Dividing myself by 2: 400lbs to 200lbs

[isatonmynuts]

So, I've been morbidly obese for as long as I can remember, and I've just decided that enough is enough. I've never felt his committed to turning my life around before. I think I've had to admit to myself lately that I have an eating disorder and a problem with binge eating, and it's taken a pretty bad toll on my health. Not only do I have a herniated disc in my back now, but for the last ten years I've basically been binge eating to the point of making myself puke. I also have severe depression, and about six months ago everything just kind of coalesced and made me realize this is the time to change. I've said all my life that "Someday I'll get into shape," and I'm determined to do it now.

I started getting into weight lifting again. I use to love weight lifting when I was younger so I think it's a good thing for me to get back into and stay motivated with, but I also realized I need to take a lot of weight off to help my back. About a year ago I had some relationship issues, fell into a really bad depression and was basically starving myself. I lost about 40 lbs and my back felt great, so I know that losing the weight will help a lot, but I know that if I do it by starving myself I'm just going to end up rebounding back into binge eating.

Anyway, about 4 weeks ago I got on the scale at the doctors office after I had been lifting weights for about 6 weeks. I started when I was weighing 380 and I was so excited to see a lower number, and felt like I got punched in the gut when I was it read 396. The heaviest I've ever been in my life was 420 lbs, and I was just so disappointed to think I was edging back up into the 400s.

So I decided to get serious about dieting. As I said, I've been up to 420 lbs before, and I dropped down to 320 lbs before, so I know I can do it. I looked up my TDEE for my weight and height (395lbs and 6') and it was a whopping 3800 calories! So I knew that I could very easily get a deficit going. I've decided to try to aim for 1000-1500 calories a day because I want a rapid weight loss to help my back out, and then I want to gradually ease up to something like 2000. I bought a smart scale and it says my basal caloric rate is 2700 kcal, so I think even staying at 2000 will keep me losing.

So I've been at it for about 4 weeks now and I've gone from 395 to 377, got the smart scale, got some weights on the way, cleared out a space to workout at at home, etc. I've got a looong way to go, so right now I'm setting a mid-range goal to get to 20% body fat and 290 pounds, but I'm hoping to eventually get closer to 200-250 because I think it will help my back problems more.

So even though I've been at it for many months now, I'm going to consider today the start.

Day 1 4/24/20
Weight: 377 lbs
BFR: 44.4%

Workout for today:
8 push-ups (tried for 2 sets of 5 but couldn't get the last set done)
30 squats (3 sets of 10)
20 sit-ups (2 sets of 10)
20 crunches (2 sets of 10)
30 glute bridges (2 sets of 10)
Pelvic tilts (For 4 minutes)
Hook-lying Lumbar Rotation ( For 4 mintues)

Food for today:
200 Cal of Greek Yogurt
200 Cal of Shredded Cheese
300 Cal of Baked Beans
500 Cal of Sherbert Ice Cream

Over the next week I hope to get some dumbbells in the mail to add some exercises to my workout, and I also have some resistance bands on the way that I'll mainly be using for pallof presses to work my obliques. Along with those and the glue bridges, pelvic tilts, and lumbar rotation, those are all the exercises they prescribed to me for physical therapy to help my back. Once I get my dummbells I'll be adding Bicep Curls, Tricep Extensions, Lat Rows, Shoulder Presses, Chest Flies, and Bench Press.

I'm going to try to keep a daily log of food and exercise, but will probably only weigh once a week since I don't see myself making much quicker progress than that.

[CBRIT89]

As discussed in my own thread, binge eating is a killer.

Your motivation is high right now - have you considered what you can do or tricks you can come up with for when your motivation naturally drops?

Experience tells me that you will face adversity, and the monotony of a consistent diet can itself prompt a binge.

Don't mean to sound too downbeat - I just want you to be fully prepped to ensure you don't slip up!

[isatonmynuts]

Your motivation is high right now - have you considered what you can do or tricks you can come up with for when your motivation naturally drops?

I haven't. I've mostly just been telling myself to expect it and not to fall into the idea of, "Well I already screwed up and binge ate, so I might as well binge eat some more," and instead not beat myself up over it and move on. For example, with the pizza, the next day I thought, "Well screw it I already ate that pizza last night, so why not finish the rest of this ice cream?" I basically let myself have the ice cream, which was a pretty large portion, but then instead of continuing to pile food down I thought, "Well okay, so I had a lot of ice cream today, and that will be the majority of what I ate today and I'll do better tomorrow."

I think for me just trying not to become negative and self-deprecating about it is a big thing, but as far as how to avoid it in the first place I think trying to come up with some kind of activities to focus on is what I need to do. if I get really engrossed with something, I hardly want to divert my attention to food and eat anything at all, so I think I need to find a way to avoid downtime.

[CBRIT89]

Yup, downtime is a killer for me.

My wife hates video games with a passion, but she's seen that when I play them (for 1 hour a day max normally) I can shut off thoughts from my brain far easier that watching a TV show etc.

The ability to forgive yourself is a good one to develop, as is the ability to stop the slide when you say "in for a penny, in for a pound" and keep eating.

[isatonmynuts]

Day 2 4/24/20

Workout for today:
8 push-ups
20 sit-ups (2 sets of 10)
20 crunches (2 sets of 10)
30 glute bridges (2 sets of 10)
Pelvic tilts (For 4 minutes)
Hook-lying Lumbar Rotation ( For 4 mintues)

Food for today:
Breakfast: Fruit Smoothie, Jimmy Dean Turkey Sausage and Chobani Greek Yogurt. Total cals: 1094
Lunch: Fruit Smoothie. Total cals: 372
Dinner: Rice and Chicken Tenderloins, Teriyaki Style. Total cals: 529
Desert: Whiskey Old Fashioned. Total cals: 353
Total daily cals: 2350

I'm still looking for guidance regarding TDEE and BMR but I know that my BMR is about 2700 kcal and my TDEE is about 3800-4300 depending on activity or not. I decided to I shouldn't try to go too far below my BMR because I don't want to stunt my metabolism, but realistically trying to eat enough to meet the full 2600 seems like eating too much, so I'm not really sure what I'll do going forward. Still it's quite a bit lower than my TDEE so I think I will still be losing weight just holding at my BMR.

I didn't do squats today because my quads are SO sore from yesterday. It's pretty much excruciating just getting up an down out of a seat haha Maybe I will get them back in tomorrow.

