I want to preface this that my post is not to be intended to be taken as advice, but as information, nothing I say in this post is medical advice or dietary advice. I am well aware there are going to be tons of judgement and criticism on how I lost my weight. I'm a lot happier than I am now and that's what matters to me.
Preface:
I'm 5'6" male in my 20s. I was roughly 230 lbs in the beginning of January of this year. I am right now 154 lbs. I was unable to even run 3 miles in an hour, and I am now able to run over 7 miles in an hour and ran 2 marathons. For context, I have let myself go several times in the past, and have lost weight and gained weight before. I basically stopped working out, ate shitty food (ordered from DoorDash every day), drank lots of soda, ate candy, and my cholesterol was at 250 at one point. Before this year, the longest amount of time I was able to go to the gym consistently was about 3-4 months, which then I would eventually quit and stop going and overeat and gain weight. I'll talk more about how I got over this issue later.
Story:
This year at the first week of January, the girl I was dating broke up with me and I decided to go to the gym as a way to take my mind off of her. I had zero intentions on losing weight, I just wanted to do some kind of activity while listening to music. I was definitely in no shape to run or do complicated exercises, so I just did the easiest thing I knew my body could handle and that was walking. I set the pace to 2.5 mph on the treadmill and after an hour I went home.
The next day I did it again, and I kept repeating this process for the entire week. I would try and challenge myself a bit by increasing the pace from 2.5 to about 2.8 up to 3.0 mph, something I can handle without exerting too much energy and burning out quickly. After about 2 and a half weeks, I noticed I dropped a lot of weight, from 235 lbs to about 219. Keep in mind that some of the weight was food and water weight, as my diet was horrible and consisted of a lot of carbs and I was also overeating every single day. I'm going to fast forward and say that going into the month of February, all the way until July, I basically just repeated the process of going to the gym for at least 1 hour, ran at a stable pace I could handle, increased the pace by 0.1 mph every minute, then drop the speed to calm my heart rate, and repeat it again. I want to get into my diet and sleep next.
Sleep:
My sleep has always been inconsistent throughout my whole life. I've had many sleepless nights, pulled all nighters, etc. I have had periods in my life where when I was consistently training for strength, I'd sleep 7-8 hours a day, but it fell short eventually. This time however, I told myself that no matter what, whether I get 2 hours of sleep or 8 hours of sleep, I am going to the gym and do the bare minimum even if it's with 20% effort. The first 3 days after the break up was so hard for me that I was unable to sleep, but I knew I had energy to walk so I still showed up to the gym and walked for an hour. After about a week and a half, I was more focused on the gym and I got over that break up and didn't care anymore. By that point I knew my true goal to focus on is to lose weight and not for the break up, but for myself. My sleep did improve in the sense that I was getting more sleep, but still not the typical 8 hour cycle. I'd sleep at like 12 am sometimes and wake up at 5-6 am, sometimes I'd sleep at 3 am on the weekends and wake up at 11 am. No matter what, I still dedicated that 1 hour to the gym doing only cardio on the treadmill.
Diet:
Remember earlier that I mentioned I ate a ton of bad food. To clarify, bad food did not make me gain weight, but overeating bad food is what overtime caused me to gain the weight. I would literally eat McDonalds (Big Mac, Fries, Large Coke) at like 11 pm when I'm hungry, then after 2 hours I'd feel hungry again and order McDonalds AGAIN with the same meal. That's close to 3,000 calories according to the McDonalds calorie calculator. I did this for over a year from July 2022 (where I was 160lbs) all the way through the entirety of 2023.
What I did this time was I actually didn't even bother to stop eating outside food. I used to cook simple stuff like chicken, white rice, broccoli, etc. and it helped me lose weight with working out. But all I did, was I'd eat a single Chipotle burrito bowl, at 11 am, every single day, then at night around 9-10 pm I'd go do my 1 hour cardio and then come home and sleep. I actually didn't feel hungry at all, because I was practically doing keto diet. I'd wake up the next day, at 11 am, go grab a Chipotle bowl, and then go to the gym again. Sometimes I'd eat other things too, I've had Pizza Hut (whole pizza), Mediterranean food (Falafel, Gyro Meat, Mediterranean Rice, salad), Chinese Food, etc. But I always made sure to eat one large meal every day and then fast for 24 hours. I did this every day from January until July. There were some cases in April to May where I cooked healthier foods at home, but it wasn't every day and consistent.
