EPTRecent posts are really proving the stupidity of the internet. If you take my diet, and replace it with one you define as "healthy", it still follows all of my advice. I simply give what I did, and have say several times that it is extreme. So for all of you that can't get over how "bad" my diet is, follow the advice to make one that you DO consider healthy, but realize all of my points still stand.
We live in an age of prominent obesity, apathy, and depression. In my recent time, through personal experience as well as reading, I have come to the conclusion that the 3 are tied together fairly tightly. I will not argue that you can’t be apathetic and depressed if you’re not obese, but I do believe it’s a lot harder -which brings me to my story.
Before I begin with the guide, I’m going to cover a little personal history. Currently I’m 23 years old, 6’3.5”, weigh 175 lbs., spend at least 3 hours a day, 6 days a week, doing physical activity, read 2 books a week leisurely, and am training to become an Officer in the U.S. Air Force, whom will one day compete for a position in one of the most elite teams in the world: USAF Pararescue. Now we’ll juxtapose this by rewinding 5 years. I was 18, 275 lbs., had little motivation, had little integrity (often copied my assignments off of my best friend in the same major), had decent grades, but mostly sat around all day playing video games (competitively at one point, but even then I couldn’t motivate myself to practice as much as I should have).
Reading about those two people (and they really are two different people, despite being in the same body), you can’t help but ask what happened in the 5 years between them. I wish I could say that I just matured, woke up one day with the weight gone, and my mind in the right place – this is obviously not the case. However, at the same time, I didn’t have to devote my entire life to fixing it. In fact, when I lost the first 90 lbs., I really only spent an hour a day exercising, which will soon be explained further. That being said, it does take devotion to do.
THE CATCH-22
There’s an inherent obstacle in trying to become healthy, in that in order to become healthy, you need to have good motivation, but in order to have motivation, you need to be healthy. This is unfortunate, and makes the initial stages quite difficult (how many times have you heard of someone quitting 2 weeks in to their weight loss plan), but not impossible. The key is to find an inherent motivator. By this I mean find a source of inspiration outside of the weight-loss itself, that you have a personal attachment to. This could be for a spouse, for a future job, for a feeling of acceptance (some may argue this is shallow, but we all want to feel accepted), etc. If you don’t have this, your other option is to have a good friend motivate you. This initial motivator is for the first four weeks, the most challenging part of the process. For me personally, my motivation was actually a self-realization of my lack of motivation. This sounds weird, but it’s actually makes more sense than most would think. Eventually, when you give yourself enough goals, that you fail because you can barely motivate yourself to get yourself out of bed, something snaps. A little part of your brain just gives up on giving up. I reached this breaking point the winter of my sophomore year, and I was determined to fix it.
You Are HOW MUCH You Eat
Whenever you start a weight loss plan, the first step should always be diet. There are a lot of pitfalls to diet creations, and this is often the leading cause of people aborting from their plans. In my opinion, there are three key components to consider. The first is to take an honest look at how badly you want to lose weight. Is it life and death to you, or would it just “be nice”? This is going to determine how strict of a diet you can follow. Obviously, the stricter the diet, the better the results you’re going to get, but if you can’t follow the diet in the first place, there’s no point in making it. The second component is to observe yourself, and figure out how many calories you currently consume. This is going to be the starting point from which you’ll literally work backwards. The final component is to figure out how many times a day you can break yourself away from what you’re doing to eat. It’s well known that the more you spread out your calorie consumption, the longer the time your metabolism has to break down the food, allowing for less storing. I highly recommend breaking away from the American standard 3 meals a day, and trying for 5 or 6, if not more.
When actually creating a diet, you have to realize one thing: Portion is more important that substance. By this I mean, contrary to what most American’s are so obsessed with currently, what you eat matters far less than how much you eat. This isn’t to say that you can eat whatever and expect to get maximum results, but at the same time, if you eat 1500 calories of crap a day when you normally consume 4000, you’re still going to lose weight. Compare this to changing that 4000 calories of crap to 4000 calories of “good stuff”, you might lose a little weight, but it won’t be apparent.
