2025-03-05 04:16:19
I spent some time reading through Lyle McDonald’s Training the Obese Beginner series. While I’ve got a few months of training under my belt, this guide certainly did a great job reminding me that I’m still very much a beginner when it comes to training. While not a surprise, I had already been considering that I need to understand more to push my strength training to the next level.
In his series of posts, Lyle McDonald explains how the goal for any beginner, but especially obese ones is to train to train. It’s counter-intuitive, but if you’re completely out of shape, you need to rebuild a foundation to truly launch from. I’ve underestimated the difficulty of this alone. A part of me fully expected to be done all that by now. Reading through that guide definitely put how far I truly am from that into perspective.
To really get the most out of it, I need to focus on measuring progression in an objective and consistent way. I also need to plan out my workouts rather than just doing what I feel like doing once I’m there. Another thing I need to get better at is pushing exercises towards failure. I’m starting to recognize that at my phase, the priority is to practice the many movements, rather than necessarily push numbers.
The intricacies of actually learning to use your own body is something I’m only beginning to understand. Understanding theory only goes so far, putting it into practice is the important part. It’s totally mind-boggling to realize how little body awareness I’ve started with and how slowly it develops. There is a lot to look forward to, and I’m excited to learn along the way.
I’ve hit a pretty emotional milestone. Since I’m down over 120lbs now, I decided to try on some of my old clothes that I grew out of in the last few years. Getting more clothes to fit to only grow out of them is a pretty brutal emotional process, reversing this is very gratifying. I remember tearing up a little bit as something I remember being too tight and uncomfortable actually feeling loose. It sounds weird, but these clothes are stark reminders of all I went through in them. Being able to put things on that didn’t even fit when I bought (and couldn’t return) them was quite the experience.
Almost everything I started this journey with is incredibly loose and oversized. I am absolutely ecstatic to begin the spring with better fitting shorts! I’ll admit, I still struggle to feel the progress I’ve actually made, but wearing some pants that certainly wouldn’t fit before definitely makes it feel more real. I’ve kept a decade’s worth of my old clothes, so I’ll have tons to get through and look forward to on the way down. It’s certainly helpful that I kept my old clothes, because I wouldn’t be able to afford getting new clothes at this rate!
To get control over my intake, I leaned quite a bit on having one-meal-a-day (OMAD) for convenience and simplicity. People regularly recommend intermittent fasting as a weight loss strategy, but I came across some information that changed my mind. It logically follows that your body can only turn so much protein into muscle (or repairing muscle) in a given amount of time. This means that when you fill yourself with your daily protein all in one meal, it’s possible that a non-trivial amount of that protein is ‘wasted’ to be burned for energy.
When I began switching to trying to equally distribute protein throughout the day, I was stunned at how quickly and ferociously hunger appeared. Instead of being perfectly satiated with a single large meal until the next one, I was immediately catching myself counting the minutes until the next meal. This intuitively makes sense. As less protein is available for energy, the body is being forced to lean more on burning fat and bringing in other sources of energy. At least, that’s the situation as I understand it. It could be entirely placebo, but I can say I definitely feel quite differently after making the change.
I’ve been taking this as an opportunity to really face my hunger head-on. I’ve mentioned before that the more I exercise, it’s really the physical pain that is a bigger challenge than hunger at this point. My hope is that if I can continue to push through this, I will be in a better position to tackle the inevitable increase in hunger signals as I leave obesity and become merely overweight. I can say, I’m glad I’m so neurotic about all this, because I’ll have a great deal of trial-and-error to share with anyone who is curious.
What’s really stunned me now that I’m below 450lbs now, is that I’m not that far from being below 400lbs. At my current rate of progress I’ll be below 400 in less than three months. I have so much to look forward as I continue to push through these milestones. It’s quite funny how day-to-day I feel like I’m not loosing enough, but when I think about how I really only began making measurable progress last September, it hasn’t been that long at all. After building a bit of a runway to get started, I feel confident I can soar higher than even I thought possible. It’s actually quite surprising to me how quickly I’ve blasted through the 400s in a relatively short period of time. I definitely expect the 300s to be slower, but also a lot more fun.
I’ll be working hard to reach my ambitious targets and share the challenges and reflection along the way. I greatly appreciate the attention, encouragement, and kindness from those following my journey. One of the things I’ve begun to understand is how applicable much of what I’m doing is to other problems in life. One of the things I’ll never forget is how much a difference a little kindness makes.
