A lot of people asked how I lost all this weight. Simple. I just decided not to be fat anymore. The decision was easy. The actual doing of it was a pain, but the “how” is easy (in no particular order):

  1. Get-Up Early if possible. Get it out of the way and over with. All this takes a chunk out of your day, so do it when your energy level is up, but morning works best with the fasting portion, I think. (It takes me a solid hour for my brain to function, so I have to get up AN EXTRA HOUR EARLIER!) Workout when it works best for you. Maybe after work, maybe at night.
  2. Walk Fasted (no calories yet) This forces your body to use fat cells for fuel as opposed to carbohydrates. (You use carbs later in the day as energy for your normal activity and weightlifting). Walk preferably on an incline at at least 3.0 mph. The incline increases the calorie burn (more than doubles it from walking on a level). I walk 30 minutes at 15% incline (pretty extreme) on a treadmill at 3.5 – 3.7 mph. This burns about 400+ calories and gets me about 3300 steps. I take a 10 minute break and then repeat (at 3.1 mph). And then repeat. This gets my 10,000 steps in and burns about 1,200 calories. (Plus my regular steps in a given day and I could have as many as 14000-17000 steps per day… or I could sit in front of a computer all day. What matters is a WEEKLY average of at least 70,000 steps.) Now… my personal focus is weight loss. If you are interested in hypertrophy (building muscle mass), you should do your cardio AFTER you weight lift. And probably not as much as walking as I do. The important part is to get in the steps. And they don’t have to be all at once. Do 20 minutes here. 20 minutes there. Break up your day.
  3. Resistance training – weighting lifting. Lift to reduce muscle loss while your calorie deficit eats away at your fat. It helps if you actually ADD lean muscle mass too, but during the weight-loss phase, preventing muscle loss is more important. Muscle helps burns fat faster. Work all your major muscle groups to minimize muscle loss.
  4. Walk 10-30 minutes before and after each meal. This levels out the insulin spikes in your system and helps reduce fatty liver. I personally turn into a mushroom-like fungus after a meal, but that doesn’t make it right!
  5. Intermittent Fasting – Stop eating after 7pm. (I am bad about this. Damned TV.) Don’t eat until about noon or so the next day. This gets you about 18 hours and fasted walking (if you walk/exercise first thing). More on autophagy later. Once a week or so, I try to fast from 7pm (day 1) to 7am (Day 3.) About 36 hours of no calories at all, but you are sleeping 16 of that, so it’s not THAT bad (“bad” defined as losing your leg in a timber-cutting accident). Oh, it still sucks, don’t get me wrong. But the benefits are HUGE.
  6. Caloric deficit – take in less than you burn. Most of your daily burning is N.E.A.T. (Non Exercise Activity Thermogenesis – washing dishes, lifting stuff during the course of the day, making the bed, playing a sport, pretty much anything more than breathing or sleeping) Another big portion is your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate – the energy it takes your body to stay alive in a given day – breathing, sitting, etc. Probably about 2000 calories per day). Use some calorie calculator and find your deficit. Shoot for at least 500-800 BELOW your Maintenance level.
  7. Drink a gallon of water very day. Ballpark figure. Not just when you’re thirsty.
  8. Take in 1 gram of protein for each lb you weigh. IMPORTANT! (Your body synthesizes muscle from protein – the more muscle you have, the faster you burn calories.) Grilled chicken, fish, lean meat. Premier Protein shakes (my go-to and cheapest I’ve found) are about 30 grams (and 150 cal) + fat free milk (about 80 cal) + 8 grams of protein = 38 grams of protein. And tastes pretty good. 3-4x a day + I eat a lot of chicken and egg whites.
  9. Sleep ‘hard’ 8 hrs a day. Exercise/lifting “stimulates” your muscle tissue, but sleep is when your body recovers from that and when the muscle tissue actually grows. You don’t “grow” muscles in the gym, you just activate them for growth while you recover. Don’t work the same muscle group (say, biceps) every day. Give them a couple days (at least) to recover (grow).

Repeat everyday for months and you will lose weight and gain more lean muscle mass. But it is NOT fast. And it is NOT “fun”. Anyone that says so needs to go suck a kale and wheatgrass smoothie and kiss my butt.

It’s not hard conceptually: eat less than you burn, lift to build muscle, get LOTS of protein, walk 10,000 steps, sleep, repeat. For 6 months… or 20 years. It could go either way.

Upon advice from my lawyer, I am officially telling you that any fitness mentions in this blog are "for entertainment purposes alone." That being said, I am NOT a health guru, fitness trainer, nutrition specialist, or medical professional of any kind. Before doing anything even remotely health related, consult a medical professional or your family physician. I am just relating information about my journey from morbidly obese to old and wrinkly. DO NOT DO IT THE WAY I DID. I will say my only regret is not doing it 30 years sooner. On a side note, I am not sponsored by anyone or any company, so the opinions expressed here do not benefit me (or you probably) in any way.