How I Lost 60 lbs in 5 months
Backstory
“No one wants to work with or listen to a fat trainer” was one of the phrases I used to help me lose 60 lbs. You don’t lose that amount of weight by accident, you also don’t put on that much weight on purpose, no one does. This is the third time in my life I’ve lost a considerable amount of weight. One of the biggest factors that helped me this time around was proof. When you see others achieve success, you’re seeing proof of concept and it helps you believe in what’s possible. But, when you’re the one who’s made a big transformation, it changes your identity and inspires others to start which is an incredible feeling. Accomplishments that spark change in others is a beautiful example of how being selfish can also be selfless.
I’ve gone through this process back in 2012 when I lost 63 lbs in 3 years and in 2017 where I lost 30 lbs in 7 months. But nothing has compared to losing 60 lbs in less than 5 months in 2022. I credit my recent transformation to the years of tracking calories and working out as well as the fear of what I could lose.
The beginning of my weight loss journey started with my weight gain in March 2020. Covid forced the world to shut down and with that, so did my discipline and positive outlook on life. I’m a personal trainer who chose to take the easy route and collect unemployment. I justified the timing of covid with me being burnt out from working so much. Every trainer has a different goal but mine was to work as much as possible so one day I could be independent and run my own business. With nothing to do (lie) and nowhere to go (truth), I started smoking and for the first time in 10 years, also started playing video games.
I developed two of the worst habits you could have at a time when there was no judgment coming from anyone. This led to being in the worst shape of my life physically, mentally, and emotionally. My day would consist of light reading, sometimes working out, video games, and smoking every night. I had the wildest “cheat meals” or munchies you could imagine. The usual was a chicken cheesesteak with fries or chips and “dessert”. Dessert was a pint of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream with cinnamon toast crunch cereal and oatmeal raisin cookies. When you get to the point of feeling hopeless and careless, it usually doesn’t get better with time.
My world opened back up in September of 2020 and I couldn’t believe my eyes. I used to train 20-40 people/day as well as coach 10-20 people online but here I was, only seeing 1-2 people a day. This was the first time I became aware of how much I messed up by giving up; this is what taking the easy route leads to. But, things weren’t “bad enough” to elicit change in my behavior so I continued with the bad habits.
I spent the next 18 months yo-yo dieting and telling the people around me that “I can lose this weight when I want to". I did this all the way to reaching 253 lbs. What’s worse than ruining your own life is the choices you make that affect other people you care about.
In January 2022, I went to see the doctor to get a check up and got the biggest reality check of my life. My blood pressure was 150/90 (hypertensive). I was overweight and unhealthy to the point where I had 3 months to lose weight or else I’d need blood pressure medication. In 33 years of being alive and 6 years of being a personal trainer, I’ve never had an ultimatum like this. This wasn’t my identity and I needed to change.
It wasn't until March of 2022 that I started to get my shit together. I gave up smoking and changing this one habit helped in more ways than one. Not only did my eating improve, but so did my memory and cognitive abilities. I also played video games a lot less, limiting it to only two days a week. In that first month, I lost almost 19 lbs! In April for my next check up, my blood pressure dropped to about 130/80. I was happy about heading in the right direction but I wasn’t too excited because the job wasn’t done. It’s less about celebrating small victories and more about adding to your identity. Each action you take every day contributes to the person you become. It’s not that you can’t have ice cream anymore, it’s the fact that you're someone who doesn’t enjoy what happens after. The feelings that come with post-ice cream guilt and calories are no longer worth it. Your healthy identity starts with your mindset and you define it with your actions.
I’m going to make the “how” as simple as possible here:
I had a goal weight in mind of 200 lbs which makes things easier because there’s a clear defined “end point”.
I gave up and limited what I identified as holding me back: smoking and video games.
I reminded myself of what I would lose and gain every day to influence my actions instead of excuses.
Nutrition
All this helped shape and control my mindset. If you have strong enough “whys”, you can overcome any “how”. Next is nutrition:
Calorie Deficit!
I’m a numbers guy and tracking macros is one of the tools I like to use when trying to lose weight in a systematic way.
If you’re not consuming less calories than your body burns, you will not lose weight. It doesn’t matter how much you workout or how “healthy” you eat, it’s scientifically impossible.
