1 Year 94lbs lost Lifting added on month 8 (lots of pics)

beckerkra

Well, I've finally hit my 1 year mark since I started my journey to a healthier lifestyle! I'll be doing the initial post for the quick details and pictures, and then immediately reply with the more in depth details of my journey and things I've learned. I apologize in advance for the TL:DRness of this post.

The reason I'm posting such personal information and pictures is it's time for me to take 100% responsibility for my own actions and hold myself accountable for the things I've done to myself. It's time for no more excuses and hiding.

A quick list of things that I currently do to keep my weight in check and stay healthy. If you want more details about what I'm doing feel free to ask, or I may have more information on it in the first reply of this topic.

Tracking calories on MFP eating at a caloric deficit. I average out my calories for the week (add up cals for the week and divide by 7) and don't necessarily care if I hit or go over my cals on a per day basis. Some days I may eat 4k calories in a single day, and some days I may end up fasting for the whole day or have like 800 cals for the day.

Intermittent Fasting (16/8 method) with the occasional 36 hour fast if I'll have eaten at a buffet for example.

Weight lifting 3-4 days a week for about 50-70 minute sessions. (I didn't add in weight lifting until January, and have only been weight lifting for the last 5 months)

Drinking a ton of water and green tea.

Getting 6-8 hours of sleep a night.

Typically eating high protein and high fat to keep myself satisfied longer for my intermittent fasting.

Using a nutribullet for making myself smoothies and/or protein shakes when I'm being lazy and don't want to make a full meal.

Blood work comparison between the latest blood work before I started, to the most recent blood work I had done.



Starting weight: 291
I was most likely 295 because I didn't start weighing myself until I was about a week into weight loss, and I know a few weeks prior I was close to 300.

Ending weight: The lowest weight I saw on the scale so far is 197.2 which was back in April and I've fluctuated around 197-207 since april. I saw 197 again this week, and 204 all in the same week, so it fluctuates significantly in short periods of time based on simple things like elevated sodium intake and water retention. I have a photo of the 197.2 weight because I took part in a bodybuilding.com transformation challenge which they needed proof of the date and the weight taken.



Starting body fat % was 38.4% and ending body fat was 14.2% according to the machine at work. I have my doubts about 14.2% though just based on a visual inspection of myself in the mirror. I'm thinking that machine shows a little lower % than reality so it's probably 16-17%.

Most recent:

Starting blood pressure was 155 over 90 with a resting heartrate of low 90s.

Most recent:

Starting pant and shirt size: 42, and XXL shirts
Ending pant and shirt size: 32 and medium shirts (if they have the length I need being 6'3")

Here are the photos that I'm sure many of you are waiting for!

First photo I took was at the beginning of June last year (2013). A week before getting married. I was too mad and embarrassed at myself to take shirtless before photos so this is the only photo I have of showcasing my original starting weight.



Here are the first shirtless photos I took at the end of that month after already losing nearly 20lbs in the first month.





And here are all of the after photos I took last week.











Comparison photos June 2013 to June 2014

beckerkra

I have many close friends and family who have asked me about what I did to have such success, and so this reply is mostly for them to help them understand my “secret” and how I had my success. If anyone else finds any of this information useful and helps motivate you, I would be honored to have had a part in motivation to help you!

I'm just going to talk about what I've gone through and the things I did to succeed. The form of motivation that worked for me may not motivate every personality out there.

So, the “secret” that I always get asked about is actually quite simple. People always talk about how it's a “lifestyle change”, but most people just leave it at that and can't or don't really put it into other words. But another way to look at it, is what exactly is it that changes to make that “lifestyle change”? Your mind. Your mind is BY FAR the most important asset for any sort of change to better your health or any other aspect of your life for that matter. If you can't motivate yourself, can't give yourself the ambition to actually do what it takes to succeed, then you can try every cliché diet and attempt to adopt any “lifestyle” under the sun, but nothing in the end will change because your mind wasn't prepared to want success more than anything.

You might be asking yourself at this point, or thinking, “Well, that still really doesn't tell me what I need to do to succeed, so you haven't told me crap.” Unfortunately without sitting down with each and every person and doing a full on psychological evaluation I don't know what will motivate someone. It's something you'll need to try to find on your own. All I can do is give you all of the tools I used for myself and hope it'll work for you.

Right before getting married I decided to do a self evaluation as to what kind of husband and father I could be. Here's some examples of the questions I asked myself back last June right before getting married:

Can I provide for my family financially? - Yes I can

Can I be emotionally invested in my marriage and as a father of my 4 year old daughter and any future children I may have? - Yes I can

Here's where it started breaking down...

Will I be able to be there for my children physically to give them a father who can play with them at parks, help them practice sports they're interested in, etc? - No, it hurts to even walk sometimes.

