June 2008. Bernice, my youngest sister, passed away at 14. It sucked and boy did it depress me. It had been about 4 years since graduating high school. Since then, I hadn’t been working out, looking for another job after stints at a few here and there.
My uncle one day offers to have me apply for a gym in Brooklyn, to work maintenance. Free membership and pay while cleaning a gym up? Sure, why not!
I finally hopped onto a scale and my goodness how I didn’t realize how badly I let myself go. I went from, at my peak, a humble 234-235 (about 106 kg) pounds at my best, to a morbid 385 pounds (175kg)! That was a big, fat wake up call.
The working out part to losing the extra weight at first was easy. I crunched in on hitting the weights for at least an hour or two a day, 4-5 days a week. I had also cut off a lot of candy, soda and made tea and lemon juice my friend. As far as water intake, I had initially started at just about a gallon of water. Peeing like a racehorse but definitely getting it in all at once too. Given the little walking I did thanks to the life-spoiling subway transit, I had to suck it up and do cardio in the gym. I wouldn’t do it just to obsess about bodyfat but I did it just to make sure my heart rate under good stress, strong and sound. I was also sick of having to jog behind my friends when walking and talking, too.
By 2010, I had dropped from 395 and would struggle from 316 to 295. The change was gradual but it was getting there. The struggle was tough because at that point, the one thing I didn’t approach anyone about was information regarding sugar intake, macronutrients and even sodium and potassium balance, as well as a good amount of water to intake daily based on my weight.
From 2011-2012, my weight would then go through wild changes — not only because of more workout time but also because of circumstances regarding a not-so-stable dating life. I’d go down to 265, 252, 285 and at most stay around 265-272, which would be the weight I’d be when I met my wife.
When I moved down to Tampa in 2013, I managed to go from 276 to 265 and as low as 252, mainly due to not only how cheap food is but also because of living in a tropical climate. I also found myself walking more often. While working a music retail job, I’d walk from my house up 20 minutes to the bus to work and back about 5 days a week. In addition, I would work out 30 mins a day in that same schedule for my lunch breaks. At one point, however, I let myself go too far.
There is this thing called “abusing good resources” and that’s what I ended up doing. A gallon of chocolate milk every 2 days here, a watermelon a day there and some process bbq boneless chicken wings with a small chocolate eclair pie there, guess what? Changes were coming and not in a good way!
Due to being unhappy with things at work, I ended up applying for a maintenance job at, you guessed it, a gym! Sure enough, I got the job thanks to my experience and not so much my bloated appearance. I hopped on the scale and sure enough, I had jumped to 320-325 pounds! Working full-time meant one thing — work out and work out hard.
Like the first time, the initial weight loss was eay. If anything, it was easier. With taking 2 buses and a 20 minute walk from the stop to work and 20 minutes back to the stop after work, I was doing an easy 10 miles of walking a day. By this time, I had ended up having watched Fed Up and getting a sobering reality check of how I had been consuming too much sugar still. For men, 36g a day and women at 24g a day, that really set in my mind how I needed to cut down considerably. This meant leaning out on my favorite bbq sauces, cutting down the sugar I’d add on my coffee. This also meant a diminished relationship with chocolate.
Upon watching Fork Over Knives, in light of its severely obvious vegan propoganda, one thing I did learn — there had been way too much meat and dairy in my diet and it was time to embrace plant based food. Don’t get me wrong, I love my ground turkey, chicken breasts, tuna and tilapia — but these days, 80% of my diet consists of sweet potato, beans, peanuts, 100% whole wheat bread, whole wheat linguine, spinach, broccoli (lots of those two) and oats. When it comes to dairy, I tend to let Gen and Lorimer hog it up as I make my own peanut milk or oat milk, depending if I need more carbs with fiber or fats and protein to kick me through the day.
Another thing that has changed is my water intake. Upon finding out that on average, 65% of an adult’s body is composed of water, I drank up accordingly. As of this writing, I’m at 242 pounds (110 kg) and 16.2% body fat. The shift in over a year has been great but with a price — extra skin. People get caught up with pictures of people going from simply fat to ripped, lean and sexy but don’t consider that when you drop rate at a pretty quick manner, extra skin may be inevitable. Let’s also throw in that compared to being 385 and 23 years old, I’m 242 and 30. Between those 7 years and those weight shifts flipping back and forth, skin elasticity is an issue as you age and not an easy one.
On the upside, at least I can finally get comfortable wearing Large t-shirts, button downs, Medium underwears and Large shorts along with 36 waist on pants. I can finally look in the mirror and not feel so bad about myself or worry about needing to angle pictures a certain way due to all the excess weight I had floating around.
Stay tuned for part 3 where I discuss what my eating and training is usually like!
