
How an influencer in China lost 60kg in 5 years without weight-loss drugs or crash diets
In the early days, there were a lot of photos of him enjoying food: a slap-up English breakfast, cookies while working at his laptop, a rich birthday cake in 2018 and what looks like an enormous bacon sandwich in 2019.
Then there is a shift, with fewer photos of heavy meals and more photos that record him seemingly shrinking. The hefty young man grows slimmer and more active: kayaking on a lake, walking his dog and swimming.
The start of
the pandemic was the turning point.
'I started to lose weight when Covid happened,' the 36-year-old says. 'I knew I needed to lose weight and that my lifestyle was unhealthy. I had a
fatty liver
chest pains and
sore joints
'Staying at home gave me time to do my research. All the information I needed was available online. There are many free resources. I collected what I found and put it into practice. Some ideas worked for me, some did not.'

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How an influencer in China lost 60kg in 5 years without weight-loss drugs or crash diets
Scroll through Shanghai-based Thomas Derksen's Instagram feed from the oldest post to the newest and you will notice a metamorphosis in the Mandarin-speaking German influencer. In the early days, there were a lot of photos of him enjoying food: a slap-up English breakfast, cookies while working at his laptop, a rich birthday cake in 2018 and what looks like an enormous bacon sandwich in 2019. Then there is a shift, with fewer photos of heavy meals and more photos that record him seemingly shrinking. The hefty young man grows slimmer and more active: kayaking on a lake, walking his dog and swimming. The start of the pandemic was the turning point. 'I started to lose weight when Covid happened,' the 36-year-old says. 'I knew I needed to lose weight and that my lifestyle was unhealthy. I had a fatty liver chest pains and sore joints 'Staying at home gave me time to do my research. All the information I needed was available online. There are many free resources. I collected what I found and put it into practice. Some ideas worked for me, some did not.'


South China Morning Post
3 days ago
- South China Morning Post
How an influencer in China lost 60kg in 5 years without weight-loss drugs or crash diets
Scroll through Shanghai-based Thomas Derksen's Instagram feed from the oldest post to the newest and you will notice a metamorphosis in the Mandarin-speaking German influencer. In the early days, there were a lot of photos of him enjoying food: a slap-up English breakfast, cookies while working at his laptop, a rich birthday cake in 2018 and what looks like an enormous bacon sandwich in 2019. Then there is a shift, with fewer photos of heavy meals and more photos that record him seemingly shrinking. The hefty young man grows slimmer and more active: kayaking on a lake, walking his dog and swimming. The start of the pandemic was the turning point. 'I started to lose weight when Covid happened,' the 36-year-old says. 'I knew I needed to lose weight and that my lifestyle was unhealthy. I had a fatty liver chest pains and sore joints 'Staying at home gave me time to do my research. All the information I needed was available online. There are many free resources. I collected what I found and put it into practice. Some ideas worked for me, some did not.'