285-190. warning i wrote too damn much.

i've been somewhat fit now for the past 3 years but i was reading success stories and i enjoy reading them and find them motivating so i thought i'd share my progress and maybe get a few mfp adds out of it, or hopefully help out someone that resembles where i started.

When i started i weighed 285lbs and hadn't been in a gym in 3 years or so. I had the worst diet, i'd eat a breakfast burritto on my way to work, i'd go out to lunch with coworkers every day, i ate fast food on my way home, i drank a lot of soda and i barely knew how to cook.

I finally joined a gym and said i was going to go lift 7 days a week (something i've now done on average i'd say 355/365 days a year for the past 6 years now).



I set 3 goals, i wanted to lift essentially 7x a week, i wanted to bench 300lbs within a year. My lifetime max bench was 185lbs and my current max was only 140lbs, so i set this pretty ignorantly but i'm stubborn. And my 3rd goal was that however long it takes, if it takes 10 years, i'm going to have abs. So i set 3 goals. short term, medium and extrodainarly long goal ha. I also decided to not do any cardio or alter my diet for the first year as i felt like i wanted to somewhat ease into fully adopting this process.

The bench goal was great because it motivated me daily. I thought about it every single day that year. I'd look forward to milestones. When i got up to 185 and had reached my lifetime max i was super excited. This meant whenever i was able to add more weight, even if it was 2.5lb plates...i would be setting a new personal record. Then i finally benched 2 plates on both sides, 225lbs. That's suddenly when you start to feel a bit strong. 225lbs is a great early milestone for lifters. It was 5 years ago, but i remember the exact bench i used when i benched 185lbs, 225lbs and of course when i hit my goal the 300lbs that i got with just a few days before my goal deadline. The 300lb memory is forever a day i'll remember. It's such an amazing feeling to set which seemed like an entirely unrealistic goal and to reach it. I gained a lot of confidence that day.

Hitting goals and milestones are such momentum builders. I think it's a great idea to set short term and long term goals to keep yourself focused.

So there i am a year later. I'm certainly stronger and my moobs are looking less mooby. Now i decided i need to work on my diet and cardio.




I decide to join myfitnesspal and start tracking my calories. something i knew very little about. I establish i want to be perhaps around 1700-2000 calories daily. I also decide that any fruits or vegetables i eat will not contribute to that calorie #. I also stop eating fast food entirely and instead start order salads any time i go to a restaruant or need something quick (like a salad bar or a salad from panera). I also start cooking and expirement alot of with lean proteins such as chicken, seafood, 99% lean ground turkey.

I still drank some on weekends when my friends would go out and i just tried to really keep it in moderation, sometimes i even ordered water at a bar. I didn't expect to eat 100% perfectly but i certainly wanted to eat as healthy as possible and just choose my bad calories really wisely. Eating 1 bad meal won't make you fat but eating one good meal won't make you fit either. It's just about establishing consistency.

2 months in, I've established healthy eating habits, lifting every day and running 3-5 times a week for 10-20 minutes each time.



From january 2012 to april 2012, almost 3 months to the day, i lost 40lbs and i've hit 225lbs. This was a great feeling number for me to get down 60lbs in total and i get as low as 220lbs 2 months later.




And then I start to get lazy on my diet and on my cardio. I got too content and started to eat less healthy foods more frequently. Then i've gained 10lbs and i am so irritated with myself for wasting my recent progress and then suddenly i've gained 10 more pounds and i start weighing myself less often and within 3 months i'm at 265lbs again wtf did i just do.



I'm still lifting every day though so i find positive on that. I know i still made progress these past few months as i was at least gaining muscle and since i previously lost 45lbs i knew that i certainly capable of doing it...so lets do this again.

I was really curious how i would respond to getting to 225lbs. Previously it took me 2 more months to just lose 5 more pounds to get to 220 (45lbs in 5 months) and couldn't get under it and I just wondered how i'd respond as i approached it this time.

This time i was motivated and focused on truly moving towards my goals. I hated being overweight and always adjusting my shirt to make sure my fat was being covered, i hated when summer came around and i'd find out my previous years shorts didn't fit. f that life.

Soon losing weight was enjoyable. I ate really well, had very few bad food choices. I didn't want to get in the way of my own progress. My work has free pizza on mondays, brownies once a month and free donuts on fridays. I used to eat it every time and now i ate it 0 times. If i ate bad calories it most certainly had to be worth it and then i'd still probably run a little harder the next day.

I'd spring out of bed each morning to weigh myself knowing i would be fractions of a pound less. And if i didn't lose any weight or it trended upward slightly i didn't worry a bit because i knew i wasn't making any mistakes and that i was determined.

From 1/5/2013 i weighed 265lbs and on 4/21/2016 i was back to 225lbs. I took a progress picture in the same shorts i weighed 225lbs a year earlier. I felt like i looked slightly better a year later, so not a waste of a year perhaps.




I exploded through this previous 220lb barrier and on 7/3 i weighed 203lbs. I lost 62lbs in 7 months.

Losing weight is an empowering feeling. All my life i hated having my shirt off. When i took this progress photo. It was the first time in my life that i was like i look somewhat good without a shirt maybe. With this new confidence i was like alright i'm acceptable looking enough to mow the lawn without a shirt. Still insecure i decided...maybe only the backyard though ha. It's funny how insecure you can remain as you adjust. Eventually i felt ok enough to run outside without a shirt.




10/28/13 i reached a low of 192lb.

2 years later i was maintaining at 200lbs:




Since then i've maintained around 200-210lbs.





boom, warned you it was a super long post.