Tl;dr: Being consistent isn’t always easy, but you can always get back on the horse and try again. 8 years of inconsistent data regarding my diet, exercise, weight.
Intro
I don’t know why I’m writing this now as opposed to a few months more or when I got started. I think it’s just the end of the month and I feel like sharing. I love reading stories on this sub, so sharing could be fun too.
Wow, where do I begin? I will get into specifics in a little bit, but I just want to make clear what I’m going to explain. I have attempted to diet and/or workout on and off again for 8 years. I’ve never gotten too healthy or crazily unhealthy. The swings in attitude and randomness of diet and exercise I think are typical for most people in the health rat race. I happen to love data, so I’ve always had some sort of log of weight/workouts/diet, at least when I was caring about myself. So, I have an interesting set of data that I’d like to share that shows how I’ve gained and lost over time and the combinations of diets and activities I have done to impact my body. The explanation of my life/background will be below. First, stats…
Statistics
Male, 5'9" / 175cm, 22 years old -> 29 years old
Weight: 178 lbs/80.7 kg (Feb 2011) -> 166 lbs/75.3 kg (July 2018) – Highest weight: 212 lbs/96.2 kg (January 2017)
Bodyfat %: (I only have limited data on this from two DEXA scans in 2017)
Feb 2, 2017: 30.8% @ 196.1 lbs/88.9kg (DEXA Scan)
May 31, 2017: 24.6% @ 183.5 lbs/83.2kg (DEXA Scan)
July 31, 2018: 18-20% @166 lbs/75.3kg (Estimated)
Exercise
Cardio: As you can see in my charts, I predominately have attempted cardiovascular exercise as a means to improve my fitness. I jogged a little bit in February 2011, but never considered myself a runner or ran for longer than 2-3 miles. Starting in August 2012 when I saw 208 lbs/94.3kg on the scale I began training for road races. I trained for and completed a number of 5ks, 10ks, and 4 half marathons. My training was at times intermittent, but I used the Nike Run app and still do today. At other times I used Map My Run or Zombies, Run!, but I prefer Nike to this day.
Every time you see yellow on my chart, that’s me running 3 or 4 times a week, trying to keep my weight down or prepare for some sort of race. I also have trained for triathlons at a few different times: in January 2015, January 2017 and June 2018. During those times I’ve added swimming and biking as a part of my workouts. Overall, I’d lump them all in the cardio bucket together.
Weight training:
I weight trained for a little in July and August 2014. The program was based exclusively on machines at the gym that were available as I walked around. I did not follow any set progression.
In January 2015 I started training for a triathlon, so I was doing cardio work but also decided to add some free weights. I’d work out 3 times a week at the gym using dumbbells and a few different accessory machines. I believe this workout was called “Flabulous to Fabulous”, which I still find hilarious. I was scrolling through the Jetfit app and picked it because it caught my eye. Maybe not the best way to pick out a program, but I stuck with it for almost four whole months!
Since May 21, 2018, I have followed an actual program called PHUL (Power, Hypertrophy, Upper, Lower). I am currently on week 10 of the program. My upper body is so much weaker than my lower that I think I will eventually switch to something that has more emphasis on the upper body. I did promise myself that no matter what, I was going to stick to a program for 12 weeks, so no changes for now!
My lifts as of this week (note that most are relatively untrained and I’m getting tons of noob gains):
Squat: 195 lbs/88.5 kg X 6 reps (4 sets)
Deadlift: 225 lbs/93 kg X 4 reps (4 sets)
Bench press: 155 lbs/70.3 kg X 8 reps (4 sets)
OHP: 95 lbs/43.1 kg X 8 reps (4 sets)
My Story (8 years is gonna be a little long)
You might open Full Weight Chart to see how things have progressed along this story.
I have on and off again dieted/exercised since college. I was relatively “healthy” at school probably weighing around 175 lbs/79.4kg for most of the time. I didn’t watch my diet at all, but for the most part, I played the role of the classic college nerd who wasn’t too active and played occasional tennis, but not obese either. Skinny fat is probably the best way to describe me. I remember starting college a little heavier and then during Lent, I decided to fast to OMAD, but not for health reasons. I was miserable, but that got me down to my 175 lbs/79.4kg that I maintained throughout. I was still pudgy and not very athletic. At some point, I decided in February 11, a few months before graduation, that I wanted to make a change in my life so I signed up for this website called Fatsecret. The platform allowed you to easily track calories and exercise and log the data. (I found this website before I heard of MFP. Today, I can’t use MFP because I just prefer the historical data of Fatsecret and the layout.) I started moderate running and a low-calorie diet focusing on no macros, but strictly calories. Well, my last semester attempt at fitness didn’t last. I graduated college, traveled Europe and ate what I wanted. I started my first full-time consulting job and learned how to use up my per diem for food and drinks.
From June 2011-August 2012 I ate and drank myself to sleep every night. I was working late, traveling every week and attempting to live the high life. I remember having to buy new pants a few different times while on the road because the pair I brought no longer fit. I had to take a health exam for work both in August of 2011 and 2012. During that time, I had ballooned from around 180lbs/81.6kg to 208lbs/94.3kg and my work’s annual health screening had all of these little warnings on it. I also took a photo with my gf’s family that I remember being horrified about. I decided to start running, but really commit myself to it. It was at this time that I started my first true “diet”.