I’ve started adding various weight loss & fitness resources to my knowledge graph. The hope is to eventually put together a full picture of the process as I understand it, but in the short term it will be where I put links and references as I discover them. I have a weakness for informative information delivered via humorous cartoons. Trainer Winny is a great YouTube channel I’ve recently stumbled on. You’ll hopefully like 5 Things I Wish I Knew When I First Started Lifting.
I spent some time browsing to see what I could find. I found it fascinating how many of the ‘motivational’ memes out there are just about getting rich and ‘getting it all’. I appreciate the many examples where they show that there is more to this life than just that. Feel free to browse the entire collection
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2025-02-27 08:00:00
2025 is off to a great start. I am now quite confident that I’ll be able to continue to make progress despite Winter. With Only a month left of the season, I’m very happy that it has been a victory. All the effort facing the cold has absolutely paid off. I’ve recorded this vlog to share some of my recent thoughts as I hit this milestone. By weighing in at 449 yesterday, I’ve successfully lost more weight this month than last, which is my metric for success this month. Naturally, the goal for March is to lose more than February.
In the last year, I’ve made a remarkable amount of progress on mobility. When I first started at the gym, it would be difficult for me to stand still for more than a few seconds. Getting off the floor wasn’t something I could do without help. Now I’m able to do so much more! Getting stronger and more active has transformed my life in many ways and has certainly helped me feel more confident and capable.
I’m really starting to enjoy getting stronger. Maybe the addiction is already starting. 😅 One can hope… While I’m very far from where I would like to be, I feel better in many ways. Getting stronger involves quite a bit of pain, but I’m learning to withstand that more and more. This trial-by-fire has done wonders for my mental state and I am very grateful for the chance to make radical changes.
Semi-recently I read Becoming a Mentally Tough Motherfcker: How Elite Powerlifting Made Me a Better Person, Parent* by Sumi Singh. I’d wholeheartedly recommend it for anyone. It’s something I plan to revisit many times on my journey. It’s a short but invaluable guide on how to take on difficult challenges, and is very applicable to my situation.
I’m halfway through reading Food Politics. I’ve learned a variety of interesting points of contention when it comes to nutrition and public health. I’ve been slacking a bit on reading lately, but I’m looking forward to finishing it. The main take-away from the book I have so far is that the conversation is so much more contrived than I had initially assumed.
I’ve decided to start (slowly) adding weight loss and fitness information to my personal documentation. The idea is to at least record resources I’ve found helpful or informative. This will also help me see if I understand the problem well enough to build up my own mini-wiki about it.
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2025-02-23 08:00:00
Feel free to listen to this off-the-cuff rant & reflection of my recent progress. These monologues are recorded primarily for my own benefit. Very light edits are done to remove some pauses and repetitions, but the audio itself is very raw.
Despite recent challenges, things are going quite well. I’m sore and quite tired a lot of the time, but I’m definitely reaching ahead. I’ve successfully completed three weeks back to my fall schedule of being active 5 days a week. It’s certainly very demanding, but looking at my weight loss spreadsheet I can see the difference. I have a daily loss averaged over the last month and it’s gone from 0.5/lbs/day to 0.7 since the start of February.
I’m very close to being below 450. This is incredibly exciting to me. Not only does this mean I’m down over 120lbs, but I spent a long time around 400lbs during my adult life. Getting consistently below that will be a concrete sign that I’m making serious permanent progress. Just the other day, I realized I can finally fit in the bus stop seating. As I’m writing this, I’m wearing a 4xl t-shirt I was gifted from the gym I signed up at. I can put it on without stretching it! Meaning I’m down from 6xl.
In the recording I spend some time explaining why I feel the need to push as ambitiously as I can. In short much of it has to do with having the privilege of being able to focus on this as my top priority. The other major factor is just the fact that I’m sick of being this large and helpless. The progress I’ve made so far have really just given me a taste for a more capable life that I am desperate to start living. While I may be pushing hard, I know I’m quite far from any serious hard limits. I’m seeing that what I’m able to do is still far less what what I’m likely able to safely do. So I continue to gradually and methodically test my limits while trying to do the best I can to take care of the basics.
