Who: Rishi Sritharan
Occupation: Student
City: Mississauga, Ont.
Age: 24
By The Numbers: 235 pounds at my heaviest, currently 165 pounds, for a total weight loss of 70 pounds.
The Weight Gain: I think my weight has always steadily increased since I was in the third grade. Looking back at some very old pictures, it was around grade four when I reached the status of overweight and stayed there for a very long time. I ate a lot and mostly food that was incredibly unhealthy.
My eating habits continued to get worse as I got older. I would eat unhealthy snacks like chips and pastries between meals, and drink lots of soda and juice. I knew it wasn’t healthy, but it tasted good, which felt good to me.
I tried diets, but frustration would always lead me back to square one. I think a big reason was because I felt like when I was on a diet, I was very restricted. This led me to binge eat during “cheat” days and put me back to where I was before. So for a few days I would eat healthy, exercise and drop a few pounds, but then that designated cheat day would turn into a cheat nightmare and I would consume 7000+ calories in a day.
Final Straw: In August of 2013, my father lost his battle with cancer. I was devastated but also knew that it was a wake-up call for my own health. I made a vow to become healthier, and it started with losing weight. Although I started in September of 2013 with a gym membership, I would still fluctuate. By 2014, I had only really dropped 10 to 15 pounds. It wasn’t until the fall of 2014, after a trip to Florida, that I buckled down. I read many inspirational stories and progress posts online that really made me believe that I could do it.
The Plan of Attack: I learned about calorie counting online through the inspirational progress that other overweight and obese people made and thought that it was worth giving it a try. I also discovered MyFitnessPal, an app where you can log and track the food you eat every day, and see exactly how much calories you were consuming daily. I learned that my body burns around 2500 calories per day and that if I wanted to lose weight, I would have to consume a figure under that. Since 3500 calories equals one pound of fat, I’d have to consume 1500 calories a day to lose two pounds every week.
With tracking, I started to track even those cheat days that would be so bad for me before. Days when I would go out to lunch or dinner with my friends or family would be tracked. I would use this as motivation to burn calories to my maintenance level. If I tracked my day and realized I was at 3000 calories, or 500 over my maintenance, I would do cardio exercises at the end of the day to burn that 500.
It took my 10 months to lose the weight. My heaviest weight at 235 was in August of 2013, but the first year, I only dropped 10 pounds. I wasn’t calorie counting and I’d have some periods of dieting which were offset by periods of eating anything I wanted. Ten pounds was a great start, but it wasn’t until around November of 2014 that I started counting calories and sticking with my plan. It took me eight months to lose nearly 60 pounds and reach my goal weight. My BMI went from the obese range to healthy and I have never felt better.
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