At the start of 2023 I had a big problem. I was entering into my 5th year of serial loser-dom and I knew it. Every time I looked in the mirror I found myself staring at a double chin that had done basically nothing productive since highschool except learn how to use a wok and a grill - not exactly super star material. All those dreams I had of being Mr. Big and Famous (or at this point just Mr. Average would’ve been great) were rotting away with my body as I clocked 40 hours at work and 40 hours on the computer week after week. It started to become obvious to me, even in my many liquor-powered hazes, that something had to change.
And, it did! But it wasn’t easy and it was certainly slower than I would have liked. This article is about how I lost 45 lbs, transformed my body, fixed my relationships with food and alcohol, and saved my own life through fitness. I’ll take you through exactly what I did, what it felt like, the effect it had on me, and what you should take away for your own weight loss journey.
Timeline for My Fat Loss Journey:
Through the back half of 2022 I had been working out with a little two post rack and unstable bench in the garage of the house I rented a room in. By November of that year I had gotten strong enough that my jank setup was no longer safe to lift in. I started a commercial gym membership and switched my schedule to the morning to fit workouts in with drive time. From then until July, 2023 I made good strength progress. But, I had the nagging issues I’d been feeling for years. I wasn’t moving enough weight to ignore my drooping belly and flabby arms. A 225 bench is slim consolation when you hate looking in the mirror. But there was another goal that had long been on my heart: becoming a novelist.
So, in July, 2023 I chose to focus on that dream instead. I put my workout goals on maintenance and for three months spent 1-3 hours every day clacking away at my keyboard. By the end of September, 2023 I had written 90,000 words and had what I hoped would be a major shift in my future. And yet, the mirror still haunted me. The achievement of writing my first book and the excitement of moving into my first house in August, 2023 had done nothing to change my body or the way I felt. But it wasn’t either of those things that finally pushed me to put the weight loss in gear. My wife was pregnant.
Becoming a father has been many things, enough to cover in its own post for sure, but in the context of my weight loss it provided one thing: focus. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I didn’t want my children to have a fat father. I felt they deserved better. A better example, a better role model, and a better life than obesity and overweight mediocrity. So, I got serious. I did research and bought a couple programs. I read a lot about losing weight and how to do it. Most of all, I forged a covenant with myself: My children will not have a fat father!
The cut started on October 8th, 2023 at 193.2 pounds with the goal of 150. My initial hope was to be done before Christmas so I could coast through the holidays. Those of you with some past experience dieting and losing weight probably laughed at that. Despite reading that 1 lb per week was the average, I had high hopes for blowing that out of the water. And for a while things went great.
In that first month of October, 2023 I only went over my calorie goal of 2000 a single time. Coincidentally (not!) it was also the only day that month I missed my protein goal of 200g.In total I lost 10 pounds (clocking in at 183.2 on the morning of the 31st). I was ecstatic! It was a bit slower than I wanted but with that progress I would be done by January. But then things started to slow down.
There was Thanksgiving and my birthday and my wife’s birthday and my mom’s birthday and Christmas and New Years and on and on. For my family the holidays are at minimum a week long event and that meant it was nearly impossible to (read: I didn’t want to make a way to) count my calories. From the end of October to the end of the New Year’s festivities I had lost less than I did through October, clocking in at 178.6 pounds on 1/2/2024. Despite that, there was hope.
I hadn’t gained weight through the holidays! Even though my original goal was missed by a mile, I felt positive about not having lost my progress through those difficult months. The finish line was in sight still and losing nearly 20 pounds was something I felt proud about. Even at that fairly small amount of weight loss, I was the only one in my family who had ever lost so much. January, 2024 would prove to be a month in the right direction getting down to 171 pounds. February followed suit with me clocking 169.8 pounds on 2/17/2024. Then, my daughter was born.
