My journey from 250+ lbs to a built 175 lbs. (Part 2)

What I learned and how you can do the same: Part 2

Every year people go on diets to lose weight. There is always some new diet craze that is making the rounds. Heck I think at one point I heard someone asking another if they heard of the “Popcorn diet”. Losing weight tends to be hard for a lot of people. No matter what they try they lose weight too slowly, and when they succeed in losing 10 pounds or more they gain it back in months or even less.

They fight so hard to lose it and ultimately they gain it back even quicker. In my first article on this subject I believe I answered what is causing that problem for the majority of people. If you haven’t read it yet you should: https://medium.com/@Retroact1ve/my-journey-from-250-lbs-to-a-built-175-lbs-2da5e7cc563
After my first success with losing most of the weight I wanted to lose I hovered around 190-195. This was a huge improvement when compared to the near 275 I was at previously. I corrected a problem and most of that weight stayed off. I gained a few pounds in those 6 years, but not much. By and large I kept most of the loss which was not bad at all for not working out. For the most part I kept away from Corn Syrup/High Fructose Corn Syrup/HFCS labeled as Fructose and the weight didn’t come back.

I wanted to do better than just ‘not bad’. I still had excess weight, I was not fit, and after a recent breakup I had plenty of time on my hands. I wanted to have something to focus on and something that would be beneficial to me. I was excited even still about the changes I previously made, which gave me confidence I could make an even more drastic change for the better. I decided I wanted to build muscle and at the same time lose excess fat. It seemed like an interesting problem to me. I had excess fat I wanted to get rid of, but at the same time I wanted to build muscle. Usually when I hear about diets, or workouts I see people focus on one or the other. I wanted to do both at the same time. I researched as much as I could on workouts and the amount of calories burned during an intense one hour workout amongst other things. I realized quickly there was a lot to consider.
• Amount of Calories I usually ate in a day
• Amount of Calories I would burn in an hour workout
• How many grams of Protein should I eat to build muscle
• What kind of workout I would do and which kind is best?
• Can I find a workout I can do at home that would be effective?
• What kinds of food would I eat that contained less calories but more protein?
• Anything I should do post workout?

I didn’t want to go overboard with my questions. I just wanted a basic outline for a plan to set into motion. I figured I’d count the amount of calories I was eating per day. Then I would find a workout routine and see if I can find what it lists as the amount of calories each workout would burn. Some of these at home workout routines will tell you the amount of calories you supposedly burn. Some of them also suggest the amount of calories you’d want to add so you don’t burn yourself out during the workout.

If you try to create a deficiency in your caloric intake but you are doing a workout that burns over 500 calories you might exhaust yourself or even worse. Be responsible. I searched muscle building forums, and even some youtube videos from body builders. More often than not I saw the same exact suggestion as far as protein intake is concerned. They suggested you eat 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight when trying to build muscle. I averaged 190 lbs. so that would mean I eat 190 grams of protein per day. If you’re a woman looking to build muscle but not to a ridiculous degree you might experiment to see what works better for you. Perhaps you want to take in ½ gram of protein per pound of body weight. Maybe you will find that 1 gram per pound is okay. This is one thing I can’t speak to. I can only tell you what I did and what I experimented with.
I wanted to make sure that I took those 190 grams of protein in responsibly and not try to do the majority of them all at once. That probably wouldn’t work and at the same time give you some bowel issues.

I also wanted to make sure I didn’t go hungry or have a period of weakness away from home. Knowing that 190 grams of protein is a lot to take in compared to my usual intake I decided I would split that into 5 meals per day. I would also make sure that whatever meal I planned that had the most protein I would eat within an hour after my workout just in case my body needed it more during that time to build muscle.

I had yet to pick a workout routine. I thought it through really carefully while looking into all the available at home workouts. I wanted to stay away from anything that was mostly cardio. The few times I will jog I see what fulltime runners or even bicycle riders looked like, very thin and wiry. They have a very slender muscular structure, and I wanted to be more built. Running is good for burning calories so I figured once a week or so I would do a bit of running outside of whatever workout routine I chose just until my excess fat was gone.

