There’s the smart way and The Paul Way.
First, I had a LOT to lose and with my Typical Metheney Patience (“Life is too short to wait for shit to happen.“) I created The Paul Plan. DO NOT DO THIS.      DO. NOT.    I cut my calories for the first 7 months or so to about 500 calories a day. (This is crazy stupid.) I was also working out about 4 hours per day. (And you thought I was smarter than I look.) My calorie numbers looked more like this:

– 2000 (BMR) (minus)
– 1200 (Exercise, 15% incline on treadmill @ 3.5 mph – again, DUH!) (minus)
+ 333 (BMR equiv exercise time) (plus)
+ 500 (Calorie intake – ballpark-ish) (plus)

– 3200 + 833 = -2367 x 7 = 16,569 (weekly calories) / 3500 = should be about 4.7 lbs per week lost.Times 4 wks = 20 lbs per month x 7 months = about 140 lbs. I actually lost about 85. (So I wasn’t as TOTALLY crazy as I sound).

Then that damned horse bucked me off in Missouri in August and I was unable to work out due to surgeries & injuries. So I ate and binge-watched TV. Fortunately, I only put on about 10 lbs in 3 months. 5 months of working out after that (started way slow due to broken wrists, clavicle, ribs, vertebrae, etc.) had me lose that again.

The Plan was always to lose weight until I was comfortable with my results (I’ll let you know when that happens!). My first goal was 240 lbs., then 220, then 190, and now 180. I exercised the whole time with resistance training (weights) to keep from losing muscle while in a caloric deficit, but my main focus was burning calories on a treadmill and rowing machines. Once I hit my goals, I then up my calories to a more sustainable level (still at a deficit – just not so drastic) and then upped the weight training and calories to build muscle. This is where I am at now but I seemed to have slowed (tremendously) at losing weight. Even though my workout caloric burn is now closer to 2200 per day, my caloric intake is up to about 1200 or so. So my numbers look more like this now:

– 2000 (BMR)
– 2200 (Exercise, 15% incline on treadmill @ 3.5 mph – again, DUH!)
+ 333 (BMR equiv exercise time)
+1200 (Calorie intake – ballpark)

– 4200 + 1533 = -2667 x 7 = 18,669 (weekly calories) / 3500 = should be about 5.3 lbs per week lost. And yet, I’m stalled.

I’ll keep you updated on getting off this damned plateau. Or cliff. or whatever I jump off of. No one should work this hard, eat this little, and NOT lose weight.

I am NOT a fitness expert by any stretch of the imagination, nor a doctor, nor lawyer, nor an astronaut. But before ANY physical regimen or dietary change, you should consult a REAL physician for your specific situation. This is blog is not meant as medical advice, but as the story of my personal journey (and subsequent entertainment), and to be real frank, I KNOW I did not do it in a sustainable fashion, but with a barely thought-out plan to accelerate my goals (fat loss). Once I achieve that to a degree where I feel comfortable, I upped my caloric intake so that it was something I can maintain on a regular basis. Do NOT do what I did (unless of course you are a masochistic psychotic). I am not sponsored or get referral fees, so the content here is strictly my unvarnished, unsponsored opinion. Take it with a grain of salt, protein powder, and skepticism.