When I started to create a diet plan during spring break, I knew this was life and death for me. I told myself that if I was going to do this, I was going to do it right – from the get-go. After research and talking to a few “experts” I figured out what the minimum amount of calories that I could consume while still being “healthy” was. For me, this was 1300 calories. So, I worked with that number.
I feel that I need to touch on protein powders and supplements. First you need to realize that they are just that: supplements. They are great for a high protein, low calorie (as long as you get the right ones) addition to your diet. I probably even replaced a few too many of my calories with protein powder, but just don’t try to live off of them.
I’m not even going to begin covering the different types of diets out there, as there are literally hundreds. I will however tell you that the one thing every diet expert CAN agree on, is the more natural it is, the better it is for you. This means as close to the ground or an animal as possible. If it’s fried, processed, fabricated, or created in a lab, avoid it. As for whether to avoid this, or eat a lot of that, I’ll let you decide. Personally, I went for high protein, low carbs. For those that are lost, I will give an example of my *extreme* diet:
8 am – Wake up
8:30am – 2 eggs (140 calories)
10am - Jog
10:30am – Protein Powder (200 calories)
12:30pm – Skinless chicken salad (200 calories)
2:30 pm – Protein powder (200 calories)
4 pm – Gym
5:30 pm – Protein powder ( 200 calories)
7:00 pm – Fat free cottage cheese (100 calories)
11pm – Sleep
*Snacks of almonds, peanuts, and a random fruit (200 calories over the day) were dispersed throughout the day
It should be understood that this is very extreme, and walks a thin line in regards to health. However, following this regiment, I was losing 0.5-1 lb. a day.
Minutes of Pain - Lifetime of Pleasure
Exercise - many of us dread the word, because it means we are going to be tired, sore, sweaty, and it really just doesn’t feel great. But wait, if it’s not fun, why are there so many people that thrive on it, whether it be swimming for hours, playing Basketball or Football, rock climbing, gymnastics, or just trying to jump up walls. These are all activities that are taxing on the body, but are enjoyed by many. The separation is simple: the mind. We all use the same muscles, and display the same symptoms, but the brain is what tells us whether these are good or bad, enjoyable or miserable. Most often, this isn’t conscious, but is instilled by how we approach exercise. If we approach it as a chore, it’s not going to be fun. If we approach it as a challenge, it often becomes exhilarating, and we look forward to it. For some, it can be difficult to obtain this mindset, which is understandable when your body practically screams at you if you try to so much as run half a mile. No matter what the thoughts, in order to lose weight, exercise is essential.
One of the biggest reliefs to the incoming prospect of having to exercise regularly in order to lose weight is that you really don’t need much, especially when you’re just going for weight loss. There are, however, some pitfalls that are very important to avoid when creating an exercise plan.
The first thing to understand is that the body is a whole, of bones, fat, and of a culmination of muscles that work together to accomplish tasks. This means that you should exercise all muscles, and for maximum results, exercise them equally and regularly. The main thing to address here is runner’s syndrome. Often we look at the guys and girls that are great runners, see how skinny they are, and think that we have to “run our fat off”. While you do lose weight, you will lose a lot more weight by working the entire body. This is why a lot of females find themselves unable to lose that last bit of weight, because they never work their upper body, they just run all day. It’s the same with guys that want their six-pack, and do crunches all day. You have to work the body as a whole.
The second important thing to understand is that for as much as you need to work your muscles, you need to rest them more. Our bodies are built to endure a lot, but they still need time to repair. While you’re doing your part to work muscles by lifting weights, doing pushups/pullups, and running laps, your body has to do even more just to fix all the “damage” you’ve just done. There are two ways to work with this reality; you can work out every other day, or you can cycle your workouts so that you work one group the first day, and the other group the next. An important thing to remember is that we spend a good chunk of our life on our legs and feet, so the body is fairly used to patching those muscles up pretty quickly. This means that you can run a lot more often than you can lift or do plyometrics.