Will I be able to set an example to my children and teach them by that very example of how to live a healthy lifestyle? - No, I don't have the first clue as to how to be a healthy individual and what real health, nutrition, and fitness is.

Will I even survive long enough to see my children grow up? - Honestly I don't know if I can at this rate.

You can begin to see where I started to get some of my motivation to lose some weight and become healthier. It doesn't end there. As the weeks went on, I started doing further evaluations of myself and started to compile a list of symptoms I was experiencing. Here's that list and whether or not it's still an issue today.

1 Taking 15-20 Excedrin migraine per week due to aches and pains, and most specifically headaches. - I take pain meds maybe once a month if that anymore, and haven't had a migraine in many months.

2 Winded just climbing the stairs in my house (about 15 steps) - Weight lifting 3-4 days a week currently and have no issues running up and down flights of stairs now.

3 Sharp pains in random locations in my chest and stomach region (weird organ pain). - No longer have random sharp pains anymore.

4 Severe GERD/Acid Reflux issues (to the point where I would wake up in the middle of the night choking on my own vomit from reflux) – Haven't had heartburn now in months

5 Repetitive motion injury in my shoulder due to IT work (desk job), and my primary hobby being gaming (so most of my free time and work time is spent on computers). - This is the only one left on the list that's an issue still to this day.

6 Brain fogginess/can't think clearly - No longer an issue. Mind clarity is better than it's been in years.

7 Always feeling fatigued, and tired no matter how much sleep I would get (could get 12 hours of sleep a night multiple days in a row and still feel tired) – I feel refreshed on 6-8 hours of sleep now.

8 Severe “hunger pains” no matter how much food I seemed to eat – Due to intermittent fasting, reversing my body's lack of ability to control blood sugar, eating a more robust higher protein and fat diet, I no longer have severe craving pains (I still do crave things, but it's just very controllable cravings now lol).

9 Always sweating and feeling over warm no matter how cold a room was. - I occasionally have to put on a sweatshirt due to feeling too cold at times even in rooms at a temp of 72-74.

10 High blood pressure – Blood pressure and heart rate as you can see from the picture at the beginning of my original post is no longer an issue.

11 Sleep apnea that was so bad my wife would sometimes need to elbow me at night to wake me up because she would get concerned since I wouldn't breathe for sometimes 45+ seconds. - Sleep apnea is completely 100% gone.

12 Doctor told me I was at the stage of being pre-diabetic and my body was starting to lose its control over its blood sugar levels. - At my most recent blood work checkup my doctor told me that I've 100% reversed my pre-diabetic state and I'm no longer at any sort of risk for diabetes as long as I keep up my healthier lifestyle.


After that self evaluation instead of just choosing a diet plan, I realized what I really needed to do was to focus on preparing my mind and change the very foundation of the way I think. I started focusing on finding ways to, yes this sounds redundant, but motivate myself to be motivated. To become the strongest version of myself. (Quote shamelessly stolen from Elliot Hulse), and to want to succeed as much as I want to breathe, because for many of us (myself included), quite frankly, it's a matter of life and death. Plain and simple.

Wow, you're still reading at this point? Well if you're still reading at this point, I'll give you your first challenge. Here's the challenge:

Take 20 minutes of your time without distraction (you've already read this far, do yourself this favor). Set your children up with a TV show if you have children, put your phone away where it won't bother you, and really take the time distraction free to watch 2 short youtube videos and just do your VERY best to really let these videos absorb into your very being and really allow the energy of these videos engulf you. Whenever I needed motivation and ambition I would watch these videos or similar videos to help rev up my mind when I'm feeling a lack of motivation.

[url] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTFnmsCnr6g [/url]

(Warning, some swearing)
[url] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eXcwMhMGV8 [/url]

If I'm struggling with keeping the motivation to do something, I'll watch and/or listen to videos like this sometimes 5 times in a row if I need to. Each time I watch/listen to one of these, I can feel sort of a chest tightening (hard to explain the feeling), a motivating ambitious feeling of wanting to just say “*kitten* YEA, I'm gonna DEMOLISH THIS GOAL OF MINE!” and I go succeed.

Eating steamed mixed veggies with some plain chicken breasts and the only flavoring coming from a little bit of butter and mrs dash? *kitten* YEA! BRING IT ON! Those veggies and chicken have met their match! NOMNOMONOMNOM AHHHHHNOM!

I had a piece of advice given to me a few years ago from an executive of the company I worked for at the time, and I was asking him advice about how to succeed in my goals of eventually buying houses and renting them out and/or house flipping (one of my long-term ambitions). Here's the advice he gave me. “If you want to be successful, surround yourself by successful people.”

