I lost 10 kilograms in 3 months! I feel ecstatic, over the moon and more confident. As you can see in my before and after shots, I have visibly lost fat from my stomach and mid-section of my body. I know there’s still a lot more weight to lose, but I am happy with my achievements so far. A lot of people have asked how to lose 10kg in 3 months and today I wanted to share my own experience, how I did it and what really works!

I feel confident because I had done a fair bit of research before I embarked on this 3 month journey, and I implemented what I had learned, and my actions produced clear, undeniable results. I feel excited because I know that I can continue my progress to finally achieve my goal of getting ripped, and having a 6-pack.

Before my weight loss journey, I had admitted to myself and written that I had a “dadbod”. I had let myself go.

10 Lessons Learned on How to Lose 10kg in 3 months

Here are the top 10 lessons that I learned after having lost 10kg in 3 months.

1. Count Your Calories

This has been a key lesson that I have learned. Prior to these 3 months, I had never considered counting my calories because I felt it was too daunting and pretty much impossible. Also, I never knew and understood the importance of calories in losing weight. A vital part of how to lose 10kg in a long or short time frame is to keep on top o your calorie intake each and every day.

I use a free app called My Fitness Pal. All you need to do is work out the amount of calories you should be taking in per day and adding everything you eat in the app. I found this is the fastest and easiest way to manage my calorie intake to ensure I lose the weight without sacrificing what I love to eat and not feel overwhelmed with the whole process.

2. Proportion Out your macros

I’ve tried to ensure that around 40% of my calories are from protein, 30-40% from carbs and the remainder from fats. Unlike my dieting in the past in which I restricted or almost totally left out carbs, I actually now try to add carbs in my diet, and I have found that I do feel more energy to lift weights and do cardio as a result.

3. 1 to 1.2 grams of protein

Another new thing I learned about weight loss is the importance your body composition. I never understood or even recognized the difference between losing weight to be “skinny fat” and losing weight but looking ripped. In the past, I had lost weight, but I looked very skinny, and even looked malnourished.

But there is a better way to lose weight, which involves maintaining (and even growing) your muscle as you lose weight, so that your body composition is more muscular and attractive. In order to do this, I learned that I need to consume at least 1 to 1.2 grams of protein per pound of my body weight, which I have mostly done throughout my 3 months.

4. HIIT is the best kind of cardio

I have been doing a ton of High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) during my 3 months, and it has really worked. I have been doing 25 minute periods of HIIT, with 2 minutes of warmup and 2 minutes of cooldown. Then, throughout the rest of the HIIT period, I do an interval of 30 seconds of high intensity followed by 30 seconds to 1 minute of low intensity, to catch my breath.

5. Progressively Increase Weight

I’ve also been progressively increasing the weight on my barbell and dumbbell lifts.

Part of my goal in losing weight was to not only be more healthy but to also look leaner and stronger. This has been important in order to ensure that my muscles grow, so that I get a great body composition with muscle definition, and not look “skinny fat”.

6. Stay Within 4-6 Rep Range

Another new lesson I learned was doing lesser reps than what I had been used to in the past. Nowadays I tend to aim for 4 to 6 reps for my lifts. Once I can do 6 reps for a certain weight in set, I then increase the weight. Doing this ensures that I am incrementally increasing my weights, and therefore, getting stronger and building bigger muscles.

7. Focus on Barbells & Dumbbells & Compound weightlifting exercises

I’ve also focused mainly on barbell and dumbbell weightlifting exercises. The benefit of these is that there is wider range of motion, which means that more of my muscles in my body are being used.

Additionally, I focus on compound weightlifting exercises, rather than isolation ones. With compound exercises, again more of my muscles from different body parts are used, so I can get added benefits from doing one exercise, instead of limiting myself to isolated movements.

8. Measure your weight, body fat, waist regularly

My weight loss journey has proven to me that if you consistently measure your core metrics, then you will improve your progress. Every day I have been weighing myself and keeping track of my calorie intake. I also log the progress of my cardio and weights daily. Every week I measure my body fat, my lean body mass and my waist girth.

9. Proper form is important to avoid injury

I had about 2 weeks off from my training plan because of a back injury. The injury happened because I strained myself and jerked my body when trying to lift one of my last reps on the Incline Barbell Bench Press. For a few days, I couldn’t move my back very easily. Since recovering, I have now focused on ensuring proper form on all my reps. That extra rep by jerking my body was not worth it!

10. Take It easy during sickness periods

During the 3 months, I also caught the flu from some of the people at my work. I tried to continue my workout regime, but it just got worse, and I had to just actually rest for about a week. Then I took it easy until my health was 100%.

As much as I wanted to continue working out while I was sick, my time was really better spent to just rest and recover so that I could get back into the workout routine with full force again.

I never thought I would ever be writing about how to lose 10kg in 3 months because to be honest, I never achieved this before in my life until now. Of course, there are still other lessons that I have learned and implemented throughout my first 3 months. I will be continuing on by practicing these lessons as I move forward, and reach for my next goal, which is to reach 10% body fat (which I have never done before in my life!).