A final important point is that free-weights are always going to be more effective than the machines. That point I just made about muscles working together? That kicks in here. Isolating muscles with machines is going to give the body plenty to repair, and in turn make it nice and big, but it’s not going to learn how to work with the other muscles around it, which in turn makes it weak. Think of it this way, would you rather have a Basketball team of great individual players, or a team of good players that work well as a team? Your body is the same way. I know some of you are thinking, “but this guide is about weight loss, I’m not really worried about muscle gain!” On that same principle of body wholeness, your body uses calories to do its work, and when it’s busy using them to repair muscle, it has a lot less to contribute to fat. In fact, it will often use that fat as part of the energy to repair those muscles.
So now you’re at the point where you want to know what the hell I did that I only needed an hour a day to lose so much weight. Well, here it is:
Sun: Absolutely nothing
Mon: Walk 10 mins -> Run for 10 mins -> 30 mins Biceps, Chest, Upper Back, Abs -> Walk 10 mins
Tues: Walk 10 mins -> Run for 10 mins -> 30 mins Triceps, Shoulders, Lower Back, Abs -> Walk 10 mins
Wed: Walk 10 mins -> 30 mins Run/Walk Intervals -> Walk 10 mins
Thurs: See Mon
Fri: See Tues
Sat: See Wed
Watching the Pounds Drop: Tips and Tricks
So you’ve got your diet, you’ve got your exercise program, now you want to know how to maximize your weight loss, so that you can be proud of every day you step onto the scale. Here’s a list of tips and tricks:
- Stop eating within 4 hours of going to bed.
- On your Sunday, eat something outside of your diet. If you want to keep it healthy but fun, try a Subway Sandwich on wheat, cut into 1/3s with the chicken, no cheese, veggies, and mustard.
- Take a vitamin supplement with your breakfast. I also took Fish Oil pills, and Green Tea pills.
- Drink plenty of water. This is VERY IMPORTANT. I recommend at least a gallon a day. Try to carry a water bottle with you everywhere you go.
- Stay away from dairy.
- Find as many friends and family as you can that you see regularly, and tell them what you are doing. Encourage them to support you, motivate you, and encourage you.
- Gym buddies are VERY helpful for making sure you don’t slack.
- Read books on mindset. I recommend Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, and Unlimited Power by Anthony Robbins.
- As you get slimmer and healthier, try some of those sports you’ve never thought you were in good enough shape to do.
- Avoid all energy drinks, even the "workout" ones, as it creates false energy that the body just burns before fat.
If you follow this guide, I guarantee you will see results, and you will look healthier as well as feel it. You have to experience it to truly understand, but the amount of motivation you get is phenomenal, and for those of us that came from almost none, you start to feel invincible.
This part of the guide is for losing weight only. If you stick to it, you’re going to hit a point where you find yourself no longer needing to lose weight, but instead to gain muscle, and really get into good shape. If you think you feel good now after losing the weight, just weight (get it?), the best is yet to come.
Part II
So you’ve lost the weight, you’re looking pretty good, and now you want to have some tone, and become as strong as you can be. This section is less of a guide, and more of a story – my story.
When I was done with simple weight loss, I was 190 lbs. I felt awesome, but the reality was I really wasn’t that strong. I could do 18 pushups max, I could only do 2 pullups, and I could hardly do a situp without someone holding my feet. I actually reached this point of decent weight, but not so strong when I was 21. I really didn’t even think about the next step. I had accomplished my goal, and I felt great. It wasn’t until 4 months ago that my life was turned upside down.
Once I reached my goal, I was feeling great, and I had a realization that I wasn’t following the path that I wanted. As such, I switched schools and majors, and got a job on the side. As time went on, I wasn’t ever exercising, but I was maintaining my weight purely through diet (yes, to those of you that read the first part and were convinced I would gain it all back, I was able to keep it off). The issue here is that while I continued to still look just as healthy, I slowly started to lose that motivation that comes from staying active. As such, I began slowly drifting into a rut, taking classes but not enjoying them as I should, and getting absolutely bored out of my mind with my dead end job, but doing nothing about it. It took two years before I finally hit that “breaking point” that I talked about earlier. It was at this point that I was gung-ho again.
