My 40 Pound Weight-Loss Story and How I Kept It Off (Before & After)

Hello, I'm Nagina Abdullah and welcome to masala body.com. today I'm going to be sharing my story of how I've lost 40 pounds and now I'm in my 40s and the weight has stayed off for over 14 years. Now I want to let you know that I had yo yo dieted for my entire life. I literally would look at any kind of processed food and I would know off the top of my head exactly how many calories it was. But. But guess what? I was never able to get that look that I wanted to. And that was when it was about looks. It changed over time. I went to the gym, I did lift weights, I did run, I did cardio. But no matter what I tried, I just couldn't get my weight down. You know, I remember that I would actually never go out to eat with my friends. They would always go out for lunches in between classes and I would go with them, but I would just drink water because I wanted to go home and make my own food. Food. First of all, it was cheaper and that was important at that time. I wanted to eat the foods that I knew would keep me healthier because I knew how quickly I would gain weight. See, I always had a very slow metabolism. I struggled with this for my entire growing up. I tried to do everything that I could and it wasn't working. After college I continued to go up and down. So I started working in a full time job and then I started having to be sitting at a desk all day and I would go out for lunches and. But I would often even bring my own lunch. Then I would go and work out at 5pm when I was pretty tired. But I had to make sure that I was working out because I kept fearing if this is where I'm at by eating so healthy and by adding all of this exercise. Where will I be if I take this out? I literally felt like I was a hamster on a wheel because no matter how hard I tried, I never could quite get to the that lean weight that I wanted to. Now finally let me bring you to. When I was in business school at nyu, I went to Astern and I was tracking all of my food over the summer because I really had the motivation to do it. And so I started tracking my food all summer. I started following it. I came back to school and so many of my classmates told me, oh my God, Nagina, you look like you've lost so much weight. And I felt so, so happy. But guess what happened with business school? Came events Came parties, came restaurants, came a lifestyle of fun living in New York City. And that weight just creeped back on. And so before I knew it, I was back where I had lost. And I just thought, I'm always going to have to diet. This diet is never ending, okay? And so finally, after I got married, my husband in business school, he met me when I was at my heaviest weight. Thankfully, he knew me then, and he loved me for who I was. He loved me at that place. He didn't even want me to lose weight. That wasn't ever something he wanted. It was something I wanted for myself, because I wanted to be able to be the most fit version of myself. And so what happened is that I actually started working in a very demanding management consulting job in New York City, which was my job after business school. So as I was working there then, I got pregnant with my first child, my son, and had him. And then I had my daughter 16 months later. And so, after working in this demanding job, having two children, I was then at my new heaviest weight ever. And in that moment, I did not even recognize myself. So I want you to understand where I've been. I have been through yo yo diets. I have been through all of the pain of losing weight and putting it back on, but still never getting to the place where I was truly satisfied and never, ever having had achieved a lifestyle. I was always about dieting. And so once I was at my heaviest weight, I was exhausted. I was exhausted from a life of dieting. But yet I looked in the mirror and I couldn't recognize the reflection that I saw. I saw somebody that didn't look like she cared about herself. I had so much motivation and ambition inside, and it just wasn't reflected on the outside. Now, of course, I just had two kids. I was working in a demanding job. Anyone could understand or empathize what was going on with me. But for me, I wanted to be my best version of myself. And so once I felt healthier, after my daughter was born, I started saying, I really don't want to be this person that I'm seeing. I don't want to keep wearing my maternity clothes for longer than I have to. No more yo yo dieting. One thing is that my sister called me and asked me to go out to the city with her, her husband and my husband, something we had done so many times before. I had children that was so much fun. After she asked me, I turned her down. I had no other plans. I had babysitters for the kids. There was nothing holding me Back, I, except for me, I didn't know what to wear. And so I felt like I wouldn't be able to bring the positive energy to this outing that I usually did. That was one defining moment. But another defining moment that happened for me is that I had come home from work, my kids were crying, and they wanted to go out. They wanted to go out for a walk, they wanted to go to the park. And I was so exhausted, my back hurt, which I later found was due to my extra weight that I had. And the moment I lost it, the pain actually disappeared. And I looked at myself and I thought, is this the kind of mom I want to be? This is only going to get worse with time. Do I want to be the mom that's sitting on the sideline, that's watching my