3-4 meals/day.
Rest days would look like 2 protein shakes and 1-2 solid-food meals.
Training days would look like 1-2 protein shakes and 2-3 solid-food meals.
Breakfast/Pre-workout options:
Oatmeal with fruit and scrambled eggs
Oatmeal with fruit and protein powder mixed in
Scrambled eggs with Airfried home fries (saved calories by not using oil/butter)
Scrambled eggs with toast and fruit
Greek yogurt with fruit
Dinner/Post-Workout options:
Post-Workout protein shakes within 30 mins then a solid meal within an hour of that.
There’s no “anabolic window” timing I was trying to hit. I know how my body works and what I’m trying to avoid is hunger pains and brain fog. That comes from not having anything post-workout.
I don’t immediately eat food after my shake because I want things to digest. I also want to start and finish my meal as well as not feeling bloated from eating too much.
Rice, beans, skinless chicken breast or lean ground turkey (93/7) with a side salad.
Either brown or white rice. Not much of a difference here. I usually go with brown rice because it’s a complex carb which means longer/slower digestion.
Black beans or pinto, small difference in macros and micros but they’re high in protein and fiber.
The chicken was either cooked on the stove top, baked, or airfried. I used cooking spray to save calories from oil. I used seasoning: onion, garlic, black pepper powders, salt but I cut down on this too because of sodium.
93/7 lean ground turkey is ideal for me. I rarely used oil for this because it already has 8g of fat per serving. Sometimes I’d use olive oil, pasta sauce, or low-fat alfredo sauce for flavor.
I can’t stress this next part enough. When I started adding a salad to these meals, I couldn’t believe how full I’d get. I wouldn’t be able to finish the meal I cooked which sped up weight loss. My usual was spinach or a greens mix, feta cheese, and a low calorie dressing. This was the first time I tracked the calories in spinach and the purpose was for tracking fiber.
Later in my weight loss journey, I started swapping the combo dinner for just a salad with protein in it. This meant less food prep time and I didn’t have to guess how long to microwave my food.
If I didn’t cook, which was rare during this period, I’d have chipotle. It's a safe alternative to have because of the reliable macros. The only downfall is the high amount of sodium.
Protein Shakes:
A wonderful alternative option for people who snack on nuts or donuts is a protein shake. Especially if you can pair it with a “healthy” carb choice like fruits.
I’ve used Cinnamon Cookie Batter from 1st Phorm for almost 5 years now which is a meal replacement.
My post-workout shake is Vanilla Milkshake which tastes like ice cream.
If you spend 30 days tracking everything you eat, you will have a better idea of what’s holding you back. You will also gain a better relationship with food. What you consider healthy versus unhealthy lies in its macro and micronutrient profile. “Healthier foods” are less processed, have better macros, and have a good amount of micronutrients. This makes your body run more optimally and makes you feel better than “unhealthier foods”.
Exercise
Do you need to workout to lose weight? No. But, does working out improve your body composition and mental well-being? Yes. Your workouts can be as simple as walking or as detailed as what I’m about to tell you. My mindset was to do whatever it takes, do as much as you can, to make this process as fast as possible. It wasn’t enjoyable, but I wasn’t fucking around anymore. I don’t recommend most people to make changes in extreme conditions. If you can’t sustain it, it won't be long before you quit. You also could become worse off because of the experience. Here’s what I did:
4 workouts a week that consisted of a lower, upper, and two full body splits.
150 mins of low-moderate intensity cardio and or 75 mins of high intensity cardio per week.
Low-Moderate Intensity cardio. Walking on a treadmill at an incline and speed I could sustain for 30-60 mins 5x/week.
This was easy and enjoyable. I spent every minute walking listening to a podcast or watching a youtube video.
The first 30 seconds of every minute was spent “free walking”. I didn’t hold onto the rail in front of me, and the second 30 seconds was spent using help. It broke up the monotony for me.
High Intensity cardio was spent on the elliptical, rower, or ski-erg machines. Earlier in the year, I hurt my feet doing plyometric exercises my body couldn’t handle because I was heavy.
I either do 20 seconds on, 40 seconds off (resting) or 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off.
