Unrelated
This account is 14 years old and this is the first post. I registered it before I knew that the sexual apparatus by the same name existed. Now it serves as a very-long-lived throwaway. That said, I'll answer what questions you have (if any).
Pictures
Preface
I really lost 50 lbs in 25 years. I’ve been chubby my whole life. I can remember being thirteen years old and excited that the new house we were moving into had stairs - because then I’d get more exercise and lose weight.
I’d lost some weight before but never below a BMI of 25. I fondly remembered those short periods.
There was no shortage of knowledge, only of motivation. I wanted to want to be thin, but I wasn’t crazy desperate to be thin. This time was different - this time it was more important than anything else, including job, money, or social life. It wasn’t a sudden realization. Over the course of a few months I realized I’d sacrifice any of my other achievements in life in order to be a healthy weight.
So I decided to throw money at the problem. I started seeing a counselor and a personal trainer. After six months of seeing them, and not seeing any progress, I ditched the counselor and took charge of my own training, and went on an aggressive diet.
Author's note
This is written in a very ‘matter of fact’ style to keep it more concise. Each line was wrought from sweat, tears, analysis, meditation, experimentation, research, and discussion. This was not easy or fast; it was a constant, sustained effort.
Theory
- Count calories. Target: 1100 a day..
- Aim for at least 120g of protein.
- Aim for at least 20g protein per meal.
- Eat lots of volume and fiber.
- Took up running (3x weekly - couch to 5k)
- Took up weight lifting (3x weekly - PPL)
- Eat 3x daily (~300c), with one snack (~200c)
Stats
- Born in June, 1984 (35 years old)
- 180cm tall / 5’10”
- Starting weight: ~95 kg / ~210 lbs
- Final weight: ~72kg / ~160 lbs
Approach
Prep:
- Bulk cooking chicken, turkey, or beef on the weekend on a george foreman grill. No sauce, brine, or oil. Got a sous vide for my birthday - that helped with the beef cuts.
- Bulk chopping up red cabbage, turnips, bell peppers, zucchini.
- Sometimes bought romaine, arugula.
- Filled my freezer with 1lbs bag of frozen cauliflower, broccoli, spinach, or brussel sprouts. Occasional frozen onion, bell peppers, or mushrooms.
- Sometimes a whole thing of sugar free jello
Most meals
- 1 lbs of steamed vegetables
- 3 ounces of chicken, turkey, or lean beef
- Spices, mustard, liquid aminos, lime or lemon juice. No butter, oil, or other toppings.
Meals out
- I brought a food scale with me to work and most other places. I was “that guy” but it stopped being weird after it started working so well. I ate lots of salad bar options (chicken, veggies - same proportions) instead of main options.
- Chipotle chicken salad, no beans or rice, work well for this diet.
- Some sandwich-in-a-tub options work well for this diet.
Exercise
- Couch to 5k, 3x a week until I was done with the program. Then a 5k 2x a week, alternating for time and HIIT style (2min run, 1 min walk). I now run about a 27m 5k.
- Dumbbell PPL - this one https://www.reddit.com/r/Fitness/comments/2e79y4/dumbbell_ppl_proposed_alternative_to_dumbbell/
- I can now deadlift, front squat, and bench the max weight on my dumb bells (52.5lbs per hand, 105 total). I’m planning on joining a gym and switching to barbell exercises.
- Personal trainer once a week - varied cardiovascular efforts. Very little strength training. Note: personal training wasn’t new; I’d been seeing him for about 6 months before starting the diet. I did not lose any weight during that initial period, but I could go up stairs faster.
- Otherwise sedentary - office job.
Drinks and Snacks
- I drank a lot of coffee, decaf, diet sodas, and mio water. I figured being hydrated helped to avoid confusing thirst and hunger. That was more important than avoiding substitute sugars. I had to pee a lot.
- I chewed a lot of sugar-free gum. Mostly orbit, sometimes trident. I got up to about a pack-a-day (35 calories!!) before trying to tone it down again.
- Chopped up veggies (always weighed)
- Sometimes a whole thing of sugar free jello
Mental
Before I started, and for the first month of the diet, I saw a mental health counselor who specializes in eating disorders. I figured I’d be an easy case. I think she must have been a reverse psychologist, because I ended up hating her advice and doing the opposite. She suggested intuitive eating. She suggested weighing myself seldomly. She suggested throwing away all my old clothes that didn’t fit but I still loved. She suggested accepting my body as it was, and focusing on enjoying it and being healthy.
I dieted so aggressively that some considered it medically dangerous. Now I love my body, love how I look, love that I fit into old and new clothes. I found comfort in having numbers to represent reality, both for weight and calories, rather than intuition or feelings.
I stopped seeing her once the diet starting showing more results than her advice.
I’m confident that I’ve survived without developing an eating disorder. I’ve now maintained this weight for 1.5 months without being obsessive.
I kept a journal, before, during, and after the diet. There’s a lot more entries around food and eating habits during the diet, but generally with positive affect - exploration, excitement, enjoyment.
Endocrine
Because I was targeting an aggressive weight loss rate, beyond what is normally medically suggested, I decided to play it safe. I got blood work done twice, around 1/3s and 2/3ds of the way through the diet. Both times it came back with all values within normal bounds.
Tool Tips
A double steamer turns a one pound bag of frozen vegetables into a meal in 15 minutes. It is easier to use and clean than a insta-pot or microwave. The vegetables come out better. They are distinct, crisp, and moist without being mush.
Stasher bags were great for chopped up meat or vegetable storage without burning through plastic baggies.
As mentioned, a george foreman grill made cooking chicken easy, if slow.
