I Used AI to Lose Weight (And It Worked)
Hey, I’m Zell.
- I was 83.5kg
- Today, I’m 80.8kg
- My target is 73kg
I’ve lost 2.7kg over the last month with AI’s help.
This is my story of how AI made this possible.
Where it all began
Every Chinese New year, I’d walk into my family reunion dinner, feeling shameful about my belly.
I know I’d be teased for it. I was ready to take on the shame.
But this year, things changed. My uncle showed up slimmer and stronger. So I felt really bad about myself. I wanted to slim down and get stronger too.
So I plucked up my courage and asked: “How do I slim down?”
And the answer that came back was just two words (from my uncle and my cousin):
- Train
- Run
After speaking these two words, they happily continued their conversation and I was left alone — to ponder about what went wrong with my discipline and life that I grew fatter instead of slimming down.
I walked over next to my sister.
She said. “I diet”. And that I could go look it up.
Look it up?!
“Are you serious?!”, a voice at the back of my mind rang out loud.
I’ve tried to look it up in the past. But I stopped myself midway. The whole topic about dieting was… overwhelming.
But the shame of showing up heavier every year, the guilt of not taking care of my body, and embarrassment of being talked over… all stacked up.
I decided I was gonna slim down. Back to a healthy weight. Which I found out later, was 13kg lighter.
Looking it up
Losing weight had always been a confusing topic because people generally talk about two camps: Exercise vs Dieting.
Reading things up on Google didn’t help — because it just confirms biases anyway. So I stopped researching back then…
Now, I tried again. This time, differently.
I bought AI subscriptions (both Claude and ChatGPT) so I kept asking questions like an ignorant but curious kid.
Lucky for me, I was talking to an AI, so they didn’t get annoyed with me… and I kept asking, and asking…
Eventually, I realized that the key to dieting is embarrassingly simple.
- Intake > Usage = Gain weight
- Intake < Usage = Lose weight
That’s it.
It’s so simple that I had a facepalm moment. 🤦♂️
But there are nuances
For the first week, I felt so happy and liberated. I just had to eat less!
That delight was short-lived though.
Because I discovered that it’s not just about eating less calories. I had to eat specific amounts of protein and fat.
- 100g of protein (based on my weight)
- 40g of fat (a standard floor for everyone)
100g of protein was hard.
Not only because the food choices around were mostly carb-based, but also because my daughter liked carb-heavy foods (which is actually right for kids).
We often had sushi. And occasionally, Macdonalds… so where do I find protein?
Finding more protein
I looked high and low for ways to increase protein in my diet, mostly just asking AI then verifying the existence of it. I checked out everything I could — yogurts, protein drinks, protein powders, meats and fishes, hawker stalls, you name it.
One day at the sushi place, while watching the conveyor belt sushi roll past, I spotted my answers: I could just get the meat-based dishes like cooked salmon and baby octopus, without the rice.
The answers were in my face all along — I just didn’t see it. Another facepalm 🤦♂️.
Of course, this wasn’t enough to hit the necessary protein floor. So I had to supplement with something. I almost got protein powder… but I stopped when I realized many of them contained heavy metals (like lead).
Eventually, I chose protein drinks. And I managed to get my wife on board… though she overdid it abit.
But… I didn’t hit the goals every day
The protein goal was hard. Even today, I rarely hit 100g of protein. So that’s still a work-in-progress.
But the calorie goal was simple. I’ll eat enough to slim down if I don’t snack. And today, I’m 2.7kg lighter. For the first time in years, the number went down.
The diet was a small change
A month ago, I believed losing weight was something I couldn’t do. “It was too complicated”. “There was too much to learn”.
But the topic didn’t shrink.
I changed the way I approached it — which wouldn’t have been possible without AI’s help.
- I got the information I needed
- I sorted out the info, so I’m no longer in conflict
- And I acted without the underlying competing resistances
It’s not easy. But it’s better than brute-forcing through the dieting process.
The Greater Change
On a greater scale, weight loss is just a small thing.
What really shifted wasn’t my weight, but my lenses and my way of doing things. Stuff that I believed to be impossible (for me) has now become possible.
What else can I change? I don’t know at the moment. But life is definitely more pleasant and less limiting than before.
Hope this inspires you to use AI other areas of your life.
