267lbs to 179lbs before and after

M

MrCardinal

New member
This is me at 267 pounds- 12/07:
before.jpg


This is me at 179 pounds - 12/08:
after.jpg


I was overweight in middle school and lost a lot of weight (to the point of being called anorexic) in 8th grade and was skinny throughout high school. Then in and after college I ballooned right back up and I decided last year I finally needed to do something about it. No magic diets- just started counting my calories and consumed less then my body needed to maintain and I started losing weight. I am a health nut, now, though- I'm not sure if that's a good thing or bad thing! I weight all my food including cereal, fruits and meat and use sites on the Internet to find out the exact calories content. A 38 waist pair of jeans was tight on me and now I fit into a 32 with about an inch to spare. I went from bulging in an XL shirt (the first pic) to fitting into a medium (second pic).
 
Wow! :svengo: Amazing - you don't even look like the same guy!!! :party: You must feel so proud! I think it's great that you're now a "health nut" and have managed this all by just sensible eating and exercise. YOU ROCK!

Congratulations
ABBA
 
Fantastic!! More details please...

Wow great job on the transformation!! Could you give more details on the amount of calories you consummed and excercise routine. I have a similiar body to what you started off with and have cut my calories to about 2000 a day and so not seem to be making much progress... :( Just wanted to get some insight from someone that "made it"

Thanks in advance....
 
Hey, fantastic job!!

Looks like 2008 was a pretty busy year for you in the weight loss category too. Awesome!
 
PhoenixRising24 said:
Wow great job on the transformation!! Could you give more details on the amount of calories you consummed and excercise routine. I have a similiar body to what you started off with and have cut my calories to about 2000 a day and so not seem to be making much progress... :( Just wanted to get some insight from someone that "made it"

Thanks in advance....
Click to expand...

I don't know how many calories I was eating before- I just know that it was a lot. I tell people now that ask me how I did it to keep track of what they eat for a week (to maintain) and cut 500 calories a day and that should equal a pound (3500 calories). Cut 1,000 if you want to lose 2 pounds a week. I'm not sure how much I lost in the initial stages because I didn't have a digital scale until about March, but at that point I was losing a steady 2.5 to 3 pounds a week. When I first started out, I tried to do both weight lifting and cardio, and it worked initially, but I realized really fast (after looking around on the Internet) that you can't build muscle and lose fat at the same time- you have to eat more then you need to add muscle mass, and eat less then you need to lose weight.

They opened a rec center in January 2008 in the city I used to live in and my wife and I joined and I just decided that I was going to do this. I cut back to 1525 calories a day and initially what I did was no breakfast, soup for lunch (200 calories), and then the rest of the calories when between I got home and went to bed. Then I was laid off from work at the end of February and I was able to break my eating up into 5 small meals a day (which I still eat). I increased to 1725 to 1750 calories in around March because I realized I was going to throw my metabolism out of whack. At this point is when I got a digital scale and knew for sure how much weight I was losing. At 1725 to 1750 calories I was still losing 2.5 to 3 pounds a week- doing the treadmill 5 to 6 times a week at 60 to 70% of my MHR for 30 minutes. When I hit a plateau, I started pushing myself even harder with HIIT- walk 2 minutes at 4 MPH, run a minute at 6 MPH, repeat for 30 minutes. I got down to 184 by the end of September. I eat 2050 to 2075 calories now to maintain 179. I think this is still below my maintenance level because I have been eating that since the end of September and I am down from 184 to where I'm at now. I do think my metabolism is a bit out of whack from cutting that much though- how can I go from eating 1750 calories and losing 3 pounds a week to eating 2050 calories and maintaining? If I had to do it over again (and I hope I don't), I wouldn't go below 2000 calories. I would just recommend hitting the exercise harder and if you haven't done it- the HIIT is great for bursting plateaus. Also, up the intensity on your cardio. I started on a bike at the gym, then my body got used to that, so I went to the treadmill. I started at 3.6 to 3.8 at no incline for 30 minutes and now I can do 4.4 MPH at 3% incline for 30 minutes.
 
Buy a digital food scale, too. They are about $15 to $25, but they are worth it. I used to guess at how many calories fruit (like a banana had it in)- now I know for certain. I use this site calorieking [dot] com to put in how much my fruit weighs and it tells me exactly. The difference between a small banana and a large banana could be 75 calories if there is a 3 ounce difference!
 
