What did I do wrong? A victim of a fat gene?

[Hulkenberg82]

Hi guys,

I’m new to the forum. Don't know if this is the right section to post this so please forgive me if not...

Let me just first introduce myself. I’m originally from Finland, but moved to Germany 5 years ago.

As of right now I’m

31 years old

182 cm / 5’9 ft – 6’0 ft

72 kg / 160 lbs

I was always a bit chubby – already as a kid. I’ve always enjoyed eating and most of the time if I really like something, I can’t stop in time and have to eat until I can’t anymore.

Up until the year 2000 I played ice-hockey very actively, which helped keep me in shape. Then I hurt my knee and lost all the motivation to rehab and quit playing. That, plus becoming 18, being able to buy and drink beer, girls etc. led to me gaining a lot of weight. In the summer of 2005 I was roughly 120 kg / 265 lbs and decided to do something. I found a nice girl, who was super good-looking and never quite understood what she saw in a huge pile of fat like me. Anyway, she supported me in losing weight and in about 1 year I lost 45 kg / 100 lbs and in the summer of 2006 I weighed in at 75 kg / 165 lbs.

I lost those 45 kg / 100 lbs by eating a lot healthier and with a very strict diet of only 1 cheat day per 3 weeks, going to the gym with my gf and by running a lot. I also had a very physical summer job in 2006 with a lot of walking (at least 10 km / 6 miles per day) and a lifting heavy packages in a logistic center.

But then, in September 2006 I broke up with my girlfriend (she cheated on me and left without ever explaining why) and everything started to spiral out of control. I still tried to keep myself in shape, but the motivation was gone and I put on about 15 kg / 30 lb by Xmas 2006.

Then in January 2007 I met my current wife while she was in Finland as an exchange student and while I was still somewhat in shape, the regularity of training had become an exception to the rule. I tried to keep in check and in summer 2007 I weighed in at 85 kg / 185 lbs. Meaning I had gained about 20 lbs in 1 year.

As my school started again in 2007 and my wife was already back in Germany, I started to slack off in school and spend the days alone in my flat. And what would I do? Play video games, hang around in the internet and eat. I would eat a whole lasagna in one evening. And if I was still hungy, I would finish it off with some mint cookies etc. Plus I also started smoking again.

I would see my then-gf / now wife every 3 or 4 months as we alternated visiting each other. She never said anything, but I slowly started to put on the kilos / pounds again. I had stopped doing any kind of excersice, I would just sit around in my flat, skype with my girlfriend and eat / play my PS2 / watch TV etc.

I didn’t weigh myself, but I guess by the end of 2008 I was already back to at least 95 kg / 210 lbs – and it would only get worse.

In February 2009 I got the great news that I would be able to move to Germany to live with my girlfriend as I got a job in the area. Turned out it was a win/lose situation, as far as my weight and health was concerned.

The problem was that the Germans love their food. They love their sausages (bratwurst), they love their beer and everything that has something to do with food and fat. So me and my gf would cook something warm every evening, whether it be noodles, smashed potatoes, sausages, grilled cheese sandwiches, lasagna etc. On top of that my father-in-law is a person who loves the same things as I do. So almost every Saturday we would drive to my gf’s home-home and I would watch soccer with my father-in-law, eating salted peanuts and drinking beer at the same time. Then in the evening they would either throw a big pile of meat on the BBQ grill or we would order pizza / doener kebab / Chinese etc. The rest of the evening we would just drink beer and get drunk.

Then on Sundays I always had a huge hangover and tried to kill it off with Cola or other sugary drinks and in the evening we would again order a pizza. And the cycle would begin again on Monday.

Fast-forward to spring 2012. I had just gotten engaged to my girlfriend and we were at the movies. As the movie was close to the end, the chair I was sitting on broke on me and the whole theater of course saw/heard it. Needless to say, my gf was very embarrassed and told me she would think twice about marrying me if I didn’t do anything about my weight.

So back home I weighed myself for the first time in a long and the scale showed 116 kg / 255 lbs. Meaning that in a span of 6 years I had gone from 120 kg / 165 lbs to 75 kg / 165 lbs and back to 116 kg / 255 lbs. Since we were supposed to get married in the summer of 2013, I decided again to do something about my weight.