I didn’t want to find one that just focused on one part of the body either. I decided on one that focused on different muscle groups every day. You don’t want to work a muscle in a workout then focus on the same muscles the next day. It just seemed to me that the max benefit would already be achieved and you would prevent your muscle tissue from rebuilding and this would be counterproductive.

This was going to be a 7 day a week thing with no days off as well. I found one that had an optional 7th day routine which involved mainly stretching. It sounded well rounded enough. I also wanted to make sure it didn’t require tons of equipment. The point of working out at home was that I wanted to save money, didn’t want to be in the middle of a routine but something I needed wasn’t available when I needed it. If you let your body cool down too long while in the middle of an hour or so workout you are more likely to receive less of a benefit and you might sustain an injury.

I found the perfect one it seemed. It was for a full 7 days, and it required very little equipment. I even stripped off other non-essentials from the equipment list. I got it down to:
• A metal folding chair
• A yoga mat
• Two 20 lb. dumbbells
• A pull up bar for my door frame

That is not much equipment at all. It called for a lot more dumbbells but I noticed most of the workout routines that used dumbbells used much lighter ones like 5 lb. and 10-15 lb. dumbbells. Some of them called for 30 – 35 lb. I didn’t have money to spend on a whole set so I figured if I used the 20 lb. dumbbells on every single routine including the ones that used lighter dumbbells it should make up for it. I thought if at any time I felt I wasn’t getting the full benefit of the work outs then I would buy them as needed and as it turned out I didn’t run into that issue.

A yoga mat wasn’t essential but my floor is pretty solid and the carpet is thin. A yoga mat made up for this and made it a lot easier on the joints when doing push-ups or sit-ups. I know people have their preferences on at home workouts so choose your own. Just make sure it follows the same basic guidelines:
• It focuses on a different muscle group daily
• Doesn’t require much equipment
• Each workout is 1 hour long, but not much more and no less
• 7 days, for a full week of workouts

The workout routine I chose was for 3 months. I just figured I would extend it if need be. Now that you have your workout chosen there is something very important you need to understand. Your success in getting built/fit is not 100% dependent on your workout. I would say that your workout is less than 10% of the key to success in this from my experience. There are 24 hours in a day, the recommended sleep time by most doctors suggest 8 hours of sleep a day leaving you with 16 hours left. Your workout should last 1 hour, leaving you with 15 hours. What matters more when it comes to getting fit is what you do with the remaining 15 hours AFTER the workout. I know I am going into depth here but it is very important because this realization was the secret to my success. You can do the most intense workout for hours but if you don’t spend the rest of your day wisely you can end up in a situation where you receive no benefit at all. That is a very real possibility. What matters more than the workout is what you eat and drink throughout the course of the day. If you get that wrong you will undo every workout, you will cause your body from functioning in a way that will negate your attempts at being fit, let alone getting fit in less than 4 months. Please keep that in mind.

Everyone’s journey begins somewhere. For me it began at a little over the 190 lbs. mark (195 lbs. day of beginning workouts). Being that I am over 6ft I carried that weight great and if you read the first part to this article you will see what I mean when compared to the around 275 I started out at. This article title says 250+ because that is the last weight I was at before I became too depressed to step on a weight scale. For this part of my journey this is what I looked like when I began:

Above: Picture taken 4/17/2015 Day before I started

Above: Picture Same Day Before I Started 4/18/15

Above: 4/18/15

As you can tell from the pictures above I was entirely out of shape. My arms were not toned whatsoever. My waist hung over my boxers, and I had love handles. These are some scary pictures I know. As you can see where I started years previously you can tell I made a huge difference without workouts. After my experience I would repeat the process again in the same way if I found myself over 250 lbs. again. I would lose what I could eating right first and then jump into the work outs after I hit a weight loss peak. Some people may want to start working out immediately and just extend the commitment to longer than a year of working out non-stop. I can’t speak to the effectiveness of that, it may be something to try. The way I look at it, you might hit a brick wall as far as loss of fat and gains of muscle if your body becomes used to the routine halfway through. That’s just a guess as I didn’t experiment with that.

Previously I stated that working out is a very small part of becoming fit. The secret to my success came with the realization that the most important part is what you do after working out. Building muscle doesn’t happen when you are working out. It is a precursor to becoming fit. The work of rebuilding muscle tissue happens after the fact, and your body needs the right ingredients for that process to happen. I can only tell you what I did and experimented with. What you do is up to you. Another important part is rest, this should be stressed as well.

