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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

Thanksgiving was last week, and now I wonder if I should celebrate Thanksgiving every week, because I ate a lot of sweets last weekend…a LOT…and yet dropped weight like crazy this week. I’ve lost 4.2 lbs since Thanksgiving morning. Okay, okay, maybe I shouldn’t eat that stuff every weekend…but wouldn’t it be grand?