I’m now able to add in jump rope and sprints because I lost 60 lbs and my joints no longer hurt.
I do the workouts that I program for my gym and online group training, AYM Higher Together. They last about 40-50 minutes and I change the routine every month so I won’t get bored doing the same thing for months.
Another important factor that helped was joining a 1st Phorm 8 Week Challenge. I posted a picture of my body week to week for accountability. If I didn’t do the work, everyone would know and worse than that, my character would be in jeopardy. I’m all for people who want to promote body positivity and being comfortable in your own skin. But that wasn’t my reality. I was hypertensive and wore all black to hide my belly and extra body fat.
Here’s what I’ve learned from all this and doing it in my 30’s:
Losing weight gets harder the older you get and the easiest way to lose weight is to not gain it in the first place, duh.
You have the time to workout, you have to define the parameters for working out.
You have the time to cook. If you say you don’t, start tracking the “fun” you have on a daily/weekly basis. Replace that with grocery shopping and cooking.
You’re not missing out on anything when you’re getting your shit together. What’s meant for you will always be there.
What gets measured, gets managed.
If you don’t track your food, weigh yourself consistently, or take progress pictures, it’s going to be a lot harder to gauge progress. It's also going to make fine-tuning your methods for losing weight more difficult.
Eat more fruits and vegetables, it’s simple to add fruit to your breakfast and have lunch and/or dinner with a salad.
Change your identity by how you speak to yourself.
My thought process has changed from the foods I’m giving up to the foods I’m adding to my diet. This helped remove the junk food I was having. I used how my stomach felt after meals to determine what was best for me.
Another important thing happened to me with my first check up this year. I got blood work done and found out I was allergic to wheat, shrimp, sesame, and hazelnut.
Besides looking leaner, not much changes in your world. But I do believe that achieving success reveals who you are deep down. It’s easy to become full of yourself and put other “out of shape” people down. It's also easy to use your story and experience to help others who want to change. You’ll never regret being kind to someone but you’ll always regret being an asshole later in life.
Focus on sleep, here’s why:
The less time you’re awake, the less chances you have to eat, duh.
The more sleep you get, the more body fat gets burned instead of muscle because this is how your body recovers.
The less sleep you get, the more irritable you are in general and to others.
Sleep regulates two hormones: Ghrelin and Leptin
These are two hormones which influence satiety and hunger. Leptin decreases your appetite and Ghrelin increases it. When you get poor sleep, this throws your hormones out of sync.
Life is a lot easier to handle when you’re not constantly worried about your size, what to eat, and working out.
Accountability speeds up the process in which you become successful or quit. You realize there isn't a "right time" to prioritize your health. I hope when you read that sentence again, you can reflect on whether your excuses are justifiable or not.
If I didn’t change my ways, I could have shot up to 300 lbs or worse. My career doesn’t have job security but I can assure you, a PT who looks in shape is going to have it easier than a PT who doesn’t. It makes acquiring and keeping business easier. The reason being I’m practicing what I preach to others and I’m leading by example. I became a personal trainer because I know what it feels like to feel hopeless. I know what it feels to have confusion about where to start and what to do and I want to help others avoid that pitfall.
How To Lose Weight Without A Diet
What would change about your life if you lost weight?
More confidence? More happiness? More sex?
Are you looking for the fastest way to lose weight or the best way?
We want the body we see on the internet only by doing 7-minute abs or a 3 week keto-diet because that’s what is promised to us by “fitness professionals” as achievable.
Anyone with a high social following has a lot of responsibility & for the majority of “influencers”, they are paid on how much they can sell, not how accurate their products are. They want to sell you something that is a quick fix because they have a quota to hit versus someone who takes the time to educate you on a long term sustainable weight loss process.
The fastest way to lose weight is built upon motivation.
The best way to lose weight is sustained through discipline.
