2 1/2 years I've lost 160lbs, and maintaining perfect now.

January 4th 2011 I began a journey to finally lose the weight I had been carrying for more than 10 years. Today is June 13th 2013 and I have officially lost 160+lbs and have been maintaining for 4-5 months now at a comfortable weight.

For more than 10 years I was anywhere from 330lbs to 355lbs at my highest and had tried everything to lose that weight. Around December of 2010 I was watching a show with Tim Ferriss where he was explaining his new book The Four Hour Body, and once I heard him explain the diet it just clicked and I said to myself "Holy hell, I can do that!". I literally stopped the show I was watching, ran to the book store and bought the book in that same hour, brought it home, finished the show and began flipping through the book. Spent that week preparing, buying food, getting rid of junk that was keeping me fat and never looked back for the first time on any diet I had tried.

I lost around 70lbs in the first 6 months, 25 of that in the first month alone. Thats when the real life crept back in with most diets and I began to flat line. I was in the process of looking for a new job, driving back and forth across the state interviewing, moving my family, life stuff, etc, and wasn't really able to keep up on the diet as much as I wanted too. But the crazy thing was, this time I was not going back up. I spent about 8-9 months traveling back and forth and looking for a new job which killed my progress, but I still kept to the main eating lifestyle which surprised me the most. Within that first 7 months I had trained myself to eat better and follow a healthier eating lifestyle which stuck.

Once I got settled in the new job, new house, and back with the family, I was dead set on getting back to the diet 100%.
I started to prepare my meals again and started hitting the gym again and began to lose around 10lbsa months again consistently until I hit what I thought would be my goal weight. When starting this diet I wanted to get back to 225lbs. I was around this weight 15 years ago and thought it looked good. Once I got there though it wasn't enough so I figured I would try and get down even more and set my new goal weight of 210-215lbs. But again once I hit that weight I still had some fat to lose and the diet was so easy by that point I started toward 200lbs even, a weight I had not see in more than 17 years.

Almost two years to the date, January of this year, I hit 200lbs even and have been maintaining ever since. I did go down from 200 a bit hitting 192 but found that it was too low and I did not like that weight and have since brought it back up. I began lifting weights around November of this last year but wasn't really serious about it. Then about 4 months ago I started to hit the weights seriously 6 days a week and have only missed 4 days in that 4 months and I feel absolutely amazing!!!

The biggest thing for me and the one thing I tell everyone now is to not look for a diet, but an eating lifestyle that you can follow for the rest of your life. For me, I love pizza, hamburgers, doughnuts, all the stuff that I shouldn't eat ever again
These are items which I always wanted but could never figure out how to incorporate into a diet the 10 years before. It seems simple, but still I could never figure it out and eventually add all lost weight right back on. Tim's diet broke it down for me in a way I could understand, eat healthy six days a week, one cheat day a week where you eat anything and everything you want. Hell, how could I NOT love that?? This is where I say find an eating lifestyle that works for YOU. Because some people don't need that cheat day once a week, some people don't want pizza and hamburgers, they just need portion control. This diet would not be for you then most likely. I knew I was going to cheat eventually on a diet, which always threw off progress for me in the past, but Tim said something that really stuck for me and that was "You know you're going to cheat so why not schedule it?" Simple as that is it really put it into clear and simple terms that finally made sense and I have done it ever since with great success.

LOOSE SKIN!!!!
This is a big question from a lot of people and this is an area where I am very great full I took the diet so slow. I look on the internet and see horror stories of loose skin or hanging skin and I was so nervous that this would happen to me.
Even after losing that much weight I did it so slow that my body had time to recover and readjust to this new body and it shrunk pretty well. I have some extra skin but I do not have near the issues I thought I would. I hope to post pictures of my current status to show what it looks like but I am building the nerve to do that one.
If I was too take of my shirt I look like a slim gu7y with a small gut, no hanging flaps or anything like that. My wife was shocked. I am hoping to remedy some of the gut issues with my new weighting obsession and reverse what little damage I have left.


I have started to document my progress forward on a personal blog where I post everything from pictures, stats, progress, food, etc. Check it out for a few more photos too.
http://www.4hourjourney.me/about/

And please feel free to ask any questions personal or not, I share everything about this journey because I want others to see how easy it really CAN be.