You may be eating the right things and replenishing your body the right way but without rest your body will rebuild slowly. While you are awake your body can recover from working out, and even rebuild muscle. However, your body will split its attention/resources to your waking tasks and rebuilding/recovering your body. However if your body/mind are asleep and resting then your body can devote a greater amount of resources to rebuilding the body. If you sleep after a few hours after you workout you will recover more quickly and efficiently than if you stayed awake post workout. This is something to consider when scheduling your workout routine. Here is what I did when considering this.

I worked third shift during the time I put my plan into action. I got off of work at 6:30 AM. I would get home about 6:40-6:45 AM. I would immediately get changed and get everything ready for the workout which only took a few minutes. I would then proceed with the workout (which is video based so I used my laptop to play it). Immediately after the workout I would mix a recovery drink to replenish the sodium I lost through sweating, and it seemed to help a little bit the next day to prevent some soreness.

One thing you want to be sure if you do workouts that were as intense as the ones I did you want to make sure you do take something to replenish the sodium you lose through sweating. Your body, and heart do need sodium to function. If you run into an electrolyte problem that is a sure fire way of harming yourself and can result in death. It’s nothing to fool around with. Replenish yourself after. Every so often, as a precaution (just a few times a week) I would mix a few teaspoons of sea salt into a 16 oz bottle of water as well, but not too often as I used a recovery drink every single workout. This is the recovery drink I used for the entire time:

Above: The Recovery Drink I Chose

I chose this one because while it replenished electrolytes it also had other ingredients that came up in my research that helped fatigue, and aided with preventing some soreness. It also contained 20 grams of protein which is not over the top like some people would do. Keep in mind I went straight from work to workout and would still need to eat before going to sleep. I finished the workout roughly one hour after starting. By this time it was usually around 7:45, sometimes 8:00 all depending if I left work on time. Just remember it is important to drink the recovery drink immediately after completing the workout. Your body goes through a period after working out where it receives the most benefit from protein and other nutrients, and it lasts anywhere from 1-2 hours maybe less. I knew there was a window so I made sure I drank the recovery drink immediately. Once I finished it, I started cooking my post workout meal which most people just called breakfast.

I made sure I ate my meal within the same window of time to receive the most benefit from the protein and nutrients contained in the meal. I would wind down after eating. Maybe watch an hour show then go to sleep. This way when my body is rebuilding and recovering it can focus more of its resources to that task. Now inevitably schedules can change so have a backup time planned for your workout, just in case.

There are times due to circumstances out of my control I’d have to do the workout later on in the day which happened half of the total time. Whatever you do just make sure you plan a time less likely to be interrupted unexpectedly and you don’t stray from the recovery drink and post workout meal. Remember when I said a secret to my success was realizing what you do after you workout is more important than anything else? This is where we bring food into the equation. Remember I weighed around 190-195 when I started this workout schedule. I decided I needed to eat 1 gram of protein per pound of my body weight, every single day divided up into 5 meals.

I also wanted to make sure I hit a goal as far as calories. I didn’t want to eat too many, but I didn’t want to eat too little. What I did was make sure I bought foods that were high in protein but on the lower end for calories. Later in this article I will share with you the specific foods I ate almost the entire time I kept this schedule. I didn’t vary my food supply very much because if I am eating right that was more important to me than taste of having variety in meals. You have to give in to the idea that you want to eat to live, not live to eat. I just got lucky I enjoy the taste of the foods I chose. For instance I prefer the taste of turkey bacon to actual bacon, even when I am not trying to eat healthy luckily enough.

When it comes to the food and to the workouts there is another secret to success to keep on your goals. Have you ever walked into the gym and seen people you know for a fact go to the gym for years almost daily but they are still not fit? I have all the time, people from previous jobs, when I have taken tours of gyms and when I was a member of a gym before I realized how to succeed. I would be able to count on one hand how many people I personally know that succeeded in becoming fit while working out in a gym.