I think the biggest paradox of weight loss is the advice “Don’t sweat the small stuff, then it’s all small stuff”. It’s genuinely important to not obsess over minute day-to-day stressors, but to begin making changes one does have to focus on basic living choices. So while starting out, it seems like you’re doing nothing but ‘sweating the small stuff’. Eventually, you can build good habits that begin to build the foundation for a better lifestyle. At that point, then you need to tune out “the small stuff” and stay focused on consistency without being completely derailed by stressing out about some small failure or setback.
📉 Weight Tracker |
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|---|---|---|---|
| Starting Weight | Current Weight | Weight Lost | Goal Weight |
| 576 | 445.9 | 130.1 | 15% BF |
2025 GoalThis year's goal is to lose 200lbs in 2025! |
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| Last updated: 2025-02-26 | |||
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2025-02-17 08:00:00
This is an off-the-cuff rant about some of the feelings I’ve been recently struggling with as I lose the weight. While things are going well, there are some small things that have been getting me down lately. In short, I am daunted by the fact that I actually have no idea what I will look like at a healthy body weight. Having never been a reasonable weight during my adult lifetime, I actually can’t comprehend what I will look like.
I’m also recognizing is that it is quite hard to keep up the momentum at times. Despite really making a great deal of progress on adopting healthy habits, I definitely feel how hard it is to keep going. It seems that losing the next 10lbs will always be as challenging as the last 10lbs. On top of all this, I’ve been struggling not to dwell on the opportunity costs of getting this big in the first place. It’s very hard to face the fact that my situation was, and still is quite dire.
Despite all this, I am confident I will continue to make progress. I’m continuing to lose a great deal of weight, and I’m keeping to my exercise schedule. I have a great deal to be thankful for and a lot of that is the kindness, support and encouragement I’ve received. As tough as this journey is, I do have a lot motivating me to keep moving forward.
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2025-02-15 08:00:00
There’s been quite a bit of snow recently. To really push my limits and see how far I’ve come I decided to tackle a pretty serious shoveling job. There was a lot left over from yesterday, so I decided to film me getting the last of it done. I’ve put together a 20x speed timelapse of me spending an hour clearing out the rest of it. I did record audio while doing the shoveling, but that’s more for myself so I can spare you all the huff and puffing. It was fun practicing getting some outdoor footage. The tripod kept falling over so I had to reset it a few times.
If music doesn’t work, try here or here it’s possible the audio may just be muted.
It was immensely gratifying to get this done. All the lifts I’ve done, all the work put into getting stronger really paid off here. It was quite the experience to be able to keep going when it wasn’t so long ago that even getting up off the ground was a huge challenge. I may not be where I’d like to be in terms of cardiovascular strength, but I’ve definitely noticed a huge improvement from the “early days”. I feel strong in more ways than just physical. This was a daunting task that absolutely would have been out of reach not that long ago, and certainly felt out of reach when approaching it.
I’m absolutely sore and worn out from the ordeal, but I’m very pleased with having some hands-on proof to myself that I am much more capable. Doing it was hard, but watching the video afterwards makes me feel downright heroic. Getting out of chairs is still something I brace for, so I really appreciate having this to show me that I’m capable of a lot more than I would initially assume. I’ve re-watched this several times and really can’t believe “I did that.” Being able to go from “I can’t do anything” to “I was able to do that” is making me feel really quite great.
I’m over the moon to be under 460 now! I’m hoping I can be at or below 450 by the end of the month! I’m pushing hard but I’m confident I can get close by then. The long term chart is starting to look pretty decent. It almost looks like I know what I’m doing. 😆
Thank you all for following these updates and especially those of you who take the time to write to me. The encouragement I’ve received from many of you has meant a great deal to me. I hope to impress you all with lots of work and rapid weight loss come spring and summer. I expect I’ll look at least a bit different by 2026. I have a long road ahead of me, but I am much more confident that I can continue to (safely!) push my limits.
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2025-02-07 08:00:00
I recorded short walks before and after making my way to the pool. I’m pushing hard to re-gain my fall schedule, where I’m at the gym three times a week and going to the pool twice a week. I’m thrilled to say I’ve been successful this week.
Mobility
Food
Other
I got my first lunges on video, but unfortunately it was sent to me over SMS and Apple -> Android compresses the heck out of it. I’ll have to make sure to get a good recording in the future!
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