Before I start, I want to acknowledge that weight and weight loss is a touchy subject for many. I know that everyone comes to this topic with different opinions and baggage. Nothing I’m saying here is prescriptive for you. Nothing I’m saying here is the opinion of an expert. It is only my experience that I want to share because that’s what Trial & Error is about.
I imagine that everyone who decides to lose weight has that one moment that caused them to go all-in on shedding the pounds. Maybe it was a doctor telling them they needed to get serious, maybe it was a spouse or a friend sitting them down, or, maybe, like me, it was just one horrendous photo.
And, no, it’s not the photo above. That’s just an awesome photo that also happens to showcase my belly.
As anyone who has seen my stand up routine knows, I don’t have the body type to get “fat” in the traditional sense. Instead, I am “skinny fat.” Which is honestly a worst-of-both-worlds situation. The only benefit of being skinny fat is that I could get away with gaining weight for a long time before anyone noticed. All the weight was being housed in my midsection, which could be hidden under clothes. It’s not like I was having to buy bigger pants every few months.
Over the course of 2-3 years I went from consistently weighing 185-190 to 205-210. Again, that’s not a crazy weight gain by any means, especially since this coincided with turning 30, having a kid, and the pandemic hitting. Still though, I kept thinking in the back of my mind that at some point I could easily lose the weight. All I’d need to do was exercise a little more and mix in a salad every once in a while. After all, that worked in my early 20s when I wanted to lose a little weight. I wasn’t living a super unhealthy or inactive lifestyle, so I just kept thinking that I could easily shed the weight.
The problem was I just couldn’t find the motivation to do it. By late 2022, I started to become aware of the need to lose weight, but I kept putting it off. Once October hit I decided that I’d start new habits in January. The new year would give the motivation I lacked. That always works right?
Then I was having a conversation with someone I respect about my lack of motivation to be more disciplined in several areas of my life and he said something that opened my eyes. It’s so simple but something so many people are missing.
“You don’t have to be motivated to start something. It’s helpful, sure, but it’s not required in order to do the right thing.”
That really got me thinking about making some changes. Then came the photo. My friends and I took a trip out to Big Bend National Park in November (I wrote about it for Texas Highways) and plenty of pictures were taken on the trip. Some were more flattering than others, but one in particular stood above the rest. I was wearing my new “shacket” that I loved for many reasons, one in particular being that it’s oversized and covered my midsection. But the way I was sitting made it stick out significantly. Of course, this is perhaps the least flattering posture possible. Still though, once I saw this photo I knew I needed to do something, and fast.
After that Big Bend trip I immediately went on a work trip to Florida, which only added to the ever-expanding belly. When I got back I weighed myself and I hit 210 pounds, a weight I’d never gotten to in my life. I knew I needed to really kick into gear.
There were two problems: I had no idea how to get started and it was November 21, Thanksgiving week. The worst possible week to try and eat less.
My friend Zach recently lost 40 pounds, so I asked him what he did and he made it seem so simple: he just tracked what he was eating and stayed below a calorie count each day. That, plus being more active and tracking the calories he burned each day allowed him to lose the weight over the course of about five months.
He showed me the app he used, MyFitnessPal, and I immediately downloaded it and started tracking my food for the day. It was a funny time to be doing that, since we were at a brewery watching the USA play in the World Cup while eating burgers and fries and thinking of the giant Thanksgiving meals we were going to eat a few days later.
Always good to set a realistic baseline.
How I Did It
It’s honestly amazing how simple it has all been for me. That doesn’t mean it’s been easy by any means. Sometimes the simplest things are the most difficult to do. By tracking what I eat I’ve been able to have significantly better portion control, avoid snacking on things that just pile up the empty calories, and understand what kind of exercises are best.
Zach warned me that for the first few weeks I would be hungry a lot, but I would get used to it. This was very true, even though I started my weight loss journey during Thanksgiving week. Instead of gorging myself on Thanksgiving food, as is tradition, I got smaller portions of every item and recorded it all in the calorie tracker.
But I wanted my weight loss to be sustainable. I had no plans of changing everything I ate, cutting out anything significant like sugar or carbs, or otherwise doing something that would make me miserable. So, included in those smaller portions were four different desserts.
In the first week of doing this I shed 6 pounds, despite my dessert intake. That was a super encouraging sign and made me double down on my efforts. I found that taking 30-40 minute brisk walks with the dogs every evening burned the most calories with the lowest effort (as opposed to a hardcore workout that might wipe me out for a few days), so I added that to my daily routine. I also started to get very disciplined with how much I was eating and I began to seek out salads and other lower calorie items to add to my diet. The weight just started melting away.