This article is going to outline 3 principles to losing weight, they are:
Calorie Deficit
High Protein Intake
Strength Training
Calorie Deficit
A calorie deficit means you’re eating below your maintenance level in calories. Maintenance level is the amount of calories it would take for you to remain the same weight, anything below that is a deficit. There’s two ways you can create a calorie deficit, decreasing input of calories consumed or increasing output of calories burned. How big a deficit you should be in varies based on how aggressive do you want to take it. Someone who is overweight with a high body fat percentage can have a more aggressive calorie deficit compared to someone who weighs less. Why? Because speed is the one thing people manipulate and speed is the reason why most people quit their weight-loss journey. If you’re not overweight, an aggressive diet (more than 25% deficit) is too fast of a drop that it shocks your body & brain. There is such a thing as too few calories & if you eat too few, your body’s ability to function properly will be impaired. Your body is going to think “starvation mode” & your metabolism will shut off. Your body will spare muscle during this phase & hold onto fat because fat protects your organs for survival. Also, with setting too large of a calorie deficit, you get very hungry very fast & can’t maintain that low calorie intake for too long before you binge eat & gain all the weight you lost plus more. Nutrition is 80% of the change required to lose weight, Activity (workouts + non-workout movement) is 20%. Keep this in mind.
How Much Should My Deficit Be?
It depends on how much you want to lose & how fast do you wanna get there. There’s 3,500 calories in 1 lb. If you created a 500 calorie deficit & did that consistently for 7 days (500 x 7 = 3,500), you’ve just lost 1 lb. For example, I weigh 200 lbs, if my maintenance level is 2,500 calories & I only consume 2,000 calories/day (a 500 calorie deficit), I would be on pace to lose 1 lb by the end of the week. If you wanted to lose 2 lbs/week, you’d create a 1,000 calorie deficit & do that consistently for 7 days. With this information, there’s two types of people, one who sees 1 lb/week as doable, & one that sees 1 lb/week as not enough progress. But if you created a 500 calorie deficit & did that for 52 weeks, you’ve just lost 52 lbs. Still not enough progress? Just a reminder, there’s no finish line & you don’t get extra points for getting there the fastest.
How To Calculate A Calorie Deficit?
First you need to know what your BMR is. I’m gonna save you the trouble of explaining how many methods I’ve gone through over the years. I like using the Katch McArdle Formula because it uses lean mass instead of body weight in its BMR equation. Why is that important? Because the amount of body fat one has influences how big a deficit that person will be in. Remember earlier, If you have more weight/body fat to lose, you can set your diet more aggressively versus someone who doesn’t have as much to lose. Instead of trying to figure out the complicated computations you’d have to do in order to get a close-to-accurate deficit, download Mike’s Macros & it will change your relationship with food & your life forever. Another simple way of calculating calories came from my friend Jordan Syatt, multiply your goal weight by 10, 11 or 12. 10 is aggressive, 12 is moderate, 11 is in between.
For example, I weigh 200 lbs, my goal weight is 190 lbs so my calculations would be:
190 x 10 = 1,900 cals (aggressive)
190 x 11 = 2,090 cals (happy place)
190 x 12 = 2,280 cals (moderate)
Do Diets work?
Yes. If you google any type of meal plan for weight-loss, they all work, they’re not magic. The #1 factor that will help you lose weight is counting calories. Also, creating a deficit through nutrition is much easier than creating it through exercise. If you ate an apple every day for 30 days, its calories wouldn’t change. However, if you ran a mile a day for 30 days, you would burn more calories on day 1 vs day 30 because your body isn’t conditioned for it; but, as time goes on, your body adapts to the stress of running and you perform it more efficiently, burning less calories on day 30.
High Protein Intake
Now that we have a better understanding of what you need to focus on when setting up your calorie deficit, next priority is protein. More protein is going to help you feel sexy & strong, here’s why:
Boosts Metabolism
Reduces Appetite
Changes Several Weight-Regulating Hormones
How?
Your brain has many functions, one of it is hunger control. Our brain processes information all day, & it changes after consuming food. We have satiety (appetite reducing) hormones & hunger hormones. The more protein you eat, the less hungry you become. Out of all three macronutrients, protein, carbs, & fats, protein is the one macro that takes the most amount of calories to burn through digestion & metabolism. What does this mean? There’s this thing called TEF (Thermic Effect of Food), & protein has the highest TEF ranging between 20-30%. Let’s say for example, you had a meal that contained 100 calories of protein, 20-30 of those calories are going to be burned through digestion. Metabolism is the process of converting the food we digested into the fuel/energy we need to live. A high protein diet helps us achieve that. Protein helps build & maintain muscle mass, maintaining muscle mass burns more calories at rest than maintaining fat mass does, therefore, by increasing protein intake & building our muscles, we’re boosting our metabolism.
