Keep it up!
Just wanted to brag on myself a bit because it feels easier to do semi-anonymously on here compared to Facebook or Instagram.
I've been on a weight loss journey, as well. Let myself go during residency and my first couple years as an attending. Tried a few different things halfheartedly, never really focusing on diet intently. I finally decided at the end of January '22 to get serious. At that time I was 33 yrs old, 5'11 280lbs.
Being an ER doctor that worked primarily nights, after getting off shift I was usually too tired to make meals and the only things open were fast food, so I set strict rules to give up all fast food. I have always basically ate one meal per day with the occasional snack since college, but those one meals had slowly turned into big ass meals. I also gave up anything fried as well as gave up sandwiches. I also focused on maintaining a sizeable caloric deficit with a goal ranging between a 1000-2000 kcal daily caloric deficit. For the first month, I also focused on just eating different types of salads to figure out which ones I enjoyed the most so I could stick with them. I settled on Greek salads which I love. From that point on my diet has mostly consisted of homemade Greek Salads (romaine lettuce, feta, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, kalamata olives, red onions, and Greek dressing) along with protein shakes, grilled salmon, grilled chicken, and hard boiled eggs.
I stuck with the diet for a month before incorporating an exercise routine to prove I could stay with the diet first. I dropped 20 lbs that first month. Started lifting daily at the end of February. Added in daily 2 mile walks that same month. Dropped another 20 lbs the second month. The third month I started running, slowly building up to running a mile without stopping along with the 2 mile walks. Also bought a power rack, started incorporating deadlifts and squats into my lifting routine. Dropped another 15 lbs the third month. The fourth month I continued progressing my running distance and pace, finally got back down to an 8 minute mile which I hadn't done since college. Dropped another 15 lbs the 4th month. Dropped 0 lbs the fifth month due to taking two weeks off to rehab a wrist and elbow injury (increased weight too quickly on my lifts) and also for vacation. Sixth month I'm down another 10lbs.
In total now down 80 lbs in 6 months. I'm at 200 lbs as of today, able to run 3 miles without taking a break at a 8.5 minute pace for the first time since high school. I'm now typically running 2-3 miles daily. Im also still lifting daily. Still weak on squats and dead's, but trying to slowly increase weight by ensuring my form stays right, so still repping 255 on squats 10 reps x3, and 285 dead's 8 reps x 3. Not sure what the body fat percentage is right now, but eyeballing charts online, probably somewhere around 16-17%. I plan to likely drop another 10-15 lbs and then focus on increasing daily caloric intake to maintain that weight.
I still pig out and drink alcohol when I go out with friends because I don't want to give up enjoying myself when I'm out rather than stressing about calories, but I am very strict with the diet when not out with friends. Amazingly I haven't become tired of Greek Salads yet. I had no idea how delicious Kalamata olives were.
I went for more drastic changes and obviously that's not going to be for everyone, but the things I have found that helped me were finding a food I really liked that was relatively healthy, filling, and delicious, and just spamming that almost daily, while keeping a strict tally of all the calories consumed and burned, while progressively increasing cardio intensity and resistance during weight training.
I don't buy into IMF (despite basically doing that), I simply eat when I'm really hungry (not just kinda hungry). Nevertheless, I've always found it odd that people are so steadfast on eating 3 meals a day when that was certainly not how we evolved, and is likely a major contributor to why us Americans are so fat (although I got myself fat eating once a day). I also don't buy into specific macronutrient percentages as there is not a lot of high quality literature to support any specific ratio. I simply just ensure I'm consuming the appropriate amount of protein for my weight. Ultimately, the only thing with diets that is universally true, is that if you eat fewer calories than you burn, you will lose weight, so it just didn't make sense for me to really focus on anything other than "calories in, calories out."
Sorry for the long post.
No material on this site is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. See full
Medical Disclaimer.
