So, there I was in June of 2016 weighing in at 180kg (396 pounds) with this realisation that I needed to do something that was completely different from what I had tried in the past.
So I started researching. I went straight to Google and I used terms like ‘weight loss retreat’ and ‘fat camp’. I figured this would be a great way to get started. Invest in some time at a specialist facility where I can study up on nutrition and spend every day sweating it out at the gym and come back super fit.
Then I started to see the prices of these places. They were expensive, usually somewhere in the vicinity of $5000 per week. For this money, you got a room (sometimes shared with others) and would get most of your meals sorted. They usually had ‘medical facilities’ on site to help you realise how bad you are I suppose and your days involved a couple of exercise classes, various activities and free time. I realised pretty quickly that this was a lucrative venture and really did seem to be tailored to the top end of the market. There didn’t really seem to be any middle ground and certainly weren’t any options significantly cheaper, not that I ever found anyway.
So I started to think that maybe I should just bite the bullet and get a surgery done? When you are fat, you see and read about these people who get surgery done. There are a few different types, I knew someone who got it done once. His transformation was dramatic but I felt like he went through a lot of sacrifice to allow it to work. That felt like failure to me, stapling my stomach in half and not being able to eat certain foods just felt like an easy option. There had to be a better way.
I persisted with my search. I reached out to a couple of places and asked about whether they offered off-peak or cheaper options. I even explored an option in Victoria Australia that allowed you to do their course but not stay at their facilities. I figured I could just stay in an AirBNB or something.
But nothing seemed to make sense.
And then an idea came to me. Why don’t I just do a sought of manual weight loss camp? I could go somewhere in Asia that was cheap and then I could find a local gym and personal trainer and even work with a meal service that offered healthy options.
The economics of this idea made far more sense. I figured I could budget $1000 for an entire week and get this all sorted. But where would I go?
Thailand seemed like a good choice. We went on our honeymoon, just to Koh Samui for a week on our way back from Europe and it felt like that would be a good place to go and work out and I am not going to lie, some beach time had some appeal as well.
I started researching this new idea. I looked at Bangkok and Phuket mainly. Made a list of gyms and their pricing for comparison. Looked at meal services and their product offerings. I was pleased to find that this was a much more mature industry in Thailand than in New Zealand or even Australia from what I could see. It would appear with the lower cost labour overheads, there was a few specialist meal companies even doing paleo options. This idea was starting to take shape.
Accommodation seemed easy enough, you can pretty much pick your pricing level in Thailand and go with what you are comfortable with.
So this seemed like it. This was how I was going to start my weight loss journey. Take a month off work and do my own weight loss retreat in Thailand. This was an easy plan to commit to admittedly, however whatever steps you decide to take in your journey, consider that your plan is the first milestone in an exciting journey and embrace it with open arms, fully commit yourself to doing it and don’t make any excuses.
