From overweight to trying inspire change daily.

Alright here's my story from 290lb to 195lb (5lbs short of the 100lbs mark. )

I work daily now in fitness. I teach for a gym here in town (GO CORE FITNESS! http://www.corefitness1.com) and without my gym I wouldn't have accomplished everything I have. We have amazing classes and great people here. Since I got so much out of classes I wanted to give back so I became an instructor, now teaching BODYCOMBAT, BODYPUMP. Ocassionally a Martial Arts class and coming soon for me a Metabolic Coaching class ( think high intensity interval training)



I was 215 and in pretty good shape years ago (this photo is like 11 years old)
.

I lifted every day, ate chicken and fish and broccoli day in and day out.
Then I got married...and it all went down hill from there. Not because of my wife, she's great. Amazing even. But because I got lazy..gave up on being fit and became OK with being overweight. 6 years later I'm 290lbs no more muscle and all fat. Here I am in Germany enjoying the local fare..a bit too much..as usual.



Jump ahead a few years and I feel like crud, and so does my wife. We've put on weight together and neither one of us is happy about. So it's time to change. And we do. We take up eating better and both join a gym together.
It's not easy at first but it starts to work. We fall in love with the Les Mills line of classes, BODYPUMP, BODYSTEP, BODYATTACK, and BODYCOMBAT become regular activities for us and they start to really make the change happen. Eventually I am down to 230lb but the bigger thing than lbs is I'm down from a snug fitting size 40 pants to a loose fitting size 36, so although I've only lost 60lbs at this point, I've put on a decent amount of muscle, and shed inches of fat. I take up teaching BODYCOMBAT at this point as I'm feeling decent in my fitness, but I am not done with my own transformation. A year later I start teaching BODYPUMP and I'm still working on my body, I'm better but not there.
Here's me at 230lbs doing my first Warrior Dash
(yeah flames)

So now I've gone another year and another 35lbs down and I feel amazingly better. I can do so much more. I've completed a half marathon, numerous 5ks with increasingly better times. It's amazing. I still get to eat a lot of great foods in moderation of course, but my life isn't confined to just chicken and broccoli, although I do eat a lot of chicken...

Here is me now, from our most recent release of BODYPUMP 83, in a size large tight fit shirt... something I would never have worm a year ago, and still not comfortable with now, but I'm working on it.


***TL;DR I was 290lbs and now I am 195lb so close to 100lbs loss.

Me Fat:
Me Not so Fat:



** Diet info:**

When I was packing on the weight, I ate anything everything including but not limited to Totinos' Party Pizza, Hamburger Helper, Tuna Helper, and a lot of other disgusting stuff. Really, what the heck was I thinking with that food.
When I went to lose weight, I went with a minimal ingredient approach, tried to buy as many things as I could that I could understand what was in the food. So no Monohydrosulfaglutamakemefatassacus in it....I started with just including more veggies and more protein. This combined with the new workouts was enough to drop the 60lbs. I still ate Ice Cream, Cake, Cookies and more..Pizza..for sure Pizza..because I WILL NOT give up Pizza.
I didn't have a huge soda habit or anything but I did start to include a lot more water, you wouldn't believe how many times you think you are hungry and really just need water. That alone can be a HUGE change in your diet.
For my final surge of 30lbs in the last 6-8 months it's been a lot of chicken constantly throughout the day. I ate 7-8 times a day about 3-4oz of chicken, just grilled chicken or slow cooked chicken, and I would eat some whole wheat pasta with black pepper and Siracha on it (Siracha makes anything delicious..well almost)
I utilized the crap out of MyFitnessPal.com for calorie counting during this time too. This was to do a major calorie check and make sure I was only eating what I really needed to eat. I teach or take class two times a day some days so I used my fitness pal to log calories burned and calories taken in to make sure I wasn't putting my body into a state of shock from burning 1200 calories that day exercising plus the 2000 calories I naturally burn with BMR. It's important to fuel the body or it starts to eat muscle and causes a lot of not so great results.
Right now for maintenance I eat typically 4 meals a day, with Chicken still being the staple protein (chicken is an over achiever when it comes to protein to calorie ratio).

My daily intake for some weight loss is this:
Breakfast: Blueberry & Strawberry Protein Smoothie with Vanilla Soy Milk (I toss in a handful of frozen strawberries and half a cup of blueberries and about 1.5 cups of Soy Mil and one scoop of whey protein)
Lunch 1: Chicken 4oz
Lunch 2: Chicken 4oz & Carbs of some sort (Rice {typically brown}, Whole Wheat Pasta
Dinner: Varies greatly... Steak, Chicken, Soups, Seafood, You name it. Dinner is not a meal I watch that heavily, but I am still careful for the most part. It's the one meal I get to enjoy with my wife in the day so we don't really put a huge limit on what we eat for dinner, we try and keep it simple with protein and a veggie source but other days it's Pizza delivery, or out for Sushi, or out for Wings and Beer. Depends on the day.



I am currently on a much more restricted carb diet (Ketogenic)

I eat daily now:
Breakfast:
6oz Turkey Sausage
3 Egg Whites
1/8 cup cheese

Meal 1-4 ( I eat every hour or so during the day)
4oz chicken shredded
1-2Tbsp Mayo
1tsp salt
12oz of water

Meal 1a-4a ( I rotate eating a bit worst on the fat and calories size)
4oz chicken shredded
1-2 strips of bacon
1Tbsp Mayo
12oz of water

Meal 5:
At least 4-6oz of protein (including Burger, Turkey, Chicken, Pork Chops, Bacon)
1cup or more of Broccoli
More Water.

I drink a lot of water during the day as it's important to stay hydrated!