children, that's not getting involved? Do I want to hike with my kids? Do I want to run in a 5k with my kids? Do I want to go skiing and snowboarding with them? Do I want to have adventures? Because I have energy. I want that. I didn't want to feel tired and exhausted. And so I realized I needed to make a change. But this time it had to be different than all the times before because I didn't have time anymore. That's where I decided this number one one way of doing this, that when I lost weight, I had to make weight loss fun. And this is something I never thought about before. I always had thought about following the rules and meeting all the transactions and being perfect and not falling off the wagon. All of these things that diet culture has taught us, which actually kept me gaining and losing weight for decades. And so I started researching so much information that I had access to. I just started researching scientific papers, researching what was working right now. And I found out everything that I had been following from all of the diets were lies. They were all based on eating less and eating smaller portions of processed foods that actually made us hungry, hungrier. And so then it started dawning on me, oh my gosh, I've been hungry my whole life. I considered myself a big boned person that just couldn't lose the weight. And I just wasn't like the other people that were able to lose the weight. So I started researching the scientific information and I'm like, you know what? I don't know if it's going to work because nothing has really worked for me. Before I had done Weight Watchers, I had done Atkins, I had done Nutrisystem. I had eaten less and worked out more. And I knew I'm not doing that again because I know where it leads to. It leads to me losing the weight temporarily and gaining it back because I actually want to live at my dream weight. I started adding the foods that I had studied that showed that they increased metabolism. Now, not only did these foods increase metabolism, but they suppressed and controlled appetite. They also balanced my blood sugar. So some of the things I started doing was, number one, adding more protein to my day. Number two, I started understanding that where my carbs came from made a difference. And then I started adding spices that were delicious that I later found out to be metabolism boosting. And because I grew up in a traditional Indian family, eating spices was a part of my life. It was something that was so normal for me. Every time I followed the diets that I had followed, they had bland, boring foods. And they were part of the reason that I didn't enjoy what I was eating. And so it became a yo yo cycle versus a lifestyle. Now I started adding the foods that I love. I started making them taste good, and I started curbing my appetite. And some amazing things started happening. I started feeling full, I started feeling satisfied. I started to be able to choose sugar. I would have a cheat day once a week where I would be able to eat the foods that I was craving before, but I wouldn't crave them during the week. And I started enjoying what I was eating. I lost 40 pounds in nine months. I felt so happy. I felt so excited about it. It's been over 14 years, and I've been able to eat in the same way that helped me lose the weight, because I love it. I can't believe that a lifestyle is actually possible where you don't feel like you're on a diet. And this all came from the principles of protein. More adding more protein, starting with breakfast. And that was a key difference that I had never done before. I had never understood my blood sugar. I had only thought about calories in and calories out. And so when I actually started to eat foods that kept my blood sugar even, what happens in that situation is that you are not putting on weight. You're not seeing storing fat as is what happens when you're eating foods that make your blood sugar go up and down. So when I was eating Weight Watchers, my blood sugar was going up and it was coming down, and then I was so hungry when it came down. So I was always feeling like I was restricted. But when my blood sugar stayed even, I wasn't storing fat. There was no reason for insulin to be released. And create that storage of fat that happens when you're having those blood sugar spikes. And then valleys by doing this, adding protein, having even blood sugar, and then adding more spices to what I was eating every day, which created such a delicious way of eating that I looked forward to. So I would have things like turmeric chicken, turmeric fish. I would have cumin, coriander fish. I would just eat foods that were so delicious to me. I mean, there were so many amazing foods that I started eating that literally every day when I would come home from work and my husband was, did this with me. But the other thing that I did is I made it really easy. So I started using cooking techniques that didn't take a long time. Like I would prep food and it would take me not too long to prep it. Like I would buy things that were already chopped, that were maybe frozen so I wouldn't worry about food waste. And then I would also cook in bulk so that I had time to do other things during the week. And I would just warm up my foods. And then I also used hands off cooking methods where I didn't have to stand at the stove stirring. Because at that time I had two small children, I had a massive full time job, and I still wanted to achieve these goals for myself. And so I used the cooking techniques like