I started off by getting rid of my cigarettes and walking for 45 minutes a day. After a couple of weeks, I started jogging for a minute, walking for a minute, again jogging for a minute etc. I set a goal for myself to be under 100 kg / 220 lbs by my 30th birthday in October 2012. This was in May 2012.

Again I modified my diet, but this time the make-over was a lot more extreme. I basically stopped eating carbs altogether and cut my calories to -500+ a day. I managed to lose those 16 kg / 35 lbs by my bday and the next goal would be my wedding in June 2013. I wanted to weigh 85 kg / 185 – 190 lbs at my wedding and kept jogging, jogging and jogging and not eat any carbs. We wouldn’t cook warm dinners anymore, I ate nothing after 6 PM, had 1 cheat day per week etc.

In the end, I married at 76 kg / 1765 lbs last June and was a happy man. Since now I knew that if I would resort back to the old habits, I would gain weight, I kept on training. My diet was still extreme and I slowly kept losing more and more weight. At the end of last year (so in December 2013) I weighed 72 kg / 160 lbs.

I was feeling great, but came to the conclusion that I looked like a malnourished, African child warrior and wanted to do something about that. So in April 2014 I joined my local gym with the goal of trying to build some muscle.

I updated my diet and started eating slightly more calories than what I calculated I would burn while resting. I got about 1800 kcal so I started eating around 2000 kcal a day.

150 g protein (2*bodyweight in kg)
75 kg good fats (1* bodyweight in kg)
The rest from carbs.

I started doing Arnold’s Golden 6 three times a week. My schedule would look something like this:

Monday:
High-intensity, interval-running 7.5 km / 5 miles

Tuesday:
Arnold’s Golden 6
Easy jogging 5 km / 3 miles

Wednesday:
Soccer 90 minutes

Thursday:
Arnold’s Golden 6
Easy jogging 5 km / 3 miles

Friday:
Indoor hockey 90 minutes

Saturday:
Arnold’s Golden 6

Sunday:
REST


My diet was:

Breakfast:
Oatmeal / muesli 40 g / a cup
Raspberries / blueberries / strawberries 100 g / 3.5 oz
Greek yoghurt 100 g / 3.5 oz

[b]Snack[/b:
Whey Protein Shake 30 g / 1 cup
Milk 300 ml / 10 oz
1 Orange

Lunch:
Chicken Salad / beef Wok or something simlar with a lean meat 250 g / 9 oz
Cottage Cheese 100 g / 3.5 oz

Snack:
1 Banana or full-grain bread+ 2 tsp peanut butter
[b]TRAINING[b/]


Post-workout:
Whey Protein Shake 30 g / 1 cup
Milk 300 ml / 10 oz

Dinner
e.g. brown rice / full grain noodles / potatoes 300 g / 10 oz
Minced beef / turkey breast / salmon / Rumpsteak etc. 200 g / 7 oz
Broccoli or other greens 150 g / 5 oz

Additionally I drank about 2 litres / half a gallon of water every day.

So after about a month of intensive training and dieting I weighed myself and the scale stopped at 83 kg / 182 lbs!! So in one (1) month I had gained 11 kg / 25 lbs. Great, huh? NOPE. Because while I could meanwhile train with some heavier weights, I felt bloated, my biceps weren’t showing any progress at all and my jeans started to feel tighter on the waist.

So I stopped that and went back to not eating carbs and doing only cardio 4-5 times a week. Now I’m again back at 72 kg / 160 lbs and don’t know

a) what to do
b) how to do

I would like to put on about 5 kg / 10-15 lbs of lean muscle, but I’ve come to the conclusion that if I now start eating more calories, it will only lead to me becoming fat again. Am I a classic example of a yoyo effect? I mean gaining 11 kg / 25 lbs in 1 month despite training 5-6 times a week cannot be explained any other way. Or can it? I didn’t feel like I was gaining muscles, but rather my body was reserving all the fat and making good for the last 2 years it had to live without carbs. Could that be the case?

I’m desperate and really out of ideas. I would like to be able to eat “normally” again and not having to worry about what it does to my body. I know my metabolism has always been bad and that I have some kind of a fat gene (just looking at a cheesecake means an extra 5 pounds).

Any tips / ideas / comments? Anything would be highly appreciated.

