I'm about 6'1" - 6'2" and at my heaviest, I weighed 289 pounds. In high school, I think I weighed about 250 or so. I played on the offensive line on the football team. But after school, I wasn't working out every day any longer and my weight rose rapidly. Like probably millions of other people, I started diet and exercise only to give up and fall back into my bad habits after a few days. But then, I got a new job and things started looking up for me. It wasn't any one thing, no single experience that made finally go ahead and follow through with it. I just decided one day that I'm going to lose the weight and that time, I stuck with it, now I'm 165 lbs (I was at 175 in less than 5 months). This is what I did and of course, before anyone points out what an idiot I am, I am in no way recommending this to anyone, this is just what I did to lose weight:
I cut calories dramatically and started walking. My target was to eat less than 1,000 (on some days, I would be just under 500) calories a day (from healthier foods, fast food and junk food were completely out) and to walk at least 1 mile every day. At 305 lbs, I was in no shape to do much more than that. Eventually, I started adding exercises at home, and I got a pull up bar, which I use, it's not merely decorative. As a result, I developed odd eating habits that I still pretty much have. I space my meals about 8 hours apart (a light breakfast and an evening meal with maybe a light snack in between if I'm feeling like I need it). I'm not a vegetarian, but in losing the initial weight, I ate a lot of boca burgers for my evening meal (they were easy to make and the vegan ones were pretty low calorie and I like them), so I've fallen out of the habit of eating meat regularly, pretty much now eating meat only when I'm not eating at home. Also, I only eat when I'm hungry. If the evening meal time rolls around and I'm not really all that hungry, I'll just have a light snack. When I go out, I eat "normally" and don't usually order anything out of the ordinary, although from time to time, if a restaurant or bar has something like a black bean burger on the menu, I'll order that instead of a regular burger. As a rule, I try not to eat at all (at least for 5 hours or so) before any strenuous activity, but I've been that way since we had to run in PE after lunch in junior high and I wasn't not feeling well after that.
The ultra-low calorie part is where I know I'd get criticism (if anyone bothers to respond to this), hence the earlier disclaimer. It's just that I had read that 3,500 calories roughly equaled 1 lbs, so I strove to create the largest calorie deficit I could while getting enough energy to live normally. I realize it would considered unsafe, at the time, I just decided to trust that my body would tell me if I was overdoing with the calorie cutting.
I cut calories dramatically and started walking. My target was to eat less than 1,000 (on some days, I would be just under 500) calories a day (from healthier foods, fast food and junk food were completely out) and to walk at least 1 mile every day. At 305 lbs, I was in no shape to do much more than that. Eventually, I started adding exercises at home, and I got a pull up bar, which I use, it's not merely decorative. As a result, I developed odd eating habits that I still pretty much have. I space my meals about 8 hours apart (a light breakfast and an evening meal with maybe a light snack in between if I'm feeling like I need it). I'm not a vegetarian, but in losing the initial weight, I ate a lot of boca burgers for my evening meal (they were easy to make and the vegan ones were pretty low calorie and I like them), so I've fallen out of the habit of eating meat regularly, pretty much now eating meat only when I'm not eating at home. Also, I only eat when I'm hungry. If the evening meal time rolls around and I'm not really all that hungry, I'll just have a light snack. When I go out, I eat "normally" and don't usually order anything out of the ordinary, although from time to time, if a restaurant or bar has something like a black bean burger on the menu, I'll order that instead of a regular burger. As a rule, I try not to eat at all (at least for 5 hours or so) before any strenuous activity, but I've been that way since we had to run in PE after lunch in junior high and I wasn't not feeling well after that.
The ultra-low calorie part is where I know I'd get criticism (if anyone bothers to respond to this), hence the earlier disclaimer. It's just that I had read that 3,500 calories roughly equaled 1 lbs, so I strove to create the largest calorie deficit I could while getting enough energy to live normally. I realize it would considered unsafe, at the time, I just decided to trust that my body would tell me if I was overdoing with the calorie cutting.
Best Advice For Health:
I think the best advice I can give is to be healthy. I was at my heaviest while attending school to be an actor. I had just gotten done performing in November of my freshmen year, and during reviews, one of my teachers said, "That was so great Patrick, too bad you'l never get to do that role in real life." I was taken aback and asked why, and she said, "Don't be silly; fat men aren't leading men." Well, I decided to make a change then, and I started doing the stationary bike everyday after class for an hour and I stopped drinking soda. Maybe I could've done more, I dont know. In November (at my heaviest), I weighed 295 lbs. By May, the end of the school year, I was only down five pounds. I was pretty unhappy with my progress and went into overdrive, which in retrospect, was a bad idea. I started doing P90X. I was doing the "doubles" schedule. I was dieting pretty hard too, at about 1700 calories a day. I dropped about twenty pounds the first month. Not good enough. I started running too. Two weeks later, I had lost another twenty pounds. Still not good enough. Started dieting harder. 1200 calories a day. Two weeks later, another thirty gone. Still not happy. I started running twice a day. Uh-oh. So, for the last month of p90x, I would wake up, do p90x cardio, then eat a lil bit, then run, and have a protein shake, then lift weights, then protein shake, then run again, then protein shake, and sleep. In my final month I lost fifty pounds, for a grand total of 120 lbs in 90 short days. I was down to 175, but it was not a healthy 175. My heart rate dropped to about 49 bpm (which would've been great if I was a marathon runner, which I am not), my blood pressure was dangerously low, my blood sugar and insulin response was messed up as anything, I looked like I was dangerously thin (think Jared Leto in Dallas Buyers Club (maybe not that bad, but my friends did start calling me skeleton)), I had lost most of my lean mass due to unhealthy dieting, and my heart had shrunk slightly, which is a bad thing. The worst part, my weight had become an obsession. I didn't stop dieting, I started running more, and I kept losing weight. I tracked everything I put in my body. My social life suffered. I struggled with bulimia and anorexia. Losing weight is one of the best things I ever did for myself, but looking back two years later, I wish I'd taken my time. I did irreparable harm to my body. They say you should lose a pound or two a week, I did about ten times that. There's a reason that's the healthy suggestion. Always remember that it's just as unhealthy to starve yourself as it is to over-indulge. Work to be healthy, not to look a certain way. Have a goal in mind (a healthy one!) and when you get there, stop.
I met a girl who backpacked everywhere and i got caught up backpacking with her. I just walked everywhere with her and i got to the point were i could survive twelve miles of walking. I lost about 60 pounds and gained a massive amount of muscle without working out in a gym at all.
Nature's the real gym. Eat well, drink a lot of water, walk everywhere, rave in Berlin for 3 days every weekend.