My first step was to figure out a way that I could work out, and have fun at the same time. When I was at my first University, I attended some classes in a Self Defense called Krav Maga. I enjoyed it, as it was really good cardio, as well as invaluable skill learning. Recently, a new building that taught it had opened up near my house. So, I signed up. The next step was muscles. I looked online at what my gym options were; I wanted a gym that would be close-by, as well as affordable. I decided on the Bally’s near my house, and got in on one of their “this week only” deals. I even haggled them down a bit further (for those of you that don’t know, gym membership salespeople [at least in America] are just like car dealers, you can bargain with them). I then looked at the class schedule, and used my work schedule, to make a plan on when I could set aside time for workouts. Initially, this was 4 days a week, 2 at the gym, 2 at Krav.
It started out well, and like before, I was really motivated. I even made the decision that I was going to work on endurance more than strength (more reps, less weight). This decision was partly influenced by the fact that I had always been a big guy, and the idea of being “lean” sounded quite appealing to me. So I used my free personal trainer session to figure out how to do all the exercises that I decided I would focus on properly, as well as determine the weights I wanted to start at. For some example, here were some starter exercises and weights I was using:
Free weight
- Single-bar Bicep Curl: 35 lbs.
- Leaning-forward Back Fly: 25 lbs.
- Horizontal Bench-Press: 75 lbs.
Machines
- Pull-down Rope Tricep Extension: 30 lbs.
- Dual-rope Chest-fly: 30 lbs.
- Shoulder-press: 40 lbs.
Plyometrics
- Pushups: 18
- Situps: 20
- Pullups: 2
- Planks: 45s max
The initial warmup for Krav Maga was about 10 minutes of a pretty good cardio workout, using specialized movements to increase the heart rate quickly (bear crawls, side steps, lunge walks, etc.). After that, I made sure to use max effort on all of my strikes (punching/elbowing/kicking/kneeing at full force gets tiring quickly).
One day, after one of my Krav Maga classes, one of the instructors approached me, asked me a little about myself, and after listening to my goals, told me about another class he taught. He explained that one of the most effective ways to gain muscle quickly is to do short time, high intensity workouts, with plenty of rest in between (by this I mean, plenty of muscle rest in between sessions, not rest between exercises). His way of doing this was a sport called “Crossfit”. Currently, I can tell you that Crossfit is essentially a new “fad” that uses methods called “WODs” (Workout of the Day) to wear you out quick. Each WOD uses a combination of individual exercises that tend to focus on multiple muscles. These can range from Olympic lifts such as deadlifts, push press, squats, etc., to plyometrics like pushups, pullups, situps, etc, all the way to specialized movements like rope climbs, wall balls, kettlebell swings, and much more. For a full list of the different techniques used, feel free to check out the official Crossfit website.
I’m going to take a brief intermission here to explain something outside of the working out itself, which is the amount of inspiration that can come from one person. This instructor, Sevrin, began to take me under his wing. He saw how badly I wanted to become fit, and how much potential I had, and literally made me a friend. He invited me out to lunch to discuss my life, and find out where I was, and where I wanted to be. At that time, I was still at my dead end job, but I was also making some money on the side through a small business idea I came up with. As for my future though, I hadn’t really thought about it to the point I needed to. Currently, I was taking EMT classes, and just working. I had a “short-term” goal of finishing school, and working on an Ambulance, but really, I felt like there was so much I wasn’t doing or thinking about. It was at that point, that I really started thinking about it, which became possible now that my mind was feeling healthy again. I relayed all of my thoughts through Sevrin, and after a while, I realized that I was taking EMT classes because I wanted to help people, but after “ride-alongs” I realized it wasn’t so much what I wanted, to sit around in an ambulance transporting fat/old people all day, with the occasional accident, or real issue. I wanted to help people that truly needed it. It was at that point that I found out about Pararescue. It sounded like a dream to me (and to those of you that know what it is, and the reality that they have a 35% mortality rate, yes, my dream realized that). I knew that this was my calling, that this is what I was meant to do. This gave my physical training meaning. However, after talking to the right people, I was encouraged to go into Officer training. This would a) get me a backup education in case the harsh reality becomes that I’m not cut out for Pararescue, and b) be give me 4 years to train hard, as opposed to months. So, I applied, tested, and got in with a scholarship.
