Chin Sze Leong shares his story with us.

Chin Sze Leong, 37:
Lost 65kg in 13 months through
spinning and swimming classes

I can’t really remember a time when I wasn’t overweight. My entire childhood was spent being "the fat kid" in class, the one whom everyone teased and no one wanted on their team during Physical Education classes and other games.

It wasn’t easy to swallow their insults during recess – I always lost at playing "catching" and all these things combined, affected my self-esteem. I found solace in food, and just kept on eating, using greasy and sugary foods to make myself feel better. Of course, I didn’t realise at the time that it was a vicious cycle – I felt bad when people teased me about being fat, and so I would eat to medicate my emotions, which only made me fatter.
It’s almost funny when people ask, "What’s your favourite food?" because it would be much easier to say what I did not like to eat: anything remotely healthy or "light". Everything else was delicious to me, especially if it was deep-fried or sugar-loaded. Clichés like "the more the merrier" or "as big as a house" were quite accurate to describe the state of my life and my physical appearance. In fact, my weight ballooned to an all-time high of 150 kilograms (about 330 pounds) in August 2006.

Something inside me finally snapped; I still don’t really know what made me decide to make a change in my life, but I will always be thankful that I did. I just knew I could not be that fat guy anymore, and I simply had to do something about it. Maybe I was just tired of always feeling tired, when others seemed to have energy. Regardless, I decided to fully commit to slimming down. I started making the effort to jog and I even started eating more healthily. After several months, I was pleasantly surprised to see that I had lost 30 kilograms.

While I was encouraged by the weight loss, I wanted something more. So, I joined Clark Hatch International Fitness Center and it turned out to be the beginning of a whole new journey for me. I enrolled in spinning and swimming classes and also started jogging. What I love about these exercises is that they show quick results but are not too tiring or difficult to do. Food-wise, gone were the days when I thought nothing of wolfing down fried chicken, cheesecake or bread heaped with butter and jam. I consciously chose to eat vegetables and fruits, and reduced my carbohydrate intake as well, restricting rice to one small portion a day. All the exercise made it necessary to increase my water intake, too, which was a big positive change from drinking soft drinks.

These changes were not easy to make, nor did they just fall into place smoothly. There were days and weeks when I just wanted to have that piece of juicy fried chicken with mashed potatoes and all that other tasty, unhealthy junk. Exercising wasn’t always fun either, especially after a long day at work when I just wanted to have fast food in front of the TV. But I reminded myself of why I wanted to do this. I was tired of buying bigger sized clothing each year (I was already up to an XXXXL!) and every single visit to the doctor ended with him telling me that I needed to lose weight or my health was at risk. I just knew I couldn’t go back to my old ways.

If I was being completely honest, I’d say that I stuck to my diet 95 percent of the time, which was far better than anything I had previously achieved! This time around, the difference was that joining a gym provided me with a trainer who helped me decide what exercises would be best; having that kind of support made things much easier, and made me so much more determined to succeed, too. There’s something about making a commitment to your gym that makes you want to keep going until you succeed, and never look back. That’s certainly how it felt for me, and it was a great motivational factor.

Some people suggested I try diet pills or surgery, but those kinds of solutions never appealed to me; I just always knew that if I did it, I wanted to know I succeeded on my own effort. It was a matter of pride, for sure, but it was also because I wanted a natural and lasting solution that was healthy. I did have several sessions with an acupuncturist, which was very helpful because he gave me advice on nutrition and helped me identify the root of my obesity.

In just 13 months, my weight was down to 85 kilograms and I had done it all through the healthy route. My family and friends are so proud of me, but no one is prouder than I am, because it was amazing to finally be rid of my unhealthy lifestyle. If someone asked me what it took to lose weight, I wouldn’t give them a simple answer like, "Oh, you just need motivation!" because I know that it takes much more than that. Diet, exercise, support from loved ones, perseverance and motivation all play a part in losing weight, but I believe that the goal of being healthy rather than just losing weight is the most important thing. Healthy living is about so much more than what your weighing scale reads; it’s about the commitment you make to your life and, consequently, yourself. My motto now is simply, "It’s in MY hands."

I have learned to put myself first by paying attention to all aspects of my emotional and physical well-being, and I have not been tempted to regain my old lifestyle at all. So far, things are going great as I’m able to do much better at my job as a sales executive and tour leader. I have so much more energy to live my life now and it’s wonderful!