An Average Joe's Story to Weight Loss

I have been on MyFitnessPal for many years. I signed up for MFP after I have successfully lost weight. Because of this, no one knows about my weight loss story. I'm sure many people on MFP have heard about my brother's (zipnguyen) success on MFP. If you haven't checked him out, then you are missing out on a great transformation.

I was pretty much skinny/lean my entire life. Very active lifestyle. Not much of a story here. Then all of a sudden, I got a girlfriend. Very happy moment in my life. I'm sure everyone knows happened next. I gained love weight. This means that I was so happy and comfortable, I just ate and spent time with my girlfriend.

A very sad day came my way. My father told me that I got fat. Not only did he say I got fat, but he followed up with the following sentences:

You look disgusting.
You look like trash.
No girl will ever talk to you again.
Your face is nasty.

I was officially 150 lbs. To many people, this doesn't sound like much. However I'm only 5'4". Because I'm short, any weight I add on is more noticeable. Before I got into a relationship, I was about 120 lbs.

Old school asians are very much into appearances. I am into appearance as well, but to me a person's weight does not determine if someone looks like trash.

Anyway, I got very depressed that my dad felt this way. My mom was honest and told me that I did gain weight, but doesn't believe that I look like trash. She mentioned that I was always too skinny anyway. This day prompted me to evaluate my eating/exercise habits. Compared to what I was doing before I got a girlfriend, my habits were poor. Unlike my very financially successful brother, I didn't have many financial related resources to get in shape. What do I mean by financial resources related to fitness? I'm talking about being able to afford things like a gym membership, equipment, personal trainers, etc. Because of this, I was forced to get very creative with my exercise and diet goals.

Phase 1: Get My Diet in Control

I am pretty much average when it comes to work. I'm part of the standard 8am-5pm shift. This means that I'm limited on time and sources of food. In the past and today, I don't meal prep weeks in advance. What I did was make really big dinner portions so I would have left overs for lunch. Cooking at home is definitely a cheap alternative than buying fast food. There are some times when I didn't have time to cook or didn't have leftovers. During these times, I would pick up some kind of fast food. I'm not going to lie. I love fast food and I think it tastes better than some higher priced restaurants. Although I love fast food, I learned to eat smarter at these places. For example, at McDonald's I eat the sweet chilli grilled chicken wrap instead of ordering a double quarter pounder.

Eventually, I got even smarter with my diet. I got to the point where I don't really need to take leftovers for lunch. I go to a local grocery store to pick up items for a simple lunch. An example of this was a can of beans, cottage cheese, and fruit. I actually got this idea by researching about diets from Americans that lived in the 1950's and 1960's. It is very low cost to eat this way during lunch. Going to a grocery store everyday took time out of my lunch, so I decided that I should go to Costco and buy things in bulk to have everything ready in advance.

Now that my diet was in place, I started working out more.

Phase 2: Exercise Like a Mad Man

Starting off, I had no gym membership, no personal trainer, no equipment, and no supplements.

Since I had a lot of extra fat to lose, I decided that I didn't need to focus too much on weight lifting yet. I started off by running every day after work. This was very hard for me to do for a couple of reasons. First, I'm very tired after work. Second, I was a student in a Masters program and needed time to study. I toughed it out for a month. It became demotivating to go running because I'm getting tired early. I kept on thinking about how easy this was before I gained weight. My motivation was to get back to my former self.

By the second month, things got easy and I was feeling very confident. I decided to do the famous Insanity program. I was able to get this program from my brother. I had to really manage my time with this. For the first month of the Insanity program, it was difficult to schedule time after work and school. I got the first month done, but I was getting burnt out from lack of sleep and time. On the second half of the program, I decided to do it during my lunch breaks at work. I got laughed at a lot at work. I would hear people saying the following things:

This guy is dumb.
Why even workout?
He looks stupid working out.

The list goes on and on about what people were saying. Working out during my lunch break is the best decision I ever made. I had plenty of time to workout and eat during my lunch break. Here is the reality of lunch breaks. I'm only eating for about 10-15 minutes and for the rest of the hour, I'm watching something on YouTube. Since I noticed that I was just goofing off during my lunch breaks anyway, I decided to just workout during that time. Because of this, I wasn't tired after work and I had more time to study. By the time I finished the insanity program, I was very happy with what I saw.

Phase 3: Try to Bulk Up

The insanity program was great at giving me a lean and more athletic look. Although I looked good, I wanted to look better. I wanted to look more muscular. For this, I had to get equipment. I got myself an Iron Gym doorway pull up bar. This was great for working out my back and arms. The Iron Gym commercial showed a guy doing dips, but doing dips on an Iron Gym was pathetic. I used a chair to do dips, but it was way too easy. My mother-in-law has a walker that she wasn't using. I got the crazy idea to use it as a dipping station. To my surprise, it worked very well. This was definitely the best piece of equipment I have and still use today. Big thanks to my mother-in-law. Eventually, I needed dumbbells, but I couldn't afford them. Because of the new laws in San Jose, we have reusable bags everywhere in my home. I decided to put heavy items in reusable bags and use them as dumbbells. My wife was laughing at me, but I didn't care. I was making very good progress. Guys at work were noticing that I was looking muscular for the past 5 - 6 months and were asking me what gym I go to. I was honest and told them that I don't go to a gym and workout with reusable bags.

Where Am I Today?

Today I have a slightly bigger budget for exercise equipment. My diet has stayed the same, but the big difference in my routine are dumbbells. I have a set of dumbbells with removable plates. I have about 200 lbs of weight to use and it is plenty for me. My equipment includes the Iron Gym, my mother-in-law's walker, dumbbells. I don't have a workout bench yet, but eventually I will. Although I have more funds to dedicate to exercise, I don't use it. I spend the extra funds on my kids. Since I already graduated from my Masters program, I have more time to workout at home. My kids have fun watching me workout and act like cheerleaders. I still keep everything low budget. I don't do the Insanity program anymore, but I have other sources of free cardio. I take my kids and dogs out for a walk. There are a lot of free cardio/yoga videos from FitnessBlender on YouTube. I'm going out for runs during my lunch breaks and my co-workers are definitely seeing my results. Some guys have asked to go running with me as well. My runs are a bit different from most people. I'm going on runs while carrying a 20 lbs sandbag.

I'm not a body builder or a fitness model. My physique is better than I would have thought. Although not a body builder like my brother, people can definitely tell I workout. I have a six pack in certain lighting conditions. Can probably make small changes to get the six pack. I'm very happy with what I have achieved. So glad that I'm not part of the dad bod craze. When people see me, they are very surprised to hear that I'm a dad since I don't look like one.

I'm not at my original weight in high school, but that doesn't bother me. In fact, I was probably too skinny in high school. I weigh about 130 lbs today, but it is a very different look. I have seen myself at 130 lbs with more fat. Today, it is definitely a more muscular look.

I'm hoping my story motivates some of you out there. You really don't need a lot of money to exercise and eat well. You don't need a gym or a personal trainer. Just a goal and some creativity.