[GoatNapper]

OP, what you need to do is stop cutting out carbs, when you do this you will gain all the weight back once you start eating again. it seems like your weight loss primarily focuses around cardio, i would suggest starting a full body workout 3 days a week for a few months then switching to a upper/lower split. do cardio in between those days and take the weekend off. eating healthy doesnt mean weight loss, you have to be burning more kcals than your consuming, if you stick with the same cardio with no weights i would drop your food intake and consume it over 6 small meals that way it focuses on ramping up your metabolism. your body may have became overtrained in the past years from over use, i would suggest taking a couple weeks off all training and focusing on your diet a little better. once done with the time off start with the weight training, then cardio.

[Gxp23]

What Suffolk said .

[AlwaysTryin]

OP, what you need to do is stop cutting out carbs, when you do this you will gain all the weight back once you start eating again. it seems like your weight loss primarily focuses around cardio, i would suggest starting a full body workout 3 days a week for a few months then switching to a upper/lower split. do cardio in between those days and take the weekend off. eating healthy doesnt mean weight loss, you have to be burning more kcals than your consuming, if you stick with the same cardio with no weights i would drop your food intake and consume it over 6 small meals that way it focuses on ramping up your metabolism. your body may have became overtrained in the past years from over use, i would suggest taking a couple weeks off all training and focusing on your diet a little better. once done with the time off start with the weight training, then cardio.

What? 6 small meals? Metabolism? Lol

[GoatNapper]

What? 6 small meals? Metabolism? Lol

ya, peoples metabolism goes up and down, spacing out meals over 6 small meals keeps your body digesting food making it so it does not have a need to store food over a longer amount of time it works for a lot of people IMO. my doctor explained this to me when i was unable to walk or move around after getting injured overseas. he told me that eating smaller portions with a lower calorie diet will help keep my body from storing a backup supply of food, and keep my metabolism at a good speed. he also explained that it is a cause of overeating to, and one must stick to their determined calory needs....it is individual to individual, it is my 2 cents.

[BootneckBrah]

Lol @ fat gene

Scientifically known as : greedius kuntium

[Gxp23]

ya, peoples metabolism goes up and down, spacing out meals over 6 small meals keeps your body digesting food making it so it does not have a need to store food over a longer amount of time it works for a lot of people IMO. my doctor explained this to me when i was unable to walk or move around after getting injured overseas. he told me that eating smaller portions with a lower calorie diet will help keep my body from storing a backup supply of food, and keep my metabolism at a good speed. he also explained that it is a cause of overeating to, and one must stick to their determined calory needs....it is individual to individual, it is my 2 cents.

Lawd.

[GoatNapper]

Lawd.

guess bro science, or real science, or no science dont work....epic.....FAIL....i suck

[Hulkenberg82]

OP, what you need to do is stop cutting out carbs, when you do this you will gain all the weight back once you start eating again. it seems like your weight loss primarily focuses around cardio, i would suggest starting a full body workout 3 days a week for a few months then switching to a upper/lower split. do cardio in between those days and take the weekend off. eating healthy doesnt mean weight loss, you have to be burning more kcals than your consuming, if you stick with the same cardio with no weights i would drop your food intake and consume it over 6 small meals that way it focuses on ramping up your metabolism. your body may have became overtrained in the past years from over use, i would suggest taking a couple weeks off all training and focusing on your diet a little better. once done with the time off start with the weight training, then cardio.

So what you're saying is that I'm already pretty much ****ed and that since I'll have to start eating "normally" again some day, the weight will come back again - slowly, but surely? Or like in my case, fast and immediately.

I have no problem with gaining a bit of weight, but 11 kg / 25 lbs in 1 month seems like a joke, even to a weight-lifting noob like me.

Or what if I amp up the protein intake and start lifting again with a low-carb diet?

[tara19]

guess bro science, or real science, or no science dont work....epic.....FAIL....i suck

A lot of outdated ideas I'm afraid!

[Jazsi]

So what you're saying is that I'm already pretty much ****ed and that since I'll have to start eating "normally" again some day, the weight will come back again - slowly, but surely? Or like in my case, fast and immediately.

I have no problem with gaining a bit of weight, but 11 kg / 25 lbs in 1 month seems like a joke, even to a weight-lifting noob like me.

Or what if I amp up the protein intake and start lifting again with a low-carb diet?