During all of this talk and thought, I was continuing to go to the gym, take Krav classes, and do Crossfit, each twice a week. This became a 6 day a week commitment. I wasn’t just training for something, I was preparing. My first set of goals had already been presented. I had seven months to be able to do 62 pushups, 56 situps, and run a 9 minute mile and a half. I told Sevrin this, and he just smiled and said “no problem, for you, this is going to be a cakewalk”. As of writing this, I’m 3.5 months in, and my results are pretty good to say the least. For comparison, I’ll use my initial exercise gauge:
Free weight
- Single-bar Bicep Curl: 70 lbs.
- Leaning-forward Back Fly: 65 lbs.
- Horizontal Bench-Press: 135 lbs.
Machines
- Pull-down Rope Tricep Extension: 70 lbs.
- Dual-rope Chest-fly: 80 lbs.
- Shoulder-press: 80 lbs.
Plyometrics
- Pushups: 48
- Situps: 102
- Pullups: 20
- Planks: 180s max
Not too bad for three and a half months, right? In that time, I also lost 15 lbs, which was 5% bodyfat, but my arms grew from 11.5” to 13.5”, and my waist went from 34” to 31”. My abdominal muscles (the infamous six-pack) can be seen when I suck in my gut. With my current schedule, I eat 1800 calories a day, 50% complex carbs, 30% protein, 20% fat, with a TON of vegetables (I have a big Tupperware container mixed with romaine lettuce, spinach, cucumbers, carrots, peppers, and broccoli). I follow the rule of 85%, which means one day a week I double my calorie intake to 3600, and break away from the diet. This allows my stomach to stay expanded, in turn keeping my metabolism going, as well as keeping my stomach lining strong. My workout schedule is still six days a week, but twice a day. This a mixture of the gym, krav, crossfit, running, rucking (carrying a 45 lb backpack and walking 3+ miles in boots), and Insanity ®. I also work a side job currently (just for some cash until I start my military training), as well as read 2 books a week, on top of the weekly Economist, and monthly Scientific American.
Many of my friends and family would tell you that I often seemed like the last person to become as strong and as motivated as I have become. Currently I’m even mentoring my mother on her weight loss, which is now starting to actually make progress (don’t worry, I’m not giving her my extreme diet from before). I encourage everyone to find the courage to fight for a healthier life, because it is a battle, and one that you alone can win. I’m finally winning my battle, and every day is an adventure I love. Good luck to everyone, and feel free to ask me any questions you might have.
*EDIT* I feel I need to address a couple of concerns with my diet, and just how extreme it is. First before I get into the actual health, I would like to state that switching from a typical American 4k+ calorie diet to a 1240 calorie one is hard. VERY HARD. The first two weeks were the biggest mental battle of my life. I cheated a couple of times, but not in huge ways. Second, in regards to it being dangerous, as I said, I talked to a few experts. I knew the risks vs rewards I was dealing with, and my calories were tailored to my body. The key with a low calorie diet like this is that in order to not have muscle loss, you need high protein , high fat, and complex carbohydrates, as well as have a consistent routine that works all of your muscles (but doesn't overwork them). I wouldn't say this is safe, but if done carefully, it's also not dangerous. My biggest worry was actually stretch marks from how quickly I was losing weight, which I didn't even get much of. If you are serious about losing your extra weight, and seeing results quickly, my diet does work, but has to be handled perfectly. If you sustain injuries, you actually need to up your calorie intake. Also not all protein powders are created equal. In fact, most are crap. The key is to find one that is low calorie, high protein, and doesn't have a lot of the extra "crap" in it. I actually did use one with creatine for a while, but that can be quite dangerous (although effective for weight loss).
A Note on Bibliography: I didn’t actually use any sources for any of this writing. I’m sure much of this can be found elsewhere in other writing, but all of this is in my own words from my own experience. Any direct parallels to other writing are purely coincidence. This also means some information could be wrong, so please use it at your own risk.
I will be following your daily training regiment. Thank you! +rep![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/R9ori.jpg)