I used chronometer for calorie tracking. It appeals to data nerds like me.
I maintained a spreadsheet with daily calorie counts, weight, and exercise history. I was able to use this to almost perfectly predict my weight loss trajectory. The Harris-Benedict equation, multiplied by a Physical Activity Level (PAL) estimate of 1.2, plus exercise calorie burn estimates, turned out to be very accurate. Note that this is MUCH lower than what wikipedia suggests a normal PAL is; these are the numbers that were accurate for me. Draw your own conclusions.
Observations and Lessons
Cheat days are crap. My weight always ballooned up afterwards, and it always took many days to drop back down again. It was very clear that cheat day calories are still calories; there is no magic mechanism to trick your body into maintaining some higher metabolism. They were not psychologically useful. If anything, they were the opposite. I felt bad for days. After each one I felt like I had fucked up and set myself back.
I tried intermittent fasting. It led me to binge eat. At night I was basically uncontrollably hungry, but I had no other history of binge eating. I decided it didn’t work for me.
I tried keto and general low carb at first. It worked, up to a point, but only felt full at about 1800 calories/day. And it was really, really easy to eat way more calories on accident - particularly when it came to nuts and cheeses. I also missed the nourishing fullness I felt after eating vegetables.
Almost all the traditional advice on how to avoid overeating didn’t work for me. I was always hungry enough to eat an apple. I was always hungry even after drinking a glass of water or tea. Only these super nourishing meals seemed to keep the edge off.
I was inspired by Protein Sparing Modified Fast, but didn’t go all out on it. I haven’t read the book. It just lines up with my observations: you can eat protein to preserve muscle, and dramatically drop other calorie sources. Your body can burn its own fat.
I had a few calf cramps from the running routine. Adding salt, magnesium supplements, and fake salt (potassium chloride) alleviated it.
I took multivitamins for a while, assuming dieting would deprive sufficient vitamin and mineral levels. I never really noticed any effect while taking them, so I stopped.
The meal that I eventually converged on, mainly vegetables with 3oz protein, I find extremely nourishing. It leaves me feeling very satisfied for hours. Longer than keto meals.
Hunger is more an emotion than a physical sensation. I ended up trusting the calorie numbers more than my stomach. Eventually my stomach adapted and learned the new habits.
I still always want any food I see. I just have more thought patterns I can use to accept and set aside those desires.
I think "set point" might be real, and it shows in my calorie tracking when the “actual” weight caught up to the “predicted” weight. For a long time, the predicted weight was trailing.
It’s really quite amazing how much easier it is to diet when work isn’t stressing you out. Vacation days and weekends were usually a lot easier. Work trips - conferences or offsites - threw me off completely.
I fucked up and had bad days about 17 times, usually in rapid sequence, and usually when I was unable to prepare food in advance (ex: 3 days in a row for a conference). They generally delayed progress substantially but inspired me to be better in between.
I exercised 114 days, which is actually substantially less than I planned, but still pretty aggressive.
It was tough not eating dinner with my girlfriend. We had lots of habits around cooking and eating out together, which I largely interrupted. She’s pretty independent though, and as the months passed we got used to going out together less. We still would get coffee pretty regularly as a way to get out of the house.
I miss bread the most. Not beer, not chocolate, not anything fried. Just good high quality fresh baked bread.
Maintenance
I bought new clothes when I was very close to my goal weight. I couldn’t mentally accept how much weight I lost, and ended up buying 2 inches larger or a size up for most things. Now I have a whole new wardrobe that doesn’t fit well, but fits better than the old one. It still looks way nicer. I’ll replace it again slowly, as I discover more individual items I like.
To sustain weight, all I did was increase calories and allow some normal Standard American Diet “SAD” meals - eating out, or items loaded up with oil. I try to avoid having more than one SAD meal every two days. I still estimate the calories, but it’s pretty much a wild guess. Now I target ~1900/day, and have lost a little bit more (~158lbs), which I plan to use as a buffer for an upcoming trip to Austin, where I plan to eat all the BBQ.
I still eat a lot of vegetable based meals. I’m also experimenting with greek yogurt, fresh and frozen fruit, and other near substitutes for the vegetable + protein meal composition.
I maintained a list of treat foods that I missed during the diet. I’m eating them at about a rate of once every week, in very moderate amounts. So far: indian buffet, oreos, halloween candy, pizza, ice cream. At this rate it will take me almost a year to get through the list. I look forward to it.
Reactions
Many people are amazed. Most didn’t notice until I changed my wardrobe.
- Some people near obsessively ask how I did it, and want lots of nuance and detail.
- Some want to know what the secret was, and I can tell how sad they are that there’s not one.
- Some are concerned for my health. They wonder if I’ve lost so much weight so fast because I’m sick.
- Some knowingly probe but don’t directly inquire. I can tell they’ve had similar struggles with weight before, and want to be sensitive.
Nobody has started flirting with me, but I’m in a long term relationship, so I wasn’t really looking for that. I’ve just heard that it’s a common surprise for people who have always been chubby.
Next Steps
Continue eating like this for the rest of my life. It’s satisfying, nourishing, easy to prepare and cook. Consider SAD meals as indulgences only.
Start lifting with heavier weights, and in a more traditional olympic lift routine. Get some meat on these bones. My butt disappeared! Time to get it back. This will mean some days at caloric surplus, probably with 40g protein 4-5x daily.
Recommended Reading
- https://www.strongerbyscience.com/athlete-protein-intake/
- https://thefitness.wiki/improving-your-diet/
Wrap
This is already an extremely long body of work, but there’s still a lot more nuance that went into these experiments, observations, and practices. I’ll update this to include answers to any questions you may have.
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