Ahhhhhh, Fall of 2020. What a time. The pandemic was raging. Maybe five kids out of my 150 would show up to online class. My nine year relationship had officially gone up in flames. Good stuff.
Oh, and I got tendonitis in both my knees from too much power lifting and not enough mobility.
I decided to make a pivot. If I couldn’t lift heavy while I was rehabbing my knees, I was going to get shredded. I couldn’t control the pandemic and all of the offshoots it created in my life…but I could control my diet.
Here’s that story.
Some Disclaimers
-To a large extent the weight gain in the above picture was purposeful. I’m a skinny kid by nature. I was eating 4,500 calories plus while I was lifting “heavy.” (Quotations because heavy is quite the relative term.) At the time I was finishing a six year bulk and I was actually quite excited to know what it felt like to be hungry again.
-I already had very consistent training habits. I’m thicc in the above picture fo sho, but I actually look at the picture with a certain amount of pride. I was able to put on size while weight training 6 times a week and accumulating over 15,000 steps a day.
-This isn’t a story about finding myself through losing weight, I didn’t have debilitating insecurities about my body - just the normal ones that everyone has. I’m aware of the fact that plenty of people look at that above picture and think, “Dude! You’re not even fat!” And I would agree. This is a story about genuine curiosity. I wanted to answer a simple question.
Could I take all the knowledge and theory I knew about losing weight and put it into practice?
The Rules I Decided to Follow
Here are the rules that formed the basis of my practice.
Track everything: Whatever I put into my mouth I would also record on paper. I would account for every macro with the exception of one meal on Sunday. This was by far the most important rule for success.
Prep in the Morning: Making breakfast, 1st lunch, and 2nd lunch was the first thing I did every morning. If the food is already there its way easier to stay on track.
Eat the filling stuff: I heard enough to know one of the toughest parts about losing weight was the hunger. I knew unprocessed food was the most satiating. Therefore, (shocker!) I decided I would cut all processed food in favor of higher quality nutrient dense calories.
The Scale is data: This is a phrase I would repeat to myself whenever I stepped on the scale. Every morning I would have my morning pee and then step on the scale. I knew and now really know a single bullet point of information on the scale is useless. Your fluids fluctuate way to much for a single data point to hold any significance. Therefore, I sought to never judge myself based on what I saw there. I just needed that data over time so I could have a consistent line of data heading in the right direction.
Be kind to my training: As mentioned before, I already had a very consistent training habit. I decided to make emotional room for some regression. I was no longer training for rep PRs or more weight. I was battling to maintain or lose very little muscle mass. Training should still be intense, but gaining strength was not the priority.
Walk every time I eat: I give a nod to Stan Efferding for this one. I knew an easy way to sneak in an extra calorie burn was to work more NEAT (Non-Exercise-Activity) into my day. Stan popularized the notion that walking right after eating would greatly reduce the amount of insulin in the bloodstream and make food less likely to store as fat. So, one meal = a 10 minute walk. With four meals a day I managed to get 40 minutes of walking along with a gym session.
Double down on sleep: 9 hours is better than 8 hours. During the pandemic there was no reason not to. Shut off the damn TV and just read till you go comatose.
The Story
The initial weight loss was substantial.
I tried not to get too excited. I knew that when you drastically dial back carbohydrates your body sheds a lot of fluid. Turns out carbs make you retain water. With the aforementioned habits I implemented, within three weeks I had dropped from 210 to 200. I knew the rest of the cut was not going to be that fast….but still. It was fun to see that much progress so quickly.
Once I hit 200 pounds the real work began. I stuck to my rules with maniacal consistency. There were no days off; Friday night dinner was the same as Monday night dinner. I did the exact same meal prep routine in the morning on Saturday and Sunday that I did throughout the work week. The weight on the scale decreased in a much more controlled fashion. About 1-2 pounds a week.
If you’re wondering if I got tired of monotonously shoveling the same nutritious food down my throat the answer is no. This honestly surprised me. I figured I would get sick of the diet, but as the progress continued I became more enamored with the process. Watching the scale drop while still consuming over 2 pounds of meat a day was immensely satisfying.
I did have one “cheat” meal every Sunday night….which wasn’t really a cheat, it was more of a simple change up. I would have mussels and clams cooked in white wine, butter, and olive oil with a smidge of red pepper flakes. This was the one meal I didn’t measure…mostly because I couldn’t really figure out how much fat was in the broth the dish would create. In any case eating a bowl of zero fat protein from clams and mussels was delicious and it never impeded the progress.
