My story of being 255-205-281-217-243-196 pounds weight & the lessons I learnt from it

Hello, r/loseit

It’s been a while since I started my weight loss journey so I would like to share my experience and results. I will be really happy if my story will inspire you or get you some new knowledge. I am not giving any advices or recipes on how you need to loose weight or be active and fit. What is more, I am not a desperate fan of gym or sport- I just believe that every person can stay active with joy and ease.

In this ~9 minutes read you will find:

• My story of being 255-205-281-217-243-196 pounds weight
• Lessons and tips I learnt from this journey

To start with, let me introduce myself. My name is Valentin, I live in Moscow, Russia and I’m 25 years old now. I’m 6’3 (192 cm) tall and at the moment my weight is 196lbs (89kg).

PHOTO1- me atm link on imgur

Early times

About 80% of my lifetime I had really complicated relationships with my weight. I was a skinny boy before elementary school (7 y.o in Russia) living simple kid life. All changed when I came to school. My weight started to increase pretty rapidly (as well as my height) and by graduation from my high school (17 y.o in Russia) my weight was 250-255 lbs (115kg). As I mentioned before, my height was rapidly increasing but so did the weight, so each new school year I was taller and also bigger.

PHOTO2- me skinny before the elementary school link on imgur

PHOTO3- me overweight in school link on imgur

PHOTO4- me after school graduation link on imgur

Since school I loved sport a lot. I was doing 3 swimming sessions per week for 6 years, I was one of the tallest kids in my age and that’s why I also had nice results in a school basketball team, but all that was accompanied by the excess weight. To sum up, I was an active but overweight guy.

PHOTO5- me playing basketball link on imgur

To be honest, my weight was always uncomfortable for me. Sometimes I faced other kids bullying or joking on me, however, I always knew how to stand up for me. No fighting, just words and not giving a sh*t to what others say. In fact, I worried a lot about my appearance, what made me really shy about myself. I also could not find a girlfriend and that was also a disaster (yeah, I was a teen like all of us). I felt myself kind of trapped in a vicious circe and did not know how to break through it. So by the moment of graduating from a high school (summer 2012) I had 2 simple questions to myself. Why I was overweight with all the sports I did and how I can lose weight. For sure, the answer for the first question was my eating regime and habits. I ate big portions, I consumed a lot of fast carbohydrates, junk food and sugar. As a result, I decided to eat less and stay active as I always was.

My first weight-loss

Those summer I was accepted to one of the best Russian universities in Moscow and my studies started. Half year passed, I still had my usual eating habits (despite my decision to go on a diet after a school graduation), my previous activity level and my weight. The 2 things I did not have were the growth of my height and a girlfriend. That was the final point to me, and I decided to go on a low carb diet (no sugar, no flour, no high-fat foods) and a 2-3 hourly basketball training sessions per week. In the next 6 months my weight moved from 255 lbs (115kg) to 205 pounds (93kg). That was the May 2013 and I was happy. I became even more happy when I found girlfriend in June 2013. (We are still together). I asked myself : "So am I skinny now?" The answer was yes.

PHOTO6- me after the first diet link on imgur

Oops, something went wrong

Time flies, and on the February of 2017 (4 years passed) I stood on a scale and realized the new reality- my weight was 281 pounds (128kg). The weight regained since 2013 and even gained more. I was devastated. What I was doing for 4 years? Nice question! I ate a lot, restored childhood eating preferences and faced a decreased amount of activity- no basketbal trainings, a lot of work at my first job, a lot of other routines and a lot of other excuses…

PHOTO7- me at 281 pounds (128kg) link on imgur

New challenge

So, my new challenge was to loose weight from 281 pounds (128kg) to 198 lbs (90kg). That was the goal. To loose 84 pounds (38kg). To loose 30% of my body mass.

My weight loss path started on 20th of February 2017. On that day my weight was 281,5 pounds (127,7 kg) and on the same day I went to the gym. My fitness routine and new reality was:

1. 3 training sessions per 7 day week
2. Very low carb diet, no fried foods, no high-fat foods, small portions
3. 1 day off on Saturday- you can eat everything you want, drink alcohol, etc

I am not a professional trainer, I am not keen on powerlifting or giving advices how to gain muscles, I just believe that balanced cardio and muscle activity can give desired results of a weight loss and being fit.

My training sessions included:

1. Interval cardio on a treadmill: 6 reps of a set: 2 minute of walking at 7 speed 2 minute of jogging at 10 speed 2 minute of running at 15 speed. Thats a total of 36 minutes + 4 minutes of rest walk in the end of a last rep -> 40 minutes of interval cardio
2. 2 exercises on ABS (lower and high)- 6 sets in total
3. 1 exercise on biceps, triceps, chest and back, (4 exercises and 12 sets in total)
4. 1 hyperextension exercise, 3 sets in total.

That's approximately 2 hours in a gym.

During some weeks I also did a 4th training session with 60 minute exercise on a star stepper but that did not stick with me for too long.

