The title is supposed to say "April 28th will be 6 months" not 2 months, sorry!!
Here's my progress picture: https://i.imgur.com/Zu1GtJj.jpg
The short version of the story is basically: I'm 33 years old, male, 5 foot 7, and was 287 pounds in October 2020. I weighed in this morning at 187 pounds. I made the decision to do something about my weight and health on October 28, 2020. I starting eating a low carb, high protein diet and I exercised a ton. Like, a crazy amount. More than is probably feasible or maybe even healthy for most people. I got a DEXA scan a few weeks ago and I was at 18% BF at 195 lbs. My final goal as of now is 175 lbs although I recognize that the scale number is not that important to me, I just want to like how I look and I'm not quite at where I want to be yet. I also recently injured my left AC joint falling off my bike and have been unable to workout for about 3 weeks but have maintained my cardio and have continued to lose since then.
The longer story:
I’ll preface this by saying that I was a competitive tennis player and rower ("crew") in high school and was very active in college, albeit non-competitively. I gained like 130 pounds over several few years post-college, but I did continue to work out sporadically during that time. I say this to indicate that while I have certainly increased in muscle mass and strength while losing the weight, I had a fair amount of muscle prior as well. So I didn’t put it all on in just these last six months.
I made the decision to get healthier on October 28, 2020. I was feeling pretty down about some personal romance issues (lol) and also realized I wasn’t going to able to overcome them or many other things I was unhappy about without getting my ass back into shape. As I imagine is usually the case with this sort of thing, the weight was really more of a symptom of other underlying problems/unhappiness.
Anyway, I’ve been eating a low carb, but not technically keto diet for the duration of this time. High protein, lots of vegetables. I don’t have a problem eating the same thing daily. I eat a lot of turkey burgers, lettuce, broccoli, chicken, etc. I sometimes eat salmon or a steak if I’m feeling fancy but I have to save up calories if I’m going to have a huge ribeye or something. And I cut out alcohol. Huge issue. I was overconsuming alcohol big, big time. The pandemic made it worse for awhile. That alone may be the most important thing I cut out if only for the long-term health and mental health issues, notwithstanding the effect it has had on my weight loss.
I try to keep myself to about 2200 calories a day but I do cross over up to 3000 with some frequency because I am doing a huge amount of physical activity. I’m currently biking around 45-60 miles every day (2-3 hours of biking, between 18 and 20 mph) and working out using a modified P-P-sorta-L routine at home with dumbbells--mine are adjustable up to 150 lbs on each side. I floor press ~220 right now, so I won't be advancing past what I have available for awhile. I recently started adding about an hour of running in the evenings because I know I've become very adapted to the biking. So I run about 25-35 miles a week. I also walk an hour in the evenings some days, but that's more to have some "thinking time" rather than specifically for the exercise aspect. So total exercise is: probably an average of about 350 miles a week biking, about 30 miles a week running, maybe 10 miles a week walking, and weight lifting 5/7 days a week.
I say “modified” PPL because I have bilateral SLAP tears (labrum tears) in my shoulders, so I can’t do things like the bench press; I do a floor press instead, as mentioned above. And I say “sorta-L” because I don’t really try to hit my legs too hard. I only do fairly lightweight Romanian deadlifts along with various hip stability exercises (clamshells, monster walks, banded box squats, and so on). I know my knees are under a lot of pressure from the constant biking and I have had knee injuries in the past, plus I’m happy with the size of my quads/hamstrings/calves just from the biking and RDLs, so I don’t feel much pressure to go for heavy squats or anything.
I started out biking even more than I am now. I biked something like 1000 miles in a couple weeks back when I started and actually dropped 25 pounds in a very short time (much of it water weight I’m sure, but it was still a huge number of calories to burn for my weight at the time). I injured my knees from biking too much and had to take time off the bike for all of December and January. Not recommended, but I'm being honest about what I did.
I lost very rapidly at first but seem to be in a pretty consistent pattern of things plateauing for 2-3 weeks at a time and then wooshing over a few days for the last few months. It averages out to about 2-3 lbs a week, or 10-12 lbs a month. I carry the last of my fat in, as far as I can see, the following order of most to least: belly, thighs, calves, arms, chest, face. I don’t really care too much what the scale says, I just want to be happy with how I look. It sounds vain but right now I’m most eagerly waiting for the last bit of chub in my cheeks and neck to go (harder to see because I’ve chosen the best pics of myself, of course). I think they’ll be last to go, unfortunately, lol. At least that ensures I'll finish the job, I guess!
Ultimately I feel better in so many ways, more energetic, and happier and more confident socially and elsewhere as I get "back" to where I used to be. It's intense how much of our value we tie up in our appearance (or at least it is for me). While I wish I had more confidence without needing to feel good about myself physically that's just how it is for me.
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