How to lose weight naturally: exercise, intermittent fasting, diet tweaks help teacher shed 14kg in 11 months
- Charmaine Rangel was spurred to lose weight after being too heavy to sign up for horse riding, whipping herself into shape from 73kg to 59kg in under a year
- She credits cycling, weight training, intermittent fasting, diet tweaks, a health app and quality sleep for her success, which has also boosted her self-esteem
Nearly four years after she first tried horse riding in 2019 and fell in love with it, Charmaine Rangel was keen to start learning the sport at a Hong Kong equestrian centre. That plan was dashed when she saw the weight limit for riders: 70kg (154lb).
“That was the tipping point,” says Rangel, 45, who weighed 73kg at the time, in January 2023.
It spurred the banker-turned-kindergarten-teacher to embark on a fitness journey that led her to shed 14kg – to 59kg – and see a 14.7 per cent drop in body fat, from 35.9 per cent to 21.2 per cent, by the end of that year.
She had developed unhealthy eating habits, “snacking on chips, Nutella and ice cream while binge-watching Netflix with my husband,” she says.
“I didn’t like looking in the mirror and seeing fat on my stomach and thighs. My self-esteem had fallen.”
