437 lbs to 250 - low carb

I wasn't going to post another update for awhile.. but just as an example of how retarded my genetics are, between yesterday and today i lost over 3 lbs, and yesterday did not involve exercise, just carb restriction. Some dude needs to write a paper on me. I am a legit camel.
 
And today down another 5 lbs.

Last few days:
Breakfast was 3 pickled eggs 2 babybel cheese wheels (140 cals of cheese)
Dinner half chicken 1 head romaine small handful pumpkin seeds 2 tbsp whole flax 2 tbsp ranch dressing small handful sliced almonds half cucumber
 
I read the first page and skimmed through the rest but just felt I had to say: You are the fucking man. Straight up beast. Keep it up dude :)
 
I read the first page and skimmed through the rest but just felt I had to say: You are the fucking man. Straight up beast. Keep it up dude :)

Thanks bruh.

Monday: 289.8
Today: 278.8

The great pee of 2014. I'm sure this weekend with the girlfriend will probably make me regain a few (or all) - even considering how cognizant i'm going to be of limiting my empty calorie sources, but it goes to show much of my body mass is water and how effective carb restriction is for me.

I spent these past 4 days detoxing from caffeine so avoided the gym. Going to start going regularly and doing cardio again next week.

Posting here to remain accountable.
 
This is really impressive, congratulations to you.

I think you were smart to do this in your mid-20's and not later in life when it would have been much harder.
 
so let's look at how the new plan is going:

June 1: In from New York vacation, ate a bunch of crap over past week
June 2: did not record, started eating as above
June 3: 289.6
4: 287.4
5: 282
6: 278.8
night of went to girl's city until the morning of the 9th: brisket/texas links with green beans and salad with blue cheese, diet soda
after dinner movie: entire tin of blue diamond smokehouse almonds, large diet soda
7: sonny's BBQ for lunch - brisket and salad with a lot of cheese and fat sources
mexican place for dinner (legit cheat meal) including a massive burrito, a lot of chips, gauc, salsa, cheese and sausage
8: subway sandwich for lunch with chicken, bacon, lots of greens, gauc (semi cheat meal due to the bread)
6 slices of meaty pizza for dinner (papa john's -not big NY-style pizza)
9: Fasted completely
10: 280.00 (back on meal plan as above)
11: 276.4
12: 273.8
and headed to girlfriend again tonight

Analysis

it appears that I still have some water from my trip to NY/months of neglect. I would be surprised if I was cutting fat that quickly. You can also see how the weekend almost reset my progress, if I didn't fast completely on monday, i'd probably be well into the mid 280s. By today I am at a new low weight though.

As for what I eat on the weekend, it differed from previous ones in thaT:
- While the meals were higher calorie than my weekly low calorie/high protein meals, I only had two legitimate cheat meals - I tried to select the healthiest option where possible. e.g. For the first night, I typically would get macaroni and cheese and sweet potato mash (with a lot of brown sugar) as sides with my meat but this time I got vegetables
- I did not drink any empty calorie drinks, while in the past i'd probably drink sweet tea or soda
- Portion control
- No desserts and no snacking

I believe i can maintain this arrangement so that I reach a low weight by the time I head out for the weekends, fast on the following monday, and then maintain a low calorie diet as stipulated in my previous posts.

I also stopped drinking coffee/tea with cream prior to the end of my IF window, as I believe it was messing up my IF gains. IF does not and cannot happen on the weekends with woman.

I am super determined to get back down in weight! I will not feel comfortable until i'm in my 240s and will not feel good until i'm sub-230.
 
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Losing 20 pounds in 12 days with a 3 day long vacation is nuts. Good luck man.

Nice to see you back btw.

Since you'll be spiking your insulin on the weekends are you going to murder yourself in the gym on Thursday/Friday and Monday? You'll probably make some decent body composition changes.
 
Losing 20 pounds in 12 days with a 3 day long vacation is nuts. Good luck man.

Nice to see you back btw.

Since you'll be spiking your insulin on the weekends are you going to murder yourself in the gym on Thursday/Friday and Monday? You'll probably make some decent body composition changes.

I haven't been to the gym in awhile (going on 3 months now). I'm restarting again next week - wanted to ratchet down my diet before introducing new variables.

As is clear, I didn't actually lose that much fat, it's probably 75% water. I'm a camel.
 
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Keep fighting the good fight, man. Vacations are the fucking bane of organized diets - I'm gonna shave some water weight off starting next week.
 
