t up for preparing the meals as it became tedious, boring and time consuming.
But you know what they say ‘Failure is the first step towards success “and I always tried to keep that in mind. This brings me to one of the biggest motivations for starting this site, which was to be able to share with the world my story and maybe help some people overcome one of the challenges with one of the most important parts of weight loss which is basically nutrition. I wanted to help people have fun while preparing their meals and share some strategies that could save time and that’s where the low carb video recipes come in.
I hope that through this site we can share our experiences and maybe learn something from one another and help people on a weight loss mission make the journey all the more enjoyable. If you ever need any feedback or support with your health and exercise, I would be more than happy to connect.
Simply leave your comment below and make sure you visit my site regularly as I am always updating it with crazy “ideas” and “information” that I come across that I know you will find interesting.
Wish you all a great journey to a better you!
