my success story from 290 down to 180, then muscle built to 210+

djspacecaptain · August 2015

Hi everyone I am willing to share my story for motivation and to help anyone that needs it. Ill keep it short and sweet. Firstly would like to say I am pretty intelligent and utilized motivation and dedication to do what i did. I am 6'1 with a large body build.

I was always an athlete throughout school playing sports and taking weights class and what not but i was always big. I graduated high school weighing 290 lbs and finally had enough of being big, wish i had done it sooner during high school but hey what can you do...

I always worked out hard and my motivation and dedication to losing weight was so incredibly high, i did it all alone as well. I started eating a strict diet of fruits, salads sometimes with chicken and chicken with rice for dinner; The chicken was boneless and skinless. I knew this combo is incredibly low in calories and with that low in the vitamins, minerals and nutrition i needed so i also took vitamins and supplements to combat this.

I worked out almost daily, I want to say 7 days a week but this was years ago so lets go with 6 days instead. My daily workouts included jogging (started with 2-3 miles then averaged at 6 miles and ended at 8 miles), then hit the gym for hours; the gym included more cardio (45-60 mins elliptical, stair master 15-20 mins), hundreds of crunches and when i got down to a light weight i would do thousands of crunches with leg lifts, I always lifted weights and did this daily too; i would do around an hour of weights alone never with the intent of getting stronger but to do lower weights and high reps.

Now I don't push partying on anyone but for me it was such an awesome release and an amazing treat to get my mind off of how hard i was working out. I partied like around 3 times a week since it was summer and i just graduated. Not going to say how i partied i will leave that for your imagination! But hence my user name.

Doing this solidly for 7 months i actually dropped down to 180 lbs! I know that is incredibly fast and is stated unhealthy but i did it and am so proud of myself!

After dropping the 110 lbs i slowed on jogging and lessened my cardio and mainly did the weights even longer than before and almost daily. I added push ups and was able to do clapping push ups, military push ups and spidermans. Kept the high amount of ab crunches which was in the thousands. I still did the lower weights and learned to do slow reps, i didn't want to be a body builder just very athletic.

Doing that for 3 or so months i gained 25-30 lbs of muscle and weighed 205-210 and was so fit i loved it. Took kickboxing, judo and Karate to stay in shape as well as continuing the weight lifting

So in 10 months i dropped from 290 to 210 with solid muscles.

I don't have any images of me before hand on my laptop but here are some of after my transformation, take in mind the story above is true.

After my transformation i kept the weight off for a good 3 or so years and gained some more muscle so when i was 21 i weighed 215 lbs and wore medium shirts it was awesome. When i was close to 22 years old i did a train wreck where i was hospitalized, depression finally crossed the line as well as finally got help for schizophrenia (i had it my whole life not just from partying hard just didn't know that is what it was). So I stopped working out and started on lots of meds which in 4 months made me gain 50 lbs right off the bat. From trying all sorts of different meds for the next year i plateaued and stayed at 275 lbs for another good year.

Now I am 25 almost 26 and now going for round two on getting as fit as i was. I started at 292 lbs one week and five days ago. The first week i got a bad flu bug so i didn't work out but i dropped down to 282 lbs, yes the 10 lb weight loss was from the bug but i made it my starting point. The last 5 days iv'e started working out daily again and lost a few pounds already i am in between 277 lbs and 280 lbs depending on how much water i got in my body. The working out now is not as hard as before but i will get their that is one of my goals.

Well That is my story and where I am at now and where I plan on getting to, hope you enjoyed!

GaleHawkins · August 2015

Welcome to MFP. It is good to know you are pretty intelligent and utilized motivation and dedication to do what you did. That will give you a chance at fitting in with the rest of us.