MrCardinal:

Thank you so much for the info. Your an inspiration expecially since we have similiar stories and proportions (we are the same height and I am just under -250- your starting weight). Hey can I ask you a couple of more quesitons:

1- Where the calories you listed net calories (after excerise) or total calories (all you ate). I have been eating about 2000 calories a day but don't loose weight unless I exercise. Since I spend about 500 calories a day on exercise I only net about 1500 calories a day. Most sites like myfooddiary say I should net around 2000 meaing that I need to consume 2500 in food but that does not work for me. My metabolism must be screwed up already... :( So I was curious if you 1700 calories were total (all you ate)

2- Also what is your age if you don't mind me asking..

Thanks again. Hopefully in a couple of months I can post some after pics also.

Regards and congratulations....



MrCardinal said:
I don't know how many calories I was eating before- I just know that it was a lot. I tell people now that ask me how I did it to keep track of what they eat for a week (to maintain) and cut 500 calories a day and that should equal a pound (3500 calories). Cut 1,000 if you want to lose 2 pounds a week. I'm not sure how much I lost in the initial stages because I didn't have a digital scale until about March, but at that point I was losing a steady 2.5 to 3 pounds a week. When I first started out, I tried to do both weight lifting and cardio, and it worked initially, but I realized really fast (after looking around on the Internet) that you can't build muscle and lose fat at the same time- you have to eat more then you need to add muscle mass, and eat less then you need to lose weight.

They opened a rec center in January 2008 in the city I used to live in and my wife and I joined and I just decided that I was going to do this. I cut back to 1525 calories a day and initially what I did was no breakfast, soup for lunch (200 calories), and then the rest of the calories when between I got home and went to bed. Then I was laid off from work at the end of February and I was able to break my eating up into 5 small meals a day (which I still eat). I increased to 1725 to 1750 calories in around March because I realized I was going to throw my metabolism out of whack. At this point is when I got a digital scale and knew for sure how much weight I was losing. At 1725 to 1750 calories I was still losing 2.5 to 3 pounds a week- doing the treadmill 5 to 6 times a week at 60 to 70% of my MHR for 30 minutes. When I hit a plateau, I started pushing myself even harder with HIIT- walk 2 minutes at 4 MPH, run a minute at 6 MPH, repeat for 30 minutes. I got down to 184 by the end of September. I eat 2050 to 2075 calories now to maintain 179. I think this is still below my maintenance level because I have been eating that since the end of September and I am down from 184 to where I'm at now. I do think my metabolism is a bit out of whack from cutting that much though- how can I go from eating 1750 calories and losing 3 pounds a week to eating 2050 calories and maintaining? If I had to do it over again (and I hope I don't), I wouldn't go below 2000 calories. I would just recommend hitting the exercise harder and if you haven't done it- the HIIT is great for bursting plateaus. Also, up the intensity on your cardio. I started on a bike at the gym, then my body got used to that, so I went to the treadmill. I started at 3.6 to 3.8 at no incline for 30 minutes and now I can do 4.4 MPH at 3% incline for 30 minutes.
Click to expand...
 
1725 to 1750 calories was all I ate- I didn't count calories burned from exercise because you never knew for sure how many calories I was burning. A lot of exercise equipment will tell you, but those are never for sure. You have to take those calorie calculators with a grain of salt, too- they will never be exact since we all have different bodies. One thing to keep in mind is that as your weight go down, your body will need less calories to maintain (every pound of fat burns 5 calories- lose 20 pounds- that's 100 calories [about]). I ate 100 to 120 grams of protein every day while I was losing weight. To the disbelief of many, the majority of my calories (68% to 70%) was carbs, about 9% fat, and 21% protein. That amounts to a really low fat intake- about 20 grams a day. It really is about eating less calories than you consume, regardless of whether those calories are carbs, fat, or protein. Most people would tell you it is impossible to lose weight eating mostly carbs, but I lost 88 pounds doing it.

I can eat the same thing every day (and still do) which helps me a lot- I know a lot of people can't do that. I've been doing it for about a year now. My diet right now is about 2050 calories (to maintain- maybe slightly below maintenance) and I eat 108 grams protein (21.1% of calories), 23.3 grams fat (10.1% of cal), and 354 grams carbs (69.3% of cal). 90% of my fat is unsaturated- I know I need more fat and less carbs, but I am afraid to switch things up because I know this formula works for me.
 
WOW! you look amazing! Well done - I wouldnt even know those two pictures are of the same person. Do you get people you know not recognising you?
 
Pretty close to people saying that. I see everyone using the BMI calculator- according to that I'm still overweight and I need to lose about another 20 pounds. Do I look like I need to? I have a large body frame and even using some calculators that take body frame into account say I need to lose more weight. Everyone tells me no, but that BMI is really messing with me.
 
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