I still only did 8 push-ups, but I weighed how much weight I'm pushing by putting my hands on the scale and holding myself up, so I think that's a pretty good weight. I'll be getting my dumbbells soon anyway so I'll be trying to do more reps at 104.

Overall I'm feeling positive, but still unsure of what kind of calorie deficit I should be maintaining.

[JohnCyr]

Following!! Ive gone from 291-175 these last 9 months and can see the struggle. Theres a great community here and im sure you will find all the help and support you need to keep pushing through!!

[isatonmynuts]

Following!! Ive gone from 291-175 these last 9 months and can see the struggle. Theres a great community here and im sure you will find all the help and support you need to keep pushing through!!

Thanks for the encouragement! That's a pretty huge drop! I browsed your log a little bit before, awesome job man!

]CBRIT89
Yup, downtime is a killer for me.

My wife hates video games with a passion, but she's seen that when I play them (for 1 hour a day max normally) I can shut off thoughts from my brain far easier that watching a TV show etc.

The ability to forgive yourself is a good one to develop, as is the ability to stop the slide when you say "in for a penny, in for a pound" and keep eating.

Whoops I must have accidentally erased my reply to this post when i replied last night. I was saying that I know what you mean. I wish I could get that engrossed in video games. Usually I end up getting that way when I'm doing some computer programming or something, but it becomes a pretty slippery slope because then I'll get TOO into it and not know when to give it a rest for a day.

Yeah, I feel like being able to just say, "Whoops, I'll do better tomorrow," is pretty essential. I mean I guess there's a balance between being able to do that, and not just giving yourself excuses and not following the limit, but I feel like it's a lot more detrimental for me to be hard on myself for it because that's when I'll get into the, "While I might as well eat even more now," kind of mindset. I think in a way being able to say, "Okay whoops I ate a little more than I meant to today, I'll watch that for tomorrow," and move on is almost a rewarding kind of thing on its own.

Day 3 4/26/20

Workout for today:
10 push-ups
20 sit-ups (2 sets of 10)
20 crunches (2 sets of 10)
30 glute bridges (2 sets of 10)
Pelvic tilts (For 4 minutes)
Hook-lying Lumbar Rotation ( For 4 mintues)

Food for today:
Breakfast: Chobani Greek Yogurt 200 cals
Fruit smothie 372 cals
Teriyaki chicken and rice 524 cals
Gouda Cheese 390 cals
Total daily cals: 1468

I didn't really eat a whole lot today. Just didn't have the appetite for it and felt pretty satiated all day. I'm thinking about getting some protein powder for days like this where my appetite just isn't really up there, since I could use more protein in the diet anyway and it will help fill out the calories to keep up with my BMR.

I'm concerned that my caloric intake cut has already lead to some loss in muscle mass. My quads are still so sore today I can barely get up out of my seat, and that's unusual because before this lockdown happened I was doing 45 squats at a time, and weighed more at that point, and wasn't this sore afterwards. It seems like there's definitely a fine balance to strike between too much and too little. It's amazing how little amount of time can pass without keeping up the activity for it to make me this sore once i start again. But I'm trying not to push things and "fight through the pain" so to speak because I feel like it will just end up leading to more down time, so I'm resting my legs again today and hoping they're up to it tomorrow, and maybe I'll do one less set so that I don't have as much downtime again afterwards.

Good news is, dumbbells are coming tomorrow and I'll be back to doing more than just the bodyweight stuff. Pretty excited! I guess we will see if I can still lift what I was before the lockdown, but if not I think I'm going to try to take it slow so that I'm not knocking myself out of commission for too many days like I ended up doing with the squats.

[isatonmynuts]

Day 4 4/27/20

Workout for today:
10 push-ups
20 sit-ups (2 sets of 10)
20 crunches (2 sets of 10)
30 squats (3 sets of ten)
30 glute bridges (3 sets of 10)
Pelvic tilts (For 4 minutes)
Hook-lying Lumbar Rotation ( For 4 mintues)

Food for today:
2x Whiskey Old Fashioned 702 (last night technically)
Chobani Greek Yogurt 200 cals
Shredded Cheese 400 cals
4x Jimmy Dean Turkey Sausage Patties 260
13oz Petite Sirloin Steak 488
Fruit Smoothie 372
6x chocolate chip cookies 420 Cal's
Total cals: 2996

I indulged a little today and last night after midnight but figured since my total calorie intake yesterday was so low that I could afford it for my weekly total. Since the Old Fashioneds should be added to yesterday's 1400 that actually makes yesterday's totall ~2100 and today's ~2200

I'm trying to count macros too.

Today's totals...

101 grams of fat
195 grams carbohydrates
185 grams of protein

It's going to be hard to keep my protein intake at 1 gram per pound, or even .8, especially if I aim for my goal weight instead of lean mass. I at least made .9 grams per lean muscle mass today. I ordered some protein powder to mix into my smoothies to try to help because I'm running out of high protein food. Gonna have to buy a lot of chicken and eggs!

I finally got my dumbbells today. Holy cow they feel heavier than 52 pounds. Anyway they came in after I finished my workout so I'll be using them tomorrow.

On a disappointing note, I'm having trouble getting consistent readings from my scale. I was down to 373 lbs and then all the sudden back up to 375. I discovered that the ground I've been weighing on isn't level and it kind of teeter totters, as well that if I try to lean forward to read the display over my gut, it varies by a pound less than if I stood straight up and read it off my phone as it displays. So unfortunately this first week's weight status will be questionable, but I will start making sure to stand and read the figure more consistently.

Nevertheless I think I am going to be down 2-3 pounds come my check on Wednesday, which will be a week since I started this thread. I will down 3-5 since my first weigh at 3/19. Not really quite as much as I had hoped, but as I increase activity with weight training I expect to see it go down some more. In any case I think my first week I saw 1.5 lbs lost and the second 2 pounds so it's a good start with such minimal exercise. Ultimately I think it's trending down.

[isatonmynuts]

Day 5 4/28/20

Workout for today:
Tricep Press: 25 lbs 3 sets of 8
Bicep Curl: 20 lbs 1st set, 15 next 2, 8 reps each
Shoulder Press: 30 lbs 1st set, 40 lbs next 2, 8 reps each
Close-grip Press: 40 lbs, 3 sets of 8
Bench press: 75 lbs, 1st set 8 reps, 2nd set 5, 50 lbs with 8 reps for 3rd set
Shoulder Shrug: 104 lbs, 3 sets of 8
Incline bench row: 60 lbs, 3 sets of 8
Dead-lift: 104 lbs, 3 sets of 8
Crunches, 3 sets of 20
Sit-ups: stopped at 4 because of clicking in back
Squats: 3 sets of 10
Glute Bridges: 3 sets of 15
Calories burned: 794-1602 (Jefit said 794, Google Fit said 1602)

Workout went well yesterday, getting accustomed to doing different exercises with the dummbells. It was surprising how much less I could bench press with them. Going to have to discontinue sit-ups because I'm feeling some clicking in my lower back while doing them and I don't want to aggravate my disc.

