Weight Gain and Weight Loss

I feel I need to preface this by saying that I am not a doctor, nutritionist, dietician, or a personal trainer. This is not advice on how to cut weight or improve your physical appearance. The strategy in this story is considered somewhat extreme, and I do not recommend that anyone follow the same strategy. All weight loss journeys are different, and people should seek professional resources and advice before attempting something so extreme. This is the story of my weight gain and weight loss.

I’ve generally had pretty low body fat my entire life. I don’t have well defined muscles, and I like to consider myself athletic. I had an incident with my health when I was doing some combat sports that revealed some medical issues that can only be cured by the future of medicine. As a result, I took it easy for a couple of years. I ate healthy, and not in excess. I got some exercise by keeping myself active and doing low-impact exercises when I could. Things were going great until the pandemic hit.

I moved to California just before the pandemic hit. The square footage of my apartment was considerably reduced, they closed down the gyms, and my work went 100% remote. I found myself working insane hours every week, and coping with the stress of work by eating more, eating a lot of comfort food, and drinking a lot of soda and energy drinks that were high in calories. It had been a while since I stepped on a scale, and when I finally did, I gained nearly 20 pounds. This was definitely outside of my normal every-day weight, a wake up call for me. It turns out there’s a word for this. If you’ve heard of the Freshman 15, they call this the COVID 19.

I ended up purchasing a house soon after seeing my weight like this, and this nearly tripled the square footage of my living space. In addition, I made the purchase of a high end freestride elliptical machine. I have difficulties running on treadmills as they are very uncomfortable for me — I would rather run on the pavement. Many people say that the elliptical isn’t a great machine because it doesn’t really train you for anything, but it does one thing really well — burn calories. I also find the elliptical very low impact as I don’t want to cause my medical issues to flare up.

I wanted to lose the 20 pounds I gained, plus a little extra to give my muscles a little definition. When I started this journey, I made a commitment to be as routine as possible, and try to stick to my plan as much as possible. First thing I needed to do was be able to track my progress. I have a RENPHO smart scale that pairs to my smart phone which collects and records my metrics over time so I can visualize my progress. Every morning I would use the restroom, then step on the scale to track my weight. Next thing I needed to do was to calculate how many calories I burn per day. This measurement is called your Base Metabolic Rate or BMR — you can find calculators for this on the internet. The most accurate response on how to lose weight is to eat fewer calories than you expend. Next, I needed to work on my diet.

My diet was awful, and I have an addiction to soda and carbonated drinks. The first thing I did was cut all of the calories from the soda — I would drink diet soda, and energy drinks with zero calories. In an effort to cut soda from my diet completely, I switched to G-Fuel temporarily. It’s not completely calorie free, but it was more cost efficient as the full scoop was too potent. Moving forward with my diet, I decided to try intermittent fasting to try to control my hunger. Initially, I started with 20:4 where I would fast for 20 hours, and during the 4 hour eating period, I would eat as much as I wanted until I was sated. I found this strategy effective, and I was able to start seeing results almost immediately. I started adding exercise to my routine by running on the elliptical for 45 minutes per day to burn about 400 calories.

I eventually reduced my diet to reduce the number of carbohydrates I was eating to less than 40 grams per day in an effort wean off of carbs and get on a ketogenic diet. After this, I reduced my eating period down to 23:1, 47:1, and eventually 95:1. At my longest length of fasting, I would go 4 days without eating a single calorie — drinking zero carb energy drinks, and diet soda. I started taking a daily multivitamin to make sure I wasn’t getting malnourished. I was also taking other supplements like garcinia cambrogia to increase my BMR would also take a smaller dose of HydroxyCut to fight off hunger cravings. There were a couple times during this journey where I would get these insane hunger cravings, and I would give in by eating 1 or 2 wheat thins as I didn’t want to ignore my body’s cravings for food. I would spend a few extra minutes on the elliptical to work these off.

I eventually got my weight back down. Over the course of 30 days, I managed to lose 16.5 pounds. I’ve read stories on the internet of people doing water fasts in excess of 2 weeks, and figured I would be able to do something not as extreme as I am young and healthy. When fasting for 96 hours, I realized how much I was eating on a daily basis, and how much my hunger cravings controlled me. Now I am maintaining a steady and healthy weight, eating a proper diet, still drinking diet soda and other beverages with zero calories, and getting plenty of exercise. I’m happy with my results, my commitment to the diet, my perseverance, and my ability to reach my desired weight, and I hope that I never have to do it again.