Starting Weight (August 2020): 355 lbs.
Current Weight (1/10/2021): 290 lbs.
Total Weight Lost: 65 lbs.
Weight Loss Goal: 225 lbs.
Pounds to Go: 65 lbs.
A little over four months ago I set an aggressive goal to lose 130 pounds in a year.
How I got here: I’m a web developer, working from home for roughly 4 years. Exercise was no longer part of my daily routine anymore. Eight years ago I had success with another diet program losing 40 pounds in 10 weeks. Although I learned how to keep the weight off, I didn’t practice what I learned. I let myself slowly get back into bad eating habits. I played tennis hours a day in leagues but when my tennis playing slowed down, my weight gain exploded, ultimately reaching weight in excess of 355 lbs. Since I am 6′ 5″ with a large frame I was able to hide much of this weight gain, but you can only stuff so much into a human body before it bloats! I had to do something about it.
How I got started: Losing weight was mostly in my head. It’s easy and I’ll tell you the secret right now. Eat less and move more. Once you deviate from that formula, you will start to gain weight again. So how do we just say we are going to eat less and move more? It took me 2-3 years of “thinking” about losing weight before I mentally committed to it. Once I had the phycological commitment to lose weight, it was just a matter of going through the motions and sticking to the plan. I would of course deviate now and then, but the fix to that is just get back onto the plan.
Where do I go from here: The first half of my journey is done! Family and friends have noticed, I am healthier, I feel better, I sleep better, I don’t snore anymore, and a whole lot of other things. The second half of this (65 pounds) is going to be a lot harder than the first half. I plan to stick to the low calorie diet, but slowly introduce “regular food” back into my routine. Increased exercise is going to be the key.
I am trying to get back to the weight I was at in my first enlistment in the US Army when I was in my early 20s. This is right around 225 pounds, as you see at the top of all my weight loss posts. I do look at BMI, but I don’t believe it’s accurate for me. Even at 225 lbs, this is a BMI of 26.7, still considered overweight. I have always had a relatively big frame, enough so that many ask me if I played football, but that’s a whole different story for another time. The accurate way to measure this would be to get a body fat test, and I guarantee that I’d be very low on this percentage if I hit this weight again. My last year in the military I weighed up to 275 and still met military standards. 225 is FIFTY POUNDS LESS THAN MILITARY STANDARDS! How is this considered overweight? OK, my rant over on this topic.
I’ll be posting updates here and there and will be going into “training mode” shortly, mostly for hiking and biking. If the Covid situation gets better I may start swimming again. The trouble will be creating the new fitness/exercise routine at a level I have not done in a long time and sticking to it. If I want to meet the goal of 130 pounds in a year, I am going to have to!
If you read this far, thanks for sticking with me!