I'm not sure if I want to try to split it up and target certain muscle groups on certain days yet. I think the larger calorie burn I can get in per day would probably be best, and this way if I have to miss a day I don't miss working out a muscle group. Only problem is I'm a little sore so not sure and not sure if I should just work through it, or how much recovery time I'll need and might need to do 1 day workout, 1 day rest, 1 day workout, 1 day rest, etc. in an alternating fashion. Anyway I'll have plenty of time to figure that out.

Food for today:
Fruit smoothie 374 cals
Jimmy Dean Tukey Sausage Patties 520 cals
24oz petite sirloin steak 900 cals
Whiskey Old Fashioned (2x) 700 cals
Total cals: 2853

Today's macros totals...

79 grams of fat
128 grams carbohydrates
197 grams of protein

On the diet front, I think trying to fulfill these macro totals might be counter-productive since I'm consuming more calories in general than I really need to in order to satiate hunger. I could probably be coming in closer to my basic metabolic rate if I just ate more intuitively, but I'm not sure what the effect will be on muscle gain if I don't get enough protein. It seems I might be trying to cut and bulk at the same time and may need to just choose one, and keep the weight lifting going to prevent muscle loss as I cut.

Things are still going mostly positive though. Avoiding any binge eating pretty well, and although I'm not losing weight/fat at the rate I had hoped, it's coming off slowly. Hopefully once I get a weight training routine better figured out, things will swing into full gear.

[JohnCyr]

Day 5 4/28/20

Workout for today:
Tricep Press: 25 lbs 3 sets of 8
Bicep Curl: 20 lbs 1st set, 15 next 2, 8 reps each
Shoulder Press: 30 lbs 1st set, 40 lbs next 2, 8 reps each
Close-grip Press: 40 lbs, 3 sets of 8
Bench press: 75 lbs, 1st set 8 reps, 2nd set 5, 50 lbs with 8 reps for 3rd set
Shoulder Shrug: 104 lbs, 3 sets of 8
Incline bench row: 60 lbs, 3 sets of 8
Dead-lift: 104 lbs, 3 sets of 8
Crunches, 3 sets of 20
Sit-ups: stopped at 4 because of clicking in back
Squats: 3 sets of 10
Glute Bridges: 3 sets of 15
Calories burned: 794-1602 (Jefit said 794, Google Fit said 1602)

Workout went well yesterday, getting accustomed to doing different exercises with the dummbells. It was surprising how much less I could bench press with them. Going to have to discontinue sit-ups because I'm feeling some clicking in my lower back while doing them and I don't want to aggravate my disc.

I'm not sure if I want to try to split it up and target certain muscle groups on certain days yet. I think the larger calorie burn I can get in per day would probably be best, and this way if I have to miss a day I don't miss working out a muscle group. Only problem is I'm a little sore so not sure and not sure if I should just work through it, or how much recovery time I'll need and might need to do 1 day workout, 1 day rest, 1 day workout, 1 day rest, etc. in an alternating fashion. Anyway I'll have plenty of time to figure that out.

Food for today:
Fruit smoothie 374 cals
Jimmy Dean Tukey Sausage Patties 520 cals
24oz petite sirloin steak 900 cals
Whiskey Old Fashioned (2x) 700 cals
Total cals: 2853

Today's macros totals...

79 grams of fat
128 grams carbohydrates
197 grams of protein

On the diet front, I think trying to fulfill these macro totals might be counter-productive since I'm consuming more calories in general than I really need to in order to satiate hunger. I could probably be coming in closer to my basic metabolic rate if I just ate more intuitively, but I'm not sure what the effect will be on muscle gain if I don't get enough protein. It seems I might be trying to cut and bulk at the same time and may need to just choose one, and keep the weight lifting going to prevent muscle loss as I cut.

Things are still going mostly positive though. Avoiding any binge eating pretty well, and although I'm not losing weight/fat at the rate I had hoped, it's coming off slowly. Hopefully once I get a weight training routine better figured out, things will swing into full gear.

If I can offer advice or opinion.. The last thing you need to worry about right now is preserving muscle mass. Your body has more than enough ressources to use for fuel..That being said, what worked for me was keeping below 100g of carbs per day and roughly 1900-2000 cals per day. . That's plenty to satisfy hunger of you choose wisely. Chicken, Turkey, Greek Yogurt, Berries, Greens, Salmon, Tilapia, Cod.. A 24 oz steak and whiskey is a treat.. It wont be easy to cut back, but it will be worth it. I cut out sausages for bacon instead as well. Intermittent fasting worked wonders for me as well.. no eating between 7pm-7am. Also fasted one day per week on a rest day with just water...id add protein powder sometimes...Furthermore, I would avoid smoothies as they tend to spike blood sugar as the absorbtion isn't the same as chewing the berries or fruit. id drop them in the yogurt and if you need an extra sugar kick, add some 70% cocoa nibs in there. There is also no way youre going to not bust your daily cals by eating 1g to 1.5g of protein per lbs. Drop that to 0,5g to be realiastic. Anyway that's what worked for me... Youre on the right path!!

[isatonmynuts]

If I can offer advice or opinion.. The last thing you need to worry about right now is preserving muscle mass. Your body has more than enough ressources to use for fuel..That being said, what worked for me was keeping below 100g of carbs per day and roughly 1900-2000 cals per day. . That's plenty to satisfy hunger of you choose wisely. Chicken, Turkey, Greek Yogurt, Berries, Greens, Salmon, Tilapia, Cod.. A 24 oz steak and whiskey is a treat.. It wont be easy to cut back, but it will be worth it. I cut out sausages for bacon instead as well. Intermittent fasting worked wonders for me as well.. no eating between 7pm-7am. Also fasted one day per week on a rest day with just water...id add protein powder sometimes...Furthermore, I would avoid smoothies as they tend to spike blood sugar as the absorbtion isn't the same as chewing the berries or fruit. id drop them in the yogurt and if you need an extra sugar kick, add some 70% cocoa nibs in there. There is also no way youre going to not bust your daily cals by eating 1g to 1.5g of protein per lbs. Drop that to 0,5g to be realiastic. Anyway that's what worked for me... Youre on the right path!!

