I was always associated with the word “fat” since my childhood. Being born in a family who loves eating, everyone in the family was chubby. 

I didn’t care much when I was young, but as I grew older, I started to be more conscious about my look. Because of my size, I didn’t have confident and I always went for the neutral look. I was always mistaken as a boy. I started exercising regularly, but this gave me an excuse to eat even more, so I just grew bigger and bigger. My peak weight was 70kg, with a height of 155cm. 

My turning point was when I went abroad to UK at the age of 15. Life in a boarding school was super healthy – sleep early and wake up early, relatively good meals planned by nutritionists (did a comparison with other schools and ours won by a mile!), regular exercises; every term I lost 5kg (and gained back 2-3 kg when I was back in HK), and slowly I lost quite a bit of weight after my college time. 

When I was in University, I neglected my nutrition intake and ate a lot of rubbish, cheap foods (canned food/cheapest vegetables available to save money) and skipped lunch, my weight dropped down to less than 40kg with a height of 166cm. It was very unhealthy and my body started showing alarming signs, and the biggest one was the stop of my menstruation cycle!

I was scared, and I started taking care of myself more, and I started gaining back some weight. But having the fear of being fat again, I started to be aware of what I put into my mouth. I started doing some cardio workout too, and slowly my weight went to a healthy range (around 50kg).

After meeting my husband, running was a regular activity. We ran almost everyday, and did body weight static exercises afterwards, but my body shape and weight never changed.

I remained active even when I was pregnant and never went crazy with eating, so losing my pregnancy weight wasn’t difficult for me (for both pregnancies, I did a month of insane workout, i.e. doing a workout program called “Insanity” everyday). My weight went back to normal, but my shape was the same.

No matter how much exercise I did, I could never get rid of my lower tummy. I did ab exercises everyday, got upper ab but a lump at the bottom.

After my second pregnancy, my husband and I started focusing on strength training, and we started studying the macros and calories we took in. I then realized the enemy to my flat tummy was the sugar I took in everyday (I loved hot chocolate)! We started changing our lifestyle, eating clean balanced meal and doing weight training regularly. Slowly my body shape started changing. My weight increased (weighing around 54kg now) but I looked leaner and healthier. And most importantly, my tummy got flatter and flatter! 

My weight journey is a long and unhealthy one, going from one extreme to another and risking my own health. But eventually by using the right method I got my best and healthiest body i have had in my life. And what I got out of the most is, short term diet will not lead you to where you want to be. Instead, develop a healthy lifestyle that you enjoy and you will always have the body that you desire.