using a crock pot or a slow cooker. I cooked with sheet pan meals. And then the bulk cooking really helped me so much because I didn't have to think about what to eat every day. I was traveling and working all over the place. So I would order meals that followed these principles. And even though I was eating out for every single meal for three days in a row and staying in hotels and going out with coworkers, I was able to maintain that weight loss. And in fact, even my, all of my coworkers, they saw the transformation that I had. And then they would say, I'm just ordering what Nagin is ordering. I even had these big men that I was working with ordering what I was ordering. Because my food wasn't small, it was actually very filling. When you add these elements, my, my salads were so filling, my lunches and dinners were delicious. But they included all of these food groups. And so I always felt satiated. And so what happened for me is that I lost this 40 pounds, my size shrank. I was able to wear a bikini, a white bikini and a fluorescent orange bikini. And I felt so confident about my body and something happened to me that was so different than I thought would happen. I actually stopped thinking about myself as much. I stopped being worried about myself. I stopped wondering, oh my God, I think that person is looking at me. Or I don't feel like I'm showing the best version of myself because I felt like I was on top of the world. I was living in my dream body. The confidence that gave me is that I just became so self assured, but in a very modest way. But I could wear whatever I wanted and I would think about the other person I was with. So when I was with my daughter, I would think about her and I would pick her up and I would take her into the waves and she would tell me, mommy, again, again. And I just felt the joy and the pleasure of being with my daughter and having her experience the ocean waves instead of wondering, oh my God, who's looking at me? So I started living life. And this is when things change. I was always having fun, I was always living life, but it's like something unveiled and I just felt this amazing, felt a sense of empowerment that came over me. And so now I started adding more activities to my life that I realized I'd always wanted to. I just didn't have the energy. I started hiking for longer distances up higher hills. I started teaching my kids to ski and snowboard when they were really young. And that meant carrying them up a hill and navigating them down, down the mountain. I took them snow tubing, which required so much leg strength to be able to walk up and bring them down. And now it's been 14 years later. We go on ski trips together, we go hiking together, we've climbed mountains together. There's so much that has happened and I don't sit on the sidelines. I am fully involved with them, their activities and our lives together. And not only that, but I feel youthful and I feel sexy around my husband. Even though he always has loved who I am, he never felt the need for me to lose weight. But I feel that energy for myself, that positivity that exudes to him. And because of that, there's an excitement in our lives. So there's so many benefits to losing the weight. And I knew that it was something I wanted. And so this was truly, you know, one of the biggest accomplishments of my life to be able to lose this weight. And if I was able to do it, and this is something you're looking to do, you can do it too. But it's not going to come from dieting and it's not going to come from restriction. It comes from eating more, eating more of the foods that boost our metabolism, eating more of the foods that that keep us satiated and help us get off of sugar. And so I have so many of these in my most recent video, how to Get Off Sugar with and I teach you the three major tips that I did. Now one of the most important things I did was to start adding cinnamon. When I started going on my life, my lifestyle transformation journey is I started adding cinnamon. And so I want to share with you a special free gift that I have and that is my sweet spice cheat sheet. And I'm going to share with you the three benefits of adding the sweet spice which is likely in your kitchen cabinet. I'm also going to share five easy ways to add it to your day, which are most of them are no cook, they're just sprinkling them on certain foods. And then finally I'm going to share my fat burning fire tea recipe where I show you the ingredients to add that help you fire away belly fat. Because of the ingredients in them and they're all natural, you most likely have all of them in your kitchen cabinet. So check that out. Have my free gift from right below. And in addition, if you want to know how to start adding that protein to your breakfast, which was one of the other key things that I did, then check out my upcoming 5 day metabolism boost for Midlife women. And this is where I teach other women, especially women in their 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s, how to start adding more metabolism boosting foods and exactly what to add, starting with your metabolism boost boosting morning routine. So you can sign up for free for my 5 day metabolism boost right below as well. Now I want to ask you if this has been enjoyable for you. Please like and please subscribe. I have regular videos that I'm sharing everything about my journey and all the strategies and tips that you can implement to be the best version and the healthiest version of yourself. See you next time.