340lbs to 220lbs [✔], new goal of 235lbs to 200lbs

[CollinW15]

I've had some logs here before that have never gone exactly according to plan, but I'm happy to say that there has been a downward trend in my weight over the last few years. This forum's resources for fitness, fat loss, weight lifting, and nutrition have been hugely helpful on my journey. Even when I haven't been actively posting, I have been visiting this site semi-regularly.


Very condensed weight loss story...

- Always been fat. During childhood, I ranged from slightly overweight to obese. There was a never a time I would've been considered "normal" or "healthy" weight.
- Around 16, I found the gym and started training for sports. I remember one particular summer during high-school when I was in my best shape (excluding recent years). I'm not sure what weight I was, but I'd guess somewhere in the 210lbs-240lbs range (for some reason, I wasn't weighing myself). I was in the gym at least 7 times a week and spending most days outside staying active. I could do 70 push-ups in 1 minute and was running 1 mile in ~7:30.
- Over next few years, my already poor food habits got worse. Gym and exercise varied in the following years. There was periods I was doing very little exercise, but also plenty of periods where I was exercising and weight lifting regularly. Even during these times, the food habits remained bad so no major progress was ever made.
- I think I hit my heaviest around November 2016. I remember seeing 330lbs on the scale, and I was likely as high as 340lbs at some point. It was around here that I feel I had my "turning point". Enough was enough, and the pain of remaining that weight was greater than the alternative of losing weight.
- A very bumpy ride ensued. I was down to ~285lbs around July 2017. My father got unexpectedly sick in June 2017 and passed away one month later (a rare lung issue, non-obesity related (not that it's too relevant)).
- In Dec 2017 I was 305lbs. It's impossible to tell the story without mentioning my dad's death, but I don't feel there's an exact correlation between that and my weight. It's relevant for sure, but I think it's too convenient to just point to that as a sole reason for weight fluctuation.
- In Apr 2018 I was around 310-315lbs. Despite only being ~25lbs away from peak, I still felt there had been a shift in my mentality between Nov 2016 and Apr 2018. My approach to food was improving and I had been consistently exercising for that whole 18 month period. Obviously still looooots of problems, but weirdly enough, mentally I felt much more confident that I would achieve my goals eventually.
- The last week of April 2018, I place a weight loss bet with my friend for extra motivation.
- The first week of May 2018, I injure myself and tear my quadricep tendon. Knee surgery needed, straight leg splint for 6 weeks, expected ~1 year recovery time to be 100% back to normal.
- Start getting to gym again around Oct 2018 and doing some upper body stuff. Obviously still quite limited in types of exercise I can do. Despite this, I start to see some relatively consistent weight loss results. 295lbs in Jul 2018, 285lbs in Oct 2018, 275lbs in Dec 2018, 260lbs in Jan 2019, 245lbs in May 2019.
- In August 2019, I hit 230lbs and felt in great shape. In Dec 2019, I was under 220lbs (the 100kg milestone) for the first time in forever. Since then, I've been as high as 240lbs, but my weight has stayed pretty consistently between 233lbs and 238lbs for the last ~3 months. n


I lost the original weight loss bet (I got to the goal weight eventually, but after the expiry date ) but my friend has offered me another chance to get my money back.

The new bet, all to be achieved before end of 2020:

- Weigh under 200lbs
- Run 5km in <30mins
- Run 10km in <65mins

*stipulation: both runs must be completed a second time ~3-6 months later


So this thread will be a log of my journey from 235lbs to 200lbs. I'm sure I'll go into a lot more details on my journey so far and share thoughts on what has been helpful for me. I plan to post short updates pretty regularly and I'll sporadically post longer updates whenever I get the urge to write!

[CollinW15]

A few quick thoughts on what I've learned so far:

- calories in vs calories out. Don't over complicate it for fat loss, this works for 99% of people.

- learn from previous mistakes. I used take approaches of "okay, this is day 1, forget everything in the past, from now on, I'm going to do XYZ". Now, I'm much more conscious of my short comings. I know I'm prone to binges and have plenty of issues with food. Instead of trying to eradicate all these issues immediately, I'm conscious and aware of the issues (simply being aware and trying to recognize when issues are about to manifest themselves is in itself a huge help) and try to improve them over time. It's more about going from 20 to 80 in a year than 0 to 100 in a month.

- drink more water

- find what works for you. There's so many different approaches to diet and exercise and a lot of different things can work. Do your research, find out the pros and cons of different approaches and then experiment with what works for you. Once you know the basic science, fat loss is a largely psychological pursuit imo. Make sure the information you're working with is correct, then see what fits best with your personality and psychological make-up.

[CollinW15]

Okay, day 1. Official weigh in of 236lbs. I'll be weighing myself most days first thing in the morning. For now, I'll just be focused on calories and looking to hit around 2300 per day. Gyms etc are closed so my exercise has just involved some LISS walking and cycling.

[CollinW15]

234lbs. 2100 calories and 2900 calories last two days. Have been eating relatively healthy the last few months but the sugar intake has definitely been too high. Trying to cut back right now, I've found previously that it can take a few days for the cravings (both psychological and physical) to decrease a bit. For now, just want to find a bit of a rhythm and made sure calories are roughly where I want them to be. Eating plenty of veg and protein so not too worried about macros etc for now.

[CollinW15]

Starting to get into a bit of a routine now. Not too long ago, I was probably eating 5000+ calories of chocolate/junk food weekly, so have seriously reigned that in. I'm sure there's a lot of physical changes that happen in your body when sugar intake decreases, but being aware of the habitual changes is also important. Going from "bad eating" to "good eating" (gross over-simplification I know!) can be very difficult to do over night. E.g. going from 3500 calories/day eating whatever you want to 2000 calories of veg and chicken only can be very tough psychologically. I generally think it's better to have a period of around 3-7 days where you transition from "bad eating" to "better eating" and then look to move into "good eating". I really disagree with those terms fwiw (the definition of "bad eating" or "good eating" can mean so many things) but using for the sake of brevity.