The secret is a structured routine. A lot of people who go to the gym just choose a machine here or there with no plan, wander around checking people out. They end up milling around more than working out. What they are not doing is sticking to a routine. Most people in a gym either don’t know what they are doing, think they know what they are doing and don’t, or are just too overwhelmed because they don’t know what to do. The result is you see a lot more out of shape people in a gym than you do fit people in a gym. There is a lot of wasted time invested in gyms if the goal is to be in fit.

Have you ever heard the phrase that humans are creatures of habit? There is a reason why that is a saying you might recognize. Once we pick up habits it is hard as hell to quit those habits. I know that all too well as I am a smoker. Once a person relaxes into a routine it is just hard to get out of that routine. Some people reading this might disagree and say they don’t live by a routine. They do what they want when they want. I would say to you, if you disagree, that living without a routine is a routine in and of itself. It’s a routine of not having a routine. If you want to succeed you need structure and routines. You need structure in your workouts and you will need structure in your food. You will need a schedule. It sounds so overwhelming to eat the right things and stick to it while sticking to a workout routine.

Once you make it a habit it is not difficult at all. It will be more difficult after a while to not stick to your routine than it would be to just follow through with your new habit. If you make eating right, and working out a habit the rest will fall into place. That means you follow through for 3 weeks religiously, and you will not run into any commitment problems on your end after that time. Do not even start if you think for one second you might quit after the first workout. In the end that will do you more harm than good because it will make it easier for you to give up next time you try.
If you turn giving up into a habit, that will become a problem unto itself. Do not make quitting your new routine. For the first part of my food habits I will share all of the foods that made up the bulk of what I ate this entire time I was on a workout schedule:

Pre-cooked chicken breasts, yes they are processed but I was looking for very low fat content and very high protein. Turkey bacon and turkey burgers. I would eat very few turkey burgers but in case I had a craving for a burger. They are low in fat, and very high in protein. Maybe once a week or even less Id end up eating one. Salmon/ other types of fish. Usually I would use salmon because its very high in protein. If I ate rice with dinner it was only once in a while and it was a measured cup of cooked rice. Here is what my freezer looked like:

Above: Usually What My Freezer Looked Like. Various Kinds Of Fish, Precooked Chicken Breasts, Beans, And Vegetables

Cartons of egg whites. Whole eggs have a lot of cholesterol so it wouldn’t be very wise if you are looking to make omelets because it would take around 4-5 eggs to make one. Whole eggs, I would mix one egg in with the egg whites to make omelets. Whole eggs do have healthy benefits but not at the amount it would take to make an omelet, less is better. Water, lots and lots of water.

Pure carrot juice, extremely low in calories but very high in vitamin A. 100% whole wheat bread, make sure you read the label on this one. Bread can be high in calories so I would buy a brand called “Natures Own 100% whole wheat”. Each slice is under 100 calories, and has 5 grams of protein. Vegetables like broccoli, green peppers, or whatever else you like that you know is healthy. Cans of tuna in water, extremely low in calories/fat but extremely high in protein. Here is what my cabinet looked like:

Above: Lots Of Tuna, Rice (Only Used It Once In A While), Flax

Store brand lite greek yogurt (Kroger) they are cheap, less than 80 calories but high in protein. It contains about 14 grams of protein. It tastes better to me, has no calories from fat, costs much less, and higher protein than Chobani Greek Yogurt:

Above: Kroger Brand Lite Greek Yogurt. Has Less Calories, Healthier, And Cheaper Than Chobani

Almond milk, I would buy Almond Breeze because it was around 40 calories. I didn’t ever drink it by itself, I used it with a meal replacement shake. Garden of Life Raw Meal, a meal replacement shake. Every so often (not every day) I would replace a meal with this. I replaced either breakfast or lunch. If you decide to use a meal replacement shake daily or every so many days just make sure it is NOT your post workout meal. Protein bars, I avoided the ones extremely high in protein like the 40 gram protein bars, Usually would just make sure they had 20 grams or so of protein. I had bought Whey Protein shake mix, but never got around to actually using it. I thought I might need a way to boost protein but found I could make 190 easily with the foods above in 5 meals.