Here's my weight loss progression month by month starting at the beginning of the month:
- January: 236 lbs
- February: 211 lbs
- March: 199.8 lbs
- April: 188.2 lbs
- May: 177.8 lbs
- June: 170 lbs
- July: 159 lbs (and eventually dropped to around 153-155lbs)
July to Now:
I want to use the rest of this section to talk about some of the struggles I dealt with from July up until now, because with every goal you're trying to achieve you're always going to struggle along the road. I was so happy when I was in the 150s, because that was my main goal from the beginning. My weight has always been around the 150s throughout life. I felt like I didn't need to really lose weight anymore, my desired goal was to hit 145 lbs for longer distance running but I decided to just relax.
During July, I started "cheating" my meals a lot more. Basically, I'd have my main meal of the day, and I had a huge craving for Cold Stone. For about 2-3 weeks I'd literally eat Cold Stone every single day, I'd get a large oreo overload which it says it's about almost 1000 calories if not just over 1000 calories. It was tasty, but I felt bad, because I was eating probably close to 3000 calories. But here's where cheat meals can help you psychology, at least it does for me. Whenever I have cheat meals, it makes me feel guilty at times, not always, but sometimes. So as a consequence I set for myself, I tell myself that I am going to go the extra mile and train a bit more. So I was running 2 hours instead of 1 hour on the treadmill. I would do my main run which is more intense (6-7 miles in an hour), and then I'd do another 1 hour run which was lighter (5-6 miles in an hour). I basically did this every time I had Cold Stone. Eventually I grew out of that craving after 2 weeks and I actually dropped weight from 159 to 153 after about a month despite eating almost 3000 calories a day.
I also was struggling with alcoholism, I originally resorted to light drinking to help me sleep, but I eventually took it too far and would sometimes just drink a whole bottle a day. I've never drank prior to when I met my ex (the one that broke up with me in the beginning of this year) who introduced me to alcohol. And because I enjoyed the feeling of drunkenness I drank every day after my cardio session. Eventually it got to the point where I was prioritizing drinking over going to the gym. There was a period of time where I wouldn't go to the gym for 3-5 days straight and eventually would take a break from drinking, go to the gym, but then a few days later resort to drinking again. I was going to the gym about 20-25 days out of the month but then it dropped to about 16-17 times a month in September and October. I would also indulge in even more food while I was drunk, I'd tell myself "It's okay, you're still at a good weight and you just ran 7 miles, you can order fast food at 12 am in the morning". There were 3 nights in a row where I was drunk and ordered whole Pizza Hut medium pizza and ate the whole thing.
I eventually gained some weight, I don't know the exact amount in terms of fat, but I did notice I was just a bit slower and could feel my stomach was more fat, and my face felt chubbier. I remember seeing the scale at 166 lbs which started to scare me. But I've been back on track now, I don't drink anymore, and I've been running outside instead of treadmill running. I've came back down to 154 lbs (most of the weight was likely food and water weight due to the carbs, with some being fat).
The biggest takeaway from this whole experience is I've learned you don't need everything to be perfect to get started, and they don't always need to be perfect in order for you to keep going. It's ultimately when you entirely give up which is when you fail. Before, I always thought I needed 8 hours of sleep every day, needed to eat a perfect clean diet, and go to the gym consistently, just to feel fulfilled. Now, I don't care if I get 4 hours or 8 hours of sleep, I'm still going to commit to the gym. If I fall to temptation of eating stuff like candy or sweets, sure I may feel guilty afterwards but I'm still committed to the gym and consistency. If one day I feel lazy and want to miss a work out, that's totally fine, I'll go the next day. If the next day I feel the same way, then I'll commit on the next day, and hold myself accountable.
Anyways, just wanted to share my story! Obesity and being overweight is a huge issue especially here in America, I've had family members suffer from strokes, and they had to learn to walk again (they were older). Would I change anything if I could start over? No. But what I will say, is I obviously need to now work on my sleep and diet, as I have more defined goals with fitness, since I want to run faster and longer distances (ultra marathons) as well as improve my mental health, increase testosterone, etc. So I've been eating clean and sleeping better. Thanks for reading!
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