My one-year Fitness journey – 295 to 224

M 21

6’4 (193.04 cm)

295lbs (133kg) to 224lbs (101.6 kg)

Here’s a pic but I’m really awkward for photos so don’t mind the strange faced selfie

This has been one of the longest years of my life but not even because of the weight loss. I wanted to make a mini post on how my year has affected me besides just my weight. These are all the things that I did a little air fist bump because it was such an annoyance to me.

At the start of my weight loss journey I focused on cardio and did some basic strength machines, I did these 4 to 5 times a week. When I started, I sucked at running, I played football and threw in track, so I was only taught how to lift and never focused on extended running. The first month was me just working my way up to 3.1 miles because I wanted to start running in 5ks. I think to work for a goal that seemed more easily achievable at the time rather than just focusing on losing weight helped in the beginning. I ran a lot and eventually I began to enjoy it. I got to the point where 3.1 miles (5km) in 30 min, was no longer soul sucking, around that time my weight plateaued. That’s when I began running 5 miles to toughen my workout and that was where I went wrong. I learned that pushing yourself the absolute limit is not the only way to go. I was at the gym for almost 2 hours an hour for running and an hour of machines and I wasn’t losing as much weight as I usually did.

It wasn’t until last August where I decided to look at what I ate a bit more. Like I said earlier, in Football as a lineman I was told to “eat eat eat”, “be an animal”, “get huge”, and was led to an unhealthy diet. I started limiting my portion sizes to just be smaller. At this time my weight plummeted, I was losing around 10 pounds (4.5kg) a month and I didn’t even count calories, I just started to think, I don’t need that much. I only started counting calories a couple of months back because I think I’ve gotten to the point where my body doesn’t have an unlimited amount of energy anymore, some days it was incredibly hard to finish a run and I just felt shitty. So, I started to make sure I eat around 1300 to 1500 calories a day and eat a little more before I work out.

I wanted to list some little accomplishments that seem small but was huge to me.

· I sweat less when running. I would sweat for almost an hour after running, now it stops immediately.

· All my clothes from middle school fit me now, so now I have some extra clothes.

· Some girls flirted with me at a party, that felt nice.

· I catch my breath much faster than I did before, IDK if it's possible to not feel winded walking up a huge hill to class.

· I can see muscles now especially my arms and back

· I look a lot better.

Now here are some things that I don’t like about my new healthy lifestyle

· I have my meals thought up for the entire week, a random friend’s trip to get food stresses me out now.

· Most of my clothes don’t fit and as a college student, I can’t just buy new clothes.

· Even though I lost so much weight I feel like I’m not as satisfied as I thought I would be.

· Seeing my weight loss slowed down is slightly disheartening.

· It’s the minority but I do have some friends that make me feel bad for not eating with them

· I kind of feel flimsy now, I used to “feel” big and strong.

· I only recently have gotten back into lifts but I’m really weak now.

· On some subreddits I follow, I get a little jealous when I see someone lose so much more weight than I, some people are losing over 100 pounds in a year wtf.

· Loose skin, Nuff said.

What are my next goals?

· I want to get to 210 than evaluate on how much more I should lose.

· I want to get back into my lifts and gain more muscle so I can feel strong again.

· I want to run more 5k’s and get below 25 min.

· Don’t fall back into a bad diet but I doubt I will again.

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* This article was originally published here