My journey through 111lb of weight loss.

Since starting with my mission to lose weight back in January last year I have moved from one level to another but exactly what have I accomplished?

I was a hefty 301lb, I could barely walk up the stairs without getting out of breath and my choice of food was hardly healthy.

Now I sit here at a mere 190b in comparison, for those that don’t do math that’s a massive 111lb weight loss.

It wasn’t easy, the first 5 months passed by by simply reducing the amount I was eating, by the time I reached July I had whittled down to 256lb by diet alone then I encountered UFC: Personal Trainer on Kinect. Thanks to MCV and it’s 30 day challenge I was coerced into taking part and even got featured in their mag and online. You can check out my week by week blogs over on The Average Gamer where I also reviewed it. I lost another 20lb over the course of the competition and although I didn’t win it did give me encouragement to keep going.

Although August went well September and October didn’t. I hit my wall, By September I had ground off another 20lb and close to hitting my 210lb benchmark. Out of nowhere I had lost all motivation, my diet went out the window and I started rounding off again bulging out to 230lb. I needed a reason to keep going, something to keep me pushing forward. That’s when I had the idea to run the 10km Survival of The Fittest event in October this year.

I joined a gym as noted in the beginning of this blog and since then have grafted away. I now attend the Gym every other day and on most days I run 5km on a treadmill as I am still training my asthma outside. My diet has been overhauled. I make sure to consume plenty of protein to keep my muscles healing and growing properly and apart from pre-workout I consume quite a low amount of carbs.

I still have a lot to lose, the result of my obesity has left me with skin to be tightened and pockets of fat in places that are still stubborn. If I keep going I am sure they will vanish. Currently the plan is to keep cutting down to 180lb. From there I will probably work on building muscle so I expect my weight to go up again as I do so.

So what have I learnt? To stop fussing about weight. It sounds strange but I feel and look better in my current state at 190lb then the last time I was 190lb. So long as I keep a low % of body fat once I have worked off my current pockets my weight won’t be an issue to me anymore.

I learnt to listen to my body. It knows itself better than I do and it needs to be listened too. On more than one occasion I stopped losing weight altogether because my body was tired and needed rebooting. Eating more from time to time or eating at maintenance calories for a week helped to give my body the kickstart it needed to metabolise properly again.

On that note FUCK CALORIES, seriously. Pay attention to what you eat and avoid heavy starchy foods when looking to lose weight, eat till you are full and no more and if you must then eat little and often and your body will learn to tell you. Sometimes my body needs extra protein and it will tell me based on what I am craving. Just because you are trying to lose weight doesn’t mean you can’t eat what you want occasionally.

It’s been a long hard year full of mistakes and lessons. One I plan to put to good use in the future. I’m coming folks and I’m not sure the world is ready for the new me.

Progress pics will go up on here tomorrow along with my thoughts on what’s next for me and my fitness adventure :).

Over and out

– L