It’s taken a while, but I finally hit my goal weight yesterday. In fact, it’s taken so long (about two years) that along the way, I’ve learned that weight goals are pretty much bullshit.
This all started during Covid when I picked up that weird medieval chest infection and ended up in hospital for lung surgery with suspected cancer. I dodged that bullet, thankfully, but I had time to think some shit through. (Specifically, three days on my own under lockdown with half a dozen tubes punched into my ribcage, draining off the mysterious brown fluid in my chest. Lotta thinking time there).
My GP said I’d be a while recovering from that, and she did not lie.
One of the first things I did to try to speed up my recovery was to stop drinking alcohol. Not forever. Just until I could get rid of the hacksaw cough I’d had for six months. Well, that happy day finally arrived about a month later, but with it came about three kilos of fat loss. Turns out I was drinking a lot of my, er, ‘nutrition’. So I decided to lean into the process for a bit longer.
Part of that process was swapping out my old cardio-based fitness regime (which was literally impossible to do at that time) for strength training. Long story short, two years later, I’m down about 17 kilograms of fat in total and up about three kgs of muscle.
I got my initial goal weight calculations wrong, however, so I still have a little bit of visceral fat to get rid of. But that should only take a month or so, and after that, I’m going to do something I’ve never done. I’m gonna deliberately eat in a calorie surplus for about six months, while lifting heavy weights to add some muscle. A bit of fat may come back with that, but not much, and I can get rid of it pretty easily at the end.
This finally feels sustainable.
Like most human beings in our collapsing late-stage capitalist hellscape, I’ve struggled with yo-yo dieting and exercise. And as I got older, the running and dieting and general cardio just got harder and harder to do. The rebound was quicker and the weight gain worse, too.
But strength training has demanded that I eat more of the stuff I love (protein and fat, basically) and given me a form of exercise I actually look forward to instead of dreading. I’m not a Muscle Dad by any stretch of the imagination, and I won’t look like one when I’ve finished my next six months of training. But I’m a helluva lot fitter, stronger and more flexible than I was, with a helluva lot less pain, for much less effort.
Apologies for coming off like a creepy gym evangelist, but I’m kinda shitty about all the years I wasted starving myself and ruining my knees doing hill sprints. If you’re looking for a magic trick, just hit your protein goals and lift weights at least three times a week.
this has given me more motivation to moving those stumps around the block. As long as i do it by hand in a wheelbarrow i figure its about as good as a gym yeah? :) I'm in that 95kg really should be 80 something bracket but have stayed right away from running. I've just got myself a macro lens to add to the kit so i really should just carry all the equipment wherever i go and call it strength training :)
Well done man. 15% body fat is a great result. I’ve been on the same yo-yo as you by the sounds of it, I barely get down to 20% at the bottom of the cycle.
Maybe you should bring back the “JB is my (health) master” tagline.
Instead of subscribing to you raging into the void we could subscribe you raging directly at us (zoom call anyone) about our protein and workout needs?
This is a huge achievement, congratulations! Especially after that horror episode with the medieval lung problem.
Have you considered trying Pilates as a supplement to your strength training? It's low impact cardio combined with strength training that will have you weeping in gratitude at the end of your first lesson (weeping in gratitude that it's over and you survived obvs).
Apparently there's an entire TikTok sub genre of Pilates girls taking their gym obsessed boyfriends to a reformer class with the sole objective of recording Mr Gym Boyfriend strutting into the class thinking he'll crush it, and then the schadenfreude enjoyed by Ms Pilates as he discovers what a terrible mistake he's made in underestimating the penchant the "weaker sex" has for masochism and self torture.
I realise I've just done a terrible job of selling this to you but it's totes worth trying. Anna Spargo-Ryan has been crushing 25 and 30 day Pilates challenges on Twitter if you need inspo.
Grateful to hear about these insights, especially since I didn't have to go through the hard stuff to learn it.
this has given me more motivation to moving those stumps around the block. As long as i do it by hand in a wheelbarrow i figure its about as good as a gym yeah? :) I'm in that 95kg really should be 80 something bracket but have stayed right away from running. I've just got myself a macro lens to add to the kit so i really should just carry all the equipment wherever i go and call it strength training :)
Well done man. 15% body fat is a great result. I’ve been on the same yo-yo as you by the sounds of it, I barely get down to 20% at the bottom of the cycle.
Maybe you should bring back the “JB is my (health) master” tagline.
Instead of subscribing to you raging into the void we could subscribe you raging directly at us (zoom call anyone) about our protein and workout needs?
This is a huge achievement, congratulations! Especially after that horror episode with the medieval lung problem.
Have you considered trying Pilates as a supplement to your strength training? It's low impact cardio combined with strength training that will have you weeping in gratitude at the end of your first lesson (weeping in gratitude that it's over and you survived obvs).
Apparently there's an entire TikTok sub genre of Pilates girls taking their gym obsessed boyfriends to a reformer class with the sole objective of recording Mr Gym Boyfriend strutting into the class thinking he'll crush it, and then the schadenfreude enjoyed by Ms Pilates as he discovers what a terrible mistake he's made in underestimating the penchant the "weaker sex" has for masochism and self torture.
I realise I've just done a terrible job of selling this to you but it's totes worth trying. Anna Spargo-Ryan has been crushing 25 and 30 day Pilates challenges on Twitter if you need inspo.
hell yeah, that's awesome! How good are those endorphins after a decent lift too?!
Yon grog is bad for carbs, but worse for the decisions you make when you had one or five, vis a vis; cheese and ham toastie instead of the salad.