Thanks! I had a much more thorough reply written out, but for some reason the board won't let me post it. I get a lot of weird errors with it saying, "You don't have permissions to acces newreply.php" or such. I wonder if I'm making posts that are too long, or what's going on with that. But basically my overall point was that I'm kind of just trying to ease into these changes, and focusing more on being accountable right now. In the past I think I've gotten into issues with binge eating because instead of being accountable, I'd try to just be "intuitive" with how much i was eating, barely eat one day, then binge the next, and so forth.

One of the things that really surprised me was that I definitely do lose a lot of muscle when I do those extremely-restricted calorie diets. I've always heard the body is supposed to lose fat before it uses muscle, but it totally seems like mine will happily use both. I was very atrophied and weakened when I started strength training before the lockdown, and once that happened and I didn't have access to my buddy's gym equipment, I just went on a very restricted calorie diet again. I lost 20 lbs, but now that I've got my own weights I'm finding I can't lift the same amount of weight as I was before, and can definitely feel the loss of muscle mass on my arms.

That sucks about smoothies. I'm a pretty picky eater and don't really like many fruits or veggies so I was planning on using the smoothies as a way to blend them up and make them more palatable. I'm hoping to start eating more lean meats like chicken or pork soon, but I have a whole bunch of steak I bought and still waiting on money to go get more food, so it's basically what I have for the moment. Aside from like, a big stockpile of canned stuff I bought for quarantine. I don't really have the best food budget; another reason why I tend to avoid fresh fruits and prefer frozen ones in smoothies.

Anyway gotta try to avoid making this reply too long I think... Lemme know what you think.

[isatonmynuts]

Day 6 4/29/20

Workout for today:
Tricep Press Single Dummbell: 30 lbs 3 sets of 8
Bicep Curl: 15 lbs 3 sets of 8 reps
Shoulder Press: 50 lbs 3 sets of 8
Close-grip Press: 40 lbs, 3 sets of 8
Bench press: 60 lbs, 1st set 8 reps, 2nd set 7, 50 lbs with 8 reps for 3rd set
Shoulder Shrug: 104 lbs, 3 sets of 8
Incline bench row: 60 lbs, 3 sets of 8
Dead-lift: 104 lbs, 3 sets of 8
Crunches, 3 sets of 20
Squats: 3 sets of 15
Glute Bridges: 3 sets of 15
Calories burned: 630-1304(Jefit vs Google Fit estimate)

I'm trying to find ideal weight for bench press still and I think I'll probably just stick with 50 for now to be able to complete each set. I think I need to add in some flies or something because I can't bench much more with the dummbels, but just not feeling like it's activiating things in my chest. My arms and back are good and sore feeling but my chest just feels normal. Then again I'm doing a lot more exercises that are activiating triceps and shoulders so who knows, but I think the important thing for now is just getting everything involved.

Food for today:
Fruit smoothie 374 cal
2x Mama Rosa Mini Pizza 620 cal
Body Fortress Protein Shake 390 cal
16oz petite sirloin steak 582 cals
Total cals: 1976

Macros

Fat 71 grams
Carbs 157 grams
Protein 183 grams

I'm still trying to figure out my TDEE. Jefit estimated my calorie burn at 630 but Google Fit doubles that estimate and I am not sure which one is accurate. I think it's probably more beneficial to assume the lower number so if I add that to my BMR, then I think that makes my TDEE about 3200 kcal at least. I believe that's probably pretty accurate and that I'm still maintaining a deficit because the scale is backing that up.

I'll have a weekly weight update up tomorrow but I kind of already compared yesterday to figures from 4/22 and see I've lost 1.8 lbs and 1.5% body fat, and lost no muscle mass. If I figure that 1.8 x 3500 = 6300 calories lost, then I can estimate 6300 ÷ 7 = 900 kcal deficit a day independent of my TDEE and BMR. If the 2584 kcal BMR is accurate however, then that would mean I'm closer to 3200-3500 kcal TDEE.

I keep reading not to go below your BMR but not sure what that guideline is usually based off of. I've read things saying it's not healthy to lose more than 1-2% body fat per week, but I don't know what kind of negative effects it is supposed to induce if you do, and whether or not those effects will be present at that same rate of loss in an obese person versus an overweight or average sized person.

I think for now my strategy should be to drop down to ~2000 kcal a day intake, maintain my output, and see how the numbers hold over the week. If I'm still seeing fat loss and no muscle loss, and seeing an increase in weight loss in that week then I think it will mean I'm successfully burning fat and my metabolism isn't dropping or consuming muscle.

[isatonmynuts]

Day 6 4/30/20

Workout for today:
Tricep Press Single Dummbell: 30 lbs 3 sets of 8
Bicep Curl: 15 lbs 3 sets of 8 reps
Shoulder Press: 40 lbs 3 sets of 8
Close-grip Press: 50 lbs, 3 sets of 8
Bench press: 50 lbs, 3 sets of 8
Shoulder Shrug: 104 lbs, 3 sets of 8
Incline bench row: 60 lbs, 3 sets of 8
Dead-lift: 104 lbs, 3 sets of 8
Crunches, 3 sets of 20
Squats: 3 sets of 15
Glute Bridges: 3 sets of 15
Calories burned: 548-1153(Jefit vs Google Fit estimate)

Food for today:
Fruit smoothie w Protect Powder 564 cal
Body Fortress Protein Shake 390 cal
20oz petite sirloin steak 78i cals
Total cals: 1732


Macros
Fat 52 grams
Carbs 82 grams
Protein 220 grams

[JohnCyr]

Thanks! I had a much more thorough reply written out, but for some reason the board won't let me post it. I get a lot of weird errors with it saying, "You don't have permissions to acces newreply.php" or such. I wonder if I'm making posts that are too long, or what's going on with that. But basically my overall point was that I'm kind of just trying to ease into these changes, and focusing more on being accountable right now. In the past I think I've gotten into issues with binge eating because instead of being accountable, I'd try to just be "intuitive" with how much i was eating, barely eat one day, then binge the next, and so forth.