How Much Protein Do You Need?
This is tricky because the best answer for you is “it depends”. The Dietary Reference Intake is only 46 & 56 grams for women & men, respectively. That’s insane but then again, this is the minimum amount to prevent deficiency. What we’re interested in is building muscle & losing fat & for that matter, let’s talk numbers. Men & women process protein differently meaning, men have a slight advantage when it comes to consuming protein (I realized this from working with clients, I don’t have a scientific explanation for it). How much protein you need is based on preference. Some people can eat a lot, some can’t. It’s also harder if you’re vegetarian/vegan. The easiest way to get more protein in your diet is protein shakes so if you’re not at least getting one, one a day is going to make a big difference in your physique over time.
Aim for your goal body weight in grams of protein/day & go from there. For example, my goal body weight is 190 lbs so at the minimum, I’m aiming for 190 grams of protein every day. Keep in mind, the lower your calories go, the higher your protein intake should be. The reasoning here is protein is going to help build or retain as much muscle as you can, the more muscle you have, the less body fat you have as well, & the more calories you burn at rest. The biggest issue with being in a calorie deficit is losing muscle along with weight and the reason why we don’t want to lose much muscle mass is to avoid the “skinny fat” look. Your goal isn’t just to lose weight, it’s to lose weight & look sexy naked. You will avoid “skinny fat” with developed muscles.
Strength Training
"How important is strength training for weight-loss?"
"If I only did cardio, is that good enough to lose weight?"
The truth is you can lose weight doing both.
What’s going to get you there the fastest?
A combination of both with a focus on lifting supplemented with cardio.
If you had to choose? Strength training > cardio.
Strength training 2-3x/week with the right amount of intensity is what you should aim for. What people don’t understand about working out with weights is the calories you burn is not confined to just your time in the gym. You’re burning calories after the gym while your body is recovering, about 24-48 hours. Strength training builds muscles, which in turn boosts you metabolism, & muscle burns more calories at rest than fat does. The benefits of strength training is not limited to body composition. The stronger you become, the better you look, the more confidence you gain, the happier you feel & the better you treat people. Strength training is what led me here. Years of depression & insecurity about how I looked was diminished when I saw the results of consistency. I’ve been blessed & fortunate to help others in their weight-loss journey through paying attention to their own nutrition & working out 2-3 times a week.
Cardio can be supplemented 2-3x/week with varying intensities. HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) cardio can be performed 1-2x/week, one example is sprints performed for 30 seconds with 60 seconds of rest with multiple sets. There’s a different type of cardio you can do called LISS (Low Intensity Steady State). LISS is cardio performed at a low intensity meaning your heart rate isn’t working hard. An example of LISS would be walking on the treadmill at an incline & speed that’s not too challenging (5% incline, 2.5 speed). What I love about this type of cardio is it’s a form of active recovery so for people that “need to do something everyday”, this is a great option. It’s an easy way to burn calories & recover from workouts faster.
While most people choose cardio over strength training for weight-loss, what I want you to get from this article is that the progress you want to see is not going to happen overnight. Ads you see about fat-burning pills, new diets, “fat burning workouts” are designed to prey on the weak-minded individuals who are impatient & looking for a quick solution. If you’ve tried to lose weight before & didn’t succeed, it’s not your fault. To the uninformed, everything looks like it could work but the truth is, changing your body, which took you months or years to get into this shape is not going to be solved in days or weeks. You’ll win this game if you have patience, if you can be consistent, & not quit every time you “fail”. You can’t fail if you keep going. You’re going to have many setbacks because life isn’t perfect, but the people I’ve seen become a success story, are the people who never gave up.
Action Steps You Can Take Now
Start tracking you calories for weight-loss today! Learn how here
Hit your Goal Body Weight in protein every day. Find your protein number here
Strength Train 2-3 times a week. Have 1 Day of cardio if you want. Don’t have a routine? Send me an email & I’ll give you a FREE 4 week program here: abel@aymhigher.com with the subject “4 Week AYM Higher Program”