Wallsend's Will Ridley has lost 60 kilograms in just over a year.
"I was 160.5 kilos. Now I weigh 99.4 kilos," said Will, 35.
"I lived a really unhealthy lifestyle. I was working from home for the better part of two years."
He was eating a lot of fast food, chocolate and chips.
"Then last year in January, I started to feel really ill," he said.
He got hit hard by COVID.
"I went to see the doctor. He did some tests and my blood sugar was really high. I got diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, which was a bit eye opening," he said.
"I stopped eating fast food from that day on."
He chose to follow a My Muscle Chef program and ended up being featured on the company's website for his massive weight loss effort.
He started doing meal swaps and eating a healthier breakfast.
"I started walking every day. That was the big step - starting to move my body way more often than I used to," he said.
He started with a low intensity walk through Federal Park in Wallsend, which involved slowly wandering around the park.
He slowly began to increase the distance.
"I started doing two laps of the park, then moved to three, four, five laps until I was walking five kilometres a day," he said.
He started looking into nutrition, cutting down fats and increasing protein and carbs.
"Probably the biggest thing was I started logging my calories," he said.
This helped him understand the "equation of calories in versus calories out".
Feeling Good
His weight loss and healthier lifestyle put his type 2 diabetes into remission.
"I'm feeling so much better now, compared to the way I used to feel," he said.
"I used to say to my friends I don't need a lot of sleep. I could get two hours sleep and feel the same after having eight hours sleep. I just felt tired all the time."
Now he can notice the difference between six or eight hours of sleep.
"I can feel the difference in my body and brain," he said.
He's feeling much fitter, too.
"It's amazing how different my body feels, compared to living a life of being constantly tired," he said.
Another benefit is he can walk now "without getting sweaty".
An important part of his weight loss journey and new lifestyle was "finding healthy swaps".
For something chocolatey, he chooses a protein bar. He swaps chips for rice crackers.
"The crackers give me that little bit of savoury I might need. It stimulates that little lizard part of my brain that is like, 'yes chips'," he said.
"And it's easy to find lots of different things that can function like chocolate. It was about finding something I could have for morning tea that would have enough fibre and protein to make me feel fuller and carry me through to lunch."
His new approach gives him "a lot more control over my diet".
"It's making sure I'm keeping an eye on how much I'm eating. It's about making myself accountable to myself.
"I know that won't be the same for everyone, but it was making sure I was focused on taking control of my own food narrative. That's one way to describe it."
Will wanted to share his story "in the hope it will help somebody else achieve what they want to achieve".
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