How I lost 53 pounds (Realistic Weight Loss)
When I first joined a gym, I had no idea what I was doing but I had excitement and commitment. After my first year of working out at the gym, I decided to go on my first “bulk” (gaining weight) to build muscle. Little did I know, losing the weight I gained would be one of the biggest challenges of my life.
I grew up having troubles with controlling my eating and had a massive appetite. In return, I grew up overweight most of my life. My sophmore year of high school, I went through a depressive phase but thank God I found a passion for the gym. The first time I walked in a gym, I was hooked. I immediately fell in love and didn’t want to stop learning the art of working out. After my first year, I decided to gain weight to put on some muscle. I had no idea what I was doing and I gained 43 pounds in 2 months. That’s over 5 pounds a week! Needless to say, I had no idea what I was doing besides how to put food in my mouth.
Once I decided to lose weight, I had no idea where to start. I learned all my lifting and workout advice from YouTube so I decided to start there. Trying to overcome the mental battle of eating less was initially the hardest part. It took me over 2–3 weeks until I could control my eating. Even after that, suppressing my hunger and eating habits was something I was really struggling with. One of the things I used (and still use today) is MyFitnessPal. This helped me to understand how many calories, protein, fats, and carbs I was consuming on a daily basis. Another strategy that I implemented was to use intermittent fasting. Now intermittent fasting doesn’t necessarily help you “lose weight fast” but it allowed me to give myself a smaller window during the day to eat which helped me to control my appetite and feel fuller after meals.
Slowly, I began to understand how my body responded while dieting much better. It took me almost a year to go from 213 pounds to 180 pounds. This was from purely counting my calories, continuing my lifting, implementing cardio, and failing many times with how much I was eating. The biggest lesson I took from trying to lose weight for the first time is to keep going. I inevitably going to fail and mess up. But no matter how many times I messed up with the way I ate or trained, I had to keep going. I truly believe that this is what separates people who need to lose a significant amount of weight and those who don’t. Those who keep pushing despite the odds are the ones who come out the other end with their success story.
Now, I held onto my 180 pound frame for about another 6 months. I was comfortable there. As I slowly finished my senior year of high school, I decided I wanted to lose more weight and get to the leanest I’ve ever been. So with the same strategy of counting calories and the correct training, I was able to go from 180 pounds to 160 pounds in about 3 months. This was also another huge learning experience for me. But the feeling of achieving my goal was something that is hard to put into words. As I started my freshman year of college, I was able to maintain my frame for a bit and decided to gain some more weight to increase my lifts in the gym. My natural bodyweight now is about 170–175 pounds and to this day (I’m 23), I’m glad I put myself through that experience of losing weight. It’s enabled me to push myself belong what I believe and now I’m able to help others in their own fitness journey.
The purpose of this article is for those who struggle with losing weight or need another reminder on the mental struggles and physical struggles. This gives you a realistic perspective of how difficult it can be and that the ones that are able to endure through their own failings are the ones who are able to achieve their weight loss goal. Even if you are able to hit your weight loss goal, it becomes much harder to maintain your weight. That’s why I recommend taking a slower approach and learning to track your calories. This makes your training and diet lifestyle much more sustainable. Wherever you are in your diet or weight loss journey, don’t give up. If there is one piece of advice that you take away from this article is to never give up. This sounds cliche but those who are able to endure the challenges and trials of weight loss are the ones with the success story. You got this.