Vitamins, I used a multi-vitamin powder that you either mix into juice, shake or even the recovery drink. I used this because I believe it would be absorbed by my body easier than a multi-vitamin pill:

Above: Powdered Multi-Vitamin I used. I Mixed It Into Recovery Drinks, Or Carrot Juice

My approach to calories was rather simple. I didn’t count them like other people going onto diet plans. The workout I chose had a guide to foods. I basically discarded it because sticking to an exact routine/structure was more important to me. I knew with any variation the complexity grew and I might get thrown off or I might approach the meals wrong. I used their calorie guide to make my initial plan and then discarded the meal guide. Their calorie guide basically used the persons weight and calculated the proper amount of calories to eat while taking into account the amount of calories burnt by the workouts.
Once I had that number I made a basic meal plan and ate the same meals day in and out.

That is to I figured out the meals I was going to eat based on calories/protein content and stuck with those exact meals the entire time. It wasn’t hard as I am a naturally stubborn person, but at the same time I genuinely liked the types of food anyhow. As far as the calories go by the way I didn’t exactly count them anyhow. Knowing that I had to eat 190 grams of protein a day, it would be all too easy to consume too many calories trying to make it to 190 grams of protein. But it would very very hard to consume too few calories. If you make it a habit of reading nutrition labels you will see what I mean. Most foods have very little protein but are insanely high in calories.

Which is why I chose the foods I listed above. They have a great balance between being relatively low in calories but are packed with protein. My guideline was the amount of calories suggested by the meal plan based off my weight + estimated calories burned in a workout. The total suggested was 2976. I made sure my meals added up to below 3,000 calories but above 2,700 calories. Some people eat that many calories in one sitting. To others it seems like a lot of calories.
It depends on your perspective on whether you think that is a lot or a little bit. Taking the basic foods I listed above I made 5 meals a day. I would eat them evenly spread out throughout the day. That way there was no point in a day where I went very long without eating a meal.

For breakfast: I would make scrambled eggs using ¾ cup of egg white + 1 whole egg. 3 Strips of turkey bacon. 1 slice of 100% wheat bread. 1 measured cup of 100% carrot juice with lots of ice:

Above: My Usual Breakfast

For midday I would make 2 meals. Basically a large lunch broken up into 2 meals.

1st Lunch: Tuna Salad Sandwich, Made with a half can of tuna (in water not oil), 2 table spoons of relish, 1 table spoon of mayo, 2 slices of 100% whole wheat bread. 1 banana. 1 store brand lite Greek yogurt.

2nd Lunch: Another Tuna salad sandwich made the same way, Another lite Greek Yogurt.

Dinner: 2 precooked chicken breasts cooked on skillet w/ 1 tablespoon olive oil and sliced peppers (usually orange/red peppers) also every so often would add 1 cup of cooked rice (but seldomly):

Above: My Usual Dinner, Except This Time I Added 1 Cup Of Cooked Rice

5th meal of the day Was anything that added up to the amount of grams of protein I needed for the rest of the day. Sometimes it was a meal replacement shake (Garden of Life Raw Meal), sometimes it was 1 cup of fruit and a protein bar. Use whatever you like that keeps you on goal as long as it’s healthy.

Keep in mind some of you will require more calories per day, and more grams of protein if you weigh more than 200 lbs. Just remember 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight. If you are a woman you might want to half that amount, just experiment for a few weeks or a month if you think you could use more than try 1 gram per pound of body weight. Just make sure whatever workout you choose follows the basic guidelines I posted above. If for some reason the one you choose does not come with some kind of calorie guideline you could find one online like this one: http://www.sixpacksmackdown.com/p/p90x-nutrition-level-calculator

You might have to tweak the amount based on the estimated calorie burn per workout for your specific workout plan. The next topics I want to talk about are tips for sticking to your meal plan, and tips for overall success with achieving the build you want. When it comes to staying under your calorie amount per day it might seem hard for a lot of people. One thing that you might not have considered is what you are drinking. With all of this focus on what you are eating and sticking to calories ate… you might have forgotten about what you are drinking which leads me to another secret to my success.