June 16: fast
17: 276
18: 274.6
19: 273
20: 271.6
23: fast
24: 274.4
25:273.6
26: 272
30: fast
1 july: 274.2
2: 271.2
3: 269.4
7: fast
8: 270
9: 269
10: 269
14: fast
15: 273
16: 270.8
17: 269.8
18: 267.4

Last month or so of progress using my new scheme. Working pretty well.
22.2 lost in 45 days. No idea how much of that is water, but fasting for a day of the week and sticking to low calorie diet during the week, cheating on the weekends (but restraining myself, no soda etc) seems to be sustainable. The monday fast sucks, but the motivation is still high due to seeing the scale go down.

Obstacles coming up: i'm going on a 4 day vacation to NY next week. I WILL be eating whatever the fuck I want. I am also going to dragoncon end of august, and potentially a cruise sometime in october.
 
this progress is incredible man. i started something similar just over 2 months ago and went from 230ish lbs to just under 210lbs.

i'm still working on the diet issue as generally get 50g of carbs per day but i think i may consider doing one of these fasts once a week. the only issue i have with it is that i am doing a lifting program 3 days a week and cardio 3 days a week.
 
A long coming update. I feel like I owed it to you guys to be honest.

I gained back a lot of weight - as I think everyone understands now there is something wrong with me where I gain weight in an incredible rate. During the same period my girlfriend and I eat virtually the same thing and portions, she gained 5 lbs, I gained 140. Luckily there was a point where I said "Enough is enough" and switched some things.

I started by having a zero tolerance policy on anything which is not a low carb diet during the week (from stress and bad behaviors i found myself eating out at work all the time, and drinking sugary crap at work), reducing my cheats on the weekends, then I added in small amounts of walking, then magnesium/calcium/zinc supplements, then rigorous walking - the goal was to sustain whatever had come before and not commit too much too soon. I am also following a data driven approach and have returned to aggressively weighing myself every day. My main priority is myself now, not the relationship. I am getting very good results.

Here's my data

My next step is to add weight training back in. When I started I was having trouble walking, which was a red flag, now i speed walk 4-5 miles on he weekdays and do hikes of 8-12 miles on the weekends.

edit: looking up I can't believe I was in the 260s the last time I was on this forum. Its amazing how quickly you can regain weight.
 
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It is unfortunate this happened. From your lack of posting and talking about eating with your girlfriend I kind of expected it though. Just do it again. You did it once and you can do it again.

Don't fool yourself thinking that you and your girlfriend ate the same stuff though. If your girlfriend ate the calories you ate she would have probably gained more than 140 pounds. You are fooling yourself if you really believe you are some sort of special person that balloons up huge amounts of weight (that isn't just water weight) if you eat carbs. Anyone doing low carb will balloon up a lot if they binge on carbs. Then they will lose it because 90% of the weight is from water. Gaining 140 pounds is just excess calories. It isn't carbs, its calories. Clearly low carb works for you but if you could eat the same amount of calories eating a low fat, high carb, and moderate protein diet you would have similar results. Clearly though low carb works for you and it seems like you are back on track. Keep it up. But as soon as you start believing your body is super unique and you can just gain 140 pounds by eating normally, you are just doing yourself a huge disservice.
 
@Nemesis48 keep at it buddy. You have the ideas of what you need to do and can do it again.
 
It is unfortunate this happened. From your lack of posting and talking about eating with your girlfriend I kind of expected it though. Just do it again. You did it once and you can do it again.

Don't fool yourself thinking that you and your girlfriend ate the same stuff though. If your girlfriend ate the calories you ate she would have probably gained more than 140 pounds. You are fooling yourself if you really believe you are some sort of special person that balloons up huge amounts of weight (that isn't just water weight) if you eat carbs. Anyone doing low carb will balloon up a lot if they binge on carbs. Then they will lose it because 90% of the weight is from water. Gaining 140 pounds is just excess calories. It isn't carbs, its calories. Clearly low carb works for you but if you could eat the same amount of calories eating a low fat, high carb, and moderate protein diet you would have similar results. Clearly though low carb works for you and it seems like you are back on track. Keep it up. But as soon as you start believing your body is super unique and you can just gain 140 pounds by eating normally, you are just doing yourself a huge disservice.

You are fooling yourself if you think all people's gene expression is precisely similar, and there's no such thing as people who store fat more readily and easily than others. This is as much scientific fact as that we breathe oxygen. Calories are a unit of measurement, not a type of nutrition. Foods aren't even of the same value in calories, for a reason. You're harping on his use of "normal" as meaning say, how you eat, or how someone else eats. That's now what he means by "normal" necessarily, it's vague for a reason. It just means selections based on a standard fare of what people see each day. And you're calling him a liar, albeit politely. Implying that biochemistry is a matter of will. Your notion here is about as useful as a financial adviser who merely informs their clients that they're over or under-spending.

Is he a "super-unique" case? Probably not, there have been other obese people in the world who likely have similar gene expression. However, are we all robots who respond to food exactly the same? No, and to indicate so is medically irresponsible.
 
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