The next time I recorded weight was on May 10th, 2024 at a miraculous 170 pounds. Despite not tracking weight or calories for three months, and thoroughly falling off the training regimen, I had only gained less than a pound. I was very pleased with that, but there had been changes in my life. There were no problems.
First, I had an infant to help care for. While my wife stopped working to be a full time mom, there was still much to do and help with after a particularly rough pregnancy and delivery. I was head chef, houseman, and pet keeper for our small indoor zoo. This, plus the sleep deprivation, made it difficult to do much of anything except survive.
The second issue I had was my book. I had gotten the thing drafted in 2023, but over the winter months had found it wasn’t nearly ready for publishing. I had been marking up the first draft for editing and was now sitting on several hundred pages of red lines to work through.
Finally, I had six weeks off work and then I’d have to go back to balancing my job along with everything else. In this situation I made a desperate play.
To help our finances and satisfy my personal dreams, everything except the bare minimum to help with the new baby would go on hold so I could redraft the book. I worked slavish hours, expanding the tome from 90k to 130k words and then cutting it down from there. At the end, in a feverish sprint, I worked through the night to call the project complete. And then, once I’d submitted it to agents for review, I was back mentally where I had been in October, 2023. The project was done and out of my hands for the moment, and I had work left to finish on my body.
By this point I was starting to get anxious about the progress. I wanted, no - I needed to hit my goal weight. I was willing to do anything. And so, things got extreme. I cut my diet down to 1500 calories in May, 2024. Then I cut to 1300. Then, by mid June, to 1000. I was still working out hard in the gym 3-4 times a week. I was still working 45-60 hours a week. I was still doing cardio. I needed to see that magic number of 150 before the next major family holiday on July 4th.
And, on June 26th I hit 149.6 pounds. It took several days of water fasting and a full day of food and water fasting, but I did it. I was at the end of my wits, willpower, and perhaps even sanity. The goal had become everything to me and I warped my life around it for those months. Was it worth it? Yes, I think so, if only for having done it. Would I do it again? Not that way in a million years. And here’s why:
The end sprint of intense deficit sabotaged my muscle gains from the last year and traded both sustainability and health for speed. Let me explain the difference between the beginning and end of the cut for my weight lifting and diet so you can see what I mean.
How Weight Lifting Changes as You Lose Weight
There was a time for me when the only thing I cared about was how much weight was on the bar. I think this is common for young men who get into lifting, especially through sports. It feels like whoever does more is worth more. And, for some, that’s true. But overtime I found my training methods were less than efficient. You might even know the program I used already... the hallowed Starting Strength 5x5 method. (affiliate link)
Now, let me be clear. For a while Starting Strength was great. The program helped me do exactly what it said it would: get stronger. But, I had less than perfect form, diet, sleep schedule, and even lifting routine. In spite of my poor preparation, I gained a significant amount of muscle before the injuries started rolling in.
And boy did they roll. My knees began to ache and swell, my elbows flamed with every motion, and finally my back gave in an agonizing bout of sciatica which took months to work out. Months during which I could barely walk, much less lift. So, going into my dieting and weight loss phase I knew I needed to change something about my lifting routines.
I highly recommend AJAC (Alexander Cortes, no affiliation) on X/Twitter and his programs. It was through AJAC and a few notable others that I switched my mentality from a number-go-up powerlifting focus to one more akin to a bodybuilder. If you’ve read my fat loss guide, you’ll understand some of the reasoning behind this. But the change wasn’t easy.
The first thing that was different was the increase in reps per movement. Where 5x5 was, well, five by five for everything, 8 repetitions become the new minimum. Of course, this meant dropping the weight across the board. As a lifter, having to drop the weight is a humbling experience and a difficult one mentally. You think, “I worked so hard to hit this weight!” and it makes it hard - really hard - to lower it. So, that was the first hurdle.