My rule (besides the meal replacement shakes, carrot juice with breakfast) was to not drink any calories at all outside of my planned drinks that had calories. I would rather eat my calories to stay fuller longer than take calories in with drinks. For instance you might pour a huge glass of orange juice in the morning. If you have large glasses or cups at home like a lot of people do, that may be a measured cup and a half maybe even 2 full cups. So your very large cup of OJ would be over 200 calories! Think about that for a moment. Now imagine you did that twice or more, plus drank cans of soda in a day you could go well over 1,000 calories in a day just from drinks alone! My rule was that outside of meal shakes, or carrot juice in the morning I didn’t drink anything with calories. Instead of a glass of OJ I would eat a whole large orange and it contains less calories than 1 cup of orange juice. The added benefit is dietary fiber, and it would keep you full with a meal.

If you do it right, avoid calories from drinks you will stay full with no issue. This is something that is so simple, yet is overlooked by many people. There are times I would have diet sodas every once in a great while, yet in certain amounts they also contain no calories. If I was lacking in energy on certain days I would drink part of a 20 oz of diet pepsi/dew and the caffeine would help me make it through the workout strong. Most people drink so much caffeine they become too tolerant and don’t notice any effect of caffeine. The tolerance to caffeine is temporary. For the entire first month of my workouts I didn’t drink any caffeine whatsoever, just water. This leads me to yet another secret of my success which was water.

Some people may find they become hungry quicker than others. It depends upon the person but if you are working out and the workouts are intense your body will make use of what you eat much more quickly. You may find yourself becoming hungrier than usual a little while after you eat. You also have to stay properly hydrated or you will end up with issues in the bathroom. Constipation would be no fun I imagine. In order to keep myself properly hydrated I made sure I drank plenty of water. What I chose to do was drink an entire 16 oz. bottle of water right before every meal. I would drink it the entire bottle right before the meal. This helped me become fuller quicker, and it helped my body also breakdown the foods I ate more efficiently. I found myself staying fuller much much longer. It was to the point I almost had to force myself to eat the next meal. I cannot overstate enough how much this helped me keep on track. This is what my refrigerator looked like:

Above: My Minimalist Fridge. Water, Turkey Bacon, Soda (I Rarely Drank), Eggs & Egg Whites (Are Out Of Frame On Door)

As you can see I took water very seriously, as should you. Another question people might come up with is “How do I know if I am truly burning the right amount of calories during my workouts to hit my goal?” I wondering this myself before I started my workouts. I thought how do I truly know if I am or am not. I got my answer through experience. I hit my goal in under 3 months! In order to achieve what I did in just 2 months and a few weeks you will need an intense workout.

A sure sign that you are burning enough calories is how much you end up sweating during the workouts. I am someone that does not sweat very much under normal circumstances. I could rob a bank, and be chased by the police and I would not sweat at all one bit. However after my workout my shirt would be soaked through, my boxers, and sweatpants would be. My face and hair would be so drenched it looked like I just got out of the shower and didn’t towel off. No exaggeration:

Above Pictures: These pictures above were taken about a month or so into my workouts. If your workouts are intense enough you will sweat this much or more. If you aren’t you want harder workouts.

During your workouts do not half ass it at any point. You want to give your all. It is only an hour, and if you want results you have to give it everything you have for that hour. The right kind of workouts will include pull ups. I know it may be hard to believe but when I first started this workout routine I could not do a single pull up from a completely down hanging position. Not a single one. If I hung on the pullup bar and let my arms completely extend, I could not pull myself up once!

If that is the case for you that does not mean you will not ever be able to do a pullup. Your muscles need to be built up, as well as your strength. Just because you can’t do one, does not mean you can give up on that part of the workout. Struggling to pull yourself up the entire time the workout video calls for the pull ups is in fact working your muscles. Try to pull yourself up over and over and over then move onto the next workout with the video without break. The harder you struggle the more you are working your muscles. Eventually you will breakthrough and be able to do it. Then you continue on struggling until you are able to do more and more.

Another tip is some people will use a chair and rest a foot on it to help with very little pressure. It makes it slightly easier this way for some to do the pull ups and they just continue this way until they can succeed without the help. Either way will probably work. The way I did it is struggling through it until I succeeded. Eventually I could do 30 continuous pullups without having to stop.