As a result on the 10th of July 2017, my weight was 217,3 pounds (98,6 kg).

PHOTO8- me at 217 pounds (98,6 kg) link on imgur

Same story happens

Well, the 5 months journey was very hard. My goal was to achieve a 98 lbs (90kg) weight, but all the actions that I made took so much effort so I decided to have a 2-3 months of rest from hard diet and sports. 2 or 3 months of rest he said… Well, the rest took a bit longer and the next time I got myself on a scales was May the 20th, 2019 (almost 2 years!). The weight was 243 pounds (110,3 kg). Yeah, same story happened again.

PHOTO9- me at 243 pounds (110 kg) link on imgur

I have «successfully» regained 25,7 lbs (11,6 kg). As the new goal was the same (get a 198 lbs (90kg) weight), I had to loose another 45 pounds (20,4 kg). I did all the same, just started to attend gym with the same training routine as I used to have 2 years before and went on a same low carb, low fat, low portions diet. On the 16th of September, 2019 my scales showed mу the number- 197,7 pounds, 89,7 (kg). The journey was over, but at this point of time I actually realized that I simply can not let the weight come back sometime in future.

PHOTO10- me at 197,7 pounds (89 kg) link on imgur

The things I learnt

Such a long journey with combined total weight loss of 161 pounds during different life periods led me to some learnings, basic rules and principles to follow:

Learning # 1. Mental Trick

I don’t know how it works, but gaining a little weight after sufficient weight loss experience can play a tough trick with you- you realize that you are actually gaining a bit weight but you also remember that you can easily loose that weight. Time passes, you postpone your workout and diet and one day you see the numbers on scales.

Learning # 2. Activity

Regular activity/exercise routine is the most important thing to not letting the weight regain. Loosing weight is hard, but maintaining can be really fun and not so demanding. The power of small but regular steps works here well and 20 minutes of activity per day is much more better than 1 marathon per month. No matter how active you are- basketball, hiking, jogging or swimming. Just find what you love and what suits you better.

Here is the weight graph which I reconstructed starting from Q2 2013 (after my first weight loss) and till nowadays. As you can see, I mark out 5 different stages:

PHOTO11- weight graph link on imgur

1- weight gain, no diet and not enough activity

2- weight loss marathon

3- weight regain after a significant weight loss

4- weigh loss marathon to drop regained weight

5- moderate and light diet (not diet actually, some kind of eating habits and principles that I talk a bit later) & regular moderate/vigorous activity. My goal is to stay at 5 stage for the rest of my life.

Learning # 3. Dieting

The dieting and food is a next important learning but from my perspective no matter what you eat, the thing that matters is rather a deficit or balance of calories. You can eat tons of fat food but burn all em up on a treadmill and still will be fit. However, I have developed several principles I follow in the dieting:

• I'm fasting on Monday. Monday is the first week day and I drink only water on Mondays. That help me to detox my organism and really gives me clarity of thought throughout the whole working week. This principle is not connected with a weight loss, I just like the idea of detoxing one day per week.
• I eat less carbs and sugars during Tuesday-Friday. I eat them but try to limit the amount.
• Weekend days are days off- I eat whatever I want. What is more, I have week-off. Every 5th or 6th week can be a week off, I just give myself rest. I can eat everything I want, be lazy and miss the gym session or outdoor run.

Learning # 4. Weight Control

To avoid weight regain, I recommend setting up a weight interval, which you want to fit in. For me it is a 196-200 lbs (89-91 kg). Weight can fluctuate from time to time, don’t try to stick to an exact number. Staying in a weight interval completely changes the way you think of your weight.

I weigh myself every week and log my weight into tables/notes. Going on a scales each week (in a morning prior to breakfast) and tracing weight are crucial habits for successful weight loss maintenance.

Final learning # 5. Social support

Social support is vital. Co-motivation, feeling that you are not alone and peer support can really help you to stay on your exercise routine. When you are alone, there are more excuses to say no. Try all the ways you can try to get social support. Other folks facing same exercise routine motivate you not to miss your activity commitments.

Conclusions

Today is the 28th of May 2020 and my weight is still 89 kg. As a result of such long journey I definitely started to live healthier life and set up new habits. Whats is more, I definitely came to understanding that loosing weight sucks and I would never like to experience that in a 4th time.

Finally I found a perfect team of co-founders who got inspired by the idea of creating a product for people who needs to stay active. We are creating an app that makes activity maintenance engaging and fun and I can't wait to release it & find our first users! I find it really challenging for me to solve millions people problem & I strongly believe that my weight loss experience and learnings I made from my journey can be useful for others facing same problem I used to face. (and still facing)

Thanks a lot for reading, I appreciate that and I’m ready to answer any questions in this thread.

**PS-**Unfortunately, I lost my «before» photo from February 2017 (the weight was 281 pounds (128kg)). I made pictures in underwear to compare it with the result in a 6 month, but my previous Mac SSD broken and photos were lost.

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