I went from morbidly obese to 6 pack abs! Ask me Anything

azaleeadinca wrote: »

Thanks for your amazing story. Congrats. Indeed, it's inspiring!!!

I am a 5ft8 female amd at 33yo started my journey obese, at 222lbs, and by 35, today, I am at 157.lbs by doing mostly strength HIIT workouts 5 times a week. I also started running. I started with a trainer from day one, so I did endurance and strength from day one, although back then I didn't understand the importance of weights as I do now.

I agree with others about a bit if extra skin. For women there's also a dramatic change in bra size lol, sadly, but there's no other way.

Another good advice for avoiding that extra loose skin is to NOT lose too much too quickly, so that thd body has time to adapt and the skin time to regain its elasticity.
A good idea is to do a 10% calorie deficit in diet, taking into conditions calories used in training too.

Anyway, I had reached a plateau and I understood that diet really needs to be closely monitored for further progress. You are right, it's a bit obsessive and takes time, but it's all an investment in heath, so it's worth it!!
I'm also vegan and eat organic, mostly home made.

It's a way of life indeed and others are inspired even without words.... It's been a life changing experience.

I do have a question... how do you see yourself maintaining your interest alive for this long term? Keep your training interesting and challenging? Also, do you think eventually it's possible to stop monitoring diet closely (measuring, logging, counting), when the good habit has become second nature??? It's been almost two years for me, and I'm trying to picture myself in 20 years from now...

Thanks amd good luck!
Thanks for sharing, inspiring and helping!

Keeping motivated in the long run comes from continually setting new goals. If my goal was simply to lose 100 lbs and that was it, I'd have done it a long time ago and had nothing more to work towards. Who knows where I'd be if I adopted that attitude. Once I lost the majority of my fat, I changed my goal to get even leaner. Once I did that I decided I wanted to gain more muscle. I don't ever plan on not having a goal. For that reason, I'll always be motivated. As to stopping with logging, I don't know if/when that will happen. Right now my goals are all pretty ambitious and without extremely strict tracking of calories, it will be difficult to achieve them. Maybe in the future, if my goals require less attention to nutrition, I will be able to eat without tracking. I am fairly confident I could maintain my weight loss without tracking, but I do not think I'd be able to get as lean as I'd like, and gain as little fat during bulking sessions without tracking.

Palmeralex wrote: »

Hi, forgive me if you've answered this already; I thought I had a good handle on the eating-less/losing weight thing but apparently not.
I'm 5ft7 male, stocky, 40 years old. Weight 175 lbs. Aim is to get to 160lbs which is the upper end of the UK BMI (so whatever people's views of BMI are it seemed like a reasonable goal, and I have plenty of visible body fat).
So I lost a good amount of weight quickly - one morning my weight was down to 170lbs (digital scale) and I was delighted. But weighed again at the end of the day and I was 177!!! So obviously water weight... But my weight then stuck resolutely between 174 lbs and 177 lbs for a month. So I dropped to 1400 calories from previous 1650. Still no change 3 weeks later, I'm hovering around 175lbs.
Exercise-wise I do a 10 mile run once a week, and a 5 mile run once a week. Try and strong lifts 5x5 twice a week, but usually once.
Obviously my overarching goal is to have low body fat and lean frame but I really wanted to hit this psychological goal of 160lbs which MFP tells me every day I will hit within 5 weeks, but I never do!!!
Sorry for the essay, hopefully others can r

You are eating more than you think you are. At your height and weight, you should be losing just fine at 1400 calories, or 1650. You should probably be able to lose eating as many as 1800 calories. You need to reexamine how diligent you are with tracking. Give this thread a read: http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1296011/calorie-counting-101/p1

Mark_on_a_Mission wrote: »

Hi Nick, as others have said, your story is truly inspirational! I really enjoy your no-nonsense approach, and have really enjoyed reading your posts and watched your Youtube channel - and putting it all into practice!

I hope I'm not duplicating any questions (I dont think I am) but I wanted your advice..... I've lost over 50lb by following a 900 cal deficit over 7 months (using MFP and Fitbit) , and been attending the gym regularly using weights over the last 3 months. Initially I was gradually increasing my weights, but for a while now have been at a stage where I simply cannot increase my weights any more.

Am I right in thinking that this is likely to remain the case until I start increasing my calories?

I still have some belly fat I want to lose, which as you say seems to be the most stubborn part, so am planning to continue with my calorie deficit until that is gone - so my second question is, should I continue with the deficit to lose the last bits of fat - or increase calories, work on muscle, and do another cut at some point in the future in future to get rid of the unwanted fat?

I know some of this may be personal choice, but I would be really grateful to get your thoughts.

Thanks again, keep up the fantastic work Mark

You are correct in thinking that you will no longer be able to make significant strength gains without increasing calories. When you are new to lifting, much of the strength that is gained is neurological adaptation to lifting weights. After the beginning phase comes to an end, those types of strength gains drop off significantly. You now actually need to be gaining muscle mass in order to make significant strength gains, and that will only come from being in a calorie surplus. Most people can not get extremely lean during their first cutting phase. I couldn't. You reach a point where a lean bulk is actually the better course of action even though you still have some fat present. It sounds like this might be where you at. This is what happened to me between my 2nd and third pictures from the original post.

BuccaneersFan wrote: »

Out of curiosity, what was your body fat percentage in the middle picture and right picture from your very first post in this thread?

Because there is no affordable and reliable method of measuring body fat, I've never checked mine. Calipers and electronic devices are terrible where accuracy is concerned, and more accurate methods like dexascan cost hundreds of dollars. That being said, knowing the number isn't really helpful either. I can look in the mirror and determine if I am lean enough or not. If I had to hazard a guess, and it's just that, a total guess, I'd say 14 in the middle picture and 12 in the right most picture, give or take 2%...

amsdragonfly wrote: »

You say that the 2 mo. mark is around when people get discouraged, and I can attest to that. I have tried to start exercising/eating better twice in the last two years and both times stopped around 2-3 months in because of some random reason (got a cold and never got back to running, forgot to count foods and just gave up, etc.). I have started again and am 10 days strong, but I am curious, what did you do to keep motivated when it came around two months?

I stopped letting single mistakes snowball into all out failure. It's very easy to let one slip up lead to a total cheat day lead to a week of not tracking lead to giving up. Just like when trying to modify any behavior, when you fall off the horse, you must get back on IMMEDIATELY. One day isn't a big deal, it's 0.0027% of a year. It's only significant if you let that day become a week become a month and so on.