One of the things that really surprised me was that I definitely do lose a lot of muscle when I do those extremely-restricted calorie diets. I've always heard the body is supposed to lose fat before it uses muscle, but it totally seems like mine will happily use both. I was very atrophied and weakened when I started strength training before the lockdown, and once that happened and I didn't have access to my buddy's gym equipment, I just went on a very restricted calorie diet again. I lost 20 lbs, but now that I've got my own weights I'm finding I can't lift the same amount of weight as I was before, and can definitely feel the loss of muscle mass on my arms.

That sucks about smoothies. I'm a pretty picky eater and don't really like many fruits or veggies so I was planning on using the smoothies as a way to blend them up and make them more palatable. I'm hoping to start eating more lean meats like chicken or pork soon, but I have a whole bunch of steak I bought and still waiting on money to go get more food, so it's basically what I have for the moment. Aside from like, a big stockpile of canned stuff I bought for quarantine. I don't really have the best food budget; another reason why I tend to avoid fresh fruits and prefer frozen ones in smoothies.

Anyway gotta try to avoid making this reply too long I think... Lemme know what you think.

I agree with you completely. The Idea is definitely to ease into these changes and not overwhelm yourself with them. Cutting out sugar and sodium is a good start... and I agree for the meat, I hunt so I eat whatever I have laying around most the time and its not always white meat!! Quarantine doesn't make anything easy at the moment, whether its money or getting out to find all sorts of food. For frozen fruits, I use berries most of the time and drop them in yougurt. I also make oat flour pancakeswith blueberries and zero calorie syrup. I add some protein powder in there and its pretty satisfying!! I think staying at a decent deficit, cutting sugars and sodium and eating about 200g protein is a damn good start!! saw your last two logs and they look pretty decent to me!! I think youre on the right track for sure!!

[isatonmynuts]

I agree with you completely. The Idea is definitely to ease into these changes and not overwhelm yourself with them. Cutting out sugar and sodium is a good start... and I agree for the meat, I hunt so I eat whatever I have laying around most the time and its not always white meat!! Quarantine doesn't make anything easy at the moment, whether its money or getting out to find all sorts of food. For frozen fruits, I use berries most of the time and drop them in yougurt. I also make oat flour pancakeswith blueberries and zero calorie syrup. I add some protein powder in there and its pretty satisfying!! I think staying at a decent deficit, cutting sugars and sodium and eating about 200g protein is a damn good start!! saw your last two logs and they look pretty decent to me!! I think youre on the right track for sure!!

Yeah, my frozen fruit mix is raspberries, blueberries, blackberries and stawberries, and I mix in some 1% milk and low-fat yogurt. I've been adding some protein powder to it as well so it comes in right at 50 grams of protein along with the yogurt.

Okay so I was going to post a weight update today since it's been one week since starting the thread, but I'm starting to doubt the accuracy of this scale to be able to reliably measure and track day-by-day or even week-by-week. There's a lot of day-to-day discrepancies, sometimes the weight jumps by 2-3 pounds day-by-day and the BFR has swung by a percentile point too. If I go by the scale's numbers, I've lost 50% of the fat that I've lost in muscle mass as well.

The only measurement I can seem to rely on is the weight, as I've checked it against my dummbells weights and it's within +/- .5 pound. Only problem is if I weigh myself multiple times, the variation is +/- 1

So without further excuses, here's the 1 week progress...

5/1/20
Weight 371 lbs
BFR: 44.4%

So if I can at least trust the weight measurement, that means I've lost 6 lbs in a week +/-. I'll have to start tracking the progress over 2 weeks to account for the inconsistencies of the scale, I think. Hopefully I'm not actually losing muscle mass too. I probably don't sound too positive, but I'm kind of just irked with the accuracy of this scale and hoping I'm not losing muscle as well. But it seems like a pretty good pace.


Also skipped the workout for today. I realized that I've been weight training for the last 3 days in a row, and have been doing body-weight exercises everyday before that, and know I need a rest day to actually build muscle. Just got carried away trying to burn as many calories a day as i could. Maybe that's why I've lost some muscle too? I'm going to try to start doing work-out day, rest-day, workout-day.


Food for today:
Jimmy Dean Turkey Sausage Patties: 260 cals
Fruit smoothie with protein: 564 cals
Protein smoothie: 380 cals
Jimmy Dean Turkey Sausage patties: 520
Protein smoothie: 380 ( forgot to keep it to only one scoop)
Total: 2100 cals

Macros
Fat 70 g
Carbs 108 g
Protein 247 g

Maybe overdid it with the protein powder vs actual food, but it's pretty filling and kind of got into a habit of having one at lunch after my workout.


All in all, feeling pretty positive! Except for my scale purchase haha But that's just numbers, I'll be able to see and feel the results myself.

[CBRIT89]

My scales sound very similar. I can get on them in my boxers, weigh in at 92kg, then go to the toilet and weigh in at 92.3kg, and that's physically impossible. You cannot weigh more after releasing fluids or waste.

Don't worry about what the scales say - maybe think more about measurements or how a certain piece of clothing feels. Often you can physically be smaller but the scales don't change.

If you are particularly invested in the scales though, work on averages.

I use an app called Libra, and it plots trend lines so you have a much better insight based on the fluctations averaging.

[JohnCyr]

I bought one of them smart scales from Amazon (Renpho) and weight wise it is fairly accurate. As CBRIT mentioned, sometimes ill weigh in at 174lbs, take a piss, wait 4 minutes and be 174.6 which is pretty odd.. However on the day I got the scale, I got a InBody test done professionally and the numbers were off by less than 6% with the scale... The problem with these scales is as far as muscle, BF% and all other measurements go, they only use your lower half of body which in itself is pretty useless if you carry most on your upper. Id say don't work about the other numbers, perhaps pay for a professional test once every 3-4 months and that's it.

Furthermore, as far as discrepancies go, it may be due to glycogen being replenished, water retention due to sodium or carbs or simply waste. Thursday I was 173lbs and this am I am at 175.6. I've had two craft beers and a lot more carbs/cheese than usual not to mention smaller poops these last 2 days.

Tomorrow I'll eat low carb, low sodium and at my BMR and come Monday or Tuesday, i'll be back down to 173lbs. I can fluctuate by 5-7lbs daily from morning to post dinner. lol

Ive been watching how my body reacts to different foods or time of day just for the hell of it.


I find the best time/way to weigh in mornings, 10-15minutes after you pee. On every Friday weigh ins on my weight loss threads, I make sure Thursday was low carb/sodium and don't eat past 5pm to get the most accurate possible readings. You should jump in those threads if you aren't already!! Just made one for may/june!

