I struggled for years to get rid of my fat belly and double chin. This is my story …
I lost my double chin and my big beer belly after a struggle of almost 6 years. In the end, the solution was easier than I expected. If only someone could have told me up front that I could have had 6 years of looking great and not spending so much money on fashions and enjoying the food that I eat.
My fat belly made an appearance at the age of 26. I looked ridiculous with my big fat belly. Where he came from? I ate a lot of sausage rolls that Christmas, or maybe I was turning 26. Whatever it was, that fat belly is here to stay. Losing weight was not something he had done before, but he believed the answer was easy: eat less and exercise less. He wasn’t an expert, but this simple formula seemed like the easiest way to lose weight. It just had to be.
My fat belly motivated me to stop eating and go to the gym. I hit the gym hard. I skipped lunch to avoid eating; I was sure this would wipe out my beer belly in one go. After a few months of doing my best in the gym and almost starving, I had defiantly lost weight; up to 6 kg – a good effort. But looking at my belly it didn’t seem any smaller; in fact, it could even be bigger. I had lost weight in all parts of my body except my belly.
Exercising too much and not eating enough caused my body to burn muscle for extra energy. What I had been doing was counterproductive, I was reducing my muscles and increasing my fat storage. This was going to be more difficult than I thought.
Things were about to get worse now at the age of 28, a double chin. I was still totally at a loss as to how I managed to get the fat belly that I had tried so hard to get rid of. I swapped the weights for cardio, striving for faster times on the bike and running more and more on the treadmill. After only a few weeks eating salad for lunch and getting on the treadmill every day, I looked in the mirror and saw that I had burned almost all of the muscle I had gained. I returned to the starting point.
In my mailbox came a flyer from a local gym that advertised body reshaping through a special but sensible diet. I had never heard of Educogym, but found the flyer intriguing. My own weight loss experience had made me cynical and angry. But since I was getting married I would make one last attempt to order my body and chose Educogym.
Gina from Educogym explained to me that we would be training every day for 12 days; only 20 minutes at a time, but this would be high intensity. Then Gina explained my new diet to me. Gina explained to me about a chemical called insulin. Insulin regulates blood sugar in the body and affects how the body burns energy. If your insulin stays low, your body will burn fat and not muscle. To keep my insulin level low, I would need to eliminate one particular thing from my diet: SUGAR.
No sugar and no flour. Starches like bread and pasta will absorb into my blood and increase my insulin. Even the natural sugars in fruit should be kept to a minimum. Fats, on the other hand, do not increase insulin.
Sugar is found in many of our daily foods; only when you try to avoid it do you realize how often you eat it. To my surprise, milk is 40% sugar. Do not eat white bread, nor bread anyway. I would have to train my body to burn fat and just fat. So from now on I will only eat protein and fat. Something in me knew this was going to work.
Breakfast consisted of eggs and bacon every day, no toast or anything else. There is no milk in my tea or coffee; but I could use cream which I found very nice. Lunch consisted of meat: beef, lamb or pork (without chicken), preferably meat with a good fat content and some vegetables. Dinner is more of the same. It was beneficial to add some walnuts for additional fatty acids.
After a few days, my body was now in a state of ‘ketosis’. That is all the energy my body uses, it comes from fat and not carbohydrates. The fat and protein diet had eliminated my hunger and prevented me from craving sugar for chocolate and other mid-morning snacks. I was burning fat and just fat; If there was no fat on my stomach to burn, then it would have to come from that huge store of fat – my belly fat.
I started to notice the difference from the second day. The sagging around my belly was much softer. The diet was a bit tedious but bearable; I really missed all those wonderful sugar bumps from chocolate and other foods. On the 7th, my wife looked at me as I recovered on the couch from my hard 20 minute workout and exclaimed, “Your double chin is gone!” On day 12 my measurements concluded that I had lost 3% body fat, my double chin was gone, and my beer belly was almost half gone.
Success finally. After all these years it was a dream come true. My tummy was still there, but it was significantly reduced, but there was still work to be done, but the trend had been broken. Now he knew how to beat fat.
