Getting Thinner in Hanoi

I’ve been big since I was 10. Year by year I got bigger.

But the growth wasn’t always linear.

My first year in Hanoi I worked all hours. Ate at the street kid restaurant I worked at (I could hardly ask for second helpings, so you know, portion control) and generally got in too late, too tired, to seek out food.

I got thinner.

I was single back then. Maybe it was the weight loss. Maybe it was just the fact that I was in love with my life. But I noticed that attempts to talk to women were suddenly easier. On two occasions I was asked out. Unheard of.

And then I moved to a new apartment opposite a French bakery.

A couple of years later, weight fell off again during a year I worked in Africa. Again, food wasn’t conveniently available, so often I didn’t bother.

I returned unable to keep my trousers up after I’d removed my belt for airport security.

I was determined that this would just be the start. I’d get properly thin. I bought some skinny(ish) jeans. They were a bit tight but I figured my weight loss journey wasn’t yet over.

I returned to Vietnam. Jogged around Hoan Kiem lake first day. Then met my future wife and we dined out together pretty much every day till we got married. I got lardy again.

For years I considered throwing out those jeans. Realistically I was never going to fit in them.

After dieting since last summer, this week I tried them on. They’re baggy now.

In fact all my clothes are baggy.

From my worst weight 126 kilos, I am now 106. Yeah I know. There’s a long long way to go but this feels proper this time. I’ve cracked it. I’m not jinxing future weight loss by telling you this — I’m locking it in.

Again it hasn’t been linnear.

After hard dieting, I was in the UK for three weeks. On the flight over, determined to be sensible, I left the carbs in the airline meal.

Within three weeks I was having a mid morning cake in Greggs. Britain just has too much unhealthy food.

Thankfully despite returning to Vietnam with 3 kilos gained I’m back on track.

Christmas is around the corner. It’ll be a couple of days off, a little bit of eating up left overs and then dietting again. I want to drop a few more kilos ahead of a work trip to Hong Kong and then Tet.

Tragically an app tells me that I’m still “Obese II”, but I’m about to cross into a mere “Obese I”. It’s another 15 kilos till I reach plain old “overweight”.

I can do it.

The same app told me when I started that I was fatter than 99% of the people my age and height.

FUCK!

That’s now 96% and off all of the indicators this is pushing me hardest.

My secret? Honestly, it’s simply not eating much. Having started with the 5:2 I’ve settled into something that just suits me. Monday and Tuesdays I eat two small meals a day. Wednesday to Friday I eat one. Saturday and Sunday I eat what I like. That’s shifting a solid kilo a week. Generally — nothing sweet except special occasions.

Mostly I find it easier to try not to think about food so I’m more likely to skip a meal then I am to spend time on preparing something overtly healthy.

I should also say — I work from home. I can afford nice food. I live the usual spoilt expat existence. I live in a country that is stuffed with good, healthy food. I can literally go to the gym any time. And it’s still really really hard. Weight gain is so much easier.

Lardsters — I am on your side.

And honestly, like a reverse anorexic I never really realised just how big I’d got. Absolute denial. Now, having shifted that 20 kilos and still being only halfway to where I need to be — I wonder how I let myself get into this mess.

It ends.