[isatonmynuts]

My scales sound very similar. I can get on them in my boxers, weigh in at 92kg, then go to the toilet and weigh in at 92.3kg, and that's physically impossible. You cannot weigh more after releasing fluids or waste.

Don't worry about what the scales say - maybe think more about measurements or how a certain piece of clothing feels. Often you can physically be smaller but the scales don't change.

If you are particularly invested in the scales though, work on averages.

I use an app called Libra, and it plots trend lines so you have a much better insight based on the fluctations averaging.

Yeah this one hooks up to something called AiFit which uses averages. It's pretty nice, but I wish I could delete certain entries. It's like, if I weight 375 4 times, and one weigh-in says 382, I should be able to delete that 382 one. But I guess the only real way to combat that is to weigh more often to have more data points to average out around.

I bought one of them smart scales from Amazon (Renpho) and weight wise it is fairly accurate. As CBRIT mentioned, sometimes ill weigh in at 174lbs, take a piss, wait 4 minutes and be 174.6 which is pretty odd.. However on the day I got the scale, I got a InBody test done professionally and the numbers were off by less than 6% with the scale... The problem with these scales is as far as muscle, BF% and all other measurements go, they only use your lower half of body which in itself is pretty useless if you carry most on your upper. Id say don't work about the other numbers, perhaps pay for a professional test once every 3-4 months and that's it.

Furthermore, as far as discrepancies go, it may be due to glycogen being replenished, water retention due to sodium or carbs or simply waste. Thursday I was 173lbs and this am I am at 175.6. I've had two craft beers and a lot more carbs/cheese than usual not to mention smaller poops these last 2 days.

Tomorrow I'll eat low carb, low sodium and at my BMR and come Monday or Tuesday, i'll be back down to 173lbs. I can fluctuate by 5-7lbs daily from morning to post dinner. lol

Ive been watching how my body reacts to different foods or time of day just for the hell of it.


I find the best time/way to weigh in mornings, 10-15minutes after you pee. On every Friday weigh ins on my weight loss threads, I make sure Thursday was low carb/sodium and don't eat past 5pm to get the most accurate possible readings. You should jump in those threads if you aren't already!! Just made one for may/june!

Yeah I think I'm going to have to just find a way to measure it more consistently. Time of day, after using the bathroom, before eating, etc. and so forth. That's disappointing to hear that it only really measures the composition of the legs. I was really just hoping to use the BFR measure to see gauge whether I was losing muscle mass or not. I guess I'll just need to rely on the old-fashioned wisdom of doing weight-training while on a deficit to protect against that muscle mass loss, and hope it works.


Speaking of weight training, I'm still doing the full-body routine, but thinking about splitting it up into days which focus on various muscle groups soon so that I can fit in more specific exercises. For example, have a chest/shoulder or "upper body" day where I'm getting in various inclined benches, flyes, and pull-overs. But for now I'm just keeping it simple while I get back into it.

One reason I kind of want to split it up among days though is that I don't really want "down-time". I worked out every day last week and I felt like that helped a lot with calorie burn, but I didn't have enough rest for my muscles I don't think. So I had planned on doing "workout-day,", then "rest-day", and alternate, but if I split the workouts into muscle-specific days I can still have a significant calorie output each day while also still resting certain muscle groups. I suppose the other option is to do light cardio on the rest-days, but it's just super hard to get motivated to do cardio for me. I've been mostly getting cardio by lifting heavy an with minimal rest periods, because it really gets my respiratory and heart-rate going, but not every exercise does that for me--mostly just dead-lifts.


Workout yesterday... The weight increases are simply reflecting the fact I found out my dummbell handles are 5 lbs.

Day 8 5/2/20

Workout for today:
Tricep Press Single Dummbell: 33 lbs 3 sets of 8
Bicep Curl Single Dummbell: 20 lbs 3 sets of 8 reps
Shoulder Press: 50 lbs 3 sets of 8
Close-grip Press: 55 lbs, 3 sets of 8
Bench press: 55 lbs, 3 sets of 8
Shoulder Shrug: 104 lbs, 3 sets of 15
Incline bench row: 65 lbs, 3 sets of 10
Dead-lift: 104 lbs, 3 sets of 8
Crunches, 3 sets of 20
Squats: 3 sets of 15
Glute Bridges: 3 sets of 15
Calories burned: 548-1153(Jefit vs Google Fit estimate)

Food for today:
Omlette and fruit smoothie: 694 cals
Protein smoothie: 380 cals
Chily and protein smoothie: 710 cals
Total: 1784 cals

Macros
Fat 55 g
Carbs 124 g
Protein 184 g

[isatonmynuts]

Day 9 5/3/20

Had a bit of a cheat day today. Went to go get my car fixed at my friend's and they decided to have a little BBQ dinner afterwards. Lost track of the calories since my phone died but estimate for yesterday/today

Omlette 495
Fruit smoothie w peoteitn 564
Two cheeseburgers ~1500
Two Mike's Hard Lemonade 440
Two Michelob Ultra 190
Some chips 210
Slice of lemon-pudding cake 310
Estimated total 2973 Cal's

I don't think it's as bad as it looks however since I also did a bunch of chores around their farm for them so got a little exercise, and so even 3k probably came in at or a little under my TDEE.

I suppose I'll need to develop a better strategy for dealing with impromptu and unplanned dinners though. The friend that fixed my car is like a big fitness freak and I think he normally uses my visits as an excuse to indulge all these unhealthy foods he wouldn't. I tried telling him I was trying to count calories and not to make me two burgers but he did anyway. Then I was looking at the cake to see how many calories that was, and he said, "Don't worry too much about counting calories just eat less," and then proceeded to give me a piece that was like 1/4 of the whole cake haha

But anyway no biggie, I still didn't "binge eat" as far as my criteria go, and the extra calories aren't really a big deal when compared to my TDEE and not to mention some of the other days this week where I've come in under 2k. Between those days and my workout tomorrow I will have burned off any excess from the big dinner yesterday.

