The Australian Josh Ellison weighed nearly two hundred kilos. The man lived on a diet of fast food, soft drinks, and unhealthy snacks and had almost no movement. When he failed to make his wife pregnant, he made the drastic decision to fast every day for sixteen hours and change his eating habits. Meanwhile, he is about sixty kilos lighter.
“I’ve always been heavily built,” says 26-year-old Josh Ellison. “But when I went to live in the city, the kilos just flew on. I bought almost every meal I had on the way, and when I cooked at home, they were big bowls of pasta or rice. Pizza was my biggest weakness. I could do two in one evening, and then I just continued to snack. I only drank soft drinks and fruit juices and ate chocolate all the time.”
At the most, Josh Ellison weighed 198 kilos. He and his wife had been trying to get pregnant for years, but it did not work out. When research showed that the pregnancy was unlikely to lie with Josh, the measure was full for the young financial advisor.
He decided to change jobs and seriously go on a diet. “My wife and I were already four years trying to get a child. Ultimately, tests showed that the problem was mainly with me. I like to watch my brother’s children and realize that I did not want to be a father with superiority.”
New lifestyle
When Ellison started his new, less stressful job in early January, he decided to change the rest of his life. He decided to fast for sixteen hours every day. The period in which he is allowed to eat is between 12 o’clock in the afternoon and 8 o’clock in the evening.
For the other sixteen hours, he cannot play anything inside himself. In order to facilitate weight loss, Ellison now walks six kilometers every day and makes sure that he does not consume more than 1700 kilocalories every day between 12 noon and 8 o’clock in the evening.
“My former diet is shocking me now,” says Ellison. “It was so bad, and my whole life was influenced by what I ate. In the train, I took more than one seat, on the plane, I was afraid that someone would have to sit next to me because it would be very tight.”
Half marathon
Nowadays, Ellison spends his breakfast in the context of fasting, and lunges with brown rice with chicken and vegetables. As a snack, he has a low-fat cappuccino or a healthy note. In the evening, he eats potatoes, meat, and vegetables. “The potatoes ensure that I ‘keep on going’”, he laughs.
To keep himself motivated, Ellison has also signed up for a 21-kilometre race at the Blackmores Sydney Running festival. “Since I was not able to jog 200 meters around this time last year, it will be quite an achievement if I make it.”
Although he now wants nothing more than his current lifestyle, it took some weeks before Ellison got used to it. “Now I enjoy it, and it is easy to leave the buns with bacon and egg. I drink a lot of water in one day, which also helps to curb the appetite. I had talks with my wife about losing weight and possibly an operation. But she convinced me not to do it. In the end, I lost weight on my own and I am very proud of that.”