After four weeks I was down from 210 to 198. It was all coming so easy I started to get extra ambitious. Instead of eating about 1200-1500 calories a day I buckled down and ate even less. I want to see just how fast I could drop weight. Then, I hit the plateau. Instead of losing multiple pounds in a week, I only went from 198 down to 197.6. You should be rolling your eyes at this. That’s not a bad thing. It’s very normal with weight loss, and losing half a pound in a week is fine. But I was working so hard to get my weight down that this felt like a defeat.
At this point, I was miserable. I decided that I needed to reset what I was doing or this wouldn’t be a sustainable lifestyle change and would be a temporary diet that I’d quit because I was so hungry all the time. Since then I’ve been much more balanced and realistic about everything. I shoot for the 1200-1500 calorie goal and I don’t worry if I gain a few pounds or lose a few so long as my longterm trend line is going down. By doing that I got to a much better place mentally and the results have continued to show on the scale. Now I’m down to 192. I wanted to wait to write this until I actually got to exactly 20 pounds lost, but I realized that once again that was an unnecessary pressure to put on myself mentally and physically.
I hope to get to around 185 before I start to do more weight training and eating higher protein in order to build muscle. Yes, it’s better to be rid of all that extra fat I was carrying around, but I’ve also lost muscle too. I needed to get down to a good baseline and build myself back up.
Benefits
I fixed my dryer!
For years I’ve been complaining that my dryer was shrinking all of my shirts, especially my t-shirts. Ones that used to fit suddenly were really tight in the midsection. I was embarrassed to wear them and I was frustrated that the dryer was so bad. I mean, I’m wasn’t going to buy a new dryer, so I decided to stop drying my shirts.
Then I lost weight and my dryer suddenly wasn’t shrinking my clothes any more. In fact, a bunch of shirts I was about to throw out all fit again. It was amazing. I am a great handyman.
Overall, I feel significantly healthier. I stand up straighter. I have more confidence. And, I mean, I don’t think this is vain to say, but I just look better. It’s amazing what losing lovehandles and manboobs does for your confidence.
The most significant change though is that I don’t have to feel bad about myself if I eat a dessert or have a beer or get extra bacon on my burger. Because I’m tracking my calories, I know how many I have left to eat on a given day. So if we’re going to a burger place for dinner that night, I’ll have a lighter lunch and still allow myself a big greasy burger knowing that it’s not going to be pushing me over my limit. I used to just feel bad about what I ate all the time without really knowing whether I should or not.
It’s a bit like how keeping a budget gives you more freedom to spend money without guilt. If you know that you’ve got $15 left in your coffee budget for the month, that afternoon latte goes from a “guilty” pleasure to a treat you shouldn’t feel bad for. That’s been my favorite part of this.
Drawbacks
I think about my weight and what I eat a lot. It’s been the thing on my mind every day since I started this. Each morning the first thing I do is hop on the scale. I know that’s not a healthy longterm mindset, but it’s also just how my brain works. Anyone who has read this newsletter for long enough knows that I am the type of person who obsesses over something for a brief amount of time, tries to become an expert in it, and then moves on.
That’s not a great mindset for a lifestyle change like this one. So I know that I need to work on turning this obsession into just a normal, “autopilot” mode of life instead of one that I’ll want to give up on in a few months.
Other drawbacks are the fact that I really am hungry a lot of the day, though this has improved significantly. The extreme hunger of the first few weeks is gone, but I still have a low level of hunger each day. By tracking my calorie intake I know how much I should be eating, I know if the hunger I feel is really a problem that needs to be addressed or just a desire to grab some snacks.
Should You Do It?
I can’t answer that for you. Only you know your body and your mind. I will say I’m super happy with the results and I am proud of myself for having the discipline to pull this off so far. Trial & Error has never been about telling anyone what to do, but instead using my own experiences to show others what’s possible.
The main lesson to take away here is not about weight loss, but more about motivation. You don’t need it to make a change in your life. You don’t need it to get started. You just need to start.
So, yes, if you want to lose weight like I did, by all means give it a shot. If you want to start working out, reading more, or working on a new hobby, just start. That’s the biggest step. Don’t wait for outside motivation that may never come.
I showed you that before photo so I guess I should show you an after in the same deeply unflattering pose so here it is.
I hope you enjoyed this look inside my weight loss journey and learned something about motivation. If you know someone who could benefit from this post or who would like to see several terrible photos of me, please share.