[isatonmynuts]

Day 10 5/4/20

Workout for yesterday:
Tricep Press Single Dummbell: 33 lbs 3 sets of 8
Bicep Curl Single Dummbell: 20 lbs 3 sets of 8 reps
Shoulder Press: 50 lbs 3 sets of 8
Close-grip Press: 55 lbs, 3 sets of 8
Bench press: 55 lbs, 3 sets of 8
Shoulder Shrug: 104 lbs, 3 sets of 15
Incline bench row: 65 lbs, 3 sets of 10
Dead-lift: 104 lbs, 3 sets of 8
Crunches, 3 sets of 20
Squats: 3 sets of 15
Glute Bridges: 3 sets of 15
Calories burned: 548-1153(Jefit vs Google Fit estimate)

Food for yesterday:
Bush's Baked Beans 510 cals
Protein smoothie 380 cals
19 oz steak 712 cals
Fruit smoothie with protein 564 cals
Total: 2166

Macros
Fat 52 g
Carbs 181 g
Protein 227 g

[isatonmynuts]

Day 11 5/5/20

Rest day... Except had a bunch of chores to do and my back was killing me so turned into a drinky day

Food:
Bush's Baked Beans 510 cals
4 Whiskey Old Fashioneds
Total: 1852

Macros
Fat 3 g
Carbs 174 g
Protein 18 g

Day 12 5/6/20

Workout:
Tricep Press Single Dummbell: 35 lbs 3 sets of 8
Bicep Curl Single Dummbell: 40 lbs 3 sets of 8 reps
Shoulder Press: 50 lbs 3 sets of 8
Close-grip Press: 60 lbs, 3 sets of 10
Bench press: 60 lbs, 3 sets of 8
Shoulder Shrug: 104 lbs, 3 sets of 15
Incline bench row: 65 lbs, 3 sets of 8
Dead-lift: 104 lbs, 3 sets of 8
Crunches, 3 sets of 20
Squats: 3 sets of 15
Glute Bridges: 3 sets of 15
Calories burned: 503

Food:
Fruit Smothie With Protein 564
Protein Smoothie 390
19 oz petite sirloin 713
16 oz of milk 205
Total: 1862

Macros
Fat 53 g
Carbs 106 g
Protein 226 g

[isatonmynuts]

Day 13 5/7/20

Workout:
Rest day

Food:
Omlette 551 cals
Fruit Smoothie with Protein Powder 564 cal
Total: 1115 cals

Macros
Fat 49 g
Carbs 71 g
Protein 90 g

Day 14 5/8/20

Workout:
Tricep Press Single Dummbell: 35 lbs 3 sets of 8
Bicep Curl Single Dummbell: 40 lbs 3 sets of 8 reps
Shoulder Press: 50 lbs 3 sets of 8
Close-grip Press: 60 lbs, 3 sets of 10
Bench press: 60 lbs, 3 sets of 8
Incline bench row: 70 lbs, 3 sets of 10
Dead-lift: 104 lbs, 3 sets of 8
Shoulder Shrug: 104 lbs, 3 sets of 15
Crunches, 3 sets of 20
Squats: 3 sets of 15
Glute Bridges: 3 sets of 15
Calories burned: 515

Food:
Fruit and spinach Smoothie 400 cals
Protein Smoothie and Beef Jerky 630
Protein Smoothie and Steak 868 cals
Total: 1892

Macros
Fat 44 g
Carbs 105 g
Protein 251 g

Day 15 Weigh-In
367.5 lbs
BFR 43.5-44%


Been kind of a rough couple of days on a personal level, so surprised I've been holding to the diet and fitness plan. Trying not to give into personal upset as an excuse not to do my exercises or start binge eating again. Today I've been feeling like just saying screw-it and give up on the whole thing, to be honest. It took a lot to make sure I did my exercises yesterday; I felt like it would set a good precedent to move through the stuff going on and keep doing it, otherwise I felt like it would just enable me to skip it again the next time.

I realized that if I do alternating days of rest and exercise, that I'll be alternating which days of the weeks I'm working out on, so I'm thinking about resting on Saturday and Sunday, and working out on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I'm worried that will not be a big enough caloric deficit over the week, so I might add in some fasting days. A lot of days I haven't really been eating much more than 1000 anyway so that shouldn't be too hard. I feel like the week prior I kind of pushed it too hard working out everyday in a row and everything I've been reading says I need at least one rest day per muscle group, so the other alternative would be to break up different muscle groups over different days, and I'm still considering that. The only thing with that is I don't think it would be as vigorous a workout on somedays as a full-body workout.

So anyway I think I've been doing well, just wish it could make up for the crap going on in my personal life.

[JohnCyr]

Day 13 5/7/20

Workout:
Rest day

Food:
Omlette 551 cals
Fruit Smoothie with Protein Powder 564 cal
Total: 1115 cals

Macros
Fat 49 g
Carbs 71 g
Protein 90 g

Day 14 5/8/20

Workout:
Tricep Press Single Dummbell: 35 lbs 3 sets of 8
Bicep Curl Single Dummbell: 40 lbs 3 sets of 8 reps
Shoulder Press: 50 lbs 3 sets of 8
Close-grip Press: 60 lbs, 3 sets of 10
Bench press: 60 lbs, 3 sets of 8
Incline bench row: 70 lbs, 3 sets of 10
Dead-lift: 104 lbs, 3 sets of 8
Shoulder Shrug: 104 lbs, 3 sets of 15
Crunches, 3 sets of 20
Squats: 3 sets of 15
Glute Bridges: 3 sets of 15
Calories burned: 515

Food:
Fruit and spinach Smoothie 400 cals
Protein Smoothie and Beef Jerky 630
Protein Smoothie and Steak 868 cals
Total: 1892

Macros
Fat 44 g
Carbs 105 g
Protein 251 g

Day 15 Weigh-In
367.5 lbs
BFR 43.5-44%


Been kind of a rough couple of days on a personal level, so surprised I've been holding to the diet and fitness plan. Trying not to give into personal upset as an excuse not to do my exercises or start binge eating again. Today I've been feeling like just saying screw-it and give up on the whole thing, to be honest. It took a lot to make sure I did my exercises yesterday; I felt like it would set a good precedent to move through the stuff going on and keep doing it, otherwise I felt like it would just enable me to skip it again the next time.

I realized that if I do alternating days of rest and exercise, that I'll be alternating which days of the weeks I'm working out on, so I'm thinking about resting on Saturday and Sunday, and working out on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I'm worried that will not be a big enough caloric deficit over the week, so I might add in some fasting days. A lot of days I haven't really been eating much more than 1000 anyway so that shouldn't be too hard. I feel like the week prior I kind of pushed it too hard working out everyday in a row and everything I've been reading says I need at least one rest day per muscle group, so the other alternative would be to break up different muscle groups over different days, and I'm still considering that. The only thing with that is I don't think it would be as vigorous a workout on somedays as a full-body workout.