Bodybuilding training also differs from the powerlifting style because of how much variation there is in what you’re doing. At least, in a standard 5x5 program you only do squat, bench, overhead press, and deadlift. Maybe you throw in some rows or pullups or something. With bodybuilding, the focus on developing the visual aesthetic your body from every angle requires introduces a host of new movements. You need to work the squidgy little muscles in your legs and the different parts of the shoulder and so on. But, most different of all was the change to focusing on failure as a desirable outcome instead of a negative one.
You see, in powerlifting there’s one mentality: ‘Lift this weight or die’. And if you fail, well, it doesn’t feel good. It means fundamentally you aren’t strong enough to lift the weight and often also means you program either pauses or regresses. In bodybuilding, however, hitting failure is a sign that you did enough to make the muscle grow. Going to failure means your muscle will grow more than if you had reps left in the tank. Going to failure is also a skill that must be trained.
Our brains are designed to avoid pain. When we put our hands on a hot stove, we instinctively jerk away without thinking about it. The body doesn’t want to experience damage. Bodybuilding style training then is utterly counterintuitive to our body. Not only does it not want to experience the pain, it will do everything it can to convince us to stop pushing toward failure! Learning how to push to real failure is something I had to learn how to do and am still training myself in. That’s one skill you can always get better at.
So, those were the initial shifts at the beginning of the cut. I had to learn how to go to higher rep ranges, do more exercises, and push to failure. Once I got over the initial hump it actually proved to be a far more effective training method than I had been using before. Not only did my strength increase faster, it also visibly grew over the months. It was incredible to be getting slimmer while looking bigger and being stronger. Then things changed when I cut my calories.
At first the difference was only stagnation. Eating at 1500 calories, I was still able to get nearly 200g of protein per day and things were fine. It didn’t feel great, of course, to see the weight not go up, but then again nothing felt great on that lower calorie level. I sat there for almost a month before the weights started dropping.
The significant length of my calorie deficit and the further dropping of calories was effective at taking weight off the scale, but it had a cost. Each day at 1000-1200 calories while maintaining my activity level left me not just in a tepid brain fog, but also growing weaker by the day. I lost nearly 20 pounds off my bench working weight during this time and stopped doing other compound movements (like squat) at all because of how draining they were. It had stopped being safe to get under the bar.
So, there’s how lifting went during the dieting phase. I had some nice strength and muscle growth but lost some of the progress due to how aggressive my diet was at the end. Now, let’s look at the really fun stuff: food!
How I Changed My Diet to Lose Weight
I’m sure you’ve heard an infinitude of diet options and surefire methods for eating to lose weight. As I explain in my fat loss guide, you can cut through all that with the simple truth that a calorie deficit is the only thing required to lose weight. Before starting this cut, I’d never counted calories before. I had counted protein but never looked at my macros beyond that. So, there were some initial challenges here too.
First was developing the habit of counting calories. Measuring food, reading labels, and actually planning meals in advance takes time. Not enough to make it not worth it, of course, but it is a skill you must develop. I was militant at the beginning of my diet to make sure every single calorie was on paper before it went in my mouth. I do recommend this approach, especially at first, to ensure you’re really hitting your goals. But, counting calories was easier for me because I had to change other things at the same time.
The start of my weight loss journey was definitely a ripping-the-bandaid-off season. Not only did I start counting calories, I also stopped eating out entirely. While partly financial, I found immediately how difficult it was to not just count calories from fast food but how to hit my macros while eating it. In the end, it was rarely worth trying to do. This also meant I needed to learn how to cook.
Luckily, I had help from my lovely wife and some long-buried training from my mother that emerged in a cool, flashy training montage. When it comes to food I am by far a more simple creature than most and so meal prep - very simple meal prep - became a good friend. You’ve heard the horror stories, I’m sure, of chicken and rice. Well it was that way for me too.