Just read the stickies at the top of the Nutrition forum to understand the fundamentals of a proper diet. As long as you consume your fat and protein minimums, and stay within a caloric deficit while lifting heavy (& throwing a little cardio in here and there), you will lose weight.

ya, peoples metabolism goes up and down, spacing out meals over 6 small meals keeps your body digesting food making it so it does not have a need to store food over a longer amount of time it works for a lot of people IMO. my doctor explained this to me when i was unable to walk or move around after getting injured overseas. he told me that eating smaller portions with a lower calorie diet will help keep my body from storing a backup supply of food, and keep my metabolism at a good speed. he also explained that it is a cause of overeating to, and one must stick to their determined calory needs....it is individual to individual, it is my 2 cents.

Lol'd

[XinApoK]

Judging by the thread title, you need to not be a victim about it. I understand you don't like the way you look and you are already taking charge by posting here. You clearly want to change.

You didn't get the fat gene. The fat gene is more like the victim gene in your head. Man up brohan.



Also, don't like to the dude who said 6 meals. That's bad advice and he is clearly not well versed on basic nutrition. Absorb everything the stickies have to offer.

[XinApoK]

ya, peoples metabolism goes up and down, spacing out meals over 6 small meals keeps your body digesting food making it so it does not have a need to store food over a longer amount of time it works for a lot of people IMO. my doctor explained this to me when i was unable to walk or move around after getting injured overseas. he told me that eating smaller portions with a lower calorie diet will help keep my body from storing a backup supply of food, and keep my metabolism at a good speed. he also explained that it is a cause of overeating to, and one must stick to their determined calory needs....it is individual to individual, it is my 2 cents.

I have to reply to this. Think of your metabolism as a line graph. 24 hours on the x axis and metabolism rating 1-10 on the y. If you eat 6 meals perfecty spaced, your metabolism will stay at 2 all day long. But. Hypothetically, of you ate 1 big meal, your metabolism will shoot to 10. Overall, the metabolism rating is right around 10. It's just a matter of accommodating a lifestyle.

[JasonGiII]

The biggest key to weight control is food intake control. Weight change = calories in - calories out. If you do a lot of exercises to get your "weight change" negative then if you stop being active and keep eating the same, it will go back up.

Make sure you understand how many calories you need, what macros (Protein, fat and Carbs) you need, how many you are eating and you will be well on your way to a much healthier self. Now the good thing about getting a good gym routine in is that on top of that you 1) expend more cals and 2) When loosing weight you will not look like a stick, but rather you will make your muscles pop out.

Good luck!

(oh a sice you are in Germany you should be know that 1g of Alchool = 7 Cals )

[zerocoolflo]

While I am mostly interested in fat loss, I want to say that you must first learn how to properly train and eat.

Eating 6 meals a day won't do jack (there's no metabolism furnace or bull**** like this. Read some of the myths first: http://www.nobsbb.com/why-i-cant-lose-weight/).

If you want to build muscle, one of my favorite routines is this: http://www.nobsbb.com/upper-lower-bo...kout-for-mass/

Eat more than 2500 calories/day (believe me, I was at your weight 2 years ago and I needed over 4k calories to get my weight up).

Also, make sure you are counting your calories well. There are many people that are doing mistakes when calculating their caloric intake.

[SouthDakotaBrah]

ya, peoples metabolism goes up and down, spacing out meals over 6 small meals keeps your body digesting food making it so it does not have a need to store food over a longer amount of time it works for a lot of people IMO. my doctor explained this to me when i was unable to walk or move around after getting injured overseas. he told me that eating smaller portions with a lower calorie diet will help keep my body from storing a backup supply of food, and keep my metabolism at a good speed. he also explained that it is a cause of overeating to, and one must stick to their determined calory needs....it is individual to individual, it is my 2 cents.

Do you even understand what your metabolism is?

[THElabCHIMP]

All I took from that post is that Germans really love sausages

[AAOBob]

snip

You are making this too hard. You gave a menu without the calories, you just need to monitor your calories (and macros) and use the stickies on the top of the page to do so.

You then need to find a good all body workout to start with.

I did something similar to you, got older, gained weight without realizing it was becoming an issue. It became an issue for me, I lost weight, saw that I was less of a man muscle wise then I thought, and started to work out while losing the rest. Its all doable, and its not a "fat gene". Do your research.