128kg to 86kg: How I Lost the Weight

I'll start with the moment everything changed, because there was a specific one.

Someone took a photo of me. I don't even remember the occasion. But I remember opening it and feeling genuinely disappointed in myself. Not angry, not motivated, just sad. I had let myself get to 128kg. At 183cm (that's about 6 feet 0 inches and 282 lbs for my American friends) I wasn't just chubby. I was big. And I knew it.

Two thoughts hit me at the same time. The first was that the 5 year old version of me, the kid who ran around without a care, would not be happy seeing what I'd become. The second was that if I started right now, I'd be doing future me a massive favour. I could either keep going like this, or I could give the next version of myself a real gift.

I want to be honest about something else too, because this site is supposed to be real. I was in a pretty deep depression around that time. The weight and the mood fed each other. I felt bad so I ate, I ate so I felt worse, repeat. If that's where you are right now, I'm not going to pretend a chicken breast fixes your brain chemistry. But I can tell you that taking back control of this one thing was the first domino for me.

Everything I tried first, and why it all flopped

I didn't get it right on the first go. Not even close. Like most people, I assumed losing weight meant picking a Diet with a capital D and suffering through it.

So I tried keto. Cut the carbs, ate the fat, felt smug for about two weeks. Then I remembered I love rice, bread, noodles, basically everything keto tells you to never touch again. Cutting all of it turned me into the weird guy at every meal out. It was also expensive, all that meat and cheese and avocado adds up fast.

Then paleo. Same problem, different label. Cut out the processed stuff, eat like a caveman, spend a fortune on groceries, slowly lose your will to live every time you eat out.

Then intermittent fasting. Skip breakfast, squeeze everything into a window. This one wasn't expensive at least, but the hunger was brutal. By 11am I was a different person. Angry, foggy, counting down the minutes. I could white-knuckle it for a few days and then I'd cave and eat everything in sight.

That's the pattern with all of them. They worked for a bit, because any of them put me in a calorie deficit. But none of them lasted, because they were either too expensive, too restrictive, or too hungry. The hardest part, every single time, was the extreme hunger. Willpower runs out. Mine always did.

The day it finally clicked: eat MORE food

Here's the thing that flipped it for me. I stopped trying to eat less food and started trying to eat more food that happened to be low in calories. Volume eating.

The realisation was stupidly simple. My problem was never that I lacked discipline. My problem was that I was always hungry. So instead of fighting the hunger, I killed it. I started building meals that were physically huge but light on calories. Big piles of vegetables. Lots of lean protein. A sensible amount of rice instead of a mountain of it.

Suddenly I was eating plates of food so big I sometimes couldn't finish them, and still losing weight. That's when it clicked that this wasn't a diet I was enduring. It was just how I ate now. And honestly? It was easy. For the first time, losing weight did not feel like punishment.

I didn't need more willpower. I needed more food on the plate and fewer calories in the food.

The actual numbers I ran

I'm going to give you the real specifics, because vague advice helped nobody.

I ate 2200 calories a day. That was my deficit number, below what my body burned, but high enough that I was never starving. To know that number for yourself, you need your TDEE, which is just how many calories your body burns in a day. Use the calculator on the homepage to get yours. Takes two minutes.

And here's the unsexy part that actually made the difference: I weighed my food and tracked everything in MyFitnessPal. Every meal, on a kitchen scale, logged. I know that sounds tedious. It takes about a week to get used to and then it's automatic. The reason it matters is that almost everyone wildly underestimates how much they're eating. The scale doesn't let you lie to yourself. That honesty was probably the single most important habit of the whole journey.

I also kept my protein high. Protein keeps you full, and it protects your muscle while you're losing, so you lose fat and not the good stuff. If you take one macro seriously, make it protein.

The gym, because losing weight isn't the whole story

I started lifting, 3 or 4 times a week, and I lifted heavy every time. Mostly push pull legs, sometimes an upper lower split when I had less time. If you have never touched a weight, my beginner gym guide walks you through every exercise.

Cardio burns calories, sure. But lifting is what kept me from ending up a smaller, softer version of the same shape. Heavy lifting tells your body to hold onto muscle while the fat comes off. It's the difference between just being lighter and actually looking and feeling strong.

I won't oversell it. You can lose weight without the gym, it's all calories in the end. But if you want to actually like what you see at the finish line, lift. And lift heavy, not the pink-dumbbell stuff.

Yes, I still ate fast food and big meals out

This is the part people don't believe. I had cheat meals all the time. I never gave up the food I love. Not once did I tell myself I could never have my favourite meal again.

The trick is just keeping it inside your calories. A big meal isn't a crime, it's a budgeting problem. So here's exactly what I did, and still do.

When I knew a big meal was coming, a wedding, a birthday, dinner out with friends, I'd plan around it. On that day I'd go for a long walk, one or two hours, to burn off the extra I knew I was about to eat. Or I'd eat a bit lighter the rest of that day, or the next couple of days that week. Let's be real, you cannot dodge every social occasion, and you shouldn't have to. Food is how we connect. So I stopped trying to avoid it and started balancing it instead.

That's the whole secret to keeping it off without misery. Enjoy the good meal, then do a little more or eat a little less around it. The week is what matters, not the single meal.

Where I am now (and why I'm not 86kg anymore)

I'm going to be straight with you, because I'd rather be honest than impressive.

The lowest I hit was 86kg (190 lbs). Today I sit at a comfortable, healthy 92kg (about 203 lbs). I'm not chasing the lowest number anymore. I settled at a weight I can hold without thinking about it, while still enjoying my life and my food. That, to me, is the actual win. Not a number I have to suffer to maintain, but a body I can keep with normal effort.

I still lift heavy. That part never stopped, because it stopped being a chore and became just part of who I am. Some habits you build to lose weight. Some of them you keep because they make life better.

So from 128kg down to 86, and now holding steady at 92. No keto. No supplements. No fancy program. No giving up rice. Just understanding how food actually works, being honest with a kitchen scale, lifting heavy, and not being an idiot about the big picture.

Why I built this whole site

When I started, I was completely clueless. Calories, macros, protein, TDEE, it all sounded like gym-bro nonsense that wasn't meant for someone like me. I wasted months on diets that were never going to last.

So I built this place to be everything I wish I'd had on day one. Explained simply, in plain language, for free. The calculator to get your numbers. The food calorie guides so you know what you're actually eating. The honest write-ups on what works and what's a waste of money.

If you're sitting there feeling the way I felt when I saw that photo, I want you to know it's not as hard as the internet makes it sound. You don't have to starve. You don't have to quit the food you love. You just have to understand the game and play it consistently. I'm a regular guy who figured it out. You can too.

Start with the only diet that actually works, then go get your numbers off the calculator. That's day one. Future you will thank you for it.