So anyway I think I've been doing well, just wish it could make up for the crap going on in my personal life.

Hey man! We all have our days. And if you did binge.. forget about it and keep going. Hope all is well brother! You got this!!

[isatonmynuts]

Hmm I'm not sure what's going on, I have been averaging about 2100 cals a day this week which should be well below my BMR and TDEE but I have jumped up to 374 pounds??

I'm thinking this scale might just be inaccurate because it seems like I'm still losing a lot of fat in my progress pictures.

[isatonmynuts]

Hmm well I'm up to 383 again this week so I'm gonna have to conclude these BMR and TDEE estimates are bogus. Gonna try to shoot for 1800-2000 calories a day since I seemed to be losing steadily at that point. I don't know if some of this added weight is muscle mass but the stupid biometric scale is showing my BFR increasing and ten pounds would be a lot of muscle to gain in a week. Frankly I don't even know how I gained ten pounds of fat in a week either unless my TDEE is WAY below estimates. That's basically 5k calories per day!

So anyway the numbers don't seem to be adding up so I'm just gonna go back to what seemed to be working. It's kind of frustrating and I feel like these TDEE calculators are a bunch of BS, but whatever, I know 2k or less a day was working, so it's back to that.

[NieKZ]

Hey man, just wanted to pop in and say, don't get discouraged. The scales might mess with you, but in the long run, staying consistent is the only way to succeed.
I've been where you're at. Keep pushing through, you'll be losing in no time!

What I have done in the past is set your daily intake to what your body would need at your goal instead of relying on "x" deficit. Hope that helps a bit

You can do this!

[isatonmynuts]

Hey man, just wanted to pop in and say, don't get discouraged. The scales might mess with you, but in the long run, staying consistent is the only way to succeed.
I've been where you're at. Keep pushing through, you'll be losing in no time!

What I have done in the past is set your daily intake to what your body would need at your goal instead of relying on "x" deficit. Hope that helps a bit

You can do this!

Thanks! That sounds like a good idea, I'll give that a shot.

I'm hoping a lot of the weight increase is muscle mass. I'm definitely seeing more muscle in the mirror, and my belt is cinching up tighter, so I think I should probably pay attention to those results more than the scale. Also went for a hike yesterday... Last year I made it half-way up the hill, this year I nearly sumitted. I'm sure I could have, but I was running out of daylight, so I'm planning to go back out and get to the top next week.

[NieKZ]

Thanks! That sounds like a good idea, I'll give that a shot.

I'm hoping a lot of the weight increase is muscle mass. I'm definitely seeing more muscle in the mirror, and my belt is cinching up tighter, so I think I should probably pay attention to those results more than the scale. Also went for a hike yesterday... Last year I made it half-way up the hill, this year I nearly sumitted. I'm sure I could have, but I was running out of daylight, so I'm planning to go back out and get to the top next week.

That's awesome man! Keep it up! And yeah, the scale is a devil in its own right, theres only 2 things
that really matter. 1 How YOU feel, because this is a journey to becoming healthier, and 2 How you LOOK to YOURSELF in the mirror. Its easy to get wound up on other people's perspectives and opinions
but this is your choice to a healthier lifestyle, and nothing matters more

Keep it up! Following you for progress

[isatonmynuts]

Well, I'm back on the program after crashing pretty hard. I had some personal problems back in May that got me really down and depressed, and I just kind of said **** it in regards to my idea of getting back into shape. I began a steady diet of fast food and beer and ballooned back up to 411 lbs. The heaviest I've ever been in my life is 420 lbs so soon as I saw that number creeping up again, I said forget that and I'm back to it.

I don't really know how I'm going to manage to deal with those kinds of emotional upsets and sabotaging my progress. I've only been back at it for about 3 weeks now, and I'm back down to 400 lbs. I'm still trying to figure out what a good daily intake is for me, and not really sure how much of the previous two week's loss was water weight or what, but this last week I basically just stayed static and didn't lose any weight. I guess I'll take that over gaining, but that was at about ~2800 kcal a day and so it looks like I need to stay around ~2000-~2300. I'm just trying not to make too many radical changes that I'm not going to stick with if (and probably when) I fall off the wagon again.

I was kind of hoping that my exercise routine would have upped my TDEE more than that since ~2800 kcal is right around what my BMR is supposed to be, but I'm not going to try to rely on the estimates and just track it by weight lost. One thing that does seem positive is that I thought I could see some fat loss in the mirror throughout this week, but wasn't sure if I was just imagining it, until I weighed again today and my BFR was down 1% (4.4 lbs) and so if that's accurate at all then apparently I managed to do what I wanted: Lose fat and not muscle.

I'm trying to figure out a good split-body workout routine with my dumbbells where I can hit different muscle groups each day, so that each gets a day of rest, but split it over 2 workouts so I can build up to doing it 3 times a week with a day of rest. I'm still deciding on what exercises I want to put into it, what workouts I want to do each, etc. I did two of each workout this week and I'm very sore so decided to take the weekend for rest, and have modified it down to...

Workout A:
Lateral Shoulder Raise
Front Shoulder Raise
Shouder Press
Reverse Flyes
Inclined Two-Arm Rows
One-Arm Rows
Concentration Curls
Reverse Curls
Farmer's Walk

Workout B:
Inclined Bench Press
Bench Press
Close Grip Bench Press
Flyes
Seated Tricep Press
Shoulder Shrug
Crunches
Squats
Bridges

I will probably still modify it later on as I try it, but the main goal of this isn't really to do mass gains, but just maintain strength and muscle while I lose weight. Still not looking to join a gym (for several reasons, but that's beyond that point) so just using my dumbbells and a bench. I finally got some resistance bands I had ordered, but they're super crappy quality and I already broke one.

Anyway, it sucks to have lost all the progress I'd made, but these things happen I guess. I'm just gonna have to look at it like learning to ride a bike; if I crash, I'll just get back on it again.

[RandyMcFlab]

Welcome back, the main thing is your back! i have a journal i started back in 2017 and never went through with it but this year i came back in march and have cracked it. You will too..but im a believer it has to suck more being massively overweight than the initial effort it takes to stick to a plan or it wont work.

I started at 310 lbs and my calories was 2000-2100 and i have stuck to that. If you have low muscle mass and are sedentary then the TDEE calculators can be way off. Id say try 2400 calories and workout hard and you will get results.

I am assuming you made this routine, it would probably be worth following something like allpro. That seems like a lot of sets..but at the end of the day its going to burn calories - whatever works for you man.