A small post about big results (300 lbs -> 220 lbs)

jerrytmcl

I am not sure I have much to teach anyone but hopefully some will find this post inspirational. I have been large most of my life and have hit 300 lbs twice. Once in high school and again some time after graduating college.

In June 2022, just before my 29th birthday, I did a lot of research into the best ways to lose weight and keep it off. Honestly, all of the medical literature really depressed me. So I took a second look and decided to design my own program. It has worked phenomenally for me.

Last year I mostly maintained. A bit up, a bit down. But I was not counting calories, I was not consistent with my workouts, I was really pretty relaxed about everything for the year.

Below is the program I made that got my weight down:

My rules were simple, and I'm going back to them with a few changes. If you're 300+ lbs and looking to slim down here is what I did:

Determine your basal metabolic rate (BMR)

    there are online calculators that are pretty decent

    If you want to get more precise, get an InBody scan

    If you want to get even more precise, go to a sports clinic

Only ever eat your BRM

    Going under causes you to get hungry & hurts metabolism

    Going over will slow weight loss

No other rules about eating

    The goal in my system is weight loss, nothing else

Only do light exercises

    Biking, walking, swimming, whatever exactly doesn't matter

    Don't go into Zone 3 exercise. Going into "Zone 3" exercise will spike hunger and the trade off in calorie loss is not worth it

You can know your weight loss each month ahead of time

    ~1 lbs / month for every 100 calories you burn over your BMR through the light exercise

Modulate weight loss by doing more light exercise

    Don't go under your BMR to lose weight, instead increase exercise time

    This is the safest way because it does not spike hunger nor detrimentally effect your metabolism

For every 5 lbs you lose, reduce your calorie limit by 50 calories

my program does not promise "health" it promises sustainable weight loss that you won't quit.

In the process you'll end up making better choices over time almost by accident. it becomes a positive feedback loop.

slow and steady wins the race. Keeping my eyes on my personal goals helps a lot.

Now, I am focused on muscle gain, Vo2Max increases, and tighter nutrition. But if I tried to focus on all of these from the start, I would have failed - like I had so many times since I was 8 years old.

I need to use some new techniques as I'm more healthy than I have been in a long long time, and I even finished my first ever 5K last month!

dodieneatfreakwannabe

I am twice your age and female, so I don't know if this approach applies to someone like me, but I very much admire your consistency, and of course, your results. You've done an amazing job. Inspiring!

Go_Gal_Grow

WOW! Are you serious? I feel like you just taught a Master Class! You communicate well, I understood everything you shared and am very appreciative. I've been doing this for a minute, (-145 lbs. loss to date) and I have never seen the BMR metric used as a barometer in such an effective way. I learned a new way of looking at BMR from this post. Thank you for sharing your success formula.

jerrytmcl

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/comment/48520642#Comment_48520642

It is also possible to do this with your Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR) though, it will likely take longer to lose the weight. That, of course, is not a bad thing. Just a thing to note :)

In any case, the key is finding what works for you to get where you want to go!

jerrytmcl

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/comment/48521179#Comment_48521179

Congratulations on the weight loss, that is no joke! Seriously, very impressive and I am hopeful you have found a way to live more free now!

In my career I have been focused on helping people overcome their struggles in their own roles. I take this seriously. I look at the data, interview people, and see where their anxieties lie. I don't stop at the surface level. What is preventing them from attaining some specific outcome they desire? Is it that there are systemic issues? Are they not defining success well? Is their mindset preventing them? Are they anxious about something going wrong?

In all of this work I have found that often times people can easily tell you that they're in pain or struggling. "Here, I am struggling here something is wrong!" … But they are terrible at telling you why something is wrong and they are even worse at telling you how to help them.

That is my job: Figure out why something is going wrong and come up with ways to get them out of that pain / struggle.

When I turned my gaze from my job to my own struggles with weight, I saw the exact same pattern. This is something that I think the medical community, and even the health' fitness community is ignorant of. So they focus on the "discipline" and make you feel badly for not achieving what you set out to.

My goal became to find studies, individual or grouped (called “longitudinal studies” or “meta studies”), that would reveal what I would have to do to lose 118 lbs and keep it off.

"Treatment of obesity requires ongoing clinical attention and weight maintenance-specific counseling to support sustainable healthful behaviors and positive weight regulation."

Maintenance of lost weight and long-term management of obesity, Kevin D. Hall, Ph.D. & Scott Kahan, M.D., MOH, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5764193

"A recent systematic review of 13 randomised controlled trials examining effects of “extended care” for weight loss maintenance reported an average 3.2 kg [7 lbs] difference in weight regain between extended care and no or minimal additional contact."

Long term maintenance of weight loss with non-surgical interventions in obese adults: systematic review and meta-analyses of randomised controlled trials, https://www.bmj.com/content/348/bmj.g2646

"Current treatment programs for obese individuals are not very effective over the long term, leading to the common wisdom that persons who successfully lose weight will regain it all within 5 y[ears]."

Long-term weight-loss maintenance: a meta-analysis of US studies, James W Anderson, Elizabeth C Konz, Robert C Frederich, Constance L Wood, https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/74/5/579/4737391?login=true

Based on these and other well cited papers we can conclude: treatment of obesity requires ongoing clinical attention, with this treatment you can expect to lose about 7 lbs, and within 3-5 years you’ll gain those pounds back. Depressing and demoralizing results from well cited papers that take longitudinal & meta studies into account. These results deterred me from looking any deeper. What is the point of even trying to lose 118 lbs and keep it off for 5 years when large studies are showing that I’ll be a success story if I lose 7 lbs and keep it off for 5 years?

The results I achieved throughout my life, the ones I called abject failures, are the standard and they are the expected results of doctors and physicians around the world today. It made me very angry to read these things. How can the world be failing so badly in such a key area? Has there been no break through despite all of the talk and hand wringing? How much suffering is happening right now because nobody has "figured it out" and everyone has thrown their hands up? It made me very angry. It was only when I came back and decided I was going to find my own way, while respecting the doctor's data, that I had my key insight.

The insight about BMR (and RMR if you are ok with losing more slowly) was the key insight to me. I did so many restriction diets in my life that left me feeling like I was starving and dying for anything I could get my hands on! Once I saw that BMR is keeping me alive I understood why my body would freak out when I went below it. From there, the rest was just about creating a system that reduced the burden of the person looking to lose weight and keep them making progress - just like I do for my job.

Go_Gal_Grow

@Jerrytmcl
*THIS!!*
Best response I've ever received on MFP!
Thank you for sharing wisdom, I'm gonna make another coffee, read this response and digest it.
Happy Sunday!

connor_manning

Fantastic stuff bro. Congrats on the huge change and success! Keep it up! Look forward to seeing your next update.