Hey Hey everyone! I know it has been a hot minute since I have made a blog post. I am very proud of myself to be able to share my fitness journey with you! Now that I have just about reached my fitness goal, I want to share it all from beginning to end. I was in the worst shape of my life. Now, I am probably in the best shape I have ever been.

Starting Off Slow

Without further ado: in September of 2023 I weighed 200 lbs. I was the heaviest I had ever been in my life. I just was not feeling good about my body or health. So I looked for ideas to change this. I needed a solution that was budget-friendly and easy for me to stick to. The first and biggest thing I discovered was Intermittent Fasting. I conducted extensive research on it. I learned about its benefits, risks, and various methods. I even explored its religious uses. It sounded like a pretty straightforward way to limit my calories and also pretty passive. So I went to my doctor to also check with her to make sure it was a good idea. She gave me the green light. She recommended getting an “In Body” scan. This scan would tell me the various percentages of my body fat, muscle, skeletal weight, and a bunch more info. While my scan wasn’t awful it wasn’t good either and recommended that I lose about 35 lbs.

I jumped right into fasting. I started by just doing 16 hours of fasting and an 8-hour window of eating on weekdays. I let myself eat however I wanted on weekends. It wasn’t too difficult. However, that alone wasn’t getting me results. I would often eat too many calories in my eating window because I was so hungry. Combine that with a very inconsistent exercise routine that consisted of the occasional jogging and at-home calisthenics and I only managed to get down to 190 lbs come Oct 2024.

Kicking (And Punching) Things into Gear

Come November I decided to kick my butt into gear and take my health seriously. The first change I made was increasing my exercise. I signed a new contract at SPG, our local combat fitness gym. I went to as many classes as my contract allowed. At one point, I was going to too many classes and had to dial it back (lol). The second change was improving my fasting. I started fasting for 24-48 hours at a time. I limited my calories when I ate and focused on as much protein as possible. Shout out to tuna for being delicious and protein-dense.

With these changes, I started noticing a huge change. Fast forward from November 2024 to now (Early February 2025), I am down to 160/165!!!! That is like 30 lbs in like 2 months!!!! I am hella proud of myself. My self-image has improved so much. I’m no longer shy of being shirtless. Sometimes I look at myself in the mirror after the gym and am kinda shocked. My large shirts are baggy now and I can wear my medium shirts without seeing my gut. None of my pants fit me without a belt. For one of my belts, I even have to use the last notch. 

I went to see my doctor again to get another scan done. I wanted to compare results. I also wanted to get her opinion on whether it was a good idea to go down to 150lbs. I had spoken to some of my friends at the gym. They said that was really skinny and didn’t think it was a good idea. My doctor agreed with my friends. So instead, I am going to maintain what I have. I will focus on muscle gain. The 2nd scan showed huge improvement. My doctor said I was in perfect shape. She wouldn’t have me change a thing.

Photos

I took photos starting in November when I started training all the way up to now so you can kind of see my journey from 190 to 160. As a bonus you can also see me growing my beard lol. I am experimenting with that as well. I only recently got it shaped to look pretty good. Anyway, I just wanted to share my achievement with the world. If you read this far, thanks a bunch for your interest. I have a bunch more posts cooking up, so stay tuned!