Previously I had attempted to track food, but now I was headfirst deep in. I would run while traveling for work. Nothing could interrupt my training. I would eat only meals from restaurants that had caloric information available. In hindsight, I probably missed out on a lot of healthier options, but the most important part to me was calories in, calories out. My progress was really good! I bottomed out at around 167 lbs/75.7kg after about 8 months for a total of 40lbs/18.1kg lost! I felt great and was really happy with how I was starting to look. I remember adding in a little bit of ab work in January and how I almost had two abs at the top of my stomach. But then, I got lazy. I moved cities and jobs in June of 2013 which were honestly at much slower paces. It should have been an easy time to ramp up, not trail off. In July I stopped tracking my food and by the end of November 2013, I logged no more runs. My data goes a little vague here, but I know I wasn’t tracking food and only ran a few times in February and March of 2014. Those few runs didn’t stop my weight from slowly tracking up to 198 lbs/89.8kg in August of 2014.
I remember looking at myself in the mirror and realizing I had lost all of my progress and more. I snapped my first progress photo and decided to start going to the gym. I was done running for now and wanted to try something else. As explained earlier, I didn’t even follow a real workout plan. I just would walk around the weight room from machine to machine doing nothing of significance. I put on a little muscle, but my diet was still trash so I saw no real progress. I remember actually putting on weight and being really frustrated. I actually stopped working out after a few weeks. In November, I decided to start dieting again, knowing that my family would be disappointed when they saw me in December for the holidays. I actually stuck with the diet during the break. In January of 2015, a few of my coworkers challenged me to a triathlon in the beginning of April. I used the weight I had already lost (I was down to 185lbs/83.9kg) and started biking to and from work. I added swimming and a few quick runs into the mix. I was living in the south, so by March I was sweating buckets on my commute to work, so I’d go to the gym every day, mainly to shower, but I would also do a small workout that I described earlier. It was primarily free weights. After a few months of hard work, I was somewhat ready to attempt my first triathlon. I remember waiting to jump in the water at the start and how everyone including my coworkers looked much fitter than me. I was talking to my girlfriend, slightly embarrassed to be standing and not looking better. No matter, by the time I crossed the finish line, I was beaming. I had finished my first Sprint triathlon, and surprisingly ahead of my all three of my coworkers. I took this momentum and kept up my dieting and fitness for the next 3 years - NOT! I, of course, rode that high straight back into a sedentary, calorie infused life.
In August of 2015, I moved cities once more and began graduate school. I was still working full time and going to 12 hours of classes per week during night and day, so I was very pressed for time. Slowly my belly began to press over my pants as well. In February 2016, I again had ballooned up to 198 lbs/89.8kg. Seriously, what the hell? I again started the running thing. This time though, I did not watch or track my diet. There was free food everywhere. That summer I moved to another city for a few months and kept the running up, but the new location meant new restaurants! I lost a few lbs, but overall, I was just spinning my wheels. The next semester at grad school I did not work out or track an ounce of food. I indulged and worked and partied and bought new clothes all of the way until 2017.
January 4, 2017 – My highest weight ever recorded 212 lbs/96.2kg. I was miserable. Here I was again, looking down the barrel of another graduation and I’m so much worse off than before. I felt like I had been dieting for years to no avail. The truth was, I had been so inconsistent and most often lazy. My body was really showing the wear and tear it was getting abused by. Enough was enough. I found something called Keto and I decided I would give that a shot instead of my typical low-calorie diet that had worked in the past. The first day I cooked and ate an entire package of bacon. By the end of that week, I had dropped 8 lbs/3.6kg and I never looked back. I know most of it was water weight, but I didn’t care.
I trucked through that entire semester sticking to my macros which I counted for the first time. My weight came off because I kept my calories low. I felt full because I was eating fatty things. I ate meat and vegetables exclusively and only drank whiskey. Giving up beer at this stage in life was one of the hardest moves I had to make. I eventually added in some Michelob Ultras on occasion. I also signed up for two more triathlons and began my cardio training again. I was running, swimming and biking a few times a week. By the time of my triathlon in the beginning of May 2017, I dropped to 176 lbs/79.8kg. In four months, I had lost so much weight. I was feeling better, and I really looked better. After I finished my triathlon I took this momentum and kept up my dieting and fitness until today – NOT! I graduated, moved once more and stopped exercising formally.
During this time I maintained a lazy Keto diet. I would stay Keto for M-F and then go all out on the weekends. I would vacillate from 180-190 every week as I went in and out of a ketogenic state. The water weight was on and off. The fact that I was not actively exercising and still maintaining a (relatively) constant weight for the next year was a huge win for me. I didn’t balloon up and I wasn’t measuring anything. I was eating according to a loose plan and stuck to it without any outside help. This is the truly first time I’ve maintained a weight ever in my life.
May 21, 2018 – I got on the scale one more time and it was back up to 189lbs/85.7kg. I had been gaining and losing the same ten lbs for a year at this point. I decided that I no longer wanted to maintain this weight and instead was going to jump in fully. I don’t know what it was, but something FINALLY clicked. I looked over my history, and I decided that enough was enough. I was going to use my momentum and do it right. I got a real workout program (PHUL, as mentioned above), I got my diet in line and I started strict Keto once again. Since that date, I have logged my food, exercise, and weight every single day. I stay under 1700 calories. I lift 4 times a week with added running and swimming for cardio.
Today – I got on the scale this morning and I weighed 166 lbs/75.3 kg. This is the lowest weight I’ve ever been as an adult across all of my dieting and exercising. I feel good. I really am starting to feel more confident in my appearance. I think I might be getting an ab or two soon. I’m just on top of the world. And the best part is, I’ve already got my workout plan for once I’m done with this cut period. I am planning weeks and months in advance with many small goals in between. This time has felt different and I know it’s here to stay. FINALLY. Here is my photo from two weeks ago and here (Definitely NSFW) is a comparison from Jan 2017 to July 2018.
Conclusions and attachments
I think the main reason I decided to share this was so I can update this post in a year. I’m excited about the where I am today. And looking down the barrel at 30 years old is not only NOT frightening, I’m so fucking excited to be the best version of me as I kick off the best decade of my life.
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