#10 How'd they do it?
Lucas Hainsworth
The How’d they do it? interview series is designed to share how members of the Alfred community lost weight and improved their energy.
This week, we chatted with Lucas Hainsworth, and Dad and Rugby fan about how he’s overcoming herniated disks and dropped 40kgs.
Tell us a bit about yourself
I'm 41 years old and from Melbourne. I have two kids and a partner of 16 years, who was born in Indonesia. I love to eat Indonesian food, but now I find Western Food is a bit bland and have to add chilli. I love Rugby and going to the gym. I also love travel, people, and learning new languages.
From your heaviest, how much weight have you lost?
My heaviest was on my 38th birthday when I weighed in at 164kg. I’m 198cm tall, and since then I have been down to 115kg. But after 8 months of going to the gym, I’m around 120kg.
Why did you want to lose weight?
Seeing photos of myself. I saw the kids playing and enjoying their time in the pool and I was wearing t-shirts and clothes to cover up. I was not fulfilled in my career and I had stopped playing any form of sport.
I was unhappy with who I was and it was being compounded by my eating. Much like Fat Bastard in Austin Powers. I was eating because I was unhappy, but I was unhappy because I was eating.
Was there anything holding you back from losing weight in the past?
The biggest challenge I have is that I have three herniated disks in my back which mean that I can’t play physical sport or run anymore. When I was at my lightest, I was running 50-80km a week on the treadmill. But now I can’t do that, I lift weights every other day.
My back pain can be severe and I’ve been hospitalised for weeks at a time, which makes me move like a turtle. I just need to bite the bullet and have surgery. I think dropping 50kg off my frame had an impact on my skeleton as well and it may be a side-effect of being so heavy for so long.
One of the things we’re trying to do at Alfred is to help people take control of their health. What’s been the biggest change to your health you’ve noticed from losing weight?
I feel more comfortable now in places like on an aircraft. I never needed two seatbelts, but I almost did. Now I fit into places easily and don’t need to shop at Johnnie Bigg. I hate that place – I hate that place with a passion. I can fit into size 36 trousers and XL shirts now. Previously I was 42/44 and 5XL or 6XL.
Mentally, it also has an impact on you, when people talk to you when you are lighter, people treat you differently. They are more kind, as the perception you’re fat and lazy fades away.
What’s your favourite meal?
I like the snack chipotle $5 beef burrito from Taco Bell
How often do you have it?
Maybe once or twice a week
If you could go back, what would you tell yourself at the beginning of your weight loss journey?
When you make a mistake, don't give up. Just start again.
You’re the result of all your good decisions over time. You can have a bad meal. You can have a bad day. But you can’t let it turn into a bad week or month, as that’s where things snowball out of control and you end up being 164kg.
Be kind to yourself and be patient. And once you reach your weight goal, you can’t just flick the switch back on and return to your initial habits. You have to change your lifestyle.
Find something that works for you, then make adjustments. Big shocks to your system are not sustainable, so you need to make small adjustments. Substitute macronutrient-dense items for things that are big in size, but not high in calories. Eat your proteins lean, eat tempeh and use protein analogues like Jackfruit, Tofu, to give you that full feeling without the saturated fats.
And you can eat what you want. But just do it within a budget.
Got a message for the Alfred community?
There’s a lot of the diet stuff out there, and a lot of them come from people who are well-intentioned.
But they’ve never been “the fat guy” or “big marn”, and they talk about how they did something to get ripped. They’ve probably been coached and educated on how to eat, and they have a financial incentive, thru sport or modelling, that regular people don’t have.
And sure we've cracked the code on how to make the body more aesthetic and lean. But not enough is done about the psychology of why regular people eat, and how to support them to make good decisions and find balance.
I used to do everything that Alfred did in my head. I had a target number of calories a day and just used that to budget my consumption.
But having a tool in my pocket makes it easier for me to make decisions and also assess whether what I am eating is getting me toward my goal, or making me further from it.
Thanks Lucas!
If you’d like to share your story, please get in touch here.