Pushups are the same way. Some can’t do more than 5 in a row. At first I could do no more than 10 in a row. I struggled and worked my muscles while trying, and eventually could do then almost indefinitely without issue until the video called for the next exercise. Just remember struggling as hard as you can is working your muscles out. Eventually it will build your strength to the point where you will succeed in both the pullups and pushups so don’t sweat it. ;-)

Sticking to the food plan might be hard for a lot of people. When I first quit eating things that had Corn Syrup/High Fructose Corn Syrup/Fructose (HFCS renamed) I had withdrawals. I understand completely that people may have trouble sticking to their food goals. A lot of people will succeed for a few weeks, then they go off the rails completely and do not recover. For this reason plenty of people plan cheat meals. Once every two weeks (or maybe weekly) they will add a cheat meal in where they eat something they like (like pizza for example). If you need this as a tool to help you succeed stay within one serving. Don’t go eating 4 slices of pizza or you will undo a lot of good that you would have done.

I am much too stubborn to give in. Once I get into a routine I make it a new habit and stick with it. However I would once every 3 weeks force myself to eat something like a slice of pizza. This way I was not tempted to later, and actually it kind of reinforced to myself why I didn’t eat those things in the first place. Especially the way it made me feel after eating it. This was the reason for turkey burgers for me. They were higher in calories than I liked but full of protein. Once a week or so I would add one of these to my day:

Above: Turkey Burger With Cheese On Low Calorie Bun. It was the only time I would eat cheese. So that is more often than not what my cheating looked like when it came to food.

To succeed you have to be fully committed and you have to want to look better. Every passing day I felt better and better. After the first month I had so much energy I couldn’t believe it. I thought working out and eating right would drain me. What I found was quite the opposite. I found myself with a ton of new energy I never thought I could have. It rivaled how I remember feeling as a kid. Once you make it through the initial phase you will start to notice a difference. After a little over a month I seen such great results that it kept me going without ever questioning myself:

Above: In just over a month my abs were growing, and the fat was melting away. I still had love handles at this time, but not bad for just over a month!

The hardest workout will be your first and second. After my first workout I collapsed on the ground and nearly vomited. I was nauseous and exhausted. For this reason alone is why I say it is the hardest, the second one is hard because you have to trust that you won’t collapse and almost vomit again. I may be a glutton for punishment because that didn’t worry me. I laughed it off because I knew what I was doing had to be right because of the difficulty. The day following the first workout I got excited because I was so sore that I could barely extend my elbow all the way. My arm could barely bend beyond a 45 degree angle because of the stiffness/soreness of my biceps. I place hot towels to relax my muscles enough to move my arms more freely.

The day after the first workout I was sore in places I never knew I had. Don’t worry though about how you will make it through your second workout while sore because if your workouts have a proper warm up by the end of the warm up your soreness and stiffness will mostly disappear. Once you sufficiently warmed up your muscles they release the stiffness and you will not notice the soreness. Don’t get overly excited because shortly after the workout when your muscles cool back down it will return.

The way to look at soreness is you should be excited by it. Every new ache should make you smile. The soreness shows the effectiveness of what you are doing. It simply means you on the right track. As a matter of fact I actually felt worried after a while and I didn’t get sore. I thought that meant I outgrew the workouts and should increase the difficulty or push harder. So during the workouts I pushed harder and harder until I found myself pausing the video to do extra pullups and pushups.
I didn’t have to wait for the 3 months to pass before I seen the results. I reached my goal within 2 months and 12 days. I was in the best shape I had ever been in muscular wise and without spending one day in the gym. Most of what I learned from my experience is what this article contains. Using these lessons and tips is how I achieved this:

Above: The picture above was taken 6/30/15 this is at fully relaxed stance without flexing believe it or not.

After my initial workout schedule was complete I wanted to up the ante and planned on going to my works gym daily after work. I know some may have seen my profile picture. This was actually taken the very first day I stepped into the gym believe it or not:

Above: This was at the end of my 3 month workout goal. It was meant to be my before picture for tougher lifting workouts. Believe it or not this was literally taken my first day at that gym.

I know it hardly seems possible to make this big of a difference in under 3 months. Don’t let your self doubt get in the way of your progress. Let go of any preconceived notions of what is or isn’t possible in fitness:

Above: Before starting workout/food routine and less than 3 months after. The after is a relaxed stance, no flexing.

I hope you find value in my tips for succeeding in your fitness endeavors and proper motivation from the pictures of my personal success with what I have learned.

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Twitter: @Retroact1ve
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