Indeed, I ended up eating a very structured set of meals. In the early days they typically were:
- Breakfast: after workout protein shake
- Morning snack: yogurt & fruit or granola
- Lunch: chicken, potatoes, and vegetables
- Afternoon snack: cottage cheese & fruit
- Dinner: chicken, rice, and vegetables
Now, there were two keys that made this work for me. First, sauces. Sure I was eating chicken and rice every day but it didn’t feel like it. No, one night I was dining in Buffalo, the next I was in Mexico, the next in Japan for a curry, and the one after that in Italy for spag- er, elbow noodles. Okay, I obviously didn’t have all the authentic flavors at hand but the same food under a different sauce feels unique enough to make it worth doing. And, most nights I even had room for dessert That’s the good part about counting calories, you can save them and spend them on whatever you like guilt-free.
Things changed at the end of the cut, though. I adapted one of AJAC’s programs and switched to almost entirely egg whites and vegetables. There’s very few sauces that can make egg whites taste as good as chicken and rice. The surprising thing was though, I didn’t really have cravings at that point.
I’m sure this is different for different people, but eventually the body adapts to a certain level of calorie intake. Eating many, many vegetables helps with satiety, but at a certain point your body stops asking for food except when its triggered by a strong smell or sight. In those moments, it is incredibly difficult to fight the urge, but everyday life gets manageable. Not easy, but manageable.
And, the most key part of an extreme deficit: refeed days. Oh, I had some glorious cheat days. We made pulled pork and gorged on glorious BBQ nachos. We made real-deal Louisiana gumbo and fell into a bayou of our own creation. We had buffet meals that would make you sick to even imagine. But, and this is key, no cheat day stretched longer than a day. That’s how you make sure it doesn’t stick - the weight or the cheat.
When thinking about dieting, there’s one other key area of your life you’re going to see changes:
How Losing Weight Changes Your Mind and Relationships
The biggest changes were less about my body and more intangible things. People always say you ‘feel better’ after losing weight and it seemed nebulous to me. It can be hard to imagine that life will be tangibly different just because the scale has a different number on it, but it really is true.
You actually feel lighter and stronger because you have to carry less weight around. Plus you may have gained a substantial amount of muscle during your cut so you could be stronger than ever in addition to weighing less. You breath easier, you can run farther and faster, you have more energy, the list goes on and on. But the best part is your mind.
Confidence is something that must be earned. No one can give you self-confidence or teach you how to actually be more confident. You can learn techniques for emulating confidence or pretending to be confident but that’s not the same thing. When you look in the mirror and actually, seriously, like what you see, that changes you. The sight of real muscle definition, the arm veins, the v-taper... there’s nothing like imagining the fat loser from months or years ago and overlaying your new physique over him. When you know you’ve done the work and have a great physique it gives you a level of confidence that can’t be explained. You walk, talk, and think differently. But you don’t just think different thoughts.
You think faster. You think clearer. Right now if you’re above 20% body fat you have a constant brain fog. You might not be aware of it, I certainly wasn’t, but getting your body fat down is like taking stimulants and chugging energy drinks every day. It feels super human compared to being sedentary and overweight. And yet, that’s not the best part.
The better physique, extra energy, and superior mind all combine to dramatically change the rest of your life. Nowhere is this more true than relationships. Suddenly, people like being around you more. Suddenly, you’ll have an easier time getting dates. Suddenly, people will laugh at your jokes with sincerity. Suddenly, you’ll have more respect. Suddenly, sex will be better. Of course, it isn’t really ‘suddenly’.
People will only notice at the very end of your journey after you’ve made serious progress. They won’t notice when you skip meals or push for that extra rep or skip a party so you don’t break your diet, and on and on. It will feel like ‘suddenly’ to you and to them but really it’s just the natural result of all the effort you put in on yourself.
Key Takeaways for You to Lose Fat Today
Everything I learned on how to lose fat is presented in guide form on the fat loss training plan page on this site. It is 100% free with no download or email subscription or anything. You can go read it, follow the quick start guide, and start seeing results immediately. So, if you want the benefits from above (including not fumbling through mistake after mistake like I did), then go check that out.
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