MikeIsLosingIt.com

I’m in the 250s…once again. This morning I was 259.6 lbs, which means I’ve lost 26.4 lbs since April, after starting my testosterone replacement therapy and feeling up to cutting the calories again. Another 10-15 lbs and I’ll have erased the weight gain that happened after all the health problems started. My goal is to be there sometime around the beginning of August. We’ll see.

My hope is that I can finally be done with the weight loss by the end of the summer or early fall. It would be nice to see the end of the ridiculous calorie restrictions and get on with some fitness goals that I might find enjoyable, such as building muscle and making lifting gains. In any case, it is still wonderful to feel like I’ve got the part of my life back that I seemed to have lost. Not dragging around tired all the time is worth every penny it costs for the therapy.

Today is exactly one week since I started up the diet again and so far I’ve lost 10.8 lbs! I’ve been eating about 1000-1300 calories per day, and I haven’t felt stressed about food or tired at all. Just a few months ago, before I started the testosterone replacement therapy, if I cut my calories at all I would almost instantly feel stressed and tired most of the time, even if the cut was simply to something like 2000 calories per day. And worse, I wouldn’t even lost any weight. Who knew fixing my testosterone level could help me so dramatically? I certainly don’t expect this rate of loss to continue for long, but it has been a great boost of encouragement after the year I’ve had.

A couple of weeks ago the doctor checked my testosterone level again and it was 452, exactly where he wants it to be. Increasing the dosage (of testosterone cypionate) to 120mg/week seems to have done the trick. Last week was also the first week since I started the replacement therapy that I didn’t experience any unusual tiredness. Everything seemed relatively normal all week. I still don’t have the higher level of energy I had a year ago, but feeling “normal” again is still great. Consequently, I decided to take the plunge and start the strict diet again yesterday, and add cardio again after each workout. I’ve been hesitant to try it again while I was still having the bouts of tiredness or exhaustion, but now that things seem to be stabilized, I thought I’d give it a shot.

Monday I weighed in at 286 lbs, which means I haven’t gained any weight in the three months since I started the therapy. Unfortunately that’s still about 40 lbs up from where I was a year ago, but almost all of that was gained in the three month period at the end of last year when I was exhausted all the time and craving sweets 24/7…right before I discovered my gingerboy status. I’m setting an albeit ambitious goal of losing 15 lbs/month for the next three months, to get me past my previous low and back on track. How it will all turn out remains to be seen. Monday I ate 1040 calories and yesterday I was 282.6, down 3.4 lbs in one day. It would be a nice fantasy to say that’s all fat, but of course most of it wasn’t. Today I was 282.0, down 0.6 from yesterday. That’s more realistic and could certainly be all, or nearly all, fat loss.

So far I have had no stress or decreased energy, in spite of low calories and hard workouts. Granted, today is just the third day, but before I started the therapy I would almost instantly feel stressed and tired the day I cut calories or increased cardio. Seeing this level of success for only these few days is still encouraging considering what I’ve gone through the last several months. Again, how things will go from here still remains to be seen.

After my last post I lost an additional 3 lbs over a period of about a week-and-a-half, which put me at 243. Unfortunately, during that same time I realized I was tired almost all the time, I dreaded working out each day, and I was talking about food constantly. Louanne noticed my comments about food too and mentioned it, because it is so out-of-character for me. What was the problem? Should I eat more?

Tuesday morning after trying to work out yet again with zero energy, I decided that I seriously needed to try increasing my calories for awhile. That day I ate, and ate, and ate some more. The tiredness was mostly gone almost immediately, and working out Wednesday was like a totally different experience. Today has been even better…I didn’t work out today, but my energy level has been great. Quite the difference!

Tuesday I didn’t even bother to monitor the calories…I just ate all day, but yesterday I ate around 2600 and today I’ll likely do the same. My plan is to eat around that much every day for at least a week or so and monitor my weight loss during that time. Then I will adjust it up or down accordingly. It might slow things down, but I’d rather lose the rest of the fat slowly and have a lot of energy than lose it quickly and feel like I did the last few weeks. The last few weeks of the program were terrible and stressful.

I’ll be paying much closer attention to my energy-levels from now on, and basing much of my calorie intake on that.

246 lbs today, so down 5 lbs this week. I’d love to have a few weeks like that in a row, but at this stage in the program I don’t expect that…it would be nice though.

This morning, one month after my last post, I finally hit a new low: 247.2 lbs. I had gained several pounds since our trip to China and I’m glad to finally get that off and in the past. That puts me down about 75 lbs on the scale, and more like 90-100 lbs of fat loss when you take into account the amount of muscle I’ve gained over the past 14 months of training.

My goal is to lose another 30+ pounds by the end of June when we take our big vacation to Myrtle Beach. I hope to be somewhere between 210-215 by then. When I get to that point it will put me very close to the end of my total weightloss goal…probably within 5-15 pounds. My final goal, as far as weightloss, is to hit a single-digit body fat percentage. When I think I’m at that point I’ll be visiting the Cooper Clinic again for another round of body composition analysis. Then my goals will switch entirely to building muscle.

The day I can more than double the calories of my diet will be a day of great relief. I’m tired of the severity of it and the lower energy that comes with the restrictions. Right now my daily intake is generally in the 1100-1300 calorie range. To stop losing weight I’ll need to increase it to around 3000 per day, and possibly a little more to help muscle gain.

Strict weightloss is getting VERY old, but I can actually see the end in sight.

I made my goal and finally broke 250 lbs today! This morning I was 249.4. That puts me at 72.2 lbs lost on the scale and probably over 90 lbs of actual fat lost, considering the amount of muscle I’ve concurrently gained in the last year. I’ll continue to be very strict for the next couple of days to see if I can drop another pound or two, but then Sunday we’re going to Pappasito’s. We leave for China on Tuesday and the diet is going to be on hold until we get back at the end of the month.

Feels great to finally break 250…the last 25 lbs were tough, but lately I’ve been pleased to see the weight coming off quickly again. My guess is that I have another 40-50 lbs to go, and it all looks downhill from here.

That’s the question. Can I finally, after a year on my program, break the 250 lb barrier before we go to China? We have our dates set. We leave Feb 8, and I want to switch my diet around Feb 6 to get my energy-level up and give myself a couple of days to adjust to eating differently before we go.

As of this morning I am at 259.6, up 2.2 lbs from where I was before the holidays. So that leaves me 19 days to drop 10 pounds. That’s roughly half-a-pound per day until then. I think for me that is very doable. The goal is certainly arbitrary, but I think it would be encouraging to finally break that barrier before we leave on the trip.

On an entirely different note, I continue to make strength gains despite my strict low-calorie diet. Losing fat and gaining any significant amount of muscle at the same time is tough, but it can be done. I’m very careful to get a lot of protein and nutrition, so it is working well. About a week ago I squatted 315 lbs, which is essentially what I weighed when I started all this a year ago (and could barely squat with only the bar and no weights on it). I also did lunges all the way around the gym carrying a couple of big chains on my shoulders (which is kind of humorous actually). When I started I could only do about five lunges at a time, while using a stick for support. Go, me!