About 6 weeks in, enduring hunger became part of the progress. I had mentioned in my disclaimers that after the 6 year bulk I was actually excited to experience hunger again…I got my wish. I had 4 meals a day. After six weeks, I would begin to feel hunger about 1 hour before each one. I began to look forward to my meals. I began to savor the very same ground beef and rice mixture that I could barely taste while I was gaining weight. I now understood the phrase, “nothing like hunger for taste.”
Once I dropped below 190 the slight gnaw of hunger was a constant. My workouts were no longer intense. They were just meant to prevent muscle loss. My cloths began to look loose. The mirror revealed a leaner version of myself. Despite the annoyance of hunger I was in a groove, I felt healthy, and I felt fairly vindicated that all the podcast and youtube videos I had consumed had led me in the right direction.
Surviving Thanksgiving
My progress had been solid throughout the month of September and October. I knew the holidays approached and I was slightly worried…but not much. I had already decided I was going to dispense with the rules for the Thanksgiving meal. I wasn’t going to measure it, I wasn’t going to avoid fats or carbs. I was going to crush desert. However, I was going to prepare for it.
I only ate protein in the form of ground beef and chicken breast in the morning. I had a small plain greek yogurt for lunch. I had also decided I was going to avoid “blowing my load” on the crackers and cheeses before the main event. When the moment came to finally load my plate, I let it fucking rip.
I had three servings of lasagna made from scratch. The pillowy texture of homemade pasta sheets and cheese along with the sensational bright tomato bolognese sauce filled a hole in my heart. I heaped dark turkey meat on my plate and smothered it in gravy and ginger cranberry sauce; the darkness of the world began to melt away. I ate a cloud of mashed potatoes. The butter. The salt. The tiny flavoring of black pepper corn. Life.
At the desert table I became a black hole of flavor sensation. I took seconds on every pie present. The pieces I cut weren’t exactly pieces, they were quarter sections. My mom looked on in perplexed amusement as she watched her son, who had meticulously tracked every bite of food for the past three months, annihilate a desert table after having three plates of thanksgiving dinner. I didn’t feel a single iota of guilt. The entire meal was a damn near spiritual experience.
The next day I stepped on the scale.
I wasn’t scared, I was curious. I had already accepted that Thanksgiving was going to set me back, and I had already had a conversation with myself about how to feel about that. These were acceptable losses. I was 181 the morning of Thanksgiving. I expected something along the lines of 185. Something silly. I stepped on the scale and said do your worst.
The scale read 181.
I stepped off the digital reader and stepped back on. Surely there had been a mistake. It read 181 again. Well fuck me. I had heard on a Tim Ferris podcast that if you were truly dialed in on a diet, your body could account for a full cheat day, and while this is definitely bullshit bro-science…I actually started to give it some credit. I had one of the best meals of my life, and it hadn’t derailed me. I damn near skipped out of the bathroom to get back to the meal prep grind.
The Beginning of The End
When I set out on the journey I didn’t have a typical weight loss goal; I wasn’t aiming for a particular number; I didn’t have a particular body fat percentage I was chasing. All I wanted to do was get, “shredded.” The problem is “shredded” is highly subjective. Was I bodybuilder show ready? No. Was I lean in every typical sense of the word. Hard yes. Two instances reminded me it was time to start maintenance.
1. The Shaft
After Thanksgiving morning I woke up with a massive boner. I’m not telling you this to be naughty. For males, waking up with a boner is actually a good way to check whether or not your hormones are in a good place without getting a blood test. Consuming enough fats throughout the day is an excellent way to keep your hormones in check….which I was not. The blast of triglycerides from Thanksgiving and the rock hard mast I woke up with was a solid reminder that my body’s testosterone needed a lift. (All puns intended.)
2. The Nail in the Coffin
Two weeks after Thanksgiving I decided to jump into a class workout at Crossfit Norwalk. This was outside of the the fairly monotonous bodybuilding routine I had been using to minimize muscle loss. The workout was a fast and glycolytic with a movement I liked performing. I assumed I would do well.
I. Did. Not.
I had no go. I just couldn’t make myself go fast. I was completely gassed halfway through, and this was a workout I could normally push. When I checked the leaderboard I saw the majority of the gym had beaten my time. My poor little ego lay damaged and broken. Lying on the floor in a pool of my own sweat gasping in pain, I decided it was time to throw in the towel.
The cut officially ended with a weight of 178 and this final mirror selfie.
Reflections on this process shall come next Wednesday. Toodaloo till then.
*Also. If you are in the Fairfield county area, stop by Crossfit Norwalk on 1/27 for a Nutrition seminar at 12 o’clock. For $20 learn what to eat, how much to eat, and how to implement a strategy to make this all work. Bring as many questions as you want.