Now here's where the interpretation can be changed and adapted to your personal needs. What I mean is simply this. It doesn't mean that you must “physically” surround yourself by successful people. Sure, that helps too. The perfect example of a physical surrounding of success is choosing to go to the gym. At the gym, what are you surrounded by mostly? Either those who are already successful in fitness, or at the very least on the road to success. Sure, some may fall off that road, but when they do, they just stop coming to the gym, so either way as long as you're at the gym you're still only surrounded by people who are successful or on the road to success. Also, what exactly are you doing right now reading my success story? You've chosen my success story to surround yourself with to help you succeed in your own health goals, and for that I'm truly humbled and honored that you're here choosing to read my success story!

I choose the internet as my place to surround myself with successes to help aid my motivation to continue with my own success.

Now, without further ado, here is a quick list and tips of the many success tools I've used to get where I'm at today and lose the weight.

Firstly, figure out what your basal metabolic rate is and determine how many calories you should eat per day by following the information here and then start tracking your cals on myfitnesspal daily.

https://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/819055-setting-your-calorie-and-macro-targets

In fact, just join this group, and absorb all the information located here.

https://www.myfitnesspal.com/groups/home/10118-eat-train-progress

I intermittent fast which is a system of eating which I fast every day for 16 hours, and have an 8 hour eating window. Pretty simple, if my last meal of the day is at 6pm, I consume no more than 50 calories for the next 16 hours to keep myself in a fasted state as long as possible, and start my first meal that next day at 10am. If my last meal is at 8pm, than the next day I don't eat my first meal until 12pm, etc.

Intermittent Fasting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1fiGJxkFWU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyNTTY2zyrw[url]


If you want to know a lot of the details of why certain foods are so healthy for you, I really advise adding Worlds Healthiest Foods to your list of sites to gather information.

http://www.whfoods.com

People have asked me if I were to choose one “diet” that I most closely follow, and I'd have to say that out of the various diets out there I most closely follow it would be paleo, but I'll make it clear that I don't follow any one specific diet. Some days, or even weeks though I'll just go to town on some “processed junk” If you look at my food diary, you'll see these past 2 weeks I haven't been a very good boy haha! But I also haven't been gaining weight either because if you average out the calories for the whole week, I'm still at a caloric deficit or maybe a slight surplus at most.

What I use to rev up my mind. These youtube channels are full of motivational speaking, tips on success mostly having to do with health and fitness. There's a lot of useful information in these channels.

Elliot Hulse's Strength Camp channel. Great motivational positive speaker.
[/url]https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0ASolYU_Yh3yShLFQC0stg

Buff Dude's channel which has some great overall weight lifting advice and some good recipe ideas.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKf0UqBiCQI4Ol0To9V0pKQ

Omar Isuf's channel which is mostly weight lifting oriented:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaHx0T1LWrVKWF1XfWWLSuw

Michael Kory's channel which I use mostly for some good high protein and bodybuilding recipes.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCb9ageBPhZYNBU93tnjs-QA

The 21 convention. Mostly geared toward men, but still a lot of great information:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuErSr7xeR763BzTJL7yJ7A

kcmcd

Wooow. You've done an incredible thing! Your family must be so proud of you - and you of yourself! Way to go!

chism21

you really did an amazing thing, I just hope a year from now a look half as good!

oedipa_maas

You are absolutely amazing. What a transformation! Stories like yours give me hope and serve as a reminder to never, never, never give up.

Cerakoala

Wow amazing!! What great tips. Congrats on your amazing and well earned success. You are awesome

valjean5

Great job

margannmks

What an awesome story and transformation. One year to lose that much weight and build all that muscle took tremendous dedication and you look wonderful and happy. Congrats

armadillolabrat

Amazing!

grlaurie

awesome, thanks for sharing all the information!!

beckerkra

Thanks all! It took some will power to actually go through with posting these pics lol....

SideSteel

Really excellent progress, nicely done!!

Phaedra2014

What you have achieved is the result of your incredible resolve and planning. Great work! These are skills that will help you in every area of your life.

Keep getting stronger! Really awesome transformation.

danasings

Wonderful story and lots of great advice. Well done!! :drinker:

Kendrazombie

That is fantastic! Well done.

Derp_Diggler

Great work, and thanks for taking the time to put it all down on paper. It makes it all that much more inspiring and helpful.

Beccas_Life

You look absolutely amazing!! The hard work definitely paid off, and you look younger now than you did! Congrats on your success

Chieflrg

Impressive man...you've done a heck of a job!

bostonwolf

Very well done!

Alanakrahenbil

Amazing! Congrats on all your hard work!

jrhanna84

AWESOME job! Thank you for posting this. I'm struggling right now with my training (various injuries in the past couple weeks) so I'm very much lacking in